Can Bio Fuel Technologies Replace Fossil Fuels?

Bio fuels are by definition any fuel that, by being burned, can be converted to energy, and that is produced from an environmental source. For a biological generator is also a renewable one, bio fuels are reproducible. The types of raw material that be converted into bio fuel have organic plants, animals (especially animal fat), and even animal and human waste material.

One type of fuel already being produced from natural sources is bio diesel. This fuel, which burns cleaner than its petroleum-based cousin, can be used by most diesel engines without any require for transition.

Bio fuel is already being made from corn and soy, for example. But exploitation corn and soy has correspondingly driven up the demand for both foods, which while being ideal for bio fuel production, are also consumed as food by people around the world. Using these foods for bio fuel has pushed up their price considerably, which in turn has created food shortages in some areas of the world. This has produced an unexpected quandary for bio fuel proponents.

If bio fuel is ever to become a true alternative to fossil fuels, a way is needed out of this quandary. Use of algae as a bio fuel is one of the possibility. Algae have the advantage of being a non-food source which can be produced in areas not already being exploited to grow additional types of food. Corn, soy and cottonseed have to be grown on tillable land. Algae can be grown in pools, in warm climates around the earth, and acre per acre algae yield over a hundred times the quantity of biomass of soybeans.

Since algae take in, rather than produce, carbon dioxide, the very food stock being used to create bio fuel can itself be a cause for a reduction in a significant greenhouse gas. Algae bio fuel farms could therefore benefit from a dual livelihood stream. The second income generated from the use of the algae farm as a consumer of other forms of pollution.

A number of companies have recognized the advantage to poorer communities of developing the market for bio fuels though at the equal time encouraging the development of food-stock supplies such as algae farms. These companies are planning to promote production of food-stock for bio fuel in poorer countries to supply the energy demands of more developed areas of the world should raise everyone’s prize of life, both in economical terms and in terms of encouraging a cleaner global environment.

Jeff Sokol is an author, and an expert in making cheap bio fuels like ethanol and bio diesel.Click here to make your own Fuel!