Biomass fuel oils are renewable energy resources produced by processing raw materials, including plants, animals and their by-products.

40 percent of the global energy consumption will come from organisms in 10 years, forecast Wang Tao, academician with Chinese Academy of Engineering, at a green forum of the First China Afforestation Exposition in Nanjing on Tuesday.
According to Wang Tao, biomass energy resources are from plants’ photosynthesis by absorbing solar energy on earth. Through biomass energy conversion technologies, the energy can be utilized effectively to turn out various kinds of clean fuels for substituting mineral fuels, including coal, petroleum and natural gas, so as to minimize the dependence on mineral energy resources, preserve energy and reduce environmental pollution caused by energy consumption. So biomass energy is a kind of renewable energy resources, englishpeople.com said.
Wang Tao said that facing austere energy challenge, various countries in the world, especially the developed nations, are devoting themselves to developing high-efficient and pollution-free biomass energy technologies. Biomass fuel oils are renewable energy resources produced by processing raw materials, including plants, animals and their by-products. The fuel oils are used as substitutes for petroleum and diesel oil, which has drawn high attention from countries worldwide.
In the past 10-odds years, biomass fuel oil industry has been rapidly developed in various countries across the world, becoming a newly emerged trade globally. Rich supplies of renewable biomass materials are needed for achieving the industrialized production of biomass fuel oils. There has been faster development in the research of biomass energy, involving plant fuel oil, since 1980s. By 2015, more than 40 per cent of total global energy consumption will come from biomass energy resources. This will be mainly realized through the industrialization of biomass energy power generation and liquid fuels.
Wang continued to say the latest survey shows that 10 woody plants are available in China for producing biomass fuel oil with great potentials. There will be a broad prospect with suitable development.
Wang further added that energy oil-yielding plants are a kind of plant species containing energy oil plant elements. The oil plants contain oil in their organs. Through processing, plant fuel oils can be abstracted to supersede petrochemical fuel oil substances. China has found out 1,554 species of oil plants, among them, seeds of 154 plants contain more than 40 per cent of oil. Nearly 30 of trees and shrubs can be used as oil plant materials for establishing mass production bases, as they are widely spread with strong adaptability. There are 10 woody-oil plants across the country. Forests of the plants can be used for building material bases for producing biomass oil. In addition, they can be planted in suitable barren mountains and sandy soils that can be used for fine-breed supply bases.

Using the latest state-of-the-art technology, Saudi Arabia will "soon be able to boost our proved oil reserves by 200 billion barrels.

Saudi Arabia said it was ready to increase oil production capacity from its current 11 million barrels per day to 12.5 million bpd in 2009 to meet demand.
Speaking at the World Petroleum Congress, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Nuaimi also said that the world’s top oil exporter was making contingency plans for expanding production capacity to 15 million barrels per day if necessary.
“Saudi Arabia is at the forefront of efforts to expand capacity across the supply chain,“ Nuaimi said.
“These efforts include expanding our production capacity from the current 11 million barrels per day to 12.5 million barrels per day by 2009 to meet future demand and maintain spare capacity of at least 1.5 to 2 million barrels per day,“ he told delegates at the congress, turkishpress.com said.
“Other projects have been identified and can be advanced if necessary to meet additional supply requirements. Saudi Arabia has prepared a production capacity scenario of 15 million barrels per day which can be implemented in response to growing market demand,“ he said.
Saudi Arabia’s proven oil reserves are “conservatively“ estimated at more than 264 billion barrels despite having produced over 91 billion barrels in the past 35 years, said the oil minister.
Using the latest state-of-the-art technology, Saudi Arabia will “soon be able to boost our proved oil reserves by 200 billion barrels,“ he said.
But the oil minister warned that Saudi Arabia cannot meet the supply challenges on its own and called on the world oil industry to “find ways to remove bottlenecks that constrain our ability to achieve greater market stability.“
The country currently produces about 9.5 million barrels per day.
The oil minister also proposed that the International Energy Forum conduct a study of the global oil supply system to offer recommendations on delivering petroleum products at reasonable prices.
Nuaimi brushed aside suggestion that the end of the oil age was at hand, saying “the resource base is more than sufficient to meet projected demand“.
“Ours is not a challenge of resources, or what I call ’availability’. Rather what the global oil industry confronts today is a challenge of ’deliverability’,“ he said.
Buoyed by high prices, the oil industry is raking in enough returns to make investments to develop production, transportation, refineries and delivery to consumers.
“We believe spare crude oil production capacity will grow sufficiently in the next three to four years to restore some margin of safety to world crude markets,“ he said.
Some 4,000 delegates including ministers from 25 countries are attending the World Petroleum Congress being held in Johannesburg until Thursday.

Energywatch says energy costs are hurting businesses. .

Soaring energy prices are posing a serious threat to UK businesses of all sizes, a consumer watchdog has warned.
Utility consumer group Energywatch voiced its concerns at a meeting at the Labour party conference in Brighton.
Together with business leaders, Energywatch called for government intervention to help lower prices.
At the same meeting, the CBI also warned that firms may be forced to lay off staff and close down this winter, amid fears of a power shortage, bbc.co.uk said.

Low Reserves
CBI chief Sir Digby Jones told Energy Minister Malcolm Wickes that low energy reserves were posing a serious risk to businesses, no matter what their size.
On Monday, he said companies were “incredibly worried“ about the threat to supplies in coming months.
Sir Digby added that “inadequate“ UK planning meant that the UK only had enough gas in reserve to supply companies for 11 days, as against 55 in other European countries.
However, he did add that the problem was not expected to affect domestic consumers.
Following the meeting David Workman, director general of glass manufacturers’ organization British Glass, said there was “very little“ the minister could do in the short term.
However, the minister did say he would look into what could be done to boost power supplies.
Urgent efforts were needed to cut the cost burdens for business and improve gas supplies--or firms could fail or be forced to axe staff, Mr. Workman told the BBC.
“If you compare prices in the first quarter of 2003 to the forecasts for the first quarter of 2006, prices are expected to increase by 166%,“ Mr. Workman said.

’Double Whammy’
One UK firm, British Optical, has already moved its operations to the Far East, blaming high energy prices.
“If increases continue, there will be some partial closures and redundancies at least. At worst, firms will transfer production from the UK to elsewhere,“ Mr. Workman said.
He also warned that if supplies remained low, companies could be forced to burn oil for power, increasing costs further.
“That would be a double whammy, as not only would firms have to pay very high oil prices but they would also face more costs if they break their emissions limits.“
Under the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), companies are given carbon dioxide emission limits, but they can also trade in the emerging European carbon market.

’Broken Market’
“Every business--from the smallest corner shop to the largest factory--is suffering,“ said Energywatch chief executive Allan Asher.
He added that public services were also being hit by rising energy costs.
Mr. Asher called on the government to intervene in the energy market.
“Something is seriously wrong when British businesses and taxpayers are having to pay so much more for their energy, while the big offshore producers are awash with revenue,“ he said.
“The problem is that the market is broken and unless it’s fixed, it will only get worse.“

