The Biochar Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Biofuel’

Biofuels have become talk of the town these days. These are obtained from biomass and utilize many renewable energy sources. These fuels also use plant matter as the raw material. Solid biomass is known to be the most common types of bio-fuels. The consistent rise in the price of fossil fuel has affected the world economy. The introduction of biofuels has come as a rescue to this problem. In fact, these have acted as a complete replacement for most of our energy requirements. However, prior to completely trusting this renewable energy source, it is important to know about the pros and cons of using biofuels. Stated below are some of the significant biofuels pros and cons.

Biofuels Pros and Cons:

The most obvious pros of using biofuel is the independence it allows from oil that can be bought from outside the United States. The best part is that the emissions coming from direct usage in automobiles is far lesser as compared to those from conventional fuels such as gasoline.

Other benefits:

Biofuels are extracted from the plant oils or animals. This facilitates recycling. This in turn, turns the trash into something resourceful.
Biofuels are cost-effective. In fact, these are considered to be the only fuel available at affordable price.
The best thing about biofuel is that they are safer and can be easily transported from one place to another sans posing any potential risk on the health of consumers.
When using biofuel, there is no peculiar gasoline stench. It is also sulfur-free. Additionally, it aids in eliminating acid rain.
Bio fuel can be used by all vehicle engine types.

Cons of using biofuels:

The traditional petroleum products produce more energy than biofuel. This may result in power loss in engines.
It is true that biofuel can function with most engines but there are just a few specifically designed for this type of fuel.

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As people are waiting for “them” to make biofuel available as a source of energy there are many of us who have been using forest biofuel to heat our homes for generations. This biofuel is sold on the free market without government subsidies or a need for more research and development.

Wood can be made into many biofuel products like methane, alcohol, or diesel and it can be burned directly to power electric generators to produce electricity. All of these are expensive and energy intensive. After refining wood into these biofuels the cost and energy used has not made wood biofuel a viable source of energy. The exception to that is burning wood to generate electricity which has experienced some commercial success.

What people often overlook is a form of wood biofuel that requires very little or no processing and that is wood as a heating fuel. While people are waiting for biofuel they are still using fossil fuels to heat their homes when they could switch today to an economically proven biofuel heat source which is to burn wood.

Since there is little or no processing required, direct heating with wood is more efficient than turning wood into another fuel such as diesel or electricity. The raw material is directly converted to the desired product which is heat.

The most basic form of wood biofuel is simple firewood for wood stoves and fireplaces. This is a very desirable form of energy for many homes but it’s not for everyone. Burning firewood does have some disadvantages such as wood handling, it can be messy and can produce smoke. Although modern wood stoves have come a long way in reducing emissions and efficiency. Modern wood stoves can burn with no visible smoke. Burning firewood is not as convenient as other heat sources since you have to continually feed fuel into the fire.

The alternative to fireplaces and firewood stoves is wood pellet stoves. Wood pellets require more processing but pellet stoves are more efficient than firewood stoves so it makes up for the difference. A pellet stove combines the use of renewable biofuel with the convenience of traditional electric, gas or oil heating systems.

Pellet stoves have automatic fuel feeding systems and are thermostatically controlled. Wood pellets are available today and have been proven as a heat source that is competitive and can even cost less than fossil fuels.

Both firewood and wood pellets are available as a practical source of forest biofuel that you can start using today. Which one you choose depends on your situation and preferences.

Learn more about wood pellets and learn more about firewood as biofuels.

Copyright (c) 2010 Alison Withers

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation food and bioenergy crops are now competing for land, water and other resources in many parts of the world.

The FAO argues that the rising price of basic foods in 2007 – 08 that generated food scarcity worries and import restrictions in some countries wasn’t caused only by poor harvests in major producing countries and high oil and energy prices raising the cost of inputs like fertilizers and irrigation as well as the transport costs of inputs and food.

The speculation on the commodity markets was also partly driven by the rising demand for liquid biofuel, it says.

The environmental argument for using bio-diesel made from oilseed rape, or bio-ethanol, manufactured from wheat, maize or sugar, is the significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions over the full cycle of production and use compared with fossil fuels.

Not surprisingly the prospect of a smaller carbon footprint and greater energy security has encouraged Governments around the world to offer tax breaks to encourage use of biofuels and to set targets for the inclusion of biofuels in transport and other fuels.

When there was an over-supply of commodities like food it was fine, but not once it was clear that global population growth and diet change were together generating increased demand for food while climate change with its associated droughts and storms seemed to be limiting the world’s productive capacity.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), confusingly, takes the view that the increase in biofuels production has NOT been the dominant driver of food price inflationfor certain crops and certain countries.

