ENERGY Is agricultural biomass viable as an energy producer?

Waste-to-energy technology holds out much promise both as a clean way to produce energy and as a useful way to dispose of waste that would otherwise go to landfill. At least, that is so in the case of municipal solid waste. What of the case of agricultural waste? The 80 per cent Australian-owned AgBioEn has just begun construction of a renewable energy facility in Katunga, in northern-central Victoria, that will use organic waste materials (biomass) such as cereal straw as its feedstock. The company states that its processing system is based on pyrolysis of the biomass feed, followed by a…