should biofuels be an efficient replacement for fossil fuels?

Answer 1

Biofuels are already making headway into the consumer fuel market. There are several plants near me producing ethanol and one new one that should be operating by next summer will make both ethanol and biodiesel. Diesel engines can run 100% biodiesel in warm weather. Most gasoline engines can use 10% ethanol with no problem some as high as 20%. There are some out there that were designed to operate on 85% ethanol.

Answer 2

Biofuels are an excellent idea from environmental, economic and national security perspectives. However, the current methods of production are not as efficient as they could be. More investment in R&D is urgently required.

Ethanol production requires 4 liters of water for every liter of fuel and the fuel value of the ethanol is barely more than the input energy if grain is used as a feedstock. The best option for ethanol production in the future is cellulosic fermentation. There is a lot of research and a race for patents in this field. The key consideration for fuel production by cellulosic fermentation will be the biomass yield, so different crops will be grown in the future.

Biodiesel is made from fatty acids. Feedstocks include oilseeds such as canola and soy, waste cooking oil, and animal fat from slaughterhouses. The capital cost is low, so small operations can be economic. The most difficult problem is achieving consistent quality fuel from inconsistent feedstocks. The biomass yield is again the most significant consideration for feedstock cost.

A UNH study (see ref) calculated that the entire US transportation fuel requirement could be satisfied with 15,000 square miles of algae ponds. The cost of production (including capital) would be about 44 cents per gallon (assuming a bond issue @ 5% for the capital costs). The algae method could be used by all of the major oil consuming countries, so OPEC would be out of business. OPEC could drop the price to $10 a barrel to match price, but Western countries would be foolish to pay even that. Biofuels are better for the environment and better for peace. It would appear that the UNH group is not funded at the level required to move forward quickly because the current priority is oil. Perhaps this option will receive more attention after the elections.

Answer 3

Biofuel is not a good replacement for fossil fuel if not wisely produced. Once becoming profitable, this alternative energy will attract a lot of farmers into the game and you will see eco systems, especially where there are no efficient monitoring and control means (i.e. developing nations), devastated to make room for corn fields. Biofuel, if made from things that would otherwise go into landfills such as tablescraps, is definitely a good alternative. Go to www.sierraclub.org and read this environmental group's policy on biofuel alternative.

Answer 4

For diesel especially, and one way to get rid of the WVO lake, and also produce much needed glycerine as a by-product, at the same time reducing Diesle to around $0.75cents/gallon, with less toxins and a higher Cetane rating than fossil fuel diesel.
Would also give American farmers an incentive to grow oilseed crops too.

Answer 5

At present, they generally are not. On average, it requires about 2/3 of a 120,000 BTU gallon of gasoline to make a gallon of alcohol worth 85,000 BTU's -- profitable, but only barely so, and definitely a loser when you include capital costs. This could change if a process can be found to digest cellulose to make alcohol; that would require finding a suitable yeast-like thing to do the fermentation People are looking for one, but have not found it yet.

Answer 6

yes! biofuels are renewable, provide a purpose for corn (or other products) not fit for human consumption.

notice when the talk of biofuels really took off recently...gas prices went down???

Answer 7

Oil accounted for 43 percent of global carbon emissions from fossil fuels in 2002, while coal accounted for 37 percent and natural gas made up the remainder. More than half the oil was used for transport.

The potential is there for biofuel to cut this but far from solving our problems, the fear is that at the present state of production, biofuels will trash rainforests, suck water reserves dry, kill off species and raise food prices, accelerate corporate takeover of agriculture, create famines and leave fuel importers dependent on other countries. Worst of all, many biofuels will barely slow global warming at all if the technology behind them does not improve.

Bioethanol production is forecast to almost double in the next 2 years and consume around a fifth of the US corn crop. It takes a lot of energy both to grow corn and to convert it to ethanol, and cultivating a crop demands large quantities of fertiliser and pesticides, which themselves have environmental and energy costs.

The greenhouse gas nitrous oxide is produced by the nitrogen fertiliser used in growing corn. Growing corn for ethanol uses up land that is currently supplying food to the world. Taking corn for fuel will precipitate a rise in prices and that is unethical. The corn required to fill an SUV tank with bioethanol just once could feed one person for a year.

But if the US diverted its entire current corn harvest to biofuels it would meet only 11 per cent of its current gasoline demand!

Some bioethanol producers are using sugar cane, as a result, world sugar prices have doubled in the past 18 months.

High prices encourages growers to clear land and plant sugar cane without regard for the ecological impact. Farmers will push ever deeper into the rainforest, either to grow sugar cane itself or crops displaced by it. Sugar cane plantations put huge pressure on water supplies – it is a thirsty crop. In the Indian state of Maharashtra, existing plantations already take two-thirds of the state's water and have lowered water tables by up to 50 metres in places.

10 per cent of the world's transport fuels would require 9 per cent of the planet's agricultural land!!!!

There are many other forms of biofuel and some such as cellulose organic matter show greater promise.

The fact remains however that at the present time biofuel is only likely to provide a small percentage of fuel requirements and as explained above may have significantly worse effects than it cures.

Urgent research is needed both in improving techniques in production, finding new sources and cleaning up the old fossil fuel users which will be around for a long time to come.

The most urgent requirement however is for environmentalists to take a far more scientific evaluation of the pros and cons and take adverse environmental impact such as fertiliser use, deforestation, famine and the like into consideration. Failure to do so could not only harm the case for biofuel (which it does not deserve) but could potentialy create far greater problems for the planet than it solves.

The future needs biofuel and it needs clear, honest scientific appraisal at every stage of it's development and use.

Answer 8

yes

Answer 9

only if they are made from biomass otherwise we are just shifting the problem.