Abstract
Biomass energy that comes from organic matter has widely been utilized in developing countries, unlike most developed countries.Because this type of energy resources is renewable and does not substantially increase carbon in the atmosphere, many industrialized countries including European countries and USA are becoming very active in their utilization.In Japan it was only recently that biomass energy was officially recognized as a new energy resource.This policy will promote wider and active use of such resources in the future.The quantity of biomass energy available each year from unused forestry and agricultural wastes, together with municipal and industrial wastes, will be as much as about 10% the amount of final energy consumption of 1990 in Japan.However, the resources are diverse in nature and are distributed at a low density over the land, hindering treatment and low cost conversion to more useful forms of liquid and gaseous fuels.This requires construction of reasonable decentralized conversion systems from the resources to the end use.A survey is given for technologies of conversion to liquid and gaseous fuels and advanced use of the derived biofuels.
