Alternative fuel improving the oil yields of these crops. Using the current yields, vast amounts of land and fresh water would be needed to produce enough oil to completely replace fossil fuel usage. Biomass in the energy production industry is living and recently dead biological material which can be used as fuel or for industrial production. It has become popular among coal power stations, which switch from coal to biomass in order to convert to renewable energy generation without wasting existing generating plant and infrastructure. Biomass most often refers to plants or plant-based materials that are not used for food or feed,
Evolutionary history of plants also formed shallow rooting systems during the Famennian. The rhizophores of the lycopods provide a slightly different approach to rooting. They were equivalent to stems, with organs equivalent to leaves performing the role of rootlets. A similar construction is observed in the extant lycopod "Isoetes", and this appears to be evidence that roots evolved independently at least twice, in the lycophytes and other plants, a proposition supported by studies showing that roots are initiated and their growth promoted by different mechanisms in lycophytes and euphyllophytes. A vascular system is indispensable to rooted plants, as non-photosynthesising roots need a supply of