It cites long-term factors – like the failure to accord the importance it deserved to the agricultural sector during the last decades, plus distorted agricultural markets and the dismantling of policies supporting domestic markets in developing countries – as being far more accountable for the present food crisis than biofuels.

It argues that where biofuels have had an impact, the relationship between biofuels and food price spikes should be interpreted more as a policy failure than as an intrinsic and unavoidable consequence of the production of biofuels. Nevertheless plainly bioenergy can provide opportunities to increase rural incomes and employment.

But while rising commodity prices imply potential greater profits from switching land to crops for biofuels they also arguably lead to the destruction of vast areas of rainforest, as trees are felled to make way for palm oil plantations in countries like Brazil and Malaysia, and to the threat of creating “a monocultural desert, devoid of biodiversity, across vast swathes of the British countryside”.

According to Andre Croppenstedt, an economist with the Agricultural Development Economics Division of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, biofuel production need not compete with food production if biofuel demand generates increased incomes for farm households and this in turn is invested in raising productivity of all farm activities, including food production.

UNCTAD also argues that what’s needed in the longer term is support for investment efforts aimed at enhancing the agricultural productivity of developing countries, particularly of small farmers, and making sure that these investments increase farmers’ ability “to capture a larger share of the growing agricultural revenues”

Whatever the pros and cons of the arguments there is a finite amount of available crop-producing land,

So there needs to be greater investment in the resources and support farmers need to improve their land’s yield while farming sustainably.

One way of doing that would be to support the efforts of biopesticide developers with globally agreed and quicker regulation of their new generation low-chem agricultural products and with Government investment towards the costs of developing more environmentally friendly crop protection and yield enhancing products.

Even if such higher yielding methods come to market, however, land availability still sets limits to how much cna be produced.

Investment should therefore be also coupled with promoting the development of second-generation biofuels – based on converting cellulose resources such as grass and fast-growing trees into fuels – to help to limit the direct competition between food and fuel associated with most first-generation biofuels.

The EC Climate Change Initiative accepted that second generation biofuels produced from materials like straw and forestry residues could enable far greater reductions in Greenhouse gases.

It also advocates selecting an overall production chain that can use a high yielding biomass crop to improve land use efficiency.

For instance most oils seed crops only produce a few tonnes per hectare per annum, sugar and starch crops may generate 5 to 10 tonnes, while significantly greater yields come from woody plants – or from conventional crops like cereals if the straw can be used.

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What the oil companies don’t want you to know. Were you aware that bio diesel, electric and HHO  technology is not as difficult or expensive as we have been led to believe? If you are reading this article, it is because you are searching for a way to help the environment and lower your auto fuel cost. There is a myth that people aren’t going to rush out and buy eco-friendly fuel efficient cars because of the price. I know there are other reasons  consumers aren’t buying the so-called cars of the future. I think a major drawback is the power we have to give up to save the planet. We love to accelerate. Of course the oil companies know all these things, and that is why most of the car companies, the American one’s in particular, still doesn’t offer a reliable, powerful, and fuel efficient line of automobiles. There is a reason why even imports, with all the talk of being so advanced in hybrid technology, don’t offer anything that gets more than forty MPG. They should be selling cars that get twice that MPG. The technology exits, and it is no where near as expensive as everyone leads us to believe. I have the proof, and I can show you how easy it is to convert your current auto or truck to be environmentally safe and unbelievably fuel efficient. I will give you the facts on three of the most well known conversions, and a source to find out more if you’re interested.
We will begin with biofuels.  

There is a major difference between biofuels and biodiesel .The main difference is that biodiesel with little or no modification needed, can only be used in diesel engines. It is made from soybeans and can be used in its pure form, but it is usually mixed with standard diesel fuel. They do have a few very important aspects that are alike however. Biofuels, such as ethanol are made from corn and other crops. Like biodiesel, biofuels are not only stemming the tide of global warming but helping  support American agriculture. You can’t just dump a few gallons of vegetable oil in your tank however. You will ruin your engine. The conversion is grassroots technology, and for the most part a do it yourself process. Although the government seems to be behind it in theory, I wouldn’t go changing over until you investigate it thoroughly. If you are interested in learning more about homemade biodiesel however, there is a source.

Electric cars. Wow, how about that Tesla Motors. If you haven’t yet seen what their coming out with next year, it is amazing. The Model S is Beautiful, 250-300 mile range, and 0-60mph in less than six seconds. I think that most of us don’t have the $50k asking price however. Most of the manufacturers of electric cars just don’t get it. They expect that to save the planet we will put up with 50 mile range before having to recharge, and a  speed of 60mph. Well, there are some do it yourselfers’  that claim their conversion will give you 100 mile range, and it only cost a few hundred dollars. I think that if you are someone that does not drive on the highways often, an electric car might be perfect. In addition the government will give you a tax credit for driving a clean fuel vehicle.

