Biomass for energy in developing countries

Biomass, like fossil fuels, can provide cooking and heating energy, electricity, chemicals and liquid fuels. Today about 14% of the worldwide primary energy supply is provided by biomass resources -equivalent to 1000 million tons oil each year. Most of this biomass use occurs in rural areas of developing countries where half the world's population lives. For example Kenya derives about 75 %, India 50 %, China 33 % and Brazil 25 % of their total energy from biomass. A number of industrialized countries also derive a considerable amount of energy from biomass, such as Finland 18 %, Ireland 16 %, Sweden 9 % and USA 3 %. World expenditure on biomass programmes exceeds S2 bn/yr; several national biomass energy programmes are discussed. Biomass resources and conversion technologies are described, as are the factors necessary for successful regional implementation of biomass energy schemes.