All organics substances originating from living nowadays or recently lived organisms are consideredas a biomass. For example, coal and oil are not a biomass as they were formed from organisms living millions years ago. On the other hand, a municipal and industrial waste can be considered as a biomass because an essential part of their organic weight is such kinds of a biomass as wood, rubbers, food waste, and other materials of an organic nature. Clearly, a biomass is one of the most diverse (by quantity of representatives) class of fuels. Therefore, determination of the perspec­tives of their energy use demands examination of energy characteristics and chemical composition along with the rates of biomass formation and expenditures connected with its production. We will examine four common types of biomass: wood, energy crops, animal waste, and poultry waste.

12.2.1 Wood Waste

Wood, perhaps, is one of the most common types of biomass. Approximately 40.5 % of annually extracted forest resources are used for obtaining the roundwood, ~6.3 % in paper manufacturing, ~45.1 % as a fuel, and about 8.1 % at charcoal production (total wood consumption ~2.48 Gt) [9]. The average density of wood with moisture of 20 % (~624 kg/m3 [10]) was used to estimate mass of wood by its volume. The wood (moisture ~20 %) consumption during pyrolysis aimed on charcoal production was estimated by proximate analysis results on total yield of ash and fixed carbon (~ 12.1 % [11]). Wood, compared to fossil fuels, basically does not contain sulfur and other ecologically unfriendly elements. However, its use in the wood industry is more economically sound than its energy application. Therefore, it is more expedient to process lumbering wastes, residues, and municipal waste mostly consisting of woody materials.