While we in the U.S. are looking to Congress and waiting to see what’s going to be cut out of the budget, biomass project developers are busy in the U.K.

Just his week, Kedco Plc, a renewable energy developer in Ireland, announced plans to build five biomass power plants with a combined capacity of 15 megawatts (MW). The plants will gasification and anaerobic digestion to turn wood and waste into energy.

Also in the U.K., E.ON Renewables plans to build a 30 MW biomass Power plant near Sheffield, England. This is the company’s second biomass power plant and is expected to be operation in mid-2014.

Forth Energy is proposing to develop four biomass power plants at the ports of Dundee, Grangemouth, Rosyth and Leith with a combined capacity of up to 500 MW.

Prenergy has plans to build a 350 MW plant in Port Talbot and Peel Energy is working on a 30 MW biomass energy project at Ince Park in Cheshire. 

There are many other projects in various stages of development in the U.K., where they are obviously very serious about their goal to produce more than 30 percent of their electricity, 12 percent of their heat and 10 percent of their transportation fuels from renewable sources by 2030.

Although the U.K.’s aggressive biomass power build-out will no doubt translate into business for U.S. companies supplying wood chips and pellets, it would be nice to use some of those precious resources here in the states.

Just some food for thought as we digest our Thanksgiving dinner.