BIOFUELS & CO-PRODUCTS
There are lots of “the sky is falling” estimates that within the next 40 years, the world will run out of fossil fuels, and so if we don’t come up fast with a cheap way to produce energy such as nuclear fusion, we all are toast.
However, even if chicken little proves to be partially correct, there are alternative solutions, one of those being biofuels and their co-products.
Biofuels are fuels created directly from energy crops such as corn or sugar cane, or wastewater sludge, livestock waste, and food waste.
Heating up the homes
The New York Times, in an article published over a decade ago, wrote about the Swedish town of Kristianstad, Sweden, population 80,000 who despite frigid temperatures for 4 months in the winter, uses no oil, natural gas or coal to heat homes and businesses in their town.
Instead, Kristianstad has a large treatment center where they take everything from potato peels (remember this the region where Absolut Vodka is produced, so there are a lot of potato peels ), wood pellets, wood waste, tree prunings, and factory scraps as fuel.
Biofuels and ethanol
Biofuels are not unfamiliar in the United States, wherein up to 10 percent of all gasoline purchased at the filling pump is actually ethanol. Ethanol is made of grains and crops that contain high starch and sugar content such as corn, sorghum, barley, and sugar beets.
In Brazil, the largest producer of ethanol in the world, up to 27 percent of gasoline is now ethanol, and Brazilian car markers have had great success with flex fuel vehicles capable of burning the higher percentage of ethanol.
The use of fuels made from crops is greatly dependent upon the supply of fossil fuel.
Where the supply of fossil fuel goes down and the prices rise, alternatives are sought.
Algae can be used for value
It is reported that the greatest advance in fuels made from waste may be in the arena of fuels produced from algae. There is no shortage of algae anywhere, and algae is generally considered a nuisance.
However, although the technology is fairly new, being able to produce fuel from algae offers great promise for many poorer countries that cannot afford to use expensive, crop based fuels.
Biodiesel produced from waste
Meanwhile, another popular alternative is diesel fuel made from waste. This diesel fuel, known as biodiesel, is produced from vegetable oils and fats.
The advantage of biodiesel is that biodiesel tends to burn significantly cleaner than its fossil fuel cousin.
And vegetable oils and fats, particularly when they are in short supply, are easily sourced. And although biodiesel cost significantly more to produce than its fossil fuel cousin, great advances are taking place in the biodiesel fuel industry.
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Read about more about wooden feedstocks or the conversion of biofuel.