Wood is one of the oldest used plants and one of the most important plant-product as a resource. It's considered humankind’s very first source of energy. The deforestation was one of the first big intervention of mankind in the ecosystem. Today it is still the most important single source of renewable energy providing about 6% of the global total primary energy supply.
Wood fuel is a fuel, such as firewood, charcoal, chips, sheets, pellets, and sawdust. The particular form used depends upon factors such as source, quantity, quality and application. Today, the burning of wood is the largest use of energy derived from a solid fuel biomass. In the case of burning wood, stored potential energy in the log is released due to heating by other excited atoms. Wood pellets and other agglomerated energy products are made from dried sawdust, shavings or wood powder, with the raw material being compressed under high pressure. Pellets and agglomerates are currently the most economical way of converting biomass into fuel and are a fast-growing source of energy. They can be used for electricity production or directly for combustion in residential and commercial heating.
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Wood fuels arises from multiple sources including forests, other wooded land and trees outside forests, co-products from wood processing, postconsumer recovered wood and processed wood-based fuels. Wood energy is also an important emergency backup fuel. Societies at any socio-economic level will switch easily back to wood energy when encountering economic difficulties, natural disasters, conflict situations or fossil energy supply shortages.
Today wood energy has entered into a new phase of high importance and visibility with climate change and energy security concerns.
More than two billion people depend on wood energy for cooking and/or heating, particularly in households in developing countries. It represents the only domestically available and affordable source of energy. Private households’ cooking and heating with woodfuels represents one third of the global renewable energy consumption, making wood the most decentralized energy in the world. Wood is clima neutral because its a renewable resource which occurs in the nature.
Quiz
What could be another sustainable resource similar to wood?
Links:
[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (www.fao.org)
[2] AIP Publishing (aip.scitation.org)
[3] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (www.fao.org)