Waste and biomass as energy resources

Organic fuels can be manufactured by converting major sources of continuously renewable nonfossil carbon to synfuels that are interchangeable with, or can be substituted for, natural gas and petroleum-derived fuels. Promising sources of this carbon are waste materials, such as urban refuse, and biomass produced from solar energy by photosynthesis. The development of this concept is presented in this paper. The broad scope of the technology and its potential impact on energy supplies are reviewed. The renewable feature of both wastes and biomass makes them valuable natural resources that inevitably will be fully developed and commercialized as sources of energy-intensive products and synfuels. The perpetual availability of organic fuels will permit the conservation of valuable fossil fuel reserves, and, as time passes, offer a long-term solution to independence from foreign energy supplies and fossil fuel depletion.