Nonrenewable carbon sources

Producing methanol from biomass or coal costs about twice as much as producing it from natural gas. This encourages the use of nonrenewable petrochemical sources over biomass or coal. Considering the full production cycle, methanol from biomass emits less carbon dioxide than ethanol from biomass. This is because short rotation forestry, the feedstocks of methanol, requires the use of less fertilizer and diesel tractor fuel than the agricultural starch and sugar crops which are the feedstocks of ethanol. 

Polymers or macromolecules are long-chain carbon-based organic molecules with their molar masses ranging from few thonsands to millions. These chains are made up of repeating fundamental molecnlar elements or monomers. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry gold book defines macromolecules as a molecule of high relative molecular mass, the structure of which essentially comprises the multiple repetitive units derived, actually or conceptually, from molecules of low relative molecular mass. Polymers can be made from either natural or synthetic sources. Crude petroleum is a natural source of carbon, but is not in a renewable form. Most polymers that are used today are from nonrenewable petroleum sources. Polymers are broadly classified into natural, synthetic, and semisynthetic, and they are further subclassifled as shown in Fig. 3.1. 

Nonpoint Source Pollution pollution that does not originate from one specific location, such as a sewer pipe, but comes from multiple locations spread over a wide area, for example, runoff from city streets Nonrenewable Resource a resource in fixed supply or one that it is replenished at a rate so slow that it is exhausted before it is replenished, for example, oil Normal Alkane an alkane in which all the carbon atoms in the molecule are attached in a continuous chain... 

Thus with the increasing demand for specialty chemicals and the threat of peak oil, the utilization of agroindusfrial wasfe in bioprocesses offers a promising alternative to nonrenewable sources of raw maferial such as crude oil. Biomass could displace fossil fuels and help reduce GHG emissions while closing fhe carbon cycle loop. As the debate on food versus fuel intensifies, biomass can provide added income to farmers without compromising the production of main food and even nonfood crops (UNEP, 2009). 

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