Is biofuel good energy?
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Introduction
Biofuels are renewable energy sources, which means they’re made from plants and other organic material. They can be made from plants that have already been grown, crops that would otherwise be used for food, or even algae! Biofuels can be burned to produce heat or electricity like fossil fuels such as coal and oil. The production of biofuel uses a lot of resources – so what are the pros and cons?
What is biofuel?
Biofuel is a fuel that’s produced from organic matter. Biofuel can be made from biomass, which is the organic matter found in plants.
Biofuels are renewable sources of energy that can be used as an alternative to fossil fuels. They’re made from biomass, which is the organic material found in living things (like trees). Biofuel comes from living or recently living organisms—like corn husks, wood chips or algae—and doesn’t release greenhouse gases when burned.
How to produce biofuel?
You might be wondering how biofuel is made. The process of producing biofuel is similar to the production of normal fuel, except that it’s made from renewable resources. The production of biofuel, however, can be complicated and expensive because it requires a lot of time, money and effort to make sure all the ingredients are properly mixed together.
To create biofuels like ethanol or biodiesel from plants such as corn or soybeans will require some kind of chemical reaction between glucose in these plants and water (or sometimes another solvent) which produces a mixture that contains carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen gas (H2). This mixture can then be processed into ethanol (ethyl alcohol), biodiesel (a diesel-like fuel), or other forms of energy like methane gas or methanol which is used to run internal combustion engines in automobiles
Pros of using biofuel:
- Biofuel is renewable and sustainable.
- Biofuel can be produced in many ways, including crop cultivation, wastewater treatment and animal fats.
- Because biofuels are derived from plants, they burn cleaner than gasoline. This means that less pollution can be produced when using biofuels compared to using traditional fossil fuels like oil or natural gas for transportation.
- Because plants use CO2 as they grow, burning them returns the carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere where it was originally taken from (and then released). The process of photosynthesis turns carbon dioxide into oxygen during the day while releasing energy; however at night this process reverses itself creating CO2 again. The net effect is zero emissions overall since there’s still just as much CO2 left in our atmosphere when you’re done burning up your plant-based fuel as when you started!
Subsection: Biofuels are better for the environment.
It’s pretty easy to see why biofuels are good for the environment. Unlike fossil fuels, which release carbon dioxide when burned, biofuels are carbon neutral: They release no more CO2 than the plants used to create them absorbed from the atmosphere during their lifetime. The only way biofuels could be bad for the environment is if they were grown on land that might otherwise have been used for food production or if they were cultivated by clear-cutting rain forest—but since we don’t want to destroy rainforest anyway, this doesn’t happen much.
Because they don’t pollute air and water with greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane (and particulate matter), biofuels also help reduce acid rain and smog as well as global warming. That said, while burning any fuel releases some pollutants into the atmosphere—like sulfur dioxide—that’s not all there is to consider when talking about pollution in terms of sustainability or sustainability goals such as reducing our reliance on foreign fuel sources or lowering carbon emissions from transportation vehicles (i.e., cars). Check out our blog post about sustainable energy sources if you’re interested in learning more about those topics!
Subsection: Biofuels can be produced in various ways.
There are several ways to produce biofuels. Large-scale production is done by collecting waste products, such as palm oil waste, and processing them into fuel. Small-scale production can be done by growing plants on land that has already been cleared for crops or other purposes. A number of companies have started using discarded food items as a source for biofuel production, which can help reduce the amount of food waste in landfills.
Subsection: Biofuels are made from renewable resources.
Biofuels are made from renewable resources, so they’re regarded as a cleaner energy source. Examples of biofuel sources include crops, trees and grasses.
