What is a biofuel?

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Did you know? Biofuels could be either from plants or animals!

Biofuel is any fuel that derives from biomass — recently living organisms or their metabolic byproducts. Thus it could be oils from plants, manure from cows, wood from trees and so on. It is a renewable energy source (NREL, Renewable Energy.com), unlike other natural resources such as petroleum, coal and nuclear fuels. (see: Biomass Energy Home Page, Dept of Energy, Govt of USA, Biomass Research Home Page - NREL, Bio-mass Introduction from TERI, India, Biomass Energy – The Energy Story, Govt of Canada, Biomass - from Wikipedia)

History of Biofuels

Agricultural products specifically grown for use as biofuels include corn and soybeans, primarily in the United States, and flaxseed and rapeseed, primarily in Europe. Waste from industry, agriculture, forestry, and households can also be used to produce bioenergy; examples include straw, lumber, manure, sewage, garbage and food leftovers. Most biofuel is burned to release its stored chemical energy (Is it Easy to Store Energy?), though research is active into more efficient methods of converting biofuels and other fuels into electricity (see Biomass 101 – Apollo Alliance) utilizing fuel cells (see: Fuel Cells .org, How Fuel Cells Work – from How Stuff Works).

The production of biofuels to replace petroleum-based oil and natural gas is in active development. The carbon in biofuels was recently extracted from atmospheric carbon dioxide by growing plants, so burning it does not result in a net increase of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere (see: Atmospheric Carbon-dioxide). As a result, biofuels are seen by many as a way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by using them to replace non-renewable sources of energy.

To summarise, biofuels are fuels derived from plants and animals. Let’s call the plant-based biofuels as botafuels and the animal-based ones as zoofuels.

Botafuels

Biofuels from plants could be derived from plant oils, leaves, wood and twigs, and related plant extracts.

see also: Liquid Fuels from Plants – IISc India (PDF), Plant Oils Give Petroleum a Run for their Money - CNN, Plant & Crop Based Renewable Fuels – 2020 – Dept of Energy, Govt of USA (PDF), Agriculture-based Renewable Energy Production – CRS Report for Congress (PDF)

Zoofuels
Biofuels from animals could be from animal fats/lipids, and from the animal waste.

see also: Ethanol from Animal Waste – Mail Archive, San Francisco to Turn Dog Poop into Biofuel – National Geographic, Use of Farm Animal Manure as Biofuel – ORNL Abstract (PDF)

More Biofuel Links

Biofuel Guides

· Bio-fuels Made Easy – from Luigi Life Science (PDF)

Fuel from the Fields – Australian Agronomy Conference

Unique Bio-fuels

· Using Milk Waste as Biofuel – Talk Energy

· Cassava as Biofuel

· Bio-battery Runs on Shots of Vodka

Fun Facts - There are plans to turn dog poop into Biofuel! (see here). A prison in Rwanda gets half its fuel from human waste! ( see here)

Other References

Some interesting sites:

  • Plant Oils Database – provides resources and links for over 200 different plant oils and related plant extracts

  • BDPedia – The Biodiesel WWW Encyclopedia

Agriculture Directories

BDPedia.com, the Biodiesel WWW Encyclopedia, provides links, provides directory and web links resources for the biofuels, biodiesel. It is intended to be useful for research and information as well as for buyers, sellers, manufacturers, traders, suppliers, producers, exporters and importers. It will make an effort to provide biofuel feedstock, plant oil feedstocks, vegetable oil info and link, details on oilseeds, bio-fuel, bio-diesel, bio-fuels, plant oils production and uses, and biofuels trade & market resources, data, statistics such as price, prices, demand-supply for buyer, seller, manufacturer, trader, supplier, exporter and producer

GeoDig – Get Local!

Have you checked out the GeoDig directories for over 30 countries? GeoDig provides useful local and regional web resources for over 200 cities around the world. See the list of cities and countries for which GeoDig provides locality-specific web resources.

