basics of biofuel and their source material. Also their impact on the environment.

1. Subject:-Bio and Chemical Technology Applications in Waste
Management
AKASH RADHAKRISHNAN
01020705614
ENVIRONMENT 4th Year
CBPGEC

2. • Scientists believe that the Earth has about 53.6 more years of oil still
buried under the rocks.1
• But it's hard to say about how much of oil is still trapped!
• But one thing is certain that as the years progress, oil would become
harder to find and extract and would thus become costly.
• That is the reason why we need to look into cheaper and sustaible
sources of alternate fuels.... thus BIOFUEL!!!

3. • A fuel is something we burn to release
energy in a chemical reaction called
combustion,which goes like this:-
• Fuel + oxygen (from the air) → released heat
energy + carbon dioxide (CO2) + water (H2O)
• Biofuels are fuels that are obtained from
living organisms or their waste.
• The best-known biofuels are ethanol(an
alcohol made from sugar beet)and biodiesel
(made from vegetable oil)
fig 1:Illustration(source:-www.earthtimes.org)

4. • FIRST GENERATION- Includes fuels like vegetable oil, biodiesel,ethanol and
methanol.Ethanol and methanol are very strong alcohols made from sugar
beet, wheat,or corn in a process similar to brewing. Vegetable oil are made
from the processing of soyabean, peanuts and palm oil and can be converted
into biodiesel.2
• SECOND GENERATION-made by turning crops into liquid fuels using more
sophisticated chemical processes and include such things as BioHydrogen
(hydrogen gasmade from crops) and mixed alcohols. They are generally more
efficient than first-generation biofuels.3
• THIRD GENERATION- made using oil produced from algae, grown in ponds or
closed reactors, which is refined to make conventional fuels like biodiesel,
methane, ethanol, and so on.The big advantage of algae-derived fuels is that
they don't need vast amounts of farmland;the big drawback is that they need
lots of water and fertilizer.4
fig 2:-sugar beet (source biofuels.org)
fig 3: palm tree
plantation(source:freemalaysiatoday.com)

5. • The idea of Biofuels is very lucrative because instead of drilling deep into sea beds which costs millions
of dollars we could instead farm for crops which can provide us with the energy we need.
• In its Biofuels for Transport Roadmap, published in 2011, the IEA* suggested biofuels could produce 27
percent of the world's total transportation fuel by 2050(over a 10-fold increase from today). Such an
ambitious project would need 100Mha of land (roughly the area of South Korea).5
• The IEA's roadmap would reduce total world carbon dioxide emissions by 2.1Gt (a little under 10
percent of the current global total).6
• Biofuel are carbon neutal i.e when we burn biofuels for energy the amount of carbon that they release
into the atmosphere is equal to the amount of carbon fixed by the plant during their lifetime, so we
can say they do not contribute towards global warming and GHG effect.
• for countries like India which depend hugely on Middle east countries(UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iran) for
it's crude oil needs, this can be a great source of alternative fuel which will cut down the billions of
Dollars we spend on procuring the oil.7
*-International Energy Agency

6. • India imports about 82% of it's crude oil from other countries(majorly from the OPEC).
• The Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC), the statistical arm of Oil ministry has
estimated the country’s crude oil import bill to increase by 15 per cent to $81 billion
for the full financial year ending March 2018.8
• Every Dollar increase in crude oil price increases the country’s net import bill by $0.51
billion.
• The surge in global crude oil prices, besides widening the country’s trade deficit, has
also had an inflationary impact on the economy with fuel prices reaching record highs
and consumer price inflation (CPI) index reaching a 17-month high at 5.21 per cent in
December.9
• All of this has lead the government to look for alternative source of fuels to bring down
the ever so increasing cost of oil imports.
fig 4:-rupee vs dollar(source:-livemint)
fig 5:- oil barrels(source:-huffington post)

7. • India produces about 800 million tonnes of agricultural waste every year and usually a lion share of
this waste is either burned(causing pollution) or not utilized at all.
• Even if we are able to use 250 million of this agricultural waste for the production of ethanol we can
generate about 31-45 billion litres from the current production of a meagre 2 billion litre.10
• This will lead to a huge reduction in stubble burning because of an economic incentive available to
remove and give the crop waste to biofuel plants.
• sewage treatment plants (STPs) hold a lot of promise. India generates around 70 billion litres of waste
water every day, which is expected to double in the next 15 years according to the McKinsey Global
Institute.11
• The capability of algal communities to thrive under acute wastewater signifies the potential of these
nutrient rich resources as suitable sustainable natural growth medium for biofuel feedstock. These
algal communities can stock significant amount of lipids in the cell.
• extraction of lipids can give us algal crude oil another substitue of conventional diesel.12

