Biofuel
Biofuel Land Calculator
The online interactive spreadsheet we've constructed, Land for Biofuel, calculates how much land and water a typical American suburb requires, then calculates how much land and water would be required to supply that city with biofuel for 100% of the automobiles in the city. The default case is for a city with 100,000 people, using corn ethanol that requires irrigation, but the viewer may enter their own assumptions in all of the yellow highlighted cells, and instantly view the the new results. All of the values in the yellow highlighted cells are based on yield and consumption data...
Biofuel's Potential
- Ed Ring
If the present is problematic, that doesn't mean the future has no potential. The difference between extracting 10,000 barrels per year from standard crops such as sugar cane in Brazil (or somewhat less than that from corn in America's midwest), and extracting 50,000 barrels per year per square mile from plant mass using cellulosic methods is the difference between developing a supplemental fuel of some economic value, and a scaleable, viable fuel alternative that could literally replace petroleum...
 Optimizing Biofuel:
Food or Fuel?
- Louis Strydom
What of the savanna in Africa, so vast and verdant its extent is almost incomprehensible to a Westerner - savanna that sweeps across a continent nearly as large as Asia, with only one billion people living there? Should they plant biofuel? Won't this encourage development and prosperity? As for food vs. fuel, if biofuel is truly profitable for a region, then these earnings presumably would invest in the prosperity of the region, in-turn generating increased local investment per capita in food supplies. Any long-term player in a subsidized market should carefully consider the future scenarios, and design sustainability into their business so it can survive subsidy free. Carbon-based payments from the global north should buy the rainforests to preserve them, not to chop them down for fuel...
Rainforests vs. Biofuel
- Ed Ring
When it comes to tropical rainforest and precious last wild habitat giving way to plantations of biofuel, our concern for what we consider to be a global catastrophe is well documented, in posts such as Deforestation Diesel, Brazilian vs. Californian Ethanol, Biofuel Monocultures, Biofueled Global Warming, Biofuel is NOT Carbon Neutral, Biofueled Deforestation, Ethanol & Water, Biofuel or Biohazard?, When Green is Brown, Is Biofuel Water Positive?, and many others. Check all our posts in the Biofuel category, or the posts in our Global Warming category. We haven't wavered.
Biofuel's Mixed Blessings
- Dr. Marianne Osterkorn
The financial gains from developing biofuels are attractive, since future high import demand is likely from mature economies in the European Union and Far East. But many of the environmental issues still need to be worked through. But there are other environmental benefits too. Where there is lots of arable land that is degraded, long-term biofuel crops can help to stabilise and improve it over time. Jatropha, the tree cultivated by biodiesel company D1 Oils in Southern Africa, can generate 2.5 tonnes of biofuel/hectare out of jatropha in comparison to, for instance, soya, which averages at 0.8 tonnes/hectare.
Is Biofuel Water Positive?
- Ed Ring
Without summer rains, the average acre of corn requires 1,680 tons of water per harvest cycle, which equates to 444,000 gallons of water for every 480 gallon yield of ethanol. Clearly, from this perspective, the 3-6 additional gallons of water required after harvest to refine each gallon of corn ethanol is not the critical factor - particularly when petroleum fuels also require water during their refining process. If it takes 925 gallons of irrigation water to grow corn for every gallon of ethanol that can be distilled from corn, how much energy would it take to desalinate seawater to irrigate that corn?
The Biofuel Bonanza
- Louis Strydom
Biofuel entrepreneur Louis Strydom reports from the Biofuels Finance & Investment World conference which was held in late 2006 in London, U.K. He brings some sobering macroscopic updates to our ongoing coverage of the biofuel phenomenon. One message coming from the Terrapinn conference was that the global biofuel industry is utterly dependent on government subsidies. Another was mention of the need for criteria for biofuel certification - criteria that must reach beyond the consumer and the refinery to the actual source of the feedstock...
Brazilian vs. Californian Ethanol
- Ed Ring
One of the more interesting propositions to face California's voters in November 2006 was Proposition 87, which would tax in-state oil producers to fund alternative energy projects. Proponents of this bill air a television commercial, narrated by Bill Clinton, where the Brazilian ethanol industry is referenced. The closing message is "If Brazil can do it, so can California."...
 Factory Farmed Biofuel
- Ramesh Suri
Planted in the wrong places, biofuel crops crowd out food production and drive up food prices, and encourage new rounds of deforestation in regions where deforestation is already out of control. But now we have a new concept - factory produced biofuel. In the following assessment of biofuel produced in a "bioreactor" from algae, the pitfalls of producing biofuel from algae ponds is recognized, and then the author explains the potential to produce biofuel within illuminated, enclosed containers, infused with carbon dioxide. It is possible this process will become economically viable, and result in a far higher contribution from biofuel to the ever increasing fuel requirements of civilization...
Biofuel From Algae & CO2
- Ed Ring
If you believe too much CO2 is going to cause catastrophic climate change, then you'll love this - we can use CO2 to increase the rate of plant growth; biofuel plants in particular. How this will work in practice isn't exactly clear. As we have noted, it will be a tragedy if we scrub CO2 out of our industrial emissions to stop possible global warming, while leaving unacceptable amounts of other airborne pollutants lower on the priority list. If you're going to regulate CO2, while you're at it, at least make sure you eliminate the carbon monoxide, lead, ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and sulpher dioxide, because we know they're bad...