North America

USA - Alabama (AL) > Birmingham; Alaska; Arkansas (AR) > Little Rock; Arizona (AZ) > Phoenix, Las Vegas, Tucson; California (CA) > Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield; Colorado, CO > Denver; Connecticut, CT > Hartford; District of Columbia, DC > Washington DC; Delaware (DE) > Wilmington; Florida > Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Orlando, Sarasota, West Palm Beach, Jacksonville; Georgia > Atlanta; Hawaii > Honolulu; Idaho; Illinois > Chicago; Indiana > Indianapolis; Iowa; Kansas (KS); Kentucky (KY) > Louisville; Louisiana (LA) > New Orleans, Baton Rouge; Maine; Maryland (MD) > Baltimore; Massachusetts > Boston, Springfield; Michigan > Detroit, Grand Rapids; Minnesota > Minneapolis-St. Paul; Mississippi (MS); Missouri (MO) > Kansas City, St. Louis; Montana; Nebraska (NE) > Omaha; Nevada (NV) > Las Vegas; New Hampshire; New Jersey (NJ) > Jersey City, Newark; New Mexico (NM) > Albuquerque; New York > New York, Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, Syracuse; North Carolina (NC) > Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte, Greensboro; North Dakota; Ohio> Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Toledo, Youngstown, Dayton; Oklahoma (OK) > Oklahoma City, Tulsa; Oregon > Portland; Pennsylvania > Philadelphia, Allentown, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Scranton, ; Rhode Island (RI) > Providence; South Carolina (SC) > Greenville; South Dakota; Tennessee (TN) > Knoxville, Memphis, Nashville; Texas > Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Austin, McAllen; Utah (UT) > Salt Lake City; Vermont; Virginia (VA) > Norfolk, Richmond; Washington > Seattle; West Virginia; Wisconsin (WI) > Milwaukee; Wyoming

Canada - Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Ottawa-Gatineau, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg, Hamilton, London

Europe - UK - London, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leicester; France - Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Nice, Nantes, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Bordeaux; Germany - Frankfurt (Frankfurt am Main), Munich (München), Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne (Köln), Essen, Dortmund, Stuttgart, Bremen, Duisburg, Hannover, Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Dresden, Leipzig; Italy - Milan (Milano), Rome (Roma), Napoli (Naples), Torino (Turin), Palermo, Bologna, Firenze (Florence), Genova (Genoa); Spain - Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla, Zaragoza, Malaga, Murcia, Las Palmas, Bilbao; Scandinavia - Finland - Helsinki (Helsingin), Espoo, Tampere (Tampereen), Vantaa, Turku, Oulu, Sweden - Stockholm, Goteborg (Göteborg), Malmo (Malmö), Uppsala, Vasteras (Västerås), Denmark - Copenhagen (Københavns), Aarhus (Århus), Odense, Aalborg (Ålborg), Norway - Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim; Benelux - Belgium - Brussels (Brussel), Antwerp (Antwerpen), Ghent (Gent, Gand), Charleroi, Liège (Liege), Netherlands - Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Tilburg, ‘s-Gravenhage (sGravenhage), Groningen, Luxembourg - Luxembourg City; Portugal – Lisbon; Greece – Athens; Hungary – Budapest; Poland – Warsaw; Switzerland - Zürich (Zurich), Geneva (Geneve, Genève), Basel, Bern (Berne), Lausanne; Austria - Linz, Vienna (Wien), Graz, Linz, Salzburg, Innsbruck; Ireland – Dublin

Asia - India - Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore; China & Hong Kong - Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Harbin, Xian; Japan - Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kyoto, Kobe, Fukuoka, Kawasaki, Hiroshima; South Korea - Seoul, Pusa, Taegu, Incheon, Taejeon, Taiwan - Taipei; Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur; Singapore; Russia - Moscow, St Petersburg

Middle East - Turkey - Istanbul, Israel - Tel Aviv

Oceania - Australia - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide

Africa - South Africa - Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban