Biomass power generators always remind Greenbang of Back to the Future II. Remember the Mr Fusion Home Energy Reactor that the Doc fits to the De Lorean while visiting 2015 that converts organic home waste into electrical power? What a crazy idea, eh? Well it’s not such a crazy idea anymore, with E.ON’s scientists just being the latest bunch of boffins wanting build their very own Mr Fusion. The power generation group has just announced that has applied to build a £60 million biomass power station in Sheffield.

The 25MW renewable energy plant would be capable of supplying power to 40,000 homes by burning recycled wood, forestry residue and specially grown crops. E.ON claims that this would save around 80,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel powered generators every year – an amount equivalent to taking 20,000 cars off of the UK’s roads.

Says Project Manager Dr Nilton Chan:

“This new development, combined with the billions of pounds we’re investing on new cleaner coal and gas plants, shows our commitment to tackling the twin challenges of ensuring security of power supply for the UK and the global threat of climate change.”

If the bureaucrats give the project the thumbs up, building work would start in 2009, with the first electricity from the plant coursing into powerlines in 2011. Just think four years after that, if Back to the Future is to be believed, we’ll all be driving flying cars and scooting around on hoverboards.

Okay, so they got the bit about organic energy conversion right.

Tags: biomass, Climate, E.ON, power generation, Sheffield