Conference Report: Biomass for a clean-energy future

Abstract

Bioenergy Australia, an alliance of 86 government and private sector organizations with an interest in the development of sustainable energy and products from biomass, held its 11th annual conference in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, in December 2010. Several speakers reminded delegates that bioenergy is complex, not well understood and therefore tends to be considered as the 'poor renewable energy cousin' to hydro, wind, solar and geothermal energy. This perception remains a problem for the industry, even though bioenergy provides nearly 4% of Australia's total primary energy supply (approximately 71% of renewable energy in Australia). Bioenergy is a difficult concept and story to grasp for policy makers and the general public since it encompasses a mystifyingly wide range of feedstocks (from municipal wastes to purpose-grown energy crops) that can each be converted via numerous routes into either heat, electricity, liquid or gaseous fuels for the purpose of transport, biochemicals or biomaterials. Therefore, what the 'best use' is for the available biomass can be difficult to determine.