Three advantages of biomass energy are:
- Sustainable regrowth can replenish the fuel and recycle its biogenic carbon, unlike depletion of fossil carbon stocks.
- Chemical fuel can be stored and transported, permitting dispatchable heat, electricity or liquid-fuel production rather than requiring use at the instant of sunlight capture.
- Suitable agricultural residues and organic wastes can supply useful energy while recovering value from material that would otherwise need disposal.
Three disadvantages are:
- Dedicated energy crops compete for land and water, potentially displacing food production and damaging biodiversity.
- Low annual areal productivity, bulky feedstock and moisture increase collection, transport, drying and conversion costs.
- Combustion produces local air pollutants, and processing emissions or land-use carbon debt can undermine the claimed climate saving. A life-cycle assessment and a regrowth timescale are necessary; “renewable” alone does not prove low net emissions.
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