Every six hours, our planet receives as much energy from the sun as the world consumes in a year.  If we could just collect it, all of our energy problems would be over.  When we think of utilising the sun’s energy for our own power needs, we think of solar panels or the ever-growing solar parks.  In fact, this is not the only way to harness the power of the sun, and neither is it the most efficient.  Why would we build machines to capture the sun’s energy when plants already do it naturally?

Plants absorb the sun’s energy by photosynthesis and convert it into biological material, or biomass. We can use this biomass for our own energy needs by extracting it from plants and burning it to produce electricity.  Research is also being conducted into dissolving it to produce Ethanol.  Biomass traditionally comes in three forms; pellets, chips and Briquettes, depending on its final use.  It is green, clean, sustainable and environmental.  Even if it is burned for electricity production, biomass can only release the amount of CO2 that the plant it came from originally absorbed, so it is in fact Carbon neutral.

Silva Tree have been researching biofuel production, particularly biomass produced from Paulownia.  Most biomass projects are based on smaller crops such as grasses or bushes because trees grow too slowly to produce biomass efficiently, but Paulownia could change all that.  It is one of the fastest growing trees in the world, and as such amasses a great deal of biomass in a short time.  This makes it a very good candidate for biomass production and, because it grows upwards, it requires less land than a shorter crop.

A major concern with bio-fuel production has been the use of agricultural land which could otherwise be used to grow food.  Many have argued that land which could be used for food should not be used for fuel production just because it is more lucrative, as this could cause a major global food shortage.  Unlike many other biofuel crops, however, Paulownia grows in degraded land and does not require the high quality agricultural land which is traditionally used for the production of food.  On the contrary, it actually reclaims poor quality land and can be intercropped with almost anything, so one can actually grow food on previously unproductive land.

We believe that Paulownia could make a big difference to the renewable energy sector and it will be the basis of our next project, to be launched very soon.