Biofuels: An Alternative to Combat Energy Crisis

The global energy consumption in the recent years has been rapidly increased especially fossil fuels (non-renewable resource) whose depletion has led to the world energy crisis. Additionally, fossil fuels results in the emission of greenhouse gasses to the environment, leading to global warming and climate change. Thus, a sustainable society requires reduction in pollution and fossil fuel consumption. Hereafter, there is an urgent need for alternative energy resources, which should be clean, renewable and economical. Biofuels, which is considered as a renewable energy source, is a step taken to put less strain on the limited supply of fossil fuels.

Biofuels are hydrocarbon fuels which are primarily derived from organic matter or biomass such as plants, animal waste or algae material. It can be in any form e.g. solid liquid or gaseous and can be used as an alternative or sometimes blende with petrol, diesel or any other fuels. Now a days, biofuels are one of the largest renewable energy sources in use and play an important role in reducing carbon dioxide emission. They are anticipated to help decarbonise the aviation, marine and heavy-duty road transport sectors.

The crops rich in sugar content e.g. sugarcane, sugarbeet, sweet sorghum are mainly used for production of biofuels. Even starch (maize and Tapioca) or oil like soybean, rapeseed, coconut and sunflower are also used to manufacture biofuels. Some other common biofuels producing crops are Jatropha, Pongamia and Water Hyacinth.

Classification of Biofuels

Biofuels can be classified into four categories:

§  First Generation Biofuels: These are generally produce from food crops such as sugar, starch, vegetable oil, or animal fats using conventional methods. Commonly used first generation biofuels are bioethanol (primarily made from corn in USA and from sugarcane in Brazil), Biodiesel (made from vegetable oils and animal fats), Biogas and Bioethers.

§  Second Generation Biofuels: These are often called as advanced biofuels and mainly derived from non-food crops such as cellulosic biomass and waste biomass (stems, husks, wood chips, and fruit skins and peeling), using thermochemical reactions or biochemical conversion process.  Examples are bio-hydrogen and bio-methanol.

§  Third Generation Biofuels: These are produced from micro-organisms like algae. Example- butanol

§  Fourth Generation Biofuels: These types of biofuels are derived from crops that are genetically engineered to take in high amount of carbon are cultivated and harvested as biomass. These fuels are considered as carbon negative as their production pulls out carbon from environment.

Benefits of Biofuels

·         Biofuels are eco-friendly in nature and able to reduce vehicle emission.

·         They contain higher energy boosters as compared to petrol and diesels, increasing the performance of the vehicles as well as provides lubricity to vehicles.

·         They are very safe to storage and transport as compare to other existing fuels.

·         Biofuels helps in the reduction of greenhouse gases emission to the environment.

·         Biofuels are bio-degradable in nature.

·         Biofuels can also serve as a source of additional income to the framers because the agricultural wastes which were supposed to be burnt by the farmers can be converted into ethanol by using 2^nd generation biofuels technology.

Limitations to Biofuels

·         Production of biofuels from biomass requires higher initial investment.

·         Biofuels are lower energy efficient as compare to traditional ones and thus require greater quantities to be consumed in order to produce the same energy level.

·         Analysis of carbon footprint of the biofuels clearly indicates that the process to produce fuels including machinery requires to cultivate the crops and the plants to produce the fuel emit huge amount of carbon. Moreover, cutting forests to grow crops for biofuels production adds carbon to the environment.

·         Massive amount of water and fertilizers are required to grow crops for production of biofuels leading to water scarcity and increased pollution level.

·         Use of food crops in the production of biofuels creates an imbalance in food economy, leading to increased food prices and hunger.

 

 

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