Garden waste is no longer rubbish. Branches, leaves and manure can now be recycled and used as biofuels to cut greenhouse gas emissions, claims a new report.
The Green Power Institute of Oakland California has released a study that shows the environmental perks of garden waste used as biogases. The aim to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in California is still being processed but in California biogenic carbon will be regulated and reported as a spate category of greenhouse gas from carbon emissions. Biogenic emissions will not be included in the regular emission allowance that CO2 emissions fall under.
Gregory Morris, author of "Bioenergy and Greenhouse Gases" says, "This makes sense because biofuels as renewable alternative-energy sources can help reduce our total greenhouse-gas emissions. First, they are carbon-neutral, so their use in energy production displaces the emissions we'd have from producing the same energy using fossil fuels. Second, bioenergy production actually reduces the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with conventional biomass disposal."
The report claims that fossil-fuel combustion is the leading cause of global warming as it releases new amounts of CO2 into the earth's atmosphere. Biogas and biomass shouldn't be under the same category because the carbon it releases when producing energy is carbon that has already been in the earth's atmosphere, so it does not add to figures calculating new greenhouse gas emissions.
With regular methods of disposal, such as landfills and open burning, carbon is emitted as carbon dioxide or more intense greenhouse gases such as methane. Biomass energy releases carbon dioxide. Biogas energy can be created from using materials from landfills such as cow manure.
The greenhouse gas benefits of using biofuels relates to all renewable energy sources in that they avoid the use of fossil fuels. Biofuels are predicted to become a practical use of energy in the market in the future.
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This post was written by Christine Pinella on June 7, 2008