Individual Topical Review Paper Outline

i. Specific Innovation of Interest:

• Changing from fossil fuels to biofuels as a  source of energy

ii. Rationale for Selecting this Innovation:

• Biofuels are more efficient than fossil fuels
• Majority of energy used today comes from fossil fuels, a limited, non-renewable and polluting resource
• Production and use of fossil fuels raised environmental concerns
• Biofuels can be a long term solution to meet the increased energy needs without depleting natural resources nor polluting the environment

 iii. Proposed Approach to Development of Paper:

   

• Executive Summary

• This report will outline how fossil fuels slowly are replaced by biofuels and the importance of biofuels. Different types of biofuels will be elaborated further and the issues regarding biofuels will be discussed.
  

•  Background/Introduction

• What is biofuels?
• Fuels made from once living organic materials
• A type of fuel whose energy is derived from biological carbon fixation
• Fossil fuels are not considered as biofuels because they contain carbon that has been "out" of the carbon cycle for a very long time though they have their origin in ancient carbon fixation
• Types of biofuels
• First generation biofuels - fuels derived from sources like sugar, starch and vegetable oil
• Bioalcohol - Bioethanol
• Biodisel
• Biogas
•  Second generation biofules - biofuels produced from sustainable feedstock
• Under development: Cellulosic ethanol, Algae fuel, biohydrogen and biomethanol
•  Brief description of benefits of biofuels: burn cleanly, efficient, produce less pollutants, renewable and sustainable

• Historical Perspective

• Use of fossil fuels like gas, coal, and petroleum to produce energy (transportation , generates electricity and as raw materials for petrochemical industry)
• Primary energy sources are reserves in the ground
• Coal, oil and natural gas provided 79.6% of primary energy production during 2002
• Coal
• Uses : Run furnaces for melting metal ore, fire steam engines, produce electricity and heat through combustion
• Petroleum (crude oil)
• Involves extraction through oil drilling, refining and transporting (oil tankers and pipelines)
• Uses: Powering vehicles (portable, dense energy source) , generate electricity and raw material for chemical products such as pharmaceuticals, fertilizers and pesticides
• Natural gas
• Uses: Major source of electricity generation through use of gas turbines and steam turbines and used to produce fertilizers
• Problems with fossil fuels as source of energy
• environmental problem
• depletion of natural resources
• low supply
  

• Current Situation

• Fossil fuels are still being used today but countries are trying to change to biofuels and some are already using biofuels
• First generation biofuels
• Bioethanol
•  made by fermentation from carbohydrates produced in sugar or starch crops
• used as substitute for petrol for vehicles
• Cellulosic biomass derived from non-food sources such as trees and grasses, is being developed as a raw materials for production of bioethanol
• Biodisel
• mainly produced from oil crops such as palm and soybean
• used as a fuel for vehicles
• high compression ratio and throttleless operation results in diesel engines being more efficient than many spark-ignited engines such as petrolieum engine
• efficiency and lower flammability and explosivity than petroleum results in military use of diesel in armored fighting vehicles, such as tanks and trucks
• Diesel-powered cars are better than equivalent petroleum engines as they produce less greenhouse gas emission, have higher energy per-litre content of diesel fuel and the have highly efficient diesel engine
• Cleans the engine combustion chamber of carbon deposits, helping to maintain efficiency
• an oxygenated fuel (contains a reduced amount of carbon and higher hydrogen and oxygen content than fossil diesel) which improves the combustion of biodiesel and reduces the particulate emissions from un-burnt carbon
• safe to handle and transport because it is as biodegradable
• Biogas
• produced either from biodegradable waste materials or by the use of energy crops fed into anaerobic digesters to supplement gas yields
• used to produce fertilizers
•  Second generation biofule
• Under development: Cellulosic ethanol, Algae fuel, biohydrogen and biomethanol
• To make fuels without food crops, researchers explore non-food ligno-cellulosic feedstocks such as wood chips, straw, willow, jatropha and switchgrass
• These plants can be grown on poor land without much irrigation, petrochemical fertilizers or plowing, making them cheaper and less carbon intensive
• They want to harness the lignin and cellulose in the crops, using enzymes to turn ‘ligno-cellulosic feedstocks’ into sugars which can then be fermented and distilled into biofuels
• Ligno-cellulosic biofuels can yield more energy
• This increased efficiency could make biofuels more sustainable and also reduce the land area used for the purpose of biofuels thereby leaving more land for food production
   

• Issues/Challenges/Opportunities

• Ligno-cellulosic biofuels still involves making fuels from food crops
• Deforestation as lands are cleared to grow plants to make biofuels, leading to soil erosion due to frequent clearing of land
• Use of biofuels limit our food supply as we produce this fuel instead of feeding the population
• Food price riots as prices of food increases with lower supply
• The process of growing the plants, making fertilizers and pesticides, and processing the plants into fuel consumes a lot of energy, resulting in a debate about whether ethanol from corn actually provides more energy than is required to grow and process it
• Energy used in production comes from coal and natural gas, depleting the natural resources
• Making biofuels from plants can be very wasteful as only the sugary or starchy part of the plant are used; leaving behind leaves, seed husks, and stalks
• Whether biofuel production meets the sustainability criteria that are being debated worldwide
  
  

• Future Considerations

• Fossil fuels may be completely replaced by biofuels
• Further development of biofuels to make it more energy efficient
• Biofuels are not made from food crops
• Less energy consumption methods to produce biofuels
  

• References