Biodiesel can be made from natural resources which are readily available.

There are many good reasons why biodiesel is a good fuel alternative to gasoline. Primarily, it is safer to the environment because it completely comes from renewable sources, is non-toxic, burns clean, and is totally biodegradable. Secondly, it is a renewable fuel and can easily be sourced out from natural, safe resources such as vegetable oils, soybean oils, canola oils, recycled cooking oils, sunflower oils, and animal fats.

Used as an alternative fuel, biodiesel has more benefits compared to petroleum. Its engine performance is either equal or even better than that of petroleum and it is readily available for people’s automobile use as it can be found in around 800 locations around the United States with 600 fleets currently using biodiesel blends. In 2005, an estimated 75 million gallons of biodiesel were sold, according a website of the US Environmental Protection Act.

Because of its safety and environmental-friendly components, biodiesel passed the standards of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments and has subsequently been tested for all other environmental safety standard requirements by the government and passed them all compared to other alternative fuels which had some harmful components. As an alternative fuel, biodiesel also cuts greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by over 50 percent compared to petroleum diesel which only reduces GHG emissions by 10 percent, according to a report by the US Department of Energy. With people becoming more aware about the protection of the natural environment and making individual contributions to stop the global warming, the use of biodiesel in everyday personal automobile use is seen as one big step in this endeavor. Environmental groups are also seen to push for greater efforts toward achieving this universal goal.

Converting to biodiesel is easy as it works with most current diesel engines. While it is presently more expensive than the regular gasoline sold for automobile use, the price is expected to go down in the coming years as more people convert to it and the demand increases. Since it can be made from natural resources which are readily available within the country, responding to an increasing demand is expected to be met without so much as a problem from the levels of production, marketing, and distribution. The expected increase in the people’s need for a more safe and environmental-friendly fuel in biodiesel is seen as a positive response to the growing concern in global warming. A study revealed that an estimated 33 percent of vehicle harmful emissions contribute to the global warming phenomena.

While touted as the best alternative fuel of the new future, biodiesel is not only highly recommended for daily automobile use, but is also being pushed as another alternative energy source for both generating and heating purposes. A test conducted by the National Oilheat Research Alliance (NORA) revealed that 80 percent low-sulfur heating oil and a 20 percent biodiesel (B20) decreased emissions of sulfur oxide by almost 80 percent or even more. Emissions of nitrogen oxide decreased by around 20 percent while carbon dioxide similarly lowered by 20 percent.

Going “green” in everything that people do is the new way to doing things. From recycling to reusing to reducing to making use of renewable and alternative sources of energy such as biodiesel, solar heat, water, and wind lead to better earth preservation and living in harmony with nature. Biodiesel is the future in alternative fuel, knowing that already people must do their share in saving our environment and start using what is only the best and safest for both man and the earth.

What you need to understand when it comes to energy subsidies is that every form happens to be subsidized. There are not any types of energy, including nuclear, renewables, or any others, that can stand on their own without having loan guarantees, tax preferences, or even research grants on their behalf. Of course, this really doesn’t have to be a bad thing. The biggest questions is which problems are we dealing with when it comes to energy and in order to solve them, what energy subsidies need to be used?

Trying to pin down what really is and is not a subsidy is not that difficult. There really isn’t a definition of subsidy that is accepted universally, according to the U.S. Information administration back in 2008. This makes it even easier for people to get confused on what subsidies are all about. Since there are benefits and costs with all programs from the government, many times the term subsidy ends up getting connotations that are derogatory.

When you keep this in mind, several reports need to be kept in mind which try to calculate the subsidy amounts and their beneficiaries. Back in 2004, several energy worthies that are bipartisan, came up with estimates that ranged between 27-64 billion dollars each year. They included tax incentives, cleanup of sites that are polluted, R&D grants, royalty relief for gas and oil, and oil supply line protection by the military. They did note within their reports that the numbers they came up with were really only estimates.

Another estimate was done by Earth Track about three years later, which was done on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development federal subsidies. Their estimates were that there is $49-100 billion each year, with conservation getting only 2.1%, about 2/3 going to fossil fuels, ethanol getting 7.6%, 2.4% going to nuclear, and 7.5 percent going to various other renewables. Then in 2008, there were even different numbers that were come up with by the Department of Energy, saying that the total was only about $16.6 billion. Of course, it was made clear that this report shouldn’t be the last word and didn’t include the cap on military protection of supply lines for oil and nuclear power plants.

Depending on policy preferences, subsidies can be described and defines in different ways. Those who advocate renewable energy sources say that the tax preferences that are for the tax codes happen to be permanent tax code provisions, while the ones for renewable energy forces have been off and one for some time. On the other hand, those who are champions of nuclear and coal power feel that the cost of subsidies for the renewables are much higher than the costs for plants that run on a constant basis. So, numbers on subsidies can easily be manipulated and used as weapons for either side of the argument, and it is important that you understand that.

