The Encyclopedia Britannica defines “biofuel” as “a fuel made primarily from oily plants (such as soybean or palm oil plant) and to a lesser extent from other oily sources (such as waste cooking fat from restaurant deep-frying)” (Encyclopedia Britannica Online Academic Edition). Alga is a tiny plant that uses photosynthesis to transform carbon dioxide and sunlight into energy at a very rapid rate, and some species can even “double their weight several times a day” (University of Virginia). The rapid growth rate of algae and the fact that half of their composition by weight is lipid oil, the oil used in the production of biodiesel, makes algae a very attractive candidate in the production of biofuels. The use of biofuels and biodiesel in particular, is not something that is a new idea. Rudolph Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, used peanut oil to run his exhibition motor at the Worlds Fair in Paris in the year 1900. In the summer of 2012, the people of the United States will see the highest fuel prices that they have ever seen, and with higher demands of oil worldwide from developing countries, including India and China, the long-term price of oil is not likely to decrease. Now that the world has realized that fossil fuels will not last forever, intensification in biodiesel production has begun and pond scum may be the renewable energy source that the United States needs to curb its hunger for fossil fuels. “Going Green” may soon have an altogether new meaning.
Some researchers suggest that the cost of harvesting and refining the oils from algae is not a cost-effective alternative. While this may have been true a couple of years ago developments in biology and technology are slowly bringing the costs to a minimum. In 20...
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There is a lot of talk about the world’s source of energy going on these days and people are starting to ask questions about our sources of energy. Is it environmentally friendly? Does it make sense economically? For years the world has been highly dependent on fossil fuels that are extracted from the ground. These fuels power things from power plants, cars, plains, and many of the other modern conveniences that we enjoy. There is a lot of energy expended in the extraction and transport of these fuels as well as many negative environmental impacts. Scientists are busy finding alternative ways to power our world that are cost efficient and ecofriendly. One idea that is being explored as an effective replacement is producing oil from algae. Algae have a high content of oil, about 50 percent of its weight, and science is finding a way to use it as a clean fuel source.
“All Biofuels Are Not Created Equal” is a very informative article that everyone should be aware of. The authors of this article show how biofuels can be made to benefit Earth. Our ecological footprint is so big that everyone requires 2.5 Earths to maintain the same lifestyle. What does this reveal? It reveals that Earth’s resources are being diminished. This means that the world needs to do something to prevent this so Earth can last for future generations. The way that biofuels are being made is not very effective in helping this problem. This is because it either requires deforestation or the burning of fossil fuels, which the world is trying to stop. Instead of using corn or sugar cane as ethanol, alternative crops should be used because it will benefit our environment the most.
Biofuels, fuels that provide energy using relatively recent organic sources, have been around just as long as cars have. In fact, the first cars ran on peanut oil. Henry Ford, founder of a multimillion dollar American car company, planned to fuel his massively successful Model T’s with ethanol (National Geographic 2013.) However, this revolutionary idea was swept under the rug when the discovery of massive petroleum deposits kept gasoline and diesel cheap and affordable. As 2014 rolls around, consumers are starting see that the amount of petroleum in the Earth is shrinking and the same story goes for their wallets (Avro 2012.) Not only does burning gas and diesel empty out the wallet, it is also slowly covering the Earth with a warm carbon dioxide blanket that causes global warming. Transportation, which is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses (Biofuel Association of Australia 2013), is dependent on finite amounts of gas and diesel for its energy needs so it is very important we move towards a more renewable and sustainable fuel source. Biofuels, both ethanol and biodiesel, have the potential to fuel transportation efficiently and drastically reduce the carbon footprint, thus reducing the warm blanket of carbon dioxide on the Earth.
In 1960 Oswald and Golweke proposed the use of large‐scale ponds for cultivating algae on wastewater nutrients and anaerobically fermenting the biomass into methane fuel. Algae, like all bio fuels, harvests the energy from water and sunlight to produce oil which can be converted into biodiesel as well as the carbohydrate content to be fermented into ethanol (Benemann, Olst, et al. 1). The concept of using vegetal oil as an engine fuel likely dates back to when Rudolf Diesel (1858‐1913) developed the first engine to run on peanut oil, as he demonstrated at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 (Biodiesel 1). Using algae, however, is only a very recent concept as the first algae biodiesel plant only opened this year on April 1, 2008. The company, PetroSun, is expected to produce ≈4.4 million gallons of algal oil and 110 million lbs of biomass per year in their 1,000 acres. Fuel will not be produced immediately, but they will be building or acquiring ethanol and biodiesel production plants in the near future (Cornell 1).
It is believed that the world's supply of oil will last until about 2040. If you think about it, that’s not too far in the distance future. Oil is running out fast and we need to think of an alternate energy source. When we burn oil, we release carbon dioxide into the air which causes the earth’s climate to warm; a temperature rise of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit could have serious if not devastating consequences. In the United States alone 60 percent of each person’s carbon footprint comes from the goods they buy, while the other 40 percent comes from their energy use at home, driving, and flying. That totals out to be about 10 billion tons a year. There are other energy sources but let’s think about the environmental and energy benefits of algae biofuel. Algae was first explored as a fuel alternative in 1978. Gas prices had skyrocketed, and the government was looking to help ease the crisis. The Aquatic Species Program run by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, researched high oil-output algae for biofuel. After testing 3,000 types of algae, the program concluded that the algae, if...
