Biomass
Electricity from burned plant and waste material.
At this rate, one death corresponds to about 13,000–33,000 people's annual electricity.
Deaths per terawatt-hour
This scale is logarithmic: each step to the right is ten times the previous one, so the visual distance understates how much larger the fossil numbers really are.
counted deaths · modeled deaths
The small grey figure under each source is the same rate turned human: roughly how many people’s yearly electricity corresponds to one death. Coal, about 700–6,000 people; solar, a few million.
The figures as a table
| Source | Low | High | Modeled | 1 death per |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biomass | 4.6 | 12 | 86% | 13k–33k people |
Deaths
4.6–12 deaths/TWh
Our World in Data, What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?CO₂
130–420 gCO₂eq/kWh
IPCC AR5 WGIII Annex III lifecycle emissions mediansLand
120–420 km²/TWh/yr
UNECE lifecycle assessment of electricity generation optionsCost
no comparable data
Lazard 2026 does not publish a comparable LCOE figure for this top-level source in the site taxonomy.
Lazard LCOE+ 2026, version 19.0On the upper bound — The 4.6 low bound is OWID's published figure. The upper bound is a site-derived caution estimate scaling OWID's reasoning that newer research suggests higher impacts; it is not itself a published number.
The uncounted cost — priced at the central value of a statistical life ($14.1M), Biomass's death toll is worth about $65 per MWh generated. That cost is on no electricity bill. Value of a life →
How it kills
Burning plant and waste material produces particulate smoke similar to other combustion sources, inhaled by nearby populations, plus harvesting and supply-chain accidents.
What dominates the number
Modeled particulate-exposure deaths from combustion dominate. How clean the feedstock and stack controls are moves this figure a lot.
What the estimate does not capture
Site conditions, country-specific controls, labor practices, reliability, storage, and long-tail waste questions are outside this coefficient.