This study explored the availability and consumption pattern of various traditional biomass fuels, preference of and expenditure for biomass fuels, problems with the uses of biomass fuels and villagers’ strategy to cope with the biomass fuel problems. Data were collected from 330 households under three wealth categories – well-off, middle and poor households. Households were found to depend lar...

Remote sensing is often used to assess rangeland condition and biophysical parameters across large areas. In particular, the relationship between the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and above-ground biomass can be used to assess rangeland primary productivity (seasonal carbon gain or above-ground biomass “yield”). We evaluated the NDVI–yield relationship for a southern Alberta pra...

Biomass pellet production has increased considerably in recent years, mainly due to the demand created by policies and bioenergy-use targets in the European Union (EU). Global biomass pellet production was 24.1 million tonne (Mt) in 2014. In this study, a preliminary attempt has been made to assess the techno-economic feasibility of biomass pellets for electricity generation in India produced f...

Decreasing lignin content of plant biomass by genetic engineering is believed to mitigate biomass recalcitrance and improve saccharification efficiency of plant biomass. In this study, we compared two different pretreatment methods (i.e., dilute acid and cellulose solvent) on transgenic plant biomass samples having different lignin contents and investigated biomass saccharification efficiency. ...

To improve the enzymatic digestibility of switchgrass at mild temperatures, lime pretreatment of switchgrass was explored at 50 and 21 degrees Celsius, and compared with that at 121 degrees Celsius. The effects of residence time, lime loading, and biomass washing on the sugar production efficiency were investigated. Pretreatments were evaluated based on the yields of biomass-derived sugars in t...

Different chemicals were used to study the effect of pretreatment of Mucor rouxii biomass on bioadsorption of Pb, Cd, Ni and Zn. Pretreatment with detergent and alkali chemicals such as NaOH, Na 2 CO 3 and NaHCO 3 were found to improve or maintain the bioadsorption capacity in comparison with live M. rouxii biomass. Acid pretreatment using HCl, H 2 SO 4 and C 2 H 4 O 2 resulted in a significant...

Airborne lidar (Light Detection And Ranging) is a proven technology that can be used to accurately assess aboveground forest biomass and bio-energy feedstocks. The overall goal of this study was to develop a method for assessing aboveground biomass and component biomass for individual trees using airborne lidar data in forest settings typical for loblolly pine stands (Pinus taeda L.) in the sou...

The two major pathways for energy utilization from biomass are conversion to a liquid fuel (i.e., biofuels) or conversion to electricity (i.e., biopower). In the United States (US), biomass policy has focused on biofuels. However, this paper will investigate three options for biopower: low co-firing (co-firing scenarios refer to combusting a given percentage of biomass with coal) (5%–10% biomas...

Land consolidation changes the land use types and then the biomass. The measure and calculation of biomass fore-and-aft land consolidation worked out by the sample plot method in terms of arbor, shrub, herbage plants and crop. The result shows that the biomass is increased 580 t after land consolidation, meaning the impression of land consolidation is remarkable in general. The results of monom...