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This blog is dedicated to collect some interesting news and developments on biofuels, biogas, thermochemical biomass conversion and biological treatments of residuals and wastes, as well as my personal opinions in this field.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Can Biofuels solve the liquid fuel problem?


Biodiesel is cleaner than crude oil, it is renewable, it is easy to manufacture. However, the concerns raised have been 'Can biofuels replace fossil fuel?
Well in short, No, we cannot do that because there is simply not enough farmland on the earth to grow enough biofuel crops to yield sufficient oil to replace crude oil. With even with 1,000 barrels coming from each square mile of crops, and every inch of arable farm land in the world dedicated to growing biofuel crops, we would only be able to obtain 20% of the oil necessary to match world consumption today - and world consumption continues to increase as the amount of suitable arable farmland decreases.
However biodiesel is renewable, safe to handle, non-toxic, and better for a diesel engine than diesel itself, therefore we should continue to develop biodiesel as an alternative to fossil fuels in conjunction with other alternative fuel technologies. The world's crude oil supplies are going to run out sooner rather than later, so it has to be replaced with something soon.