Science134.tripod.com Website Review

HISTORY   Biomas* has been  going on for thousands of years it started out as people were burning wood to cook and boil water.   Coal fired energy systems were introduced in the late 1800's and were usually only found in large cities in North America and Europe at this time. Biomas* grew and continued to expand until World War II.   When the war was over the petroleum industry and cheap oil, gas and electricity in North America increased,which resulted in a move from biomas* to using individual building heating systems. Countries in Europe didn't have very many areas with fossil fuels and kept on using biomas* so that they wouldn't be depending on oil from foreign countries.   In the 70's many people were having problems with energy shortages and lack and high prices of oil. They needed to do something about it.This oil crisis  brought up new oppurtunities for biomas*, especially in the Nordic countries. Many biomas* heating plants were changed and decided to not only burn oil and garbage, but to burn many other things like woodchips, wood waste and leftover straw.   In the 80's Biomas* power was introduced. Small power plants began producing electricty in 1982, from then on the wood fired generation expanded rapidly. Instead of burning fuels that are non renewable, biomas* power plants burn wood waste and many other things to generate electricty. Eastern Canada began to use biomas* at this time too. Most big institutions and many schools throughout the area installed biomas* heating plants which were fuelled with woodchips and sawmill waste.   In the 90's biomas* power was very expensive and this caused some of the plants to shut down. This is when we started getting oil from foreign countries, and we still do today as well. In the beginning most power plants only used residues from sawmills. But as the number of operating saw mills decreased, people came up with other solid waste disposal options. Forest thinnings, removal of orchards, agricultural byproducts, and urban wood waste. These are some of the things which are now used to