Fuels global population growth

Global population growth is about 1.3% every year, and the population is expected to reach seven billion by 2015 and nine billion by 2050 [1], In the time it takes to read this sentence, another 20 people will have been added to the world s population [2], The number of malnourished people in the world has been estimated at 852 million. Each year, hunger and malnutrition are responsible for the deaths of six million children. In want of food, people plow forests and the world annually loses 9.4 million hectares of forests [3]. A hectare (ha) is 10,000 square meters and 9.4 million ha is about 36,000 square miles or about the size of the entire state of Indiana. Exacerbating the food problem is the use of crops as fuel. For example, in the United States, com is used to make ethanol for gasoline. In Brazil, sugar cane is used. There are other efforts to use crops such as soybean for biodiesel. It has been estimated that food production will have to increase 70% by 2050 to feed the growing population [4]. 

Vegetational carbon banks would compete with agriculture for land and nutrient resources. It is estimated that a land area about the size of Alaska would need to be planted with fast-growing trees over the next 50 years to use up about half the projected fossil-fuel-induced C02 at a cost of about 250 billion or 50 per person for the global population. One problem is that once the trees are fully grown they no longer take up C02 very rapidly and would need to be cleared so new trees could be planted to continue a quicker uptake. Old trees could be used for lumber, but not fuel, since this would release the C02. If used as fuel, a delay of 50 years, (the typical growth time) would occur and move up the buildup rate of atmospheric C02. 

Regarding the annual population growth, daily energy requirement, environment problems such as air pollution and global warming caused by fossil fuels (mainly due to emission of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide), high price of petroleum fuel, and reduction of the petroleum reservoir, experts are trying to find novel biofuel production methods to replace petro-diesel with biofuel. 

The necessity to satisfy the growth in consumption leads to an increase in the use of natural resources. Between 1960 and 1995 the global use of mineral raw materials increased by a factor of 2.5 metals 2.1, wood 2.3, and synthetic materials 5.6. This increase considerably exceeded the growth in population size, despite its extreme nonuniformity. For instance, the U.S.A. whose population constitutes about 5% of the world s consumes about one-fourth of the global resources of fossil fuel. The U.S.A.,... 

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