Nigeria and South Africa on Monday in Johannesburg, warned that rising crude oil prices posed a major threat to on-going global efforts to alleviate poverty in third world countries, particularly Africa.
In Washington DC, United States, however, Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the Federal Government has so far spent N132 billion to subsidize pump price of fuel in the country.
Speaking at the opening of the 18th World Petroleum Congress (WPC) in Johannesburg, South Africa, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Edmund Dau-koru said the current run-away oil product prices was a signal that the fragile economies of Africa would be so severely hit and they might not likely meet the Millennium Development Goals, allafrica.com said.
Daukoru said developed countries must take urgent steps to address the decline in refining activities as crude oil prices themselves were being driven by products supply constraints. He said with current oil prices, Africa might not be able to benefit from the recent round of debt forgiveness.
“The increase in products prices will affect us and I really already signaled that they must do their own part as consumers if this is not to impact on the fragile economies of Africa.
“We don’t want anybody to put the blame on producing countries and I wanted Nigeria not to be held as a scapegoat along with other oil producers by putting the blame on products prices.
“I am really implying that Nigeria itself is a victim of products prices of which the developed countries have to do something in terms of refining capacity,“ he said.
Also speaking at the opening of the WPC, South African President Thabo Mbeki said the most urgent global issue to be addressed is that of the current high crude oil prices, which he stated, might spread a fresh round of poverty and threat to peace in Africa.
Mbeki said already, the UN Millennium Review Summit held last week in New York, did not achieve the desired level of success in the set objectives in the areas of global poverty alleviation and eradication, world peace and security, and the reforms in the United Nations in order to improve its effectiveness.
He noted that while progress was being made towards implementing the debt write off for some African countries, the world, particularly developed nations, must also take notice of the serious impacts on poverty reduction prospects, that high and volatile oil prices could have on many developing countries, especially oil-importing Sub-Saharan African countries.
Mbeki urged participants at the WPC to address these important matters, which would assist in advancing the agenda of the African Union and its development program, New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).
Rising oil prices, which closed yesterday at $63.10 per barrel, was blamed for last month’s 30 percent hike in domestic pump prices of fuel by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). A liter of petrol now sells for N65.00 instead of N50. Gasoline prices has also been raised in South Africa from R4.00 to R5.10 per liter.
In Washington DC Okonjo-Iweala said the Federal Government has spent about N132 billion from the Federation Account for fuel subsidy.
Speaking with newsmen Sunday night at the end of the 2005 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Okonjo-Iweala said that should oil prices remain high till end of the year, fuel subsidy would cost the Federal Government about N240 billion.
“As you know we have already paid N132 billion in subsidy out of the federation account. By the end of this year and at the rate which we are going, we would have supported the fuel price by N240 billion“, she said.
Beginning from next year, she said any subsidy placed on fuel price would be included in the budget with a view to letting Nigerians know and believe that petrol was actually being subsidized by the Federal Government.
“The oil subsidy would be included in the 2006 budget so that Nigerians would know that oil is being subsidized because if we tell them now that N132 billion has been expended on oil subsidy they would not believe. And that is why revenues going to other areas of the budget has also diminished by that amount,“ she said.

Brazil’s government sees thermoelectric power accounting for just 30% of total generation in 25 years as the country concentrates on developing its hydroelectric potential first, mines and energy planning secretary M‡rcio Zimmermann told BNamericas.
Thermoelectric generation now accounts for about 25% of the country’s 90,000MW installed capacity. The ministry argues that hydroelectricity is not only cleaner but also cheaper in the long term, bnamerica.com said.
“Why did developed countries such as the US and France use up all their hydroelectric potential first?“ he asked.
France has developed all its hydroelectric potential, Germany has developed 80% while Brazil has only developed around 25%, according to Zimmermann.
The government projects this potential will only be fully used by 2025 so is not planning to tender any medium or large thermoelectric generation projects in coming power auctions.
“After 2025 Brazilians will have to choose what technology they will use for their power,“ he said.
“We have a shortlist of partially feasible hydroelectric projects to be tendered in coming years and are carrying out integrated environmental impact studies of nine river basins to expand this inventory,“ Zimmermann said.
Although the studies should be completed in the next two years, the government has already set aside 32 projects in the country that it plans to tender in 2006 and 2007. In 2006 the government plans to tender the 6,400MW Madeira complex in the western Amazon and in 2007 the 11,181MW Belo Monte project in the eastern Amazon region.
However, Zimmermann did say that he expected thermoelectric generation using biomass as a fuel to expand in coming years as the demand for clean development mechanism (CDM) projects grows.