An introduction to biofuels
Biofuels are as old as civilisation itself. Solid biofuels such as wood and charcoal have been used to create energy ever since man created fire and are still used today for cooking and heating in developing countries. Fossil fuels have also been used since ancient times in various forms on a small scale. However it wasn't until the mid 1800s that fossil fuels were first commercialised, providing huge amounts of energy at a low cost on a global scale. These fuels became fundamental in shaping the civilisation we live in today and continue to play a major role in our economy.
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Driven mainly by the need to reduce global greenhouse emissions as well as spikes in oil prices and the need for increasing energy security, much interest has focused on finding a sustainable and economically feasible source of biofuel.
Can biofuels really save the world?
To learn more about the impact a sustainable biofuel will have on our society, please visit this page:
Biofuels: What are they?
The key difference between biofuel and fossil fuel:
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Biofuel refers to any fuel that derives directly from a living organism that we humans can use as energy. These living organisms can fix recently released CO2 via photosynthesis. During photosynthesis CO2 is used in converting solar energy into chemical energy in the form of stored biomass or, in the case of some plants and algae, lipids. A range of useful fuel products can then be converted from the extracted lipids or directly from the biomass. Biofuels are a renewable source of energy because they are obtained from organic matter that is abundant and produced in short time frames.
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Fossil Fuels however, are formed over millions of years from the remains of plants and animals. These fossil fuels contain large amounts of carbon which are stored under the earth's surface. When burnt these fuels release the carbon, in the form of CO2, back into the atmosphere, resulting in a net increase of atmospheric CO2. The important difference between fossil fuels and biofuels is that fossil fuels are not renewable and do not have an unlimited supply. They are in imminent danger of running out and as supplies diminish, prices will rise.
Current biofuel usage and the biofuel debate:
In 2010 biofuels where estimated to account for 2.7% of the world's transportation fuel needs. To date these biofuels have come from terrestrial crops such as corn, sugarcane and soybeans. Like all new technologies, biofuels have their advantages and disadvantages.
One major problem highlighted with terrestrial crop biofuels is there primarily use as a valuable food commodity. Some commodities such as maize, sugar cane and vegetable oil can be used as either food, animal feed or to make biofuels. Global food prices increased dramatically from 2005 to 2008, with the price of maize almost tripling in value. This caused worldwide concern over global food securities, referred to by some as the 2007/2008 global food price crisis.
With the desire to decrease oil dependency, biofuel production also increased over this time and agricultural land formerly used to grow other crops was used to make biofuels. Many papers were published attributing the increase in food prices to the diversion of farmland or crops to biofuel production. This became known as the food vs. fuel dilemma and is still widely debated today.
To learn more about the Food vs. Fuel debate, please follow the link below:
In recent years, algae have become a focus in commercial biofuel research. Not only can these water plants thrive in areas not useful for agriculture, they are extremely versatile and can produce large amounts of biomass (and useful lipids) to be converted into a wide array of biofuels.
To learn more about the potential biofuels from algae could have in future fuel production, please follow this link: