Biofuels transportation fuels

Alternatively, short-rotation hybrid poplar and selected grasses can be multicropped on an energy plantation in the U.S. Northwest and harvested for conversion to Hquid transportation fuels and cogenerated power for on-site use in a centrally located conversion plant. The salable products are Hquid biofuels and surplus steam and electric power. This type of design may be especially useful for larger land-based systems. 

Biofuels are used to create a wide variety of energy sources. Ever since the harnessing of fire, biomass has been used for heating and conking. Residential burning of biomass continues to be a primary source of fuel in less industrialized nations, but also has been used as fuel for electricity generation, and converted to liquid transportation fuels. 

Transportation fuels are the largest consumers of crude oil. Petroleum-based transportation fuels are responsible for 35 percent of greenhouse gas emissions m the United States. Only percent of transportation fuels comes from renewable nonpetro-leum-based sources, primarily from the use of corn-based ethanol blended with gasoline to make gasohol. Increased use of biofuels could lower some of the pollution caused by the use of transportatiou fuels. 

Today ethanol and biodiesel (FAME) are the most common biofuels. Alternative fuels from fossil energy sources are mainly LPG and CNG. Synthetic gasoline and diesel from coal (CTL) and natural gas (GTL) are produced mainly in South Africa. Electricity used in battery-electric vehicles plays a minor role today. The fuel consumption for road transport in the world today amounts to about 65 700 PJ per year (IEA, 2006a) in total, the share of alternative fuels for transport at the time of writing was about 2.7% (Table 7.24). 

The European Commission wants to have a contribution of 12% energy from renewable sources to the energy budget within the EC in 2010. The relative amount of bio-fuels will increase to a level of 5.75%, this is more than twice the corresponding use of oil. The US Department of energy has set goals to replace 30% of the liquid petroleum transportation fuels with biofuels and to replace 25% of industrial organic chemicals with biomass-derived chemicals by 2025 [7]. 

Moving to the transport sector, Fig. 15.1 quantifies the continued oil stress of the transportation sector. Even when a rather aggressive development of biofuels is included, the transportation demand for oil does not go down. This underlines that in all likelihood the energy security issue is as much a long-term issue as the climate change issue. It induces a strong motivation around the world to develop non oil-based transportation fuels, even in the absence of CO2 emission concerns. Current investments in the area of Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) and plans for Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) attest to this [7]. 

There are three ways to use biomass. It can be burned to produce heat and electricity, changed to gas-like fuels such as methane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide, or converted to a liquid fuel. Liquid fuels, also called biofuels, are predominantly two forms of alcohol ethanol and methanol. Because biomass can be converted directly into a liquid fuel, it could someday supply much of our transportation fuel needs for cars, tmcks, buses, airplanes, and trains. This is veiy important because nearly one-third of our nation s energy is now used for transportation. 

The first biodiesel initiatives were reported in 1981 in South Africa and in 1982 in Austria, Germany and New Zealand. Since then, the production of this alternative fuel has seen enormous developments, particularly in Europe, where it reached 5.7 millions tons in 2007. It is expected to increase further to fulfill the recent decision of the European Parliament to substitute 10% of transport fuels with biofuels by 2020. According to assessments of the European Community, to reach this target, the production of bioethanol, biodiesel and second-generation biofuels should reach 36 Mtep (tep = tonnes equivalents petrol) in 2020. 

By 2020, the EU wants to have 10% ethanol in its transportation fuel, and China is aiming for 15%. The United States Senate is proposing a biofuel production target of 36 billion gallons by 2020, of which 21 billion would come from corn-based ethanol. As a result, com prices doubled (from 1.65 to 3/bushel), and the number of ethanol plants also nearly doubled (from 81 to 129). 

By 2020 the EU wants to replace 10% of its transportation fuel with biofuels, while China is aiming for at least 15%. In the United States, 6 billion gallons of ethanol were produced in 2006,15 billion is projected by 2012, and 36 billion by 2020. In 2006, in the United States 250 million gallons of biodiesel,... 

First generation bioethanol and biodiesel production, which mainly makes use of cereal grains and vegetable oils, represents a growing source of high quantities of protein as a valuable by-product. Sanders et al. (2007) estimated that a 10% substitution of fossil transportation fuels worldwide by first generation biofuels would result in an annual production of 100 million tonnes of protein - about four times the proteins requirement of the world s human population. A direct result of this would be the saturation of traditional protein markets. New opportunities would therefore emerge for chemical production from proteins. 

Worldwide ethanol production in 2005 was about 30 million tons (lOGgal), of which 90% was from only two countries, Brazil and USA, each with 13.5 million tons. Brazil gets more than 30% of its transport fuels from sugar-cane ethanol. The production in the EU was much lower, about 0.5 million tonnes, mainly for manufacturing ETBE. The EU target in biofuels is 5.75% in 2010, composed of 2/3 ethanol and 1/3 biodiesel [1]. 

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