 Bioethanol vs. Biodiesel
- Louis Strydom
In this cautionary, comprehensive assessment of biofuels, it is clear that in proper conditions they are economically viable today, and that worldwide biofuel production is poised to make a quantum leap. But when comparing the principal biodiesel crops, bioethanol versus biodiesel, the result is inconclusive. Complicating any attempt to assess the potential of biofuels are claims that "secondary treatment of cellulosic waste" can yield quantities of bioethanol equal or greater than the initial extraction of ethanol or diesel. But in most cases, this secondary extraction of ethanol from cellulose is not yet a cost-effective process...
 Ethanol in Africa
- Marianne Osterkorn
World biofuel production in 2004, which is the last year for which figures are readily available, totalled about 130 million barrels, with 95% of this total coming from bio-ethanol. Despite the fact that world biofuel production today is equivalent to only 4/10ths of one percent of the total petroleum-based fuel production, there are regions throughout the world where biofuel is an economically viable enterprise. Both on a subsistence level, allowing farmers or villages to achieve energy independence, and on a vast commercial scale, biofuel crops are being rapidly developed all over the world. Using sugar cane and cassava, the bio-ethanol industry developed so successfully by Brazil is now being emulated by the Nigerians...
 Growing Biofuel
- Louis Strydom
Growing biofuel, whether it's biodiesel or bioethanol, whether it's jatropha or sugar cane, is not easy. Like many clean technologies, biofuel production is a undeveloped, knowledge-intensive enterprise in an emerging industry. There are no guarantees of success. This article by biodiesel entrepreneur Louis Strydom, who is endeavoring to establish a biodiesel plantation and refinery on a massive scale in Kenya, serves as a sobering reminder of how many factors have to be aligned before commercial production of biodiesel fuel moves from dream to reality. Ultimately, biodiesel plantations have to be profitable, and the requirements for success are myriad...
 India's Biodiesel Scene
- Satish Lele
Biofuel crops are usually grown either to make bio-diesel, a fuel for high-compression diesel engines, that is refined from the vegetable fats in a crop, or ethanol, a fuel for engines with spark-plugs, which is distilled from a crop that is fermented. It is amazing how many companies have gotten involved and how quickly a global biofuel economy is developing. Undoubtedly more people learning how to profitably grow these exciting crops will do much to alleviate fuel shortages and spread prosperity throughout the world...
 Alternative Fuel That's Already Here
- Jeff Schafer
If biofuel crops yielding 1,000 barrels of oil per year per square mile were grown on every available scrap of farmland on earth, we would only replace 20% of the energy we're currently getting from crude oil. But this doesn't mean we should stop developing biofuels. Much biofuel is grown on land that is too marginal to support food crops. Moreover, biodiesel and bioethanol, both refined from biomass, are renewable, clean-burning fuels; biodiesel fuel has lubricity that actually extends the life of diesel engines. And unlike hydrogen, biofuels can be stored and distributed using existing infrastructure...
 Jatropha in Africa
- Keith Parsons
The African continent, which at 29 million square kilometers in size is nearly as large as Asia, is relatively sparsely populated by comparison. It is also a continent of spectacular natural wealth, having vast reserves of land with climates ideal for growing Jatropha. Over half of the land in Africa is considered suitable for Jatropha cultivation. If only 2% of that land was used to cultivate Jatropha, it would yield as much oil per year as U.S. oil companies expect - best case - to remove per year from Alaska's north slope over the next 20 years. And after 20 years, these fields of Jatropha would still be producing oil, whereas the Alaskan oil fields would be dry...
 Europe Adopts Jatropha
- Candida Jones
Jatropha is an example of a plant that could be grown even if it didn't yield biofuel. It is useful for restoring soil, combatting desertification, and providing fertilizer. It requires minimal inputs of water and grows in extremely poor soil. Any plant that is a cash crop anyway and costs almost nothing to grow can't be a bad candidate for an economically viable biofuel. Distilleries for biofuel exist throughout the world; biofuel is a form of solar energy harvested from the land, and wherever land and water are abundant, biofuel is cheap and the flow never wanes...
 India Gives Biofuels a Chance
- Brook & Gaurav Bhagat
Critics of biofuel point out the energy and water necessary to produce the feedstock often can exceed the energy value of the fuel produced. But these studies usually ignore the value of the plant mass as animal feed or fertilizer, once the fuel has been extracted. Another concern is the tradeoff between using land to grow food and using land to grow fuel. But what if a plant used to extract biofuel grew on land that was unable to support crops? What if this plant required minimal water and fertilizer inputs? Jatropha, also known as Physic Nut, is a plant which may hold such promise. Able to tolerate arid climates, rapidly growing, useful for a variety of products, Jatropha can yield up to two tons of biodiesel fuel per year per hectare...
|
Be an EcoWorld
Hybrid Car
GreenBuzz Newsletter