The Use of Biofuels

In the midst of this current day and age, fuels of all sorts are necessary in our society. However, with the countless ecological issues and the current destruction of the environment, this has led many of the world’s leaders to turn to other sources – alternative, renewable energy sources for our daily energy uses – that in fact, are supposed to leave less of an ecological footprint on the earth. This is where biofuels come in. Although the use of biofuels may seem at first, a good idea in a desperate situation, we must focus on the long-term effects of the problem. Initially, biofuels tend to cost more; up to double the price that is usually substantial to produce gasoline. Second, whether you know it or not, biofuels would do little to stop or slow down the process of global warming – and often make it worse. Thirdly, diverting food crops into fuel production leads to ever more land clearing and rising food prices as well. For those specific reasons, I believe that biofuels are in fact, inevitably, just another short-term solution to an international problem.

Nevertheless, one must first think, what is biofuel? According to the WWF website, biofuels are simply defined as “A fuel produced from dry organic matter or combustible oils produced by recently dead biological material”, with the two main types of biofuel being ethanol and biodiesel. Then again, biofuels, allegedly a strong focus towards the use of alternative energy sources, are actually, not that new. With Henry Ford’s “Model T”, a car originally made back in the early 1900’s, its initial focus was to be able to run completely on either ethanol (a commonly produced biofuel) or gasoline. Ultimately, ethanol was defeated in favour to petroleum because of the fact that not only was gasoline easier to produce, but cheaper too.

Setting aside environmental consequences at first, the financial requirements to produce ethanol and other biofuels may in itself, defeat the purpose. Case in point, as research from David Pimentel, an agricultural scientist at Cornell University shows, a gallon of ethanol costs approximately $2.24 to produce, compared to $0.63 for a gallon of gasoline. Even more negative is that converting corn to ethanol requires about 99,100 British Thermal Units to make one gallon, which on the other hand, only has 76,500 BTUs of available energy. As a result, in contradiction to itself, 29% more energy is needed to create a gallon of ethanol than is stored in that gallon in the first place. “That helps explain why fossil fuels (not ethanol) are used to produce ethanol,” Pimentel says. “The growers and processors can’t afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol.”