Biofuels As Alternative Sources of Energy

by Darren

Biofuels are a popular topic when it comes to proponents of alternative energy. It’s easy to see why people would get excited about the prospects. Quite simply, biofuels are made from biomass, which is recently dead organic materials. Biomass contrasts from fossil fuels, in which energy is extracted from long dead material. Biofuel is any solid, liquid, or gas fuel that has been extracted from biomass. Since there’s so much biomass in the world already, finding a way to convert it into useful energy can reduce waste, as well as greenhouse gases.

Biofuel development has its’ share of critics

Biofuel development has come under fire for not being a realistic alternative for our nation’s huge energy needs. Since you have to grow crops like soybeans and corn, producing biofuel can be expensive and labor intensive. A sharp rise in the production of biofuel production could easily cause an increase in the cost of commodities. In fact, some experts believe the move to alternative energy such as biofuel may be one of the leading causes of the sharp commodity price increases we saw last year.

In August of 2008, UC Berkeley held a special conference called “The Future of Biofuels?” in which experts took a critical approach to examining the biofuel initiative.

The scientists looked at some of the most pressing concerns when it comes to developing biofuels as alternative sources of energy. The big problem is how using food crops for energy will affect the world’s food supply, which is already coming under heavy pressure as the population of the world grows mightily. A case in point is ethanol production.

“That imbalance between crops for food and crops for fuel stands to get even bigger, he predicted. Patzek said it would take food for 36 billion people – or six times the population of the Earth – to make enough ethanol to power the cars of every American.”

Cellulosic biofuel development shouldn’t disrupt food production

Of course, the production of “cellulosic biofuels” avoids this problem. Making alternative energy using cellulosic biofuels won’t affect food production because only the non-edible parts of plants, wood, and grass are used. This idea is appealing because it uses waste products to make usable energy. “Waste not want not,” would be the appropriate maxim. Since unwanted byproducts are being used, this area of development has a chance to catch on with a large segment of the population.

One thing is for certain. Right now there’s a ton of research going on in the field of using biofuels as alternative energy sources. High gas prices in the last few years worldwide have seemingly spooked consumers (and politicians) enough that an open dialog is occurring globally on the subject. But the main issues now center around the viability of any of the proposed schemes when it comes to replacing gasoline as the primary fuel for autos. There doesn’t appear to be any way the current methods of production can work, even in the case of cellulosic biofuels. The land use issues seem impossible to overcome.

Biofuel production needs to be scalable to be a true alternative energy source

Not only does it require a huge amount of land to produce fuel in this manner, it also takes a large amount of energy. Any time you’re using energy to make energy, you have to make sure the net energy left over is worth it. Not only that, but gas production is much cheaper. So far, consumers have shown no ability or desire to pay higher prices for fuel that might not be that much greener, and is certainly less efficient than what they’re already using.

Of course scientists understand these limitations, and are working on ways around them. Research is being conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, the Carnegie Institution at Stanford, and the University of California campuses at Davis and Berkeley, who have joined forces in a consortium effort to push past some of the current limitations. The researchers will focus its efforts on two types of plants that they deem best for biofuel production. These are woody trees such as poplar, and prairie grasses such as switchgrass and miscanthus.

Barack Obama expected to be a “green” President

Barack Obama is taking office shortly, and green tech industries are looking to him as a savior. There are a number of proposals and initiatives he will look at, including proposals for so-called “second generation” biofuels. These are biofuels made from municipal and farm waste (including corn stalks), or the specially grown nonfood crops (including switchgrass) that we’ve already mentioned.

The bigger question concerning Obama is, will he have the political will to push forward with alternative energy, especially since gas prices have dropped by 70% since their peak last year? History tells us that after the energy crisis of 1973-1974, American consumers were very interested in alternative energy. Within a decade, as fuel prices remained low, the average person lost their appetite for change. The same thing is clearly in danger of happening now. When traditional fuel production costs are low, investment in research of alternative energy tends to be low.

If Obama does push forward with massive government grants, and tax breaks for research, a golden era of biofuel development could quickly dawn. If that happens, we may all soon be driving vehicles fueled by energy derived from grass soon enough.