Renewable Sources Of Energy Glasgow And The West Of...

It has recently come to light that Glasgow and the West of Scotland have been using a great deal of our earth’s precious finite resources. To combat this we must take advantage of our valuable surroundings and look for long term replacements such as solar, wind and tidal power as well as geothermal and hydroelectric sources. In the interest of our planets wellbeing and our country’s economy, the engineers at SECC have created the following report. Our aim is to help you realise the potential of these alternative sources and push for them to replace the power plants burning through our finite resources. One of many possible renewable sources of energy is biomass. Biomass energy is the power that is contained within plant and animals.†¦show more content†¦Furthermore, it would reduce the need for landfills as all organic waste can be turned into biomass energy. Biomass has also been developed as an alternate fuel source and has helped to reduce dependencies on fossil fuels. It is an incredibly versatile form of energy as it can be used for many different purposes. However, despite its many advantages biomass still has many disadvantages. Firstly it is not as efficient as fossil fuels, for example the ethanol produced for cars via biomass is not even close to the efficiency of petrol and does damage to engines over time. It also has the potential to harm the environment through increase of methane gases which are produced as a bi-product if animal and human waste is used. Biomass also requires a large distance away from residential areas in order to burn it and a large amount of fuel in comparison to other energy sources which can have dramatic effects if large portions of forests are cut down to provide lumber.1 The majority of biomass power plants use direct combustion. In a cogeneration facility the steam from the boiler is captured to heat water and buildings. Although this is a dependable technology it only achieves a thermal efficiency of 20%. This can, however, be increased by cogeneration or by co-firing which is the burning of biomass along with coal. Another method being used is gasification of biomass.