One Planet, One Health, One Future: Biomass energy: Chapter 16 - The potential, future prospects, and challenges in the path toward environmental sustainability in clean energy

The world's energy demand is relatively ever rising nevertheless the depletion of conventional energy resources is also accelerated at an alarming rate. Fossil fuel, the main conventional energy reserve, has been exhaustively used, which has resulted in the oil wells drying up, increased carbon levels, and disruptions in the ecological balance. With this alarming scenario and the energy consumption said to increase further in the future, the challenge is to address the increase in massive energy demand through clean fuel sources. Although the study on the use of solar energy, wind energy, and geothermal energy has seen promising results, these energy resources are influenced on geographical parameters and climatic conditions to a larger extent. Thus, the existing technologies being expensive and the lack of proper goal toward development of clean fuel, dictates a need for a breakthrough in the implementation of clean technology, to provide a sustainable solution that could help mitigate the alarming climate change issues and boost the socioeconomic growth. The chapter provides a comprehensive study of biomass as a crucial renewable resource in the context of sustainable development, with a particular emphasis on its role in energy production across various sectors. An in-depth analysis on the diverse nature of biomass sources, pretreatment methods, and their impact on downstream applications are highlighted. An extensive study on biofuel production from biomass, their roles in agriculture, industry, and energy production, techniques, and limitations of various conversion processes is also presented. The chapter also covers a detailed discussion on the potential for biomass-derived hydrogen production, current methodologies and the challenges faced in this emerging field. The innovative use of biomass-derived biomaterials for energy storage applications is also explored, showcasing the potential use of biomass in next-generation approaches to sustainable energy solutions. The chapter concludes with an examination of challenges and limitations of biomass energy with insights into the potential and future prospects of biomass in the context of global energy transitions and its vital role in shaping a sustainable energy landscape.