Crops such as corn, sugarcane and soybeans have been used for decades to make ethanol—a biofuel derived from plant sugars that can be used as a substitute for gasoline in vehicles’ engines. In recent years, algae has become an increasingly promising source of fuel because it grows quickly and doesn’t require fresh water like crops do (algae is also an excellent food source). Trees used in the production of wood pellets or liquid fuels may include pine forests in the Southeastern United States; palm oil plantations in Indonesia; or forests on carbon-rich peat lands—an area found beneath the surface of swamps where plants grow slowly due to poor drainage conditions—in Indonesia’s Borneo Island or Malaysia’s Sarawak state (PDF). Grasses such as switchgrass are grown specifically for their potential use as a type of biofuel called cellulosic ethanol; this plant grows quickly and produces large amounts of biomass per acre compared with other types such as corn stalks or wheat straws
Subsection: Biofuels burn cleaner than gasoline and diesel.
Since biofuel is made from renewable resources, it’s a cleaner energy source. When you burn biofuel, carbon dioxide and water are released into the atmosphere instead of carbon monoxide, which can cause respiratory problems. The production of biodiesel also produces fewer greenhouse gases than traditional oil-based products like gasoline or diesel.
The downside to this fuel is that it costs more per gallon than traditional fuels do—but if you care about environmental impact and don’t mind paying extra for your gas and diesel, then biofuels are worth considering.
Cons of using biofuel:
The production of biofuel is a very expensive process. For example, corn must be grown on large-scale farms and then processed into ethanol by using an energy-intensive process. The resulting product is also relatively costly, which makes it more difficult for us to compete with petroleum-based fuels in the marketplace.
In addition to these economic factors, there are environmental concerns about the use of crops for fuel production. It takes an enormous amount of land (and therefore food) to produce enough crops to meet our growing demand for biofuel and this has led some experts to suggest that our current methods are unsustainable long term.
Subsection: Food vs fuel debate.
There’s a debate in the media about whether we should be using land to grow crops for biofuel production. This is known as the food vs fuel debate, and it’s a question that can only be answered with facts.
Here are some of the facts about this debate:
- Biofuel producers use somewhere between 4% and 7% of global arable land to produce biofuels today. That means if you look at all of the world’s arable land (the amount of land that could be used for growing crops), anywhere from 0.5% to 1% of it is being used by biofuel producers today. This number will increase over time as more people purchase cars powered by ethanol or biodiesel instead of gasoline, but even then it will still only occupy a small percentage of total global arable land available for food production.
- Food production currently uses somewhere between 33% and 40% percent of global arable land available – meaning food takes up 4 times as much space than what biofuel producers occupy now! And this doesn’t include pastures either; if you include pastureland into your calculations then roughly 60-70% percent (or 3-4 times) more space is needed for livestock than what currently goes toward producing biofuels worldwide.”
Subsection: Expensive production process.
The production of biofuels is a very expensive process. It can take up to three times as much land, water and energy, compared with producing oil and gas. Producing biofuels also results in more carbon emissions than conventional fuels (although this is less of an issue if the crops are grown on land that wouldn’t be used for food crops).
Although not all biofuel production methods have negative environmental impacts, some do. For example, growing palm oil to make biodiesel has been linked to deforestation and damage to wildlife habitats in South East Asia; while growing maize or sugar cane to produce ethanol causes soil erosion due to intensive farming practices and releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through its burning process.
Should we use biofuel as an energy source?
Biofuel is a good source of energy. It can be produced in many ways, including fermentation and combustion. Biofuel is renewable and can be used as an alternative to fossil fuels that pollute the environment. However, biofuel production has resulted in land use conflicts between industry, agriculture and food production.
Biofuels are a green and sustainable energy source, however, it also has some drawbacks which we need to address.
Biofuels are a green and sustainable energy source, however, it also has some drawbacks which we need to address. Biofuels can be produced from renewable resources like biomass, waste and microalgae. They can be produced in various ways, including fermentation (for example corn), synthesis gas conversion (GTL) and pyrolysis. In the end they burn cleaner than gasoline or diesel because they have lower carbon emissions and more oxygen in their chemical composition compared with more traditional fossil fuels.
Conclusion
In this article, we looked at the pros and cons of using biofuels as an energy source. We learned how they work, how to produce them and what the benefits are. But there are also some drawbacks which need to be addressed before we can fully adopt this technology as a solution for our future needs.
