Renewable Alternatives to Oil

I chose Cultivating Renewable Alternatives to Oil because we will see a lot of this in our future. Biofuel is solid, liquid, or gas consisting of derived biomass. Biomass used directly as a fuel is commonly called biomass fuel. Biofuel is considered an important means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing energy security by providing a viable alternative to fossil fuels. It might come down to using only biofuels someday. It will be interesting to learn more about this topic that I know nothing about.

Biofuels will be a major role in our energy future. How much will it do for us? It has the potential to satisfy much of the ever increasing global demand for transportation fuels in the coming decades. The most important factors that it depends on are price of oil, policy and investment decisions, improvements in agricultural productivity, and advances in conversion technology.

Humans have selectively bred plants for their food values. Auto manufacturer projects have advanced biodiesel fuels could represent 10 percent of the European diesel market by 2015. The biggest producers are Brazil. United States, Europe, and China. They plan to double their biofuels within the next 15 years (Castleman, 1).

Today energy infrastructure is vulnerable to a range of threats from severe weather events that disrupt oil production, refining, and disruption capacity to terrorist attacks. Much of the world is dependant on oil from unstable or hostile regions or reliant on countries that use their oil wealth as a political leverage. Small scale countries have an advantage to change the ways.

People have been able to breathe cleaner air, in large part, to Brazil’s ambitious ethanol program. People in rural areas have endured the rising environmental costs of a large and expanding ethanol industry. Brazil has developed ways to help the burning of cane fields blanketed local skies with huge clouds of black smoke, while polluted water dumped from ethanol distilleries has harmed rivers and their ecosystems.

Biofuels in low blends can emit greater amounts of nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbons and conventional fuels do. Higher blends of biofuels, fuel additives, and advanced combustion and emissions control technologies that are widely available in new vehicles today can mitigate or eliminate these problems. The air quality benefits or biofuels are greater in developing countries, where here vehicle emission standards are nonexistent or less stringent and where older, more polluting cars are more common (Harter, 1).

Crops can provide fuel that reduces soil erosion. It can improve air and water quality providing wildlife habitat. Biofuels can increase food prices, add to soil erosion, desertification, further pollute air and water, and destroy ecosystems. Soil fertility, equity of landownership, waste management and local economic development are being developed to indicate sustainability.

First generation biofuels refer to biofuels made from sugar, starch, vegetable oil, or animal fats using conventional technology. Vegetable oil used as a fuel is produced using the same methods as vegetable oil use for consumption. Vegetable oil can be used in many older diesel engines, but only in the warmest climates. Usually it is turned into biodiesel instead. Biodiesel is the most common biofuel in Europe. It can be used in any diesel engine and can be mixed with mineral diesel in any percentage. Many people have run thousands of mils on biodiesel without problems, and many studies have been made on 100% biodiesel. 5% biodiesel blend is widely used and is available at thousands of gas stations. More than 80% of all commercial trucks and city buses run on diesel gas (Warwick, 1). The U.S. market for biodiesel is growing at a staggering