Energy Independence with Biofuels
Energy independence represents an increasingly important public policy element worldwide. Citizens and governments are worried about price fluctuations and global crises that could jeopardize their economic performance. Such is the case of China, for whom the Strait of Malacca trade route represents 80% of its total energy imports given that these resources come from the Indian Ocean region. In 2003, President Hu Jintao referred to this extreme dependency as the Malacca Dilemma and called for energy diversification. Similarly, nations all over the world are seeking new and innovative ways through which they can diversify their energy resource pool and not rely solely on one source. For example, the wealthy countries of the Middle East and northern Europe are investing heavily in renewable or green energy sources as a long-term alternative to finite fossil fuels. However, photovoltaic (solar) and wind-produced energy are not the only alternatives to petroleum and natural gas. Countries like Brazil and the United States have developed large ethanol refining complexes using agricultural inputs such as sugar cane and corn, respectively.
Biofuel Possibilities
A basic and rudimentary type of biofuel generation is called Biochar. This refers to the process of charcoal and fertilizer creation through the burning of organic waste in an oxygen vacuum. Said chemical process involves thermal decomposition and the trapping of the released carbon molecules. One of the benefits of Biochar is that it can be done with the refuse material from farm operations. Furthermore, it is relatively inexpensive. However, this is not the case with all biofuels; many of them are still not cost-efficient enough to compete with fossil fuels. Below are discussed biofuel technologies that have promising futures.
The employment of food and agriculture inputs into the energy industry looking forward represents an added stress on the food markets, as there will be increased demand for agribusiness commodities. The main agricultural inputs used by the energy industry are sugar cane, corn, palm, jatropha, soy, safflower, mustard, canola, and algae. The benefit with some of these biofuels is that, once transformed, several of them are fungible, which means that they are compatible to be transported and burned with the existing energy infrastructure of developed nations. The continued development and employment of these energy sources will also increase farmland values in productive regions utilized for their cultivation. However, some important metrics need to be taken into consideration when working with biofuels; these include the crop’s oil content and oil yield.
According to research done by the University of California – San Diego, Safflower has about 45% oil content whereas Palm has 50% and Algae can contain up to 60% oil. As to yield per acre, Canola produces about 133 oil gallons per acre and Palm up to 635 gallons per acre. However, the largest oil-yielding crop is Algae with an average 5,000 oil gallons per acre. It is important to note, however, that some of these crops can be either labour or water intensive. Nevertheless, these biofuels have enormous potential when it comes to advances through technological development. Furthermore, they are affordable and productive when compared to the more publicized renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. In the near future, these biofuels will represent important sources of domestic energy production. Such biofuels seem particularly promising in countries that have available farmland, as is the case of the United States in the Midwest and of Brazil along its coastal plains.
Biofuel Potential in the United States
According to Professor Stephen Mayfield from the California Centre for Algae Biotechnology, the United States devout about 100 million acres of land to corn cultivation. Forty percent of said corn cultivation, about 40 million acres, is used in biofuel energy production. With the biofuel scenario and statistics exposed above, if 60 million acres were dedicated to Algae cultivation, the energy yield produced could make the United States achieve petroleum independence. Biofuels and agricultural technology will not solve the world’s energy issues overnight. However, innovation and technology offer a promising outlook in facing the challenges of the future.