‘Biofuel’ is a renewable energy source derived from contemporary biologically-based materials, which can be utilized in the place of petroleum fossil fuels (Demirbas, 2009).
Why use biofuels: lessons from history and other reasons:
Biofuels have been used since humanity’s discovery of fire when wood was burnt for heating and cooking. Biofuels were then also employed when electricity was first discovered, before the properties of fossil fuels were fully explored; similarly, the first diesel engine, designed in the 19th century, was run on peanut oil. Fossil fuels did not gain in popularity until after 1926, when crude oil resources began to be more heavily explored, making them a significantly more efficient and cheaper transport energy source than biofuels (Pousa et al., 2007; Biofuel; 2010).
The demand for biofuels had increased in Europe during World War II due to the temporary fuel shortages which arose, but then fell again afterwards, owing to cheap oil influx from the Middle East and the Gulf countries. Nonetheless, the issue of energy insecurity was brought up again in the 1970s, when OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) made major reductions in oil exports to non-OPEC member countries after a geopolitical conflict. A similar crisis occurred in the 1990s. These experiences, as well as the increased environmental awareness and the realization of the finite nature of fossil fuel resources, contributed to the renewed increase in biofuel interest in the recent decades (Pousa et al., 2007; Biofuel, 2010).
Stakeholders, such as the European Commission (EC) (DFT, 2010) and the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) (Worldwatch Institute, 2009), now stress the importance of reducing humanity’s dependence upon fossil fuels and switching, at least partially, to renewable energy sources in order to 1) reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to help mitigate future global warming and 2) decrease dependence on the shrinking fossil fuel resources to ensure greater energy security (EC, 2006 and DFT, 2010). Biofuels are one source of renewable energy.
However, there has been a substantial amount of controversy surrounding biofuels (e.g. Guardian, 2011; Independent; 2011). This made me very intrigued to reason for myself whether biofuels are the way ahead, relating to helping mitigate the aforementioned issues of reducing the global GHG emissions and fossil fuel dependence, or the blind alley, creating more problems than they resolve.
References:
Biofuel (2010) Biofuels the Fuel of the Future: History of Biofuels, (http://biofuel.org.uk/history-of-biofuels.html; 12 October, 2011).
Demirbas, A. (2009) ‘Political, economic and environmental impacts of biofuels: a review’, Applied Energy, 86, 1, 1 – 10.
Department for Transport (DFT) (2010) Regional Emissions from Biofuel Cultivation Revised Report (http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/regional-emissions-from-biofuels-cultivation/cultivations.pdf; 11 October, 2011).
European Commission (EC) (2006) Biofuels in the European Union: a Vision for the 2030 and Beyond (http://ec.europa.eu/research/energy/pdf/draft_vision_report_en.pdf; 11 October, 2011).
Guardian (2011) Environment: Biofuels (http://www.guardian.co.uk/search?q=biofuels§ion=environment; 11 October, 2011).
Independent (2011) Biofuels (http://www.independent.co.uk/search/index.jsp?eceExpr=biofuels; 11 October 2011).
Pousa, G. P. A. G., A.L.F. Santos and P.A.Z. Suarez (2007) ‘History and policy of biodiesel in Brazil
Worldwatch Institute (2009), Worldwatch Issue Brief – U.S. Biofuels: Climate Change and Policies, Washington DC
Nice informative post. Rather than citing all refs at the end, use tags in the text to link to e.g. newspaper reports
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