Energy sources are not only the material basis that people live by, but also the fundamental conditions of national economic development. As a large energy consumption nation, China mainly depends on fossil energy like coal, petroleum, and natural gas for its energy supply. However, the limitation of fossil energy and its pressure on the environment has resulted in its exploitation severely restricting the sustainable development of the economic society.
Vapor and hot-water are the essential part of the normal production and operation in light industries such as food, beverage, forage, tobacco, paper making, textile, daily chemical article industry, etc. and service industries including hotels, education institutes, and hospitals, etc. They are also used for winter heating of urban household in northern China. Now coal still possesses an overwhelmingly dominant position in thermal production fields of vapor and hot water. Nonetheless, belonging to nonrenewable energy, it can cause not only dust, oxysulfide, oxynitride, etc. but also massive discharge of green house gases as carbon dioxide in its usage, thereby resulting in global warming. Before the emergence of biomass pellet fuel, the replacement of coal can only be diesel oil, natural gas, and/or cogeneration. Natural gas is comparatively inexpensive. Yet because its resource is limited, most areas are lacking in a natural gas supply, thus restricting its application in industrial and commercial fields. Diesel oil can be purchased all over China, yet its price is high, and sometimes in some areas it is in short supply. In addition, diesel oil and natural gas belong to nonrenewable resources. They can not control the increase of carbon dioxide. However biomass includes many types of organisms formed in photosynthesis. Biomass energy is a kind of solar energy stored in biomass in the form of chemical energy. It bases on biomass, and comes directly or indirectly from the photosynthesis of green plants, so it is renewable and sustainable. In living plants, biomass absorbs carbon dioxide; when burning, it releases carbon dioxide. As a result, it increases no amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Biomass pellet fuel is produced by mechanical compressing herbaceous or ligneous plants, with or without addictives, to form regular shaped fuel products. Being clean and environmentally friendly, biomass pellet fuel is an excellent replacement of diesel oil, natural gas, and/or coal.
It has become an earnest concern all over the world to explore new energy sources as the replacement of fossil fuels because of energy shortages, and environment pollutions like global warming which is caused by fossil energy consumption. The pressure to sustain development is becoming more and more severe is also a concern.
