6.1.2. Small enterprise applications
In small industrial applications, rural enterprises are often seeking
to modernize their use of biomass resources to improve their
competitiveness. The more efficient use of locally available biomass
energy resources—by brick-makers, bakers, ceramic and wood
workers, timber-dryers, agricultural processors, and others—also
contributes to increasing the sustainability of these important rural
enterprises in many cases. For example, efficient down-draft pottery
kilns have been developed in Mexico that help artisans to
reduce fuel wood consumption, while simultaneously eliminating
the use of lead and improving the competitiveness of rural pottery
enterprises [52].
6.1.3. Industrial applications
Sugarcane provides an example of the potential for biomass
modernization at large industrial scales. Over eighty develop-