Devlin, Lee. “Can Biofuels Save Us From Peak Oil?” Biomass Authority. 2010. 21 May 2010 .
The increased use of nonrenewable fossil fossil fuels which are nonrenewable and awareness about environmental changes has been led to the development of fossil fuel alternatives such as biofuels which is , a renewable resource. From In the past few years, the researchers have been applied various methods and examined various feedstock biomass feedstock’s such as corn, sugar cane, canola, soybean and lignocellulosic crops for the production of biofuels. The primary drawback of these first and second generation biofuels are the high usage of agricultural land. which This can lead to the a food crisis, high water usage, and high production time. The An alternative solution to the current situation is is the production of biofuels from microalgae. Microalgae are single single-celled organisms that grow in a wide range of aquatic environments , from fresh water through saturated saline and have the higher lipid content compared to what?. MicroaAlgae have the capacity to produce and accumulate energy-rich oils, have natural ability to accumulate oil in its dry biomass. The genetic diversi...
Initial interest in algae was piqued during the 1970s when the United States suffered an energy crisis. The Aquatic Species Program was established in 1980 under President Jimmy Carter solely to produce increased levels of oil from algae ("A Look Back at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Aquatic Species Program: Biodiesel from Algae" ). The program concluded that if cultivated under optimum conditions and mass produced, algae could effectively curtail the need for fossil fuels (Newman). The efforts of this program set the foundation for similar research conducted today. Advances in technology and science allow researchers to genetically modify algae to produce more oil or add stress to algae’s living conditions to produce more oil. Currently, the Algal Biomass O...
Introduction:The idea of biofuels is a old concept, reaching as far as the ending of the 19th century. Solid in its idea but flawed in its presentation. Biofuels are a alternative energy to fossil fuels that are made from natural methods such as plants and crops and are key in solving the apparent flaws of fossil fuels. While fossil fuels have been in use for over a century, Biofuels have now risen to the popularity and been exposed to the press. At one point of time biofuel were being considered by some of the most brilliant minds ever in human history such as Henry Ford and Rudolph Diesel who believed that biofuels had the potential to be the new evolution s on only to reappear a century later. Now the world faces the struggles of global warming and the depletion of fossil fuels slowly dimming by day. Throughout the last century biofuels have proven to have a place in our society as a new alternative fuel source. Specializing in Being Natural and healthier than fossil fuels, biofuels have had a rough beginning against its competitor due to key situations such as pricing, Side effects, to fuel power. However the idea was passed on a to the later generations, and continued to pasand prolong usage. However through the last decade they have been highly advertised by politicians and Government officials claiming it to be the future of a powerful working society, and to help in making a new energy free world. Through belief Some even claiming that “By 2050, a new generation of sustainable biofuels could provide over a quarter of the world’s total transport fuel, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency” (last name). With such improvement biofuels should be the obvious answer to providing a better future to th...
In the world of global warming, all kinds of pollution and fuel shortages going on, renewable and clean/ green energy is increasingly the ideal solution of energy related problems we have to solve one way or another. Biofuel is one of the mainstream and highly supported solutions nowadays, an idea to make renewable fuel by living organisms such as fiber, corn, vegetable oil or sugar cane. Unlike nonrenewable fossil fuels over extracted by people causing various environmental problems like generating a considerable amount greenhouse gas, current technology already lets renewable fuel like biofuels to shrink a certain amount of greenhouse gas production, making it a more ‘clean’ source of energy.
The hypothesis was that algae would produce more energy than canola oil and sunflower oil. The results found through this experiment support this hypothesis. This shows how algae would be a great alternative in being used as renewable energy. Algae is the best choice over the other oils because it created the most energy through experimentation and the growing of the algae process did not harm the environment around it. People should use algae as renewable energy because they have an impressive productivity, non-competitive with agriculture, flexible on water quality, flexible on water quality, mitigation of carbon dioxide, and a broad product portfolio. Therefore, algae is the best source of renewable energy.
Nowadays, people around the world are demanding for more sustainable energy source other conventional fuels such as coal, natural gas and fossil fuel for their daily activities. However, conventional fuels are categorized into a non-renewable energy source. Thus, to overcome this problem, an alternative fuel called as biofuel is used to substitute the conventional fuels. Moreover, biofuel can grow in interest in many developing countries by using “modern” use of biomass to produce the clean liquid fuels. The uses of biomass as a biofuel feedstock may offer new employment prospects for people that stay in that region. The biomass that commonly been used in biofuel is called as algae biofuel or oilgae, in which the oil that does not consist of toxic or sulfur contents in it (Demirbas and Fatih Demirbas, 2011).
Coal and crude oil are non-renewable resources. They take an extreme amount of time to form and due to that, they cannot be replaced once they have all been used up. However, when it comes to the biofuels, they are produced from plant material and are renewable. There are two types of biofuels: Biodiesel, which is made from rapeseed oil and other plant oils and is used in diesel-powered vehicles without needing any modifications to the engine, and Bioethanol, which is a liquid fuel that burns quite well and is made by fermenting sugars from sugar cane, wheat and other plants. In this essay, whether or not biofuels are becoming an increasingly important alternative to traditional forms of energy under environmental and economic benefits and