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Welcome to SUNS 2008! |
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Committee: ECOSOC Topic: Global impact of biofuels Director: Alejandro Talamas (Spanish), Eric Zabroky (English)
What are biofuels?
Biofuels are solid, liquid or gas fuels made from recently dead biological material. These types of fuels have a long history and great and intelligent people behind it. In all the world biofuels are more commonly used to power up vehicles. Biofuels are principally divided for two things biodiesel and ethanol. Biofuels are planned to be the next generation of fuels, but for the past years they have appeared serious global problems, affecting the world economy first by rising food prices like corn and second by affecting countries that their economy depends on the selling of fossil fuels. These biofuels are divided into 4 generations, each generation has a different preparation and material. The idea of the creation of different generations is for having more possible new energy sources trying to find the one that will help the most to the present world situation because is a very delicate one that could really affect some countries economy, but this is only simulation about how the future is going to be when petroleum is over. First biofuels generation: are biofuels made from sugar, starch, vegetable oil, or animal fats using conventional technology, this are often seeds or grains such as wheat , which yields starch that is fermented into bioethanol, or sunflower seeds, which are pressed to yield vegetable oil that can be used in biodiesel, but this first biofuels generation made food prices rise. This first biofuels generation has a lot of different biofuels. The fist one is Vegetable oil, this is not commonly used as fuel but it can be used for the preparation of biodiesel and for cleaning water. Another is one of the most important ones biodiesel. There are a lot of the first generation biofuels like bioalcohols, biogas and solid biofuels as wood, grass cutting and dried manure. Second biofuels generation: People that are in favor of biofuels say that the second generation of biofuels is the best answer because they are made from non food crops.. Many second generation biofuels are now days under developing like: biohydrogen, bioethanol. Cellulosic ethanol production uses non food crops or waste products and does not take food away from the animal or human food chain. Scientists fear that this second generation of biofuels can break or modify the animal’s food chain. Third Biofuels generation: The third biofuels generation are fuels made from algae also known as oilgae. With the high prices of fossil fuels there is much interest in algaeculture. An advantage of this third generation is that the use of algae is totally harmless to the environment and produced almost 30% more energy than crops like soybeans. Fourth Biofuels generation: is based on the conversion of vegoil and biodiesel into gasoline.
History of biofuels
In the recent years the popularity of biofuels has been growing all around the world. Biodiesel has been researched in over 28 countries, and there is a production in 21 of them. There are around 74 biodiesel plants in Europe, and in just Germany there around 1500 outlets to buy it. All around Latin America the biofuels were introduced in early 1980s specially Argentina and Brazil. All around the world had been realizing experiments to put biofuels on people eyes for example: In 1996 Was the first boat to cross a sea using 100% biodiesel In 1997 Joshua Tickell was the first one to drive a van over 10,000 miles across the United States just using waste vegetable oil from fast food restaurants. In 2003 David Modersbach and his family made a journey from United States to Argentina using biofuels. When he got there he started promoting the useful and incredible things that biofuels and renewable energies are. The first person to use and discover biofuels was Rudolph Diesel, he used vegetable oil for his engine. In 1900 in the World Exhibition in Paris, France he show how his engine worked with peanut oil. This is similar on how Henry Ford tried to run his Model T on ethanol, a corn product, but sadly for Diesel and Ford the use of petroleum looked as the most logical one to use. Diesel said once “the use of plant oil as fuel may seem insignificant today, but such products can in time become important as kerosene and coal products today.” Diesel and Ford were the ones to introduce biofuels to the world market trying to teach every body of what wonderful things the nature has to us.
Biodiesel
This is a non-petroleum, biodegradable energy source mostly used for power up vehicles. On August 31, 1937, G. Chavanne of the University of Brussels in Belgium won a price for a 'Procedure for the transformation of vegetable oils for their uses as fuels'. Biodiesel can be used pure or in some cases combine with petroleum diesel at any concentration in most modern diesel engines. The first cars used by biodiesel were in 1992. Biodiesel is trying to replace the use of petroleum diesel but the change of this may have a high cost because the gas stations need to chance their pipes because if biodiesel is going through the same pipes that fossil diesel was, they might be broken, the old pipes were the petroleum diesel was coming out need to be change for new ones. The biodiesel is been more available every year for the people in Europe, United States and Canada. The purchase of biodiesel is more expensive than petroleum diesel, but it is expected that for the increase of petroleum costs, the prices of biodiesel and petroleum diesel are going to be the same. In the past years biodiesel has been introduced into the market, for example Daimler Chrysler in 2005 released the Jeep Liberty CRD for the United States market with 5% biodiesel blends. They increased the warranty to 20% because they thought that biofuels are so more effective. The whole world is using biodiesel in so many things like in trains, for example in 2007 a British train used 80% of petroleum diesel and 20% of biodiesel, something similar happened in Washington that same year, a train used 75% of petroleum diesel and 25% of biodiesel, that’s how the world is accepting biofuels and how things are going to be with the use of this incredible renewable energy source that may have a global history impact, if the world is continuing to do this experiments encouraging people that the use of biofuels as biodiesel is not such a bad idea, that when fossil fuels are over the global economy will stand up or would not be affected. The Aircrafts had been more careful of the used of biodiesel because they cant put in risk people during a flight, but several tests had been done and they have been pretty successful, this first announced tests were in London a February 24, 2008, it was a flight from London to Amsterdam. Biodiesel can also be used by heating fuel at homes and commercial boilers, sometimes known as bioheat. The use of biodiesel is very important for the hole world that is why there is a world conference named Biodiesel Expo were the best scientists meet and show their new biodiesel discoveries and how it might be used to make the world a better place by replacing petroleum diesel from the world market. The global environment impact and the social consequences of biodiesel production especially in third world countries, generates deforestation and it affects rural goods and workers. In the past years the whole world had been trying to modify and change biodiesel so its production would not affect the environment, of course this research is still in progress, but the whole world has confidence on its most intelligent scientists to solve this problem. If biodiesel is not the best solution they might find something else, but until this happens the world should be working on how to conserve it more and the moderate use of fossil fuels cause when they are over a world crisis may appear.
The good things of biofuels
The less use of fossil fuels. This is a very important aspect because the petroleum is not a renewable resource because its natural production needs millions of years and it less used is important to the environment. Biofuels are made from renewable resources that’s the difference from fossil fuels. The production of biofuels affects a lot less the environment that the fossil fuels do. Using biofuels makes the world a better place because using them instead of fossil fuels it is a great help to the environment and the global warming. Global warming is a problem that should concerned everyone in the whole world because thanks to the contamination in the planet, the natural disasters and the climate change had been affecting all around the world. Biofuels is one of the many important answers to stop or moderate global contamination. Moderating the use of unrenewable resources, instead using renewable resources as crops and some types of plants. The use of biofuels is not only to power up engines it also has a lot of domestic uses like: for heating, cooking, stoves. Also they had been used to power up vehicles mixing biofuels with gasoline, it fist happen in England when in wartime Germany powered their vehicles with the mixing of gasoline alcohol fermented from potatoes, this was achieved thanks to the little gasoline available. All of this new experiments powering up vehicles with the combination of biofuels with fossil fuels was at the beginning of World War 2. There would be some time were biofuels would be cheaper to buy because the gasoline and fossil fuels products prices are raising a lot in the past years, the reason of this is that the price of extraction of petroleum is increasing because every time is more difficult to take it out using more and more machines and the machines are causing the need of more money, the other reason of the increased prices in oil is that every day every minute every second the world is losing more and more petroleum because the renewable process of oil is of millions of years.
Current Biofuels countries events:
United States biofuels use: In 2006 George W. Bush said that the United States was “addicted to oil” and should replace 75% of imported oil by 2025, by alternative sources of energy including biofuels. Almost all ethanol in the United States is produced from corn. Corn is used because it is a low cost source and it can be easily converted into simple sugars. In 2005 United States Congress passed the energy policy. The $14 billion national energy plan includes provisions that promote energy efficiency and conservation, modernize the domestic energy infrastructure, and provide incentives for both traditional energy sources and renewable alternatives. The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that about 1.6 billion of bushels of corn will be used to produce about 4.3 billion gallons of fuel ethanol around 2005/2006. Using a total of 10.7 billion corn bushels. Developing countries: Most developing countries have extensive biomass resources making them easier to increase biofuels production. China is the biggest developing country in bioethanol production. In rural population in developing countries, biomass provides the majority of fuel for heat and cooking. The International Energy Agency (IEA) show that biomass energy provides around 30% of the total energy supply in developing countries. Almost 2 billion people depend on biomass fuels as their first energy source. High prices of fossil fuels help developing countries in the use of biofuels, this in the same time helps the environment. Usually people in developing countries can’t afford this kind of new fuels, but organization as Intermediate Technology Development Group work to improved facilities for biofuels alternatives accessible to those who can not get them. Brazil: Is the World biggest sugar exporter making him the number one producer of based-sugar ethanol in the world. Making more than 16 billoin litters a year, and in Brazil a lot of cars are 25% ethanol gasoline. This country expects to increase his world production for 2010. Japan: Is the number one sugar ethanol buyer. He recently make an agreement with Brazil to buy them around 15 million liters of sugar ethanol. Canada: Canada´s ethanol production is around 300 million litters each year, he estimates that for 2010 his production will increase to 750 million litters each year. He also expects for the same years that almost 10% of his gasoline supplies will be replaced for ethanol. Thailand: Is the world’s second biggest sugar exporter country after Brazil. He has now days 24 ethanol plants that produce 1.5 million litters each year. His goal for 2010 is to produce each year around 1 billion litters. Israel: Israel was the country who proposed the biofuels made from algae. When many parts of the world heard that they didn’t believe that it can be possible. This new practice of biofuels can make the fourth biofuels generation as the most adequate to be used since there are large amounts of algae. Spain: This country is accepting biofuels in a good mode, trying to think of the environment, global warming and contamination, but they are hugely criticised because of the change of crop prices. Belgium and Netherlands: They haven’t really been concentrating in biofuels as their goal, but recently they start to follow the rules that the European Commission set to increase biofuels production. France: Is one of the countries that most support United States biofuels policy because it is really concerned about the world that we are living and the increase of food prices doesn’t affect them as much as other countries.
