Upcoming Days Of Biofuels In A Global Perspective

Biofuels are various alternatives to large energy prices, including conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.

FREMONT, CA: Biofuels is one of many alternatives to large energy prices, including conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.

A New Age of High Oil Prices Attracts Investment in Biofuels

The climb in oil prices is the most important factor in increasing the competitiveness of alternative fuels, including biofuels. The unparalleled 6-year rise in oil prices has prolonged chances for efficiency gains, stimulated energy conservation, and produced an increased supply from conventional and alternative energy sources. While these adjustments may finally lower oil prices, most forecasts do not display real prices falling below $50 per barrel.

Previous periods of high oil prices were brief. Instead, prices tended to rise sharply, usually induced by military conflict, peaked in weeks or months, and then declined sharply. After these price spikes, the swift decline in petroleum prices made it hard to sustain alternative fuel programs and reduced consumers' incentive to curb their use of petroleum products.

Unlike former high-price periods, the present oil market is driven by strong demand-side factors. These factors comprise robust economic growth and increasing oil demand from rapidly increasing middle-income economies, where consumers demand a higher standard of living and exhibit big appetites for energy.

While biofuels share equivalent attributes with oil-based fuel, they are imperfect replacements. Nevertheless, Biofuels can be utilized in present gasoline and diesel engines in blends of around 10% in the case of ethanol and 20% for biodiesel with little or no engine modification. This correspondence contrasts with hydrogen fuel cell technology, requiring a radically different distribution system.

Still, ethanol has just two-thirds the energy potential of gasoline, and biodiesel has 90% of that of diesel. Thus, the greater the biofuel blend, a car will get fewer miles per gallon. Shipping ethanol is more expensive; low-cost pipelines cannot transport it due to possible contamination from ethanol's tendency to absorb water and dissolve impurities on the inside surfaces of multiproduct pipelines.

The Future Role of Biofuels Relies on Profitability and New Technologies.

Technological advances and efficiency gains—greater biomass return per acre and higher gallons of biofuel per ton of biomass—could consistently reduce biofuel production's economical cost and environmental impacts. Biofuel production will likely be most beneficial and eco-friendly in tropical areas where growing seasons are longer, per-acre biofuel yields are higher, and fuel and other input expenses are lower.

The future of global biofuels will rely on their profitability, which depends on several interrelated factors. Key to this will be larger oil prices: 6 years of steadily increasing oil prices had provided economic support for alternative fuels, unlike last periods when oil prices spiked and fell rapidly, undercutting the usefulness of nascent alternative fuel programs. Conversely, the sector's profitability has been negatively impacted by increasing feedstock prices, which account for a very big share of the biofuel cost of production.

Biofuels will be part of a portfolio of solutions to large oil prices involving conservation and other alternative fuels. However, the function of biofuels in worldwide fuel supplies is likely to stay modest because of their land intensity. In the U.S., substituting all current gasoline consumption with ethanol would need more land in corn production than in all agricultural production.

 Technology will be central to advancing the role of biofuels. If the energy of widely accessible cellulose materials could be economically harnessed worldwide, biofuel yields per acre could more than double, decreasing land requirements considerably.