What biomass fuels are being used for electric power generation?
Today, wood and wood-processing residues and by-products are the most widely used biomass fuels in the USA (where more than 500 electric power plants operate on biomass). These conventional steam-cycle power systems have the longest operating experience, and are well understood. A wider range of biomass fuels may be used by gasifiers (for example, rice hulls from the food processing industry), but although this more recent technology has great future potential, there is less operating experience with it.
