Biofuels

1. Importance and Effectiveness Biofuels

2. Biomass • Plant material and animal waste used as energy • solid, liquid or gaseous fuel • Purposes: heating, cooking, drive turbines, produce electricity • Produce fuel by planting, harvesting and burning large numbers of: • Trees (cottonwood, sycamore, willow) • Shrubs • Perennial grasses (switch grass) • Water hyacinths- aquatic plant

3. Useful Fuels • Liquid methanol • Produced synthetically through coal gas and steam • Used to make products such as • Plastics, paints, explosives • CFC in aerosol sprays • Used as a solvent • Antifreeze

4. Useful Fuels cont. • Liquid Ethanol • Primarily comes from distilled corn stalks • Also from: forestry residues and energy crops (switch grass) • Used for fueling cars • Clean renewable fuel • High-octane fuel

5. Useful Fuels cont. • Bagasse • Material left after sugar syrup (sugar cane) is extracted • Used as a renewable resource in manufacture of pulp and paper products • Mass production in Brazil • Used to fuel sugar mills

6. Useful Fuels cont. • Jatropha • 4 foot woody shrub with fruit that contains and oil that can produce biodiesel • Low maintenance shrub, 50 year lifespan • What is “biodiesel” • Fuel made primarily from oily plants • Used in diesel engines and usually mixed with petroleum

7. Costs of Biofuels • Biofuels are relatively cheap, however they are also not readily available • Ex.: In 2005 oil prices in the U.S. jumped to above $60 a gallon, where ethanol cost ¢51 a gallon. • Not just costly money-wise • 81 million tons of U.S. corn harvest produced 8.3 billion gallons of ethanol which only supplied less than 4% of automotive fuel (2007) • China converted 4 million tons of grain (corn) into ethanol in 2006

8. More Info… • U.S. and Brazil are leading ethanol producers • U.K.: • D1 Oils planted 150,000 hectares of jatropha • Indian State Railway: • Planted 7.5 million jatropha plants • Used to fuel the diesel-powered carts • European Union: • 2006, produced 1.2 billion gallons of biodiesel, 417 million gallons of ethanol

9. Green House Gas Emissions • All biofuels do lower the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions compared to regular gasoline used today

11. Myths and FactsEthanol: The most widely known biofuel • Myth 1: Ethanol pollutes the same amount as gasoline or more • Fact 1: Uhm, no. Ethanol reduces GHG emissions and if fully biodegradable unlike gasoline • About 20% reduction • Ethanol from cellulose (substance which constitutes plant’s cell wall) has potential 86% reductions

12. Myth and Facts cont. • Myth 2: ethanol cannot be produced form corn in large enough quantities to make a difference and be sustainable to society • Fact 2: Corn is only one source of ethanol and new methods for production are being developed • Corn is now world’s most dominant feed grain as well as ethanol producer (exceeding over 700 million tons produced in 2006) • Other ethanol producing plants include: forest residues, switch grass, woodchips, wheat straw

13. Myth and Facts cont. • Myth 3: more energy is used producing ethanol than using it • Fact 3: Not true, compared to fossil fuels, each gallon of ethanol produced from corn today delivers one third or more energy than is used to produce it. • Energy used in production has decreased due to improved farming methods, and more energy-efficient technology

14. Fact 3 evidence • This graph shows how much fossil energy is required to provide 1 BTU (British Thermal Unit) of each fuel at the pump.

15. Advantages and Disadvantages for using biomass fuels • Advantages: • Large potential supply • Moderate costs • No CO2 emission increase if harvested and burned sustainably • Plantations located where crops are able to grow • Potential replacement for use of fossil fuels • Clean and renewable resource

16. Adv./Dis. cont. • Disadvantages: • If fuels used excessively then malnourishment may occur for people • Soil erosion, water pollution, loss of wildlife habitat are all potential effects • Plantations can start to compete with cropland • Low photosynthetic efficiency • No matter what, they are using A LOT of plants to be produced • Non-renewable if harvested unsustainably • A.k.a. difficult to harvest properly therefore causing problems

17. Current News • District heating: • Distributing heat used in a centralized location • Students in St. Paul, MN used waste from nearby towns and parks to heat the city • Replacing use of coal and cuts CO2 emissions

18. SOURCES!!! • Miller, G. Tyler. Living in the environment principles, connections, and solutions. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 2002. • R., Brown, Lester. Plan B 3.0 Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. • http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/ • http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/ethanol_myths_facts.html • http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/sep06/vapg.htm • http://www.google.com • http://www.wikipedia.org • http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/nbap.pdf • http://www2.bren.ucsb.edu/~writing/ethanol_fuels.pdf • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagasse • http://avogadro.chem.iastate.edu/MSDS/methanol.htm • http://www.epa.gov/otaq/renewablefuels/420f07035.htm