energy

OK Steve, it's not April 1^st any more.

Not an april fools joke at all...I was completely serious...

I thought biomass was anything derived from grown things. I guess that, going back one step further, solar energy is necessary for plant growth. In that case, I agree with you - I just didn't go back far enough.

Exactly! A plant takes CO2 out of the air, water and other minerals out of the soil, and through photosynthesis, uses the energy of sunlight to build cells and stems and stalks. The by product of the reaction is O2 that is released back to the atmosphere.

Essential what the plant is doing is converting (kind of kinetic) energy from the sun to potential energy stored up in the plant as carbon chains and sugars. Bio mass processes simply release that energy, in a simple manner such as burning wood, or in as complex a manner as converting complex carbon chains from plants into biodiesel.

But really oil and gas are the same deal. Plants (or mostly plankton in the oceans) converted solar to potential energy stored in carbon chains, over time that material was covered and compressed by the over bearing rock, until someone with a long drill pulled it out of the ground and converted it to gasoline.

Every bit of carbon that has been released by man burning various fuels was in the ocean or in the atmosphere at one point in time, it had just been sequestered in plant material that became oil or coal.

Stop global climate change, plant a tree...