When we convert organic matter into fuel, it is called biofuels. All they are is just a way of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. The biofuels umbrella includes under its aegis ethanol and derivatives of plants such as sugar cane, as well as vegetable and corn oils. But ethanol products are not the only ones developed for gasoline purposes. As stated by the International Energy Agency (IEA), although presently, only two percent of the world’s usable gasoline is composed of ethanol, by 2025 it would rise up to the figure of 10 percent and even up to 30 percent by 2050.
There is still a long way to go in making these biofuels economically viable according to research carried out by Oregon State University. So far, what we have made are biofuels that are as energy efficient as gasoline made from petroleum. To measure energy efficiency, we need to know the quantity of the required utilised energy that we can gain from a certain amount of input energy. Despite our best efforts, fuel sources always require a greater input than they are able to supply back. We measure it like this: the input energy is the effort required to achieve the output energy we are looking for. This is easily shown by the figures of energy efficiency of alternative fuels: Ethanol 0 20%, Biodiesel 69% and gasoline 75% (OSU research). Nevertheless, the study was able to positively tabulate that cellulose-derived ethanol has an even greater efficiency of about 85% as compared to the enormously efficient nuclear energy.With the enticing and promising effects of biofuels, investors are undeniably anticipating increased profits from it and this may bring about the rise of the grain futures market of the Chicago Stock Exchange that will soon whip away investment activities from the oil futures in NY. Indeed, it is predicted by a consensus of analysts that these fuels will be supplying seven percent of the entire world’s transportation fuels by the year 2030. As what a confident energy markets analyst had said: the growth in demand for diesel and gasoline may slow down significantly if the government would monetarily sustain firms that are distributing biofuels and continuously promote the use of eco-friendly fuel.
One of these is the south American country, Brazil, which has become the world’s largest producer of sugar based ethanols. 5 billion gallons of ethanol annually. Even the US have go in on the act and now produce the second highest amount of biofuels in the world after Brazil. The production capacity of European Union’s biodiesel is currently overload of about four million (British) tonnes. Most of this biodiesel fuel is derived from rapeseed oil with some from soybean oil and a little from palm oil which combined make up the remaining twenty percent.
