Bio-Fuels As Renewable Alternative Energy

Either in the form of ethanol, the same as found in the local bar or vegetable oil, bio-fuels produce far fewer polluting emissions as petroleum fuels. The most common crops to produce bio-fuels are canola/rapeseed, corn/maize, sugar cane and wood chips. Oil crops such as canola are made into diesel. The rest make ethanol or methanol that can be blended with other fuels.

Risks Of Bio-Fuels As Renewable Alternative Energy

Though they’ve been quickly embraced by governments as a panacea for “foreign oil dependence,” evidence would suggest that these fuels can actually emit more carbon per watt of energy produced than petroleum. It depends upon what the land was before growing crops for bio-fuel.

These crops for virgin bio-fuel also represent an adherence to “conventionally” farmed crops in monoculture that is decidedly not ecologically sound or climate change-savvy. The demand for these same crops as animal feed and cooking oil limits their political viability in times of high food prices or even food shortages.

A Renewable Alternative Energy Of Poor Carbon Balance

The amount of carbon that is required to grow a crop can be enormous. Yields of commodity crops in large monocultures results in lower yields when “organic methods” are used. Organic, as a concept, doesn’t translate well to vast acreages – it was to tend such large acreages with less labor that farmers adopted the chemical lifestyle for in the first place.

All “conventionally” produced crops are brought to market with a large carbon cost embedded in all the fertilizers and pesticides. That’s all before we consider the complicated and large metal machines that are used to deliver these high-cost elixirs. In North America it consumes about 20 barrels of oil in transportation in a given year, while “eating” about 25 barrels. If we were to put that sort of energy input into fueling cars, the demand for fuel to make those 20 barrels of bio-diesel would just shift that use of petroleum fuel around. It makes far more sense to focus bio-fuel options that recycle existing alcohol and oil resources.

Recycled Bio-Fuel A Better Renewable Alternative Energy

A particularly useful form of energy recycling is seen in the form of using oils that have already been used in commercial fryers and restaurants. These oils would otherwise go to waste or be sold to rendering facilities that eventually feed it back to farm animals.

Such oils require minimum processing and can often be acquired for free or very little, since it’s a waste product. More often, however, we wont’ be processing our own fry oil. Instead most folks purchase it from a local oil company as a post consumer waste product.

Other Bio Renewable Alternative Energy

Other types of recycled bio-fuel include methane plants that collect the gasses that are already coming off solid waste landfills. Even areas that have been made into parks (as is commonly done) will have an outlet that lets the methane escape. This greenhouse gas cannot be eliminated, but it can at least be used before it reaches the atmosphere. Some factories are now powering their equipment with such rubbish heaps.

A more active type of bio-fuel is composting of agricultural leftovers. This method “biologically incinerates” the waste that could contain disease and weed seeds while collecting the gasses that are let off. With a pump, such gasses can be stored at pressure for later use.