Although hydrogen cells are what most experts claim to be the fuel of the future, I have found a grassroots movement that uses
water as fuel today. You will still  have to take the occasional trip to the gas pump, because water is supplemental to your gas or diesel fuel, and 100% water cars are still on the drawing board. Moreover,  extracting energy from water to double or triple your fuel economy is VERY EASY. This is not new technology. People have been using water to gas converters in vehicles for  years.  This is proven technology. Using a simple device, you can use the electricity from your battery to separate water (H2O) into a gas known as HHO.  HHO is two parts’ Hydrogen and one part Oxygen. HHO is a supercharged gas that burns effectively and produces significant energy, greatly improving your fuel economy.  Incredibly, the waste product is water! The green car of the future just might be sitting in your driveway. Because the hydrogen is produced On-Demand, this technology is perfectly safe for you and your passengers. Imagine going from 20-25 mpg,  to 50-60 mpg or more,  and at the same time reducing your carbon foot print.

Well these are the options you have if you’re not thinking of buying an electric or hybrid in the near  future. Obviously, I couldn’t go into great detail in this article, but if I have piqued your interest, you can get all the facts at:  
My RecomMANNdations

You can also find sources to cheap new and used auction bargains, and companies that will give you a new car free or pay you to drive your own vehicle.

As reserves of crude oil constantly decrease and new oil sources are increasingly difficult to exploit the development of alternatives becomes more and more interesting. In the long term, the only option is the use of energy from renewable resources. The most important of these are electricity from sun, water or wind and biofuel from regrowable plants. Biofuel is used as a substitute for conventional gasoline in combustion engines. There are two types of biofuel: bioethanol and biodiesel. Bioethanol is identical to the alcohol that is used in alcoholic beverages. It is mostly produced from sugar cane, but also other plants such as potato or maize can be used. In Brazil, ethanol is used as a major fuel for cars. Conventional gasoline is substituted with ethanol to 25% and many flexible-fuel vehicles even allow the use of pure ethanol as fuel. Recently, bioethanol has been implicated in being the causative agent of drastically increasing prices for food in developing countries. This has raised debate over whether one should make fuel rather than enable the poor to feed themselves. In contrast to bioethanol, which is derived from carbohydrates, biodiesel is produced from various vegetable oils. Therefore, other plants are employed for the production of biodiesel. In Europe, mostly rapeseed oil is used, although rape is not a very efficient source for oil. Some more efficient sources are e.g. oil palms and jatropha. Oil palms are cultivated in tropical countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. They give a much higher oil yield per acreage than e.g. rape. Unfortunately the growing demand for palm oil is leading to massive and irrevocable destruction of tropical rain forest. It is important to note that during the production of one liter of palm oil biofuel releases more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere than by burning the equivalent amount of conventional fuel. The jatropha plant seems to be an interesting alternative, since it grows in semi-deserts, but still produces nuts with very high oil content.

Alternative Energy sources such as Biofuel, Biodiesel, and Green Oil are rapidly becoming big business as ethical investments become lucrative.

We are using more fossil fuel oil than we are finding. Though experts disagree about the time scale, most agree that the rate at which we are consuming traditional oil is now greater than the rate at which new reserves are being found, we have already entered the depletion phase and are on a downhill slope of terminal decline. In short, crude oil is running out.

What are our alternatives?

Biofuels.  Thanks to the Gulf of Mexico fiasco, many people are totally reconsidering the use of fossil fuels for energy and are opting for a cleaner, less harmfull alternative fuel like Jatropha or Millettia biofuels but what are they?

Jatropha and Millettia what?

Jatropha and Millettia are two hardy plants that can grow in harsh desert conditions, needing little water and care. Biofuels from Jatropha or Millettia are formed by crushing the seeds of the plant and extracting the oil.  The waste is biodegradable and can be used for farming.

What makes them so good?

Bio fuels are better for the planet and humanity for a variety of reasons:

Can be made in a matter of days as opposed to fossil fuels which take millions of years to build
Are safer compared to fossil fuels which produce pollution and harm emissions
Unlike fossil fuels, are a renewable source of energy which means that they can continually produce more energy

Both the Jatropha and the Millettia plant take about 3-4 years until they produce a significant amount of seeds to turn into “green oil”.  Once the plants are established however, it can live up to 20 years or more.
No machines are needed to take care of the plants or to harvest.
It is a renewable source of energy, producing year after year.
Nitrogen rich fetiliser, medicines and rubber can be made from the waste produce.

Why should we invest in this?

Fossil fuels will only go up in prices and are harmful to the environment so we need to take a stand and start investing in this new emerging technology.  World economy needs to start investing in the future of the planet and the human race.

