Kick the Habit: A UN Guide to Climate Neutrality

BIOFUELS

Running a car with fuel that has grown on the fields sounds like a safe and attractive option for a climate-conscious citizen. The plants grown for biofuel production absorb CO 2 from the atmosphere and combustion of the biofuel releases only the CO 2 previously absorbed by the plant. Therefore biofuels typically have far lower well-to-wheel GHG emissions than fossil fuels. With the surge in fossil fuel prices in the recent past and government programmes supporting the production of biofuels, the demand for plant-based energy has risen sharply. In the United States for example, the US Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) required in 2006 that 1 500 million litres of the US fuel supply be provided by renewable fuels, and it is supposed to increase to 28 400 million litres in 2012. With a further surge in demand ahead of us it is worth looking at ways to ensure a sustainable production of energy corps. Whether biofuels are “good” or “bad” is a matter of introducing a number of environmental and social safeguards. The technical facts Bioenergy – the use of biomass – has been and in many regions still is one of the most prominent sources of energy, in developing countries of- ten enough inefficiently. Bioenergy refers to biomass converted to higher value and more efficient and convenient energy carriers, such as pellets, gas, or liquids. Most common liquid biofuels used for transportation are ethanol and biodiesel.

Bioethanol is an alcohol that can be made from almost any crop that has a high content of sugar (sugarcane or sugar beet), starch crops (corn) or any cel- lulosic crops. The alcohol is mainly produced through a re- petitive fermentation process which involves soaking, crush- ing or chemical extraction using a process similar to that used in

Biofuel production Thousand million litres per year 40

30

Ethanol

20

10

Biodiesel

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