In the order to produce energy for the large amount of people still currently out of the national girds, different possibilities exist. For practical and economic reasons, the most popular one is the use of Diesel engines coupled with generator sets. Petrol reserves being not infinite, renewable solutions have to be found to insure a sustainable development of the poorest areas in the world. One of those could be the gasification of biomass. The latter has two advantages: Biomass is a renewable energy source and is present almost everywhere in the world: the gas produced can have various applications among them fuel for unmodified Diesel engines. Unfortunately, things are not so simple: the gas produced has a low heating value, its use in an internal combustion engine requires cleaning, biomass is not uniform through the world and technology has to be adapted for each properties, biomass supplying can product to environmental hazards if it is not strictly controlled, etc. Moreover, no standardization exists currently for the development of the technology. However, positive results have been obtained and it seems that interesting opportunities exist for the future. It requires further investments and global communication between the protagonists. The present study tries to give a complete overview of the current biomass gasification field. Some important results obtained on existing gasification plants, as well as problems encountered on technical, social, environmental and economic point of view, are also presented. Finally, some promising alternatives are proposed, as well as the main required research.
2001
