What is Bio fuels | effects
There are many disadvantages in the production and usage of bio fuels. First of all due to rising demand for biofuel’s, farmers worldwide have increased economic incentive to grow fuel crops instead of food crops. What is Bio fuels | effects Without deliberate policy, this economic situation could lead to reduced crop production and increased food prices.
Most significantly the bio-fuels can replace only a tiny proportion of traditional fuels.
There is no question of covering the countryside with fields with the cultivation to support biofuel. We must eat! The most recent UN report on bio-fuel also raises issues regarding food security and biofuel production.
Secondly it has been proved that the cellulose contained in the inedible stalks of the plants cultivated for bio fuels contain far more complex hydrocarbons which is the basis of any diesel-type fuel and it will end up in causing more pollution than petrol and diesel.
Ecologist and environmental campaigner George Monbiot has argued in the British newspaper The Guardian for a 5 year freeze on bio-fuels while their impact on poor communities and the environment is assessed.
Let me also point out that the large scale use of “waste” for creating fuels will be at the expense of many other organisms that survive on it. It will lead to environmental imbalance.
Who doesn’t know that the production of bio-fuels from raw materials requires energy for farming, transport and conversion to final product as well as the production of fertilizers and many types of pesticides and herbicides and the level of energy expenditure varies greatly from one location to another. The cost could even outdo the final bio-fuel produced.
For example, in the US and Australia, farmers use much more fossil fuel to power their equipment than farmers in Brazil.
Let me try to conclude what I have been trying to communicate. Although most mainstream environmental groups support bio-fuels as a significant step toward slowing or stopping global climate change, these technologies are not without environmental costs. In industrialized nations, the agricultural techniques used to produce base crops such as corn and soy are themselves highly dependent on fossil fuels, reducing the net impact of bio-fuel.
In developing nations, particularly in the tropics, sugarcane-based ethanol and butanol are likely to be the bio-fuel of choice. Significant acreage is likely to be dedicated to sugar cane in future years as demand for ethanol increases worldwide. This increase will inevitably place greater pressure on environmentally sensitive native ecosystems.
Therefore it is my opinion that biofuels may play a minor role in solving the energy crisis but they can never be a long term alternative for fossil fuel and is not the answer to the development of a nation.