Biofuel topic as an emerging technology - Essay Example

?Biofuel Topic as an Emerging Technology Introduction Biofuel production is an area of study that is growing in popularity amongst the scientific community. This is because of the general consensus that we need environmentally friendly fuel alternatives. It is because of this new found popularity that amazing developments are meing made every day. A closer look at the carbon capturing foam shows the complexities involved in creating it. The foam is composed of bacterial, plant, and frog and fungal enzymes. Together they are able to perform the photosynthesis needed to capture and remove the carbon dioxide. The reason that the engineers decided to use foam was because it showed that it could effectively contain all of the enzymes while taking in the sunlight and air needed to start the photosynthesis process. The engineers have stated that they were able to achieve a much higher percentage of energy conversion than what could normal be obtained through natural photosynthesis. This is because the foam does not need to divert some of its energy to help maintain life. It can simply take all of the energy and convert it in larger quantities because of this sole reason. This discovery is amazing and could lead to less crops being destroyed in order to produce biofuels. It will be interesting to see what steps the engineers take to make this production more feasible for a larger scale operation. Body The transformation of unwanted plant material called "biomass" (wood chips, rice husks, grass) into usable fuel is a hot area of scientific research. A recent proposal by Purdue scientists tries to overcome one of the most fundamental problems with so-called biofuel: the high cost of transporting the starting material. If you’re going to take a substance such as wood chips or straw and convert it into a usable fuel, you quickly find that it takes a large amount of the biomass in order to make just a small amount of fuel. The scientific description is that biomass has a low energy density. So, trying to transport the huge amount of necessary biomass to a central processing plant becomes prohibitively expensive; you use more fuel transporting the wood chips than you obtain from the fuel transformation process. The Department of Chemical Engineering at Purdue has recently published two scientific articles which attack this problem on a very logical level. Instead of transporting the crude biomass in a bulk, a small portion of the material is used as a hydrogen source which transforms the remaining biomass into a liquid fuel. This intermediate fuel is much higher in energy density and is much less expensive to transport to a central plant for final processing. imagine that you are an orange juice company, looking to reduce your transportation costs. If, instead of transporting crates of orange fruits to your factory, you instead transported a crude pulp/juice mixture (produced on site in the orange fields), you could save a lot of money on fuel costs. You reduce the amount of material that you have to ship, and the material that you do transport is more enriched in the part of the orange that you’re interested in. This new method as applied to biofuel is nicknamed "H2Bioil", and uses solar power to split water in the biomass into hydrogen and oxygen. The business of trying to find alternate ways for biofuel production is a profitable one. Thousands of companies are currently racing one another to come up with alternatives to our current biofuel options. Companies are trying to create this fuel through chemical processes that extract sugars from the algae. Perhaps this will lead to more tests being conducted on how to generate energy from different kinds minus using chemicals to get it done. It's important that people realize not only what biofuels are, but also realize their limitations in terms of the scope of what they can accomplish. A biofuel is any chemical derived from natural foodstocks such as corn or maize which can be burned to provide useful energy. With exposure to the right processing conditions and the right enzymes, corn can be transformed into ethanol. This reduces our dependency on diminishing stocks of petroleum and converts some of energy demand to a source which is replenished each year. Some advocates of biofuels are calling for corn ethanol to play a much larger role in our fuel supply, to the point of producing cars that are entirely driven by ethanol. Some countries such as Brasil have already accomplished this as they have a rich climate for growing foodstocks and they do not have near as many automobiles on the road. So, the technology is there, but the immense problem of “scaling up” our ethanol production to even make a dent in the fuel demand is a huge problem. One of the most important issues has to do with disposal of the biofuel waste. The production of ethanol from corn only transforms the carbohydrates into the fuel. There are other components in the raw corn plant which are not automatically converted into ethanol, and disposing of it via incineration would certainly work, but it would become an immense source of carbon dioxide pollution, which some people would argue is the last thing a country needs. Therefore, scientists are looking closely at new methods of reusing this corn waste for useful purposes. This biodegradable fuel source is supported by successful corporations and affluent persons who welcome a much needed fuel source. Biofuel needs a considerable amount of acres of land and forest area to produce corn, soybeans, flaxseed, rapeseed, sugar cane, palm oil and jatropha. There agricultural based biofues products are grow on cleared tropical rainforest and indigenous people’s lands. Mass deforestation has actually already taken effect. This clearing of land has lead to forest fires, extinction of rare animals, acceleration of climate change, and a decrease in biodiversity. In accordance, production facilities needed to create the fuel are not actually environmentally safe considering you need coal or natural gas to run these operations. Other effects of biofuel are massive topsoil erosion, pollution of surface and groundwater with pesticides, and ferlizer runoff. These after-effects generate a depletion of oxygen available to the surrounding region. Proponents of biofuel are prevalent and are supported by governments such as the United States of America and those abroad. President George W. Bush has publicly shown his support of the substitute fuel source after he made a trip to Brasil and met with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The two presidents hope to de-polute their land and resolve their energy plans. Many believe biofuel will reduce the United State’s reliance on foreign oil and cut greenhouse-gas emissions to combat global warming. Biofuel deserves its attention since it was considered a major fuel source before petroleum popularity boomed. The biomass-based fuel can amazingly be created by recycling food-grease waste by many of our favorite fast food restoraunt chains. Conclusion Our dependence on technology and partiality toward egocentric comfort has made Americans and other countries lazy and wasteful in regard to conserving our most dearly and beloved natural resources. Biofuel as an energy source greatly affects the environment and therefore greatly affects the people who live their lives in that environment. References Ramesh suri, “Factory Farmed Biofuel.” EcoWorld, retrieved from http://www.ecoworld.com/energy/ecoworld_energy_biofuel.cfm, on 7th April 2011 Dana Childs, “Bush on Biofuel in Brasil.” Inside Greentech, retrieved from http://www.insidegreentech.com/node/860 , on 7th April 2011 Craig Mackintosh, “Biofuels- from the Frying Pan into the Fire?” Celsias, retrieved from http://www.ybioguels.org/bio_fuels/benefitsHealthEnviro.html, on 7th April 2011 Steven Mottor, “My Own Knowledge” Discovery, retrieved from http://news.discovery.com/tech/algae-electricity-stealing.html , on 7th April 2011 Navneet R. Singh, W. Nicholas Delgass, Fabio H. Ribeiro, Rakesh Agrawal. Estimation of Liquid Fuel Yields from Biomass,“Environmental Science & Technology”, 2010; 44 (13): 5298., retrieved from http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es100316z, on 7th April 2011 Rakesh Agrawal, Navneet R. Singh, “Solar Energy to Biofuels. Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering”, 2010; 1 (1): 343. retrieved from http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-chembioeng-073009-100955 on 7th April 2011, Steven Mottor,” My own Review”, 2010,Univeristy of Cincinnati, retrieved from http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=11558, on 7th April 2011 Read More