Issues about the use of biofuels:
Oil prices have been rising dramatically since 2002, and the world is trying to find new answers, trying to avoid more environmental contamination that is causing more climate change. That is how new ideas of alternative energy sources appear. The idea of the use of this alternative energy sources was that they will stop or reduce the fossil fuels use and that they would contaminate a lot less. That is how the use of biofuels came to light as the more possible and best answer to replace fossil fuels use. Biofuels are proposed as having such benefits as: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, reduction of fossil fuel use, increased national energy security, increased rural development and a sustainable fuel supply for the future, but in the past years a lot of issues have appear in the use of biofuels like the increase in food crops as corn.
Another issue is that countries are not willing to affect their economy for the environment care. The increase of prices of fossil fuels may help the increase in biodiesel production, but some questions are appearing in all the world about the cost of the production of this fuel and if it really helps the environment. The whole world is now wondering if the use of biofuels is really the best answer to substitute the use of fossil fuels. Each and every country in the world will always look for the benefit of himself so he can grow economically and socially, that’s why the U.N is trying to take solutions that help everybody equally, because the end of fossil fuels is an actual problem so the world should be preparing. India: Its problem with biofuels is that there food rising prices really affect him because their economy or people don’t have the amount of money to still buy the same food as they used to. In the world meetings, India is trying to encourage countries to find other solutions because the new United States biofuel policy could make India enter an economy depression. Mexico: Mexico’s economy is now days in a not very good situation, food prices have risen, especially corn, and if corn prices are up so are gonna be the tortilla’s. The tortilla in Mexico is a very important product because their consumption each year is very huge and its production even more. Since these prices were raised in 2006, several strikes and problems with the government have been raised because this new prices really affect the way people live in Mexico. China: China will restrict the use of corn for producing biofuel to keep corn prices down and protect its growing food industry. In China there is currently only four companies producing fuels based from corn approved by the government. China is the second largest corn producer after United States, that’s why there’s corn price is so important. But data shows that the expansion of corn biofuel capacity is much faster than the growth of corn production. China is in favor of the use of non-food crops biofuels. China is now trying to increase their ethanol use. There are now days 4 Chinese provinces that use ethanol instead of gasoline to power up their vehicles. Chinese biofuels situation is very complicated. Egypt: Is another country that is having trouble with the United States and European biofuels policy because of the same reason “food prices”. They are planning to make an alliance with China and India to promote other renewable energy resources as algae and non- food crops biofuels, but nothing has been established. Italy: In Italy thanks to the increasing of food prices, the people are getting angry and disturbed because the typical Italian food “pasta” is getting more expensive each year thanks to biofuels rising food prices.
Melanie Zauscher
Question that make you think?
1: Does food-crops biofuels really increase food prices? 2: What biofuels generation do you think is the most effective one? 3: Do you think that the studies to discover new energy sources should continue? 4: Do you think that the world is too slow in the use of biofuels? 5: Do you think that the increase in price of fossil fuels would help promote the use of biofuels? 6: Do you think that the biofuels from plants will affect the animals food chain? 7: If biofuels use increases, what do you think would happen to the countries that almost their whole economy is from the sale of fossil fuels?
Bibliography: www.energybulletin.net/node/465 www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/EFM/07-071sum.html http://www.enn.com/energy/article/38379 |
