Introduction

Fuels that have been extracted from plants and crops are known as biofuels. Of these, the most commonly extracted and used one is Bioethanol or simply Ethanol and Biodiesel. It is blended with gasoline and can be used as an alternative fuel for your car. Plant based fuels comes from renewable source, can be grown anywhere and have lower carbon emissions as compared to fossil fuels. Biofuels not only help a struggling economy by providing jobs but also helps in reducing greenhouse gases up to much extent by emitting less pollution.

As prices of crude oil are soaring day by day, most people are switching to biofuels to save money and reduce their dependence on oil. Biofuels are produced from wheat, corn, soya-beans and sugarcane which can be produced again and again on demand, so they are sustainable.

Ethanol is ethyl alcohol (C2H5OH). It’s also known as grain alcohol because it’s often made from the distillation of grain crops like corn or soybeans. Corn is the source material for 90 percent of the ethanol produced in the U.S., but any plant material — collectively called biomass — can be used to make ethanol: leaves, woodchips, wild grasses, even trees. Brazil, the world’s second-largest ethanol producer, makes its biofuel from sugarcane.

Uses of biofuels

1. Transportation

Globally, transportation accounts for 25% of energy demand and nearly 62% of oil consumed. Two-thirds of the energy is burned to operate vehicles with the rest going to maintenance, manufacturing, infrastructure, and raw material harvesting. 70% of energy consumption in this segment is used to move people around and that most of this is used in private cars, the least efficient means of transportation. Only 12% of the energy burned by a car goes to moving it and only about 2% is actually used to move the occupants. The rest of the energy is lost to friction, heat, inefficient combustion, and moving about ever more heavy vehicles.

The solution, at least for now, appears to be algal-based biofuels, which are still years if not decades away from commercialization. The idea is simple. Algae have lipid and lipid can be converted to a number of fuels including diesel, ethanol, butanol, and methanol. Because algae absorb CO2 to make lipid, the net impact on the environment should be very small. Additionally, biofuels are biodegradable, so if they do spill, less harm is done compared to when fossil fuels spill.

2. Power generation

The generation of electricity is the single largest use of fuel in the world. In 2008, the world produced about 20,261 TWh of electricity. About 41% of that energy came from coal, another 21% came from natural gas, and the rest was covered by hydro, nuclear, and oil at 16%, 13%, and 5% respectively. Of the fuel burned, only 39% went into producing energy and rest was lost as heat. Only 3% of the heat was then used for co-generation. Of the 20,261 TWh produced, 16,430 TWh were delivered to consumers and the rest was used by the plants themselves.

Biofuels may provide at least a partial answer. Co-generation plants often use methane derived from landfills and there is vigorous interest in the use of syngas in many agricultural areas. Like any biofuel, the balance of the equation lies in carbon generation. For syngas made from the agricultural waste, the net impact is lower than if the waste were allowed to decompose on its

own. This is because natural decomposition in oxygen-rich environments produces nitrogen dioxide, with is over 300 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, as well as methane, which is over 20 times more potent. The same benefits exist for methane harvested from landfills.

3. Heat

The majority of biofuel used in heating is solid. Wood is both an aesthetic and a practical method of heating and may homes use wood burning stoves as supplements to other heating systems like natural gas or electricity. Renewed interest in solid biofuels, in part a response to rising energy prices, as led to a surge in innovation in the industry with research focusing on improved efficiency, reduced emissions, and enhanced convenience. Wood gasification boilers can reach efficiencies as high as 91%.

To put the cost of biofuel into perspective, 1,000 BTUs of energy from wood cost about $1.20. Natural gas, on the other hand, cost about $2.60 per 1,000 BTUs. Wood pellets cost around $2.16 per 1,000 BTUs, making them less expensive than natural gas as well.

 

Pros for BioFuel:

  • Cost Benefit: biofuels cost the same in the market as gasoline does, fewer emissions on burning, keeps the engine running for longer, requires less maintenance, brings down overall pollution check costs
  • Easy to Source: manure, waste from crops and plants
  • Renewable: crops can be replanted
  • Reduce Greenhouse Gases: reduce the impact of greenhouse gases
  • Reduce Dependence on Foreign Oil: locally grown crops have reduce the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels
  • Economic Security: import the oil puts a huge dent in the economy, more jobs will be created with a growing biofuel industry, which will keep our economy secure.

Cons for Biofuels:

  • High cost of production: interest and capital investment being put into biofuel production is fairly low compared to gasoline, it is very expensive to produce biofuel
  • Monoculture: this only happens for the use of biofuels where farmers farm the same crops year after and this deprives the soil of nutrients being put back into the soil through crop rotation. Gasoline does not depend on crop harvest.
  • Use of Fertilizers: use of fertilizers causes water pollution
  • Shortage of food: growing of crops for biofuels deplete the overall food supply and drive up food prices
  • Water usage: Large quantities of water are used to irrigate biofuel crops which imposes a strain on local and regional water resources, this puts unsustainable pressure local water resources. Whereas, refinery of gasoline does not uses water at all.