8. • Not so,there are quite a few problems associated with biofuels and
that is the reason why it's still not massively adopted.
• CARBON NEUTRAL?- Imagine the scenario, let the entire world switch to biofuels and starts
planting biofuel crops in large acreage but we use fossil fuel driven machinery to carry out the
operation of planting,harvesting, transportation and processing.
• So In the end we end up generating more amount of carbon from fossil fuel burning than we end
up saving using biofuels.
• The Guardian reported that biodiesel from palm oil produces three times the emissions of fossil
fuels, while oil from soybean produced twice as much.13

9. • EFFECTS ON BIODIVERSITY-Relatively speaking we need less amount
of land for oilrigs and pipe lines compared to the massive amount of
land needed for the plantation of biofuel crops.
• If the crops are planted on lands which were abandoned field of lands
were little to no loss in biodiversity is caused then the plantation
makes sense and serves it purpose.
• Instead of this nowdays, Big MNC's are felling large areas of
rainforests to grow palm oil to produce biodiesel.
• Then you'd be releasing a huge amount of energy by burning the
trees,and the planet would no longer benefit from the trees growing
and removing carbon dioxide, and we'd lose the forest's wonderful
biodiversity (its dense collectionof animals and plants).
• This is happening as we speak as huge amount of tropical rainforest
are lost in the isalnd nations of Sumatra, Indonesia,Malaysia etc.14
fig 5:-forest cleared in sumatra for palm oil
plantation(source-beforetheflood/NatGeo)
fig 6:-forest set to fire for palm oil plantation in
Sumatra(source:-NatGeo)

10. fig 7:-some of the big companies and the products that they make which require huge quantities of palm oil (source:-
Before the flood/NatGeo)

11. • FUEL VERSUS FOOD-There is only so much land available in the world which is fit for farming and
as biofuels become more and more lucrative as a cash crop, more and more farmers may switch
to biofuel plantations.
• This can cause a crisis as it can lead to shortage of food crops and increase in the price.
• Peoplein developing countries (already with the greatest struggle for survival)will be hardest hit
by any rise in the price of basic commodities such as wheat.
• In our haste to use biofuels to tackle global warming (one ofthe world's most pressing problems),
it's possible we could worsen world hunger and poverty (two of the world's other pressing
problems)
• According to Action Aid, a poverty-fighting charity: "If biofuels targets set by the U.S. and Europe
are met the amount of land used to create fuel rather than food will increase dramatically. The
result! Food prices could rise by up to 76% by 2020, pushing 600 million people into hunger."15

12. • If produced In a reponsible way Biofuels can really solve a lot of our
energy demands, but we must be careful that we don't cruciate the
environment for fulfilling our energy aspirations.
• If they're produced in a responsible way, biofuels could help us cut
carbon dioxide emissions and tackle global warming.
• But in the dash for profit, there's a risk they could lead to greater
emissions and significant loss of biodiversity and exacerbate problems
such as poverty and hunger in developing nations.
• In our haste to protect the planet, we have to be absolutely certain
we're not helping to destroy it.

13. 1. [1] https://www.nasdaq.com/article/how-much-oil-is-left-in-the-earth-cm711409
2. [2],[3],[4] explainthatstuff.com/BioFuels
3. [5],[6] Technology Roadmap: Biofuels for Transport - Foldout/www.iea.org/publications
4. [7],[8],[9] https//economicstimes.com/energy/oil and gas
5. [10],[11] Biofuels an oppurtunity for India/livemint.com/energy
6. [12] Ramachandra T.V and Mahapatra D.M “Scope for Algal Biofuel from Wastewater”
7. [13] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/14/eu-green-transport-target-
may-have-increased-greenhouse-gas-emissions
8. [14] https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/sep/28/last-place-on-earth-
deforestation-palm-oil-threat-leuser-rainforest
9. [15] Biofuel fueling hunger/ActionAID/www.actionaid.org
10. SPECIAL MENTION:-Before the flood (documentary NatGeo)