For free information on how to make money and save the planet please visit

http://www.biofuelinvestments.net

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Sustainable energy has been one of the main preoccupations worldwide. Leaders of industrialized nations, environmentalists as well as leaders of developing nations have seen in biofuel production a way out to several problems and a horizon of hope, as biofuel has also opened up a number of possibilities to help poor people in the developing countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa who are mostly based on rural settings.

            Firstly this production can promote an investment in agriculture creating a large number of jobs, raising the level of life quality in those poor areas. Secondly, it will also bring to rural areas some technological devices that will improve many lives. A good example is ethanol in Brazil which has a promise to create 12 millions of jobs by 2030. Furthermore, the production of ethanol is a hope of recovery after economic crises which have taken millions of workers to lose their jobs.

            On the other side are those skeptical who criticizes ethanol defending that poor people from developing countries need to grow food, not another cash crop to be exported to industrialized countries. For those ones, the biofuel would worsen poor people’s lives.

            Thus, in Africa some excitement about ethanol production as a new path to development has led African leaders to embrace this idea and biofuel/ethanol has been already largely produced in the continent. Considering this sustainable energy revolution, the main goal of this essay is to examine the constraints for African women farmers of ethanol production in Africa because any proposal of development that does not include women is already a failed attempt.

(Read more ….)

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The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted key oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future global oil production. The Bush administration’s actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves have the potential to throw governments’ long-term planning into chaos.

Whatever the reality, rising long term global demands seem certain to outstrip production in the next decade, especially given the high and rising costs of developing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan’s offshore Kashagan and Brazil’s southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a scenario, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this technology to the forefront, one of the richest potential production areas has been totally overlooked by investors up to now – Central Asia. Formerly the USSR’s cotton “plantation,” the region is poised to become a major player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured largely from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is primarily distilled from corn, Central Asia’s ace resource is an indigenous plant, Camelina sativa.

Of the former Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have seen their economies boom because of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising producer of natural gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and relatively scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have largely inhibited their ability to cash in on rising global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their heightened need to generate winter electricity has led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn severely impacting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era legacy of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan’s and Turkmenistan case was largely directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev’s “Virgin Lands” programs, has become a major producer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian government officials, given the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser extent Astana for those hardy investors willing to bet on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the region has already proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American companies already investigating how to produce it in commercial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian carrier to experiment with flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month evaluation of camelina’s operational performance capability and potential commercial viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend it. It has a high oil content low in saturated fat. In contrast to Central Asia’s thirsty “king cotton,” camelina is drought-resistant and immune to spring freezing, requires less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be used as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of particular interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia’s major wheat exporter. Another bonus of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown with camelina can produce up to 100 gallons of oil and when planted in rotation with wheat, camelina can increase wheat production by 15 percent. A ton (1000 kg) of camelina will contain 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant’s debris can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly fine livestock feed candidate that is just now gaining recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes well against weeds when an even crop is established. According to Britain’s Bangor University’s Centre for Alternative Land Use, “Camelina could be an ideal low-input crop suitable for bio-diesel production, due to its lower requirements for nitrogen fertilizer than oilseed rape.”

Camelina, a branch of the mustard family, is indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence indicates it has been cultivated in Europe for at least three millennia to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a wide range of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been determined to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds’ small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can create problems in germination to achieve an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina’s potential could allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the country’s attempts at agrarian reform since achieving independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow’s growing textile industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also ordered by Moscow to sow cotton, Uzbekistan in particular was singled out to produce “white gold.”

By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had become self-sufficient in cotton; five decades later it had become a major exporter of cotton, producing more than one-fifth of the world’s production, concentrated in Uzbekistan, which produced 70 percent of the Soviet Union’s output.

Try as it might to diversify, in the absence of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons annually, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the country’s hard currency income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government’s directives for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the region’s scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet planners to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region’s two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the dramatic shrinkage of the rivers’ final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world’s fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century’s worst ecological disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina’s business model to Capital Press as: “At 1,400 pounds per acre at 16 cents a pound, camelina would bring in $224 per acre; 28-bushel white wheat at $8.23 per bushel would garner $230.”

Central Asia has the land, the farms, the irrigation infrastructure and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe – all that’s missing is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the cash and access to the expertise of America’s land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel’s market share will grow over time; less certain is who will reap the benefits of establishing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.

If the recent past is anything to go by it is unlikely to be American and European investors, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American investors have the academic expertise, if they are willing to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that lessens water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will receive most careful consideration from Central Asia’s governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not only much cheaper than pipelines, they can be built more quickly.

And jatropha’s biofuel potential? Another story for another time.