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Pamela Monnin

Professor Barnes

19.SP.ENG.1201

20 January 2019

What Environmental Impact will new Biomass Technologies have over

other Renewable Energy Sources?

Earlier this month, I watched a segment on 60 Minutes (“The Unlikely, Eccentric

Inventor Turning Inedible Plant Life into Fuel.” )with Lesley Stahl, who interviewed a man who

has stumbled onto an invention using biomass material and converted the plant sugars into

biofuel and more. I was so intrigued by the interview on television that I looked it up online to

rewatch their exchange, which I had my family members watch too. I believe they are really onto

something big and I wanted to know more. My interest in environmental issues stems back to my

childhood. My grandmother had compost and they used the decomposed material to put back

into the earth to enhance their garden. They had the best looking garden around. My mother also

started composting and was the first one in our neighborhood who separated her trash from

recyclables. This is way before it ever became popular to do so. When I had a house of my own,

I too, composted for my garden and began to recycle, repurpose and reuse everything I could. I

am concerned about the future environment of my children and so on. Not everyone in my

family has the same ideas, but I do my best to try to influence them through my actions, more so

than my words. If there is new research that can change the way people see that nature can

provide everything we need, through the help of technology, to help save our existing
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environment, then I want to know how I can help spread the word. I could tell from Lesley

Stahl’s interview, that she and many other very important figures who are very interested in this

topic and have invested large amounts of money into research and making this new technology

available on a large scale to begin production this spring. I hope to be able to research more on

this new biomass technology and find out how it will impact our environment compared to other,

already established, renewable energy sources.

I feel that this particular topic is very current and a much-needed renewable energy

resource to help save our depleting natural resources. It is exciting to learn about new discoveries

that could potentially accomplish this. I think if enough people were to get “onboard” and realize

the need for finding new ways to save the the world we live in, for a future that our children can

enjoy, that this new technology could have a major impact on the world. Unfortunately, there are

quite a few people that do not see the need or believe there is a problem, or just do not care. I

believe that it will take news sources, like 60 Minutes, social media and many politicians and

Congress to plant the seed and spread the word to all who will listen, to make the necessary

changes needed. Otherwise, it will be a very slow process to move things in that direction. What

I do know is that this new biomass technology could be the answer to many worldly problems

today, and the people working on making this possible are spending a lot of time, energy and

money into to process so that we can all benefit from it. I also know that I will try my best to

research what type of impact this will have on our current environment, good or bad.

In researching how this new technology will impact the environment compared to

existing renewable resources, I hope to be able to learn how to become a more informed

consumer about energy resources and how I can help do my part. I will try to start my research

by using Sinclair’s Library database to find as much information I can on the subject. Then I will
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also use websites from scholarly articles that I hope to gain enough knowledge to add to my

exploration of this topic. One question I hope to get answers for is to find out if there is enough

biomass material available in the world to provide enough fuel for everyone? Another question

that would be good to know on this topic is to find out what kinds of changes would be needed to

put these new technologies into place, and at what cost to the environment?

Works Cited

“The Unlikely, Eccentric Inventor Turning Inedible Plant Life into Fuel.” CBS News, CBS

Interactive, www.cbsnews.com/news/marshall-medoff-the-unlikely-eccentric-inventor-

turning-inedible-plant-life-into-fuel-60-minutes/. 06 Jan.2019.