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Biomass Collection is one of the most fundamental jobs of using biomass as a renewable source of energy.

The United States Congress passed tax credits for wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy, worth $17 billion over eight years. The tax credit portion of the law beefs up and extends an expiring tax credit for renewable-energy projects. It extends a wind power credit for one year, extends geothermal and biomass energy credits for two years, and provides incentives to the solar industry - such as the removal of a $2,000 credit cap for residential solar installations - for eight years, until 2016.

Here at Inhabitat we love to see innovative reuses for organic waste, and so we're perpetually fascinated by the potential of poo to be used as a renewable source of energy. Last week Dutch agriculture minister Gerda Verburg announced a groundbreaking development for the field as she unveiled the world's largest biomass power plant to run exclusively on poultry manure. The plant will convert a third of the nation's chicken waste into energy while running at a capacity of 36.5 megawatts - enough to power 90,000 homes!

Sustained growth of biomass is contingent upon consistent weather patterns which by no means are guaranteed in an age of global climate change.

More than 100,000 people attend; a testament to the popularity of sustainable building and renewable energy in the region. by Michael Fell Wels, Upper Austria [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] Last week saw the return of the World Sustainable Energy Days conference which is held every year in Wels, Upper Austria. Taking place over three days (plus a day of site visits), the conference has three main streams: the European Pellet Conference, the European Energy Efficiency Conference and Regional Biomass Action Plans. Austria is an apt location for the conference - along with Sweden it is well known as one of Europe's biggest users of pellet technology - and as the final remnants of this year's snow melted away it is plain to see why. With cold winters and real enthusiasm for efficient and sustainable building, the demand for renewable heat is strong. The country is also highly forested, providing ample raw material for pellet production in the form of sawdust and wood shavings from sawmills (along with other biomass waste).

Rodenhuize power station is an 180MW biomass-fuelled plant located in Ghent, Belgium. The plant was converted from a coal-fired unit called Rodenhuize 4 into a 100% biomass unit.

Next100 has a post on "demand response" - managing customer demand in peak periods to reduce the need for costly, rarely used generation capacity and to allow greater penetration of renewable energy sources - The Invisible Energy Resource. The media rush to highlight every major new renewable power project, but another clean energy resource gets far less attention, even though it's flexible, abundant, relatively inexpensive and valued overall at billions of dollars. According to a recent report by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), this unheralded resource is equal to 29,000 megawatts of capacity during periods of peak summer demand--as much as all U.S. wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass power combined.

Opportunities in the renewable energy technology sector are becoming more diverse as regulatory support extends to technologies other than wind farms, Steve Read, investment manager of the Ventus Funds, said. Read said the Ventus Funds, venture capital trusts operated by Climate Change Capital, are spreading their investments more evenly between wind farm projects and other renewable energy technologies such as land-fill gas and waste biomass.

Since 1995, West Palm Beach-based Florida Crystals Corp. has been operating the largest biomass-to-electricity facility in North America, the Okeelanta Co-Generation Plant next to its sugar mill and refinery plant south of South Bay. The plant uses 850,000 tons of sugar cane residue known as bagasse and 900,000 tons of clean wood material from construction and yard wastes to produce 140 net megawatts of electricity each year. The power is sold to Florida Power & Light Co. to provide electricity to 58,000 homes, said Florida Crystals spokesman Gaston Cantens.

Wind power truly is a great resource. We should be using lot's more of it. And solar, biomass and geothermal, etc. But, please ask yourself why taxpayers should foot the bill for oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens, so he can connect his intended wind farm to government subsidized transmission line infrastructure? Heck, his financial statement is not bleeding red ink like the U.S. Treasury.

With the passing of its Renewable Energy Act - legislation that spent 19 years in limbo - the Philippines can save over US$2.9 billion, a WWF and University of the Philippines study has found. The savings would come from increasing the country's renewable energy share in its power generation mix from 0.16 per cent to 41 per cent from wind, solar, ocean, run-of-river hydropower and biomass.

In an effort to meet President Bush's "Twenty in Ten" goal and meet the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) targets in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) the Biomass Research and Development Board (the Board)-co-chaired by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-developed the National Biofuels Action Plan (NBAP) to accelerate the development of a sustainable biofuels industry.

2009 brings some new incentives for homeowners to adopt energy efficiency from both state and federal sources. The Wall Street Journal reported last week on several of these, including new provisions for tax credits in solar, small wind, and biomass stoves (those burning wood pellets or corn). In addition, this year, both solar and wind residential tax credits can be claimed against the alternative minimum tax. Improvements to weatherize your home could also qualify for an energy efficiency tax credit of up to $500. There are also new credits for upgrading your furnace, boilers, heat pumps, and water heaters. Read more at WSJ.com: http://tinyurl.com/93n535 Link to original post

From March 4-6, world leaders in the renewable, green, clean technology and energy efficiency sectors will gather in Bangalore for Green Energy Summit 2009. The summit is a highly efficient forum for varied stakeholders from solar, wind, biomass, IT, transport, construction, aviation, nanotechnology and biotechnology to bring together the business and science of the most important and relevant Green Energy and Clean technologies (http:// www.greenenergysummit.com).

REW has an article on making the switch to a clean energy world - Will the Children of Today Be Living in a World Powered by Renewable Energy by 2050?. The world needs a one-off switch-over to renewable energy -- and this could be largely accomplished in just forty years time, slashing energy costs and greenhouse gases while allowing healthy economic growth, experts say. By 2050, 80 percent of the world's electricity could be coming from renewable energy sources provided efforts are made, in parallel, to improve energy efficiency, according to a study by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). That means, the children of today might well grow up to experience a world where the energy they use comes almost entirely from the sun, wind, sea and biomass. By 2090, the shift to renewable energy around the world could be almost 99 percent completed reducing pressure on the environment and laying the foundations for a new era of prosperity based on green energy.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Auburn University has been selected to receive up to $4.9 million of federal grant money for a biofuel project.

New York City, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] Close to US $155 billion was invested in 2008 in renewable energy companies and projects worldwide, not including large hydro. Of this $13.5 billion of new private investment went into companies developing and scaling-up new technologies alongside $117 billion of investment in renewable energy projects from geothermal and wind to solar and biofuels. The 2008 investment is more than a four-fold increase since 2004 according to Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2009, prepared for the UN Environment Programme's (UNEP) Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative by global information provider New Energy Finance. Of the $155 billion, $105 billion was spent directly developing 40 GW of power generating capacity from wind, solar, small-hydro, biomass and geothermal sources. A further $35 billion was spent on developing 25 GW of large hydropower, according to the report.

In Latin America, the dynamic trend in energy consumption observed in 2010 (+5.1%) stopped in 2011 (+0.8%), following the sharp slowdown in Brazilian energy consumption (+1.4%, from +10% in 2010). Primary energy increased by 2% (+20 Mtoe, of which +16 Mtoe in Colombia, where crude oil production grew by 18%). In 2011, the energy intensity of the GDP dropped by 3.7% (30% below the world average).

Electric Generating Sets - Western European Markets Package"package offers a perspective on the actual market situation, trends and future outlook for electric generating sets in different Western European countries.

US demand for electric transmission and distribution (T&D) equipment is forecast to climb 4.8 percent annually to $30.4 billion in 2017, accelerating from the 2007-2012 period, when product sales in every major market for these products slowed.