During some hundreds of thousands of years, after the primitive man learned how to control the fire, this source of energy meant protection against enemies, warming and conquest of colder regions. Wood started so its contribution to the welfare, security, and progress of the man. It can be said that this was the beginning of process that resulted in civilization.
At the beginning of the 3rd millennium, man can warm up from other sources of heat. However, the imminent exhaustion of energy fossil sources has caused concerns in governments, scientists and all the society.
In the face of these perspectives, it is certain that biomass already plays an important role, not only as renewable energy but also as an efficient absorber of carbon dioxide.
In a casual quote, states Prof. Ronaldo Sampaio:
... for half a billion years, photosynthesis absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and buried it in the form of coal, petrol and natural gas. In the last 200 years, the process was reversed by need of energy in the modern world, mainly by the need of the industrial world.
Indeed, when fossil fuels are burned, carbon dioxide is returned to the atmosphere. As it is known, carbon dioxide is the main component of Greenhouse Gases and, therefore, the main causer of global warming. In addition to obvious results, like the melting of polar caps and rising of ocean levels, scientists foresee the increase and frequency of other climate disorders such as hailstorms, cyclones and hurricanes as consequences of global warming.
Therefore, either for the scarcity of traditional fossil sources or for the benefits to the environment, biomass renewable energy is increasingly weighing in the economic, strategic, social, and mainly environmental interests. And once more Brazil will make a good use its unsurpassed natural conditions of climate and soil combined with a high yield forestry to impose itself in the world stage as reference in fighting the global warming.
In Minas Gerais, eucalypt plantations are really important for the state economy, either as source of renewable energy or raw material for several industries. Most of the wood go to charcoal that supplies the pig iron mills. Second consumer segment is the pulp industries.