The use of renewable energy sources is becoming increasingly necessary, if we are to achieve the changes required to address the impacts of global warming. Biomass is the most common form of renewable energy, widely used in the third world but until recently, less so in the Western world. Latterly much attention has been focused on identifying suitable biomass species, which can provide high-en...

Patterns in primary production and carbon export from the cuphotic zone suggest that the relative contribution of planktonic heterotrophs to community biomass should decline along gradients of phytoplankton biomass and primary production. Here, we use an extensive literature data survey to test the hypothesis that the ratio of total heterotrophic (bacteria + protozoa + mesozooplankton) biomass ...

Demand for bioenergy is increasing, but the ecological consequences of bioenergy crop production on working lands remain unresolved. Corn is currently a dominant bioenergy crop, but perennial grasslands could produce renewable bioenergy resources and enhance biodiversity. Grassland bird populations have declined in recent decades and may particularly benefit from perennial grasslands grown for ...

Recently, technologies have been developed that offer the possibility of using algal biomass as feedstocks to energy producing systems - in addition to oil-derived fuels (Bird et al., 2011, 2012). Growing native mixed microalgal consortia for biomass in association with geothermal resources has the potential to mitigate negative impacts of seasonally low temperatures on biomass production syste...

The planning of production capacity for a company has been extensively discussed in literature. Seasonal demand of products or seasonal availability of input materials can make the problem even more challenging, as due to a constant need for capacity adjustments. For example, in contrast to conventional chemical processes, the use of biomass has several distinct characteristics like a time depe...

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...

Terrestrial organic matter can be assimilated by aquatic consumers but implications for biomass and production are unresolved. An ecosystem model was fit to estimate effects of phosphorus (P) load, planktivory, and supply rate of terrestrial particulate organic carbon (TPOC) on phytoplankton and zooplankton in five whole-lake experiments. Phytoplankton biomass increased with P load and planktiv...

Despite the promising research findings on microalgae as a feedstock for biodiesel, reduction of its production cost is still a challenge. One possible solution to overcome this problem is outdoor biomass production using wastewater as a growth medium. The present study aimed to evaluate the climate key parameters for Scenedesmus obliquus outdoor biomass production during different seasons, as ...

Global energy crisis and limited supply of petroleum fuels have rekindled the worldwide focus towards development of a sustainable technology for alternative fuel production. Utilization of abundant renewable biomass offers an excellent opportunity for the development of an economical biofuel production process at a scale sufficiently large to have an impact on sustainability and security objec...