Hazards are associated with planting, managing, harvesting, and burning trees for biomass.
Explanation:
Biomass, an alternative for fossil fuel, is a renewable source of carbon-based energy sourced from burning plant matter, organic or food waste, and industrial waste.
Environmental hazards
Biomass production requires large scale of plants or trees to be burnt to produce energy which in turn demands more water and pesticides and causes soil erosion. When large number of trees is cut, it leads to deforestation and increase greenhouse gas which in turn leads to global warming.
The managers who practice biomass production should successfully mitigate the environmental hazards by following sustainable measures of biomass production
Operational hazards
During the operation of biomass production, a lot of risk can happen during fuel delivery, storage, handling, and during combustion operations.
- Mechanical risk injury from mechanical conveyors, pneumatic delivery system
- Dust explosion from finer fuel elements
- Explosion and fire from storing and handling biomass fuel
- Slips and falls during operations and storage.
- Wet side and fire side risks of using boilers.
Hence, during production, storage, handling, and delivery proper stringent risk assessment must be taken regularly by the managers and necessary protection measures should be followed to avoid risks and hazards.
For example, to avoid mechanical injuries, proper care must be taken to maintain the production equipment
Proper storage rules should be maintained and checked to see if bunkers are filled only to the optimal level and not overfilled.
