Sunday, May 24, 2009

More about... Pruining the Pines

What happens to all of the branches
trimmed from the "Pines of Rome?"
This week I discovered that the cuttings from the trees are brought to a vacant field near our apartment and processed into biomass that is converted into electricity for the city of Rome.

The foreman on the site was excited to show me the manual for his Biotrituratore Mobile, a €375,000 (just over a half-million dollars) machine, that takes branches and grinds them to bits!

Biomass is a renewable energy source. It is living and recently dead biological material that can be used as fuel. The Pines of Rome clippings are biomass that is used as biofuel to generate electricity.

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