What is BioFuel

What is BioFuel

The dictionary definition of biofuel is “a fuel derived from living matter”. This realistically means that it is a fuel that is a product of vegetables or animal fats, and is becoming an increasingly popular choice for powering vehicles around the world. Biofuels have been around for almost as long as cars have, as at the start of the 20th century Henry Ford planned to power his Model Ts with ethanol, and early diesel engines were proven to run on peanut oil.

Currently, bioenergy (which is energy produced from biofuels) contribute around 10% of the world's consumption, although most of this is unprocessed traditional fuels such as charcoal and firewood, mainly used by people in developing countries to cook and to heat their homes with. When biofuels are processed and sold as liquids such as biodiesel and ethanol, they can be used in vehicles to produce velocity.

Ethanol is a type of alcohol that is produced using any feedstock that contains a decent amount to sugar. Examples of this are sugar cane, sugar beet, maize and wheat. The sugar can be fermented into alcohol, and the starch can be converted to sugar which is then afterwards fermented into alcohol. The alcohol is burned, like petrol, to create an ignition in the engine. A litre of ethanol contains about 2/3 of the energy of a litre of petroleum.

Some diesel engines can be run on biodiesel, which can be made from vegetable oils, animal fats, or even leftover cooking oils from restaurants and meat processing facilities.

Biofuels produce less greenhouse gasses when they are burned, and unlike fossil fuels like petrol or diesel, as they are produced using new plants, in the process of developing the fuel some of the carbon dioxide is extracted from the atmosphere in the process of photosynthesis.

Biofuels are better for your engine than petrol. Often the two are mixed together to produce cleaner fuels, and they produce fewer emissions when burned. Your engine will run for longer and require less maintenance and using biofuels will also bring down the overall pollution check costs. As demand for biofuels rises, the cost is predicted to also fall, meaning eventually it is possible it will be cheaper per the kilometre to use biofuel over petrol.

Biofuel is renewable, and so when oil and gas reserves run dry, we will always be able to produce more biofuel. Although not completely green, biofuel is renewable and sustainable making it more effective in the long term than petrol, diesel and natural gas. For counties without reserves or crude oil, reducing their dependancy on fossil fuels and increasing their consumption of biofuels means more jobs will be created and will make their economies more secure.

Biofuel is expensive to produce, however if demand increases this is likely to decrease production costs. There are also concerns over farmers having to produce the same crop year after year and depriving their soil of certain nutrients. There is also a higher dependency on the use of fertilisers in the production of biofuel which can cause pollution to the immediate surroundings of the crop, especially water pollution.