Quest for Improving the Production and Availability of Forest Biomass-a Review

During the last ten years there is increasing awareness about the role of forest biomass to alleviate the fuelwood crisis particularly in developing countries in view of their predominant dependence on traditional fuels. Among the various non-conventional energy sources namely photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, microhydal, oceanthermal and biomass, biomass has an edge over others from the point of production, availability and conversion. Biomass has the verstality to be converted into solid, liquid and gaseous fuels which further can be transformed into four principle usable energy forms namely, steam, mechanical power, electricity and heat. It is shown that on global basis there is abundant availability of wood, however, on regional basis there is shortage, particularly in developing countries. In India the fuelwood shortage is of the order of 170 million cubic meters, threatening to become more than an energy issue. In this context the need for implementing the energy plantation concept for improving the per hectare yield is stressed. The advantages as well as disadvantages of implementing energy plantation practices is presented. It is shown that advantages far out-weigh the disadvantages. Evidences are amassed to show that fuels from biomass can be profitably produced in all parts of the world. This review details the conventional investigations on forest biomass and analyses the growth and yield under energy plantation practices in addition to discussing the energy conversion efficiency of the forest plants with emphasis on energy plantation practices. The need for extensive understanding of nutrient distribution and cycling in the context of biomass production systems is also presented. It is concluded that there exists considerable scope to bridge the gap between potential productivity and actual productivity using energy plantation practices even in thickly populated tropics The role of energy plantations to mitigate the fuelwood crisis is presented with particular reference to Indian conditions. This review has 131 references and 6 Tables.