I have to confess I didn’t know much about ethanol until today, when I decided to actually make the effort to do some research on the subject.

What had I known previously? That for several years, gasoline had been mandated to be mixed with 10% ethanol, because it was better for the environment. However, because of the law of unintended consequences, the use of ethanol was driving up the cost of corn (from which it was made), and causing the poorer people of the world even more misery as they were now unable to purchase it cheaply as their staple food.

So, today, as I said, I began doing some research.

Ethanol can be made from several substances. In Brazil – the world’s largest ethanol producing country, they make ethanol out of sugar cane rather than corn. Sugar cane has a 30% greater concentration of sucrose than corn, and is also much easier to extract. In addition, the bagasse (the fibrous residue remaining after the stalks are crushed to extract their juice) is then used for a variety of purposes – nothing is wasted or dumped into landfills.

So why does the United States make its ethanol out of corn, I wondered. (One doesn’t really need to research that. Farmers already had corn crops in place, probably, and want to make money out of that, and our politicians want to keep our farmers happy. That’s why the US adds a tariff to ethanol produced outside the United States. Brazil ethanol is much cheaper than that produced in the US, because it does not need to be converted into sucrose – it already is sucrose. (In addition, Brazilian producers don’t have to pay their workers near as much as American farmers have to pay theirs.)

CNN Money reported on August 7, 2007: “The reason we use corn and grains in this country to make ethanol is that’s what we produce best. It’s the easier thing for us to do at the moment,” said Matt Hartwig, spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association. “The likelihood that cane will become a huge ethanol food stock isn’t high, though you may see it in the future.”

This despite the fact that ethanol made from sugar cane is: “about six times more economical to produce than corn ethanol, and has the potential to help the environment because it requires few chemicals to grow.”

It’s the Corn Lobby in the US government that is producing a shift over to sugar cane – the government simply has too much invested in its corn-into-ethanol programs.

We have the technology to do a lot of things and one of these is to tap the earth’s energy. This is exactly what we do when we decide to use geothermal which happens to be a green energy source.

Geothermal energy is energy obtained by tapping heat from the earth itself. This comes from magma and the radioactive decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium.

The downside to geothermal energy is the fact that it is expensive to build. On the other hand, because the earth’s crust continuously decays replenishing the heat, it is still a renewable source of energy.

There are three types of geothermal plants around. These are namely dry steam, flash, and binary.

Dry steam plants take steam out of fractures in the ground and use it to directly drive a turbine that spins a generator.

Flash plants take on water at temperatures over 200˚C, out of the ground, and allows it to boil as it rises to the surface then separates the steam phase in steam/water separators which runs the steam through a turbine to generate electricity.

Last, you have binary plants. Here, hot water flows through heat exchangers and that boiling organic fluid is what spins the turbine.

Once power is generated, the condensed steam and remaining geothermal fluid from all three types of plants are injected back into the hot rock to pick up more heat.

Geothermal plants are used operational in different parts of the globe. These are usually located in geologically unstable parts of the planet. You can see some in Chile, Iceland, New Zealand, United States, the Philippines, and Italy. At home, two most prominent areas for this are in the Yellowstone basin and in northern California.

Aside from digging deep into the earth, there are some who believe we can generate power from hot dry rocks. You have to dig 3 kilometers deep are drilled into the earth first to find these hot underground radiogenic granite rocks. Right now, some Australia companies are exploring this technology.

If you were to compare the amount of energy collected from geothermal to solar, you still get more from the sun. Despite that, people should still use it since solar energy cannot be harnessed when the clouds block the sun’s rays from reaching the solar panels.

Geothermal energy is a green energy source just like wind, hydropower and biofuel because it is a renewable. By maximizing its potential, we don’t have to worry about the price of oil in the world market when it hit more than $110 a barrel and is now under $40 in the world market.

But that is not the only thing we should be concerned about. We should also do our best to protect the environment given that coal fired and nuclear power plants produce harmful gases and radioactive waste that may cause to people and the surrounding areas.

Everyone knows that our planet has changed due to global warming. We learned our lessons from Chernobyl and Three Mile Island but this does not mean it may not happen again.

For us to do our share to protect the environment now and for generations to come, we have to promote alternative energy and geothermal as a green energy source is just one of many that is currently available.

The use of hydroelectric power or even hydroelectricity dates back to Ancient Greece and China when they installed waterwheels in rapidly flowing rivers to turn millstones and other equipment.

But the hydroelectric plants of today still use the same basic principles as the historical waterwheel with some variations. The difference is that we use the force of the power to push the turbine, which in turn powers a generator thus generating electricity.

To make sure that there is a steady flow of power being produced, a dam has to be built to retain the water. If there is a need for more power, the gates of the dam are opened so water can be released. During non-peak, the gates are closed. To ensure there is water at all times, some dams have a recovery and pumping systems to the water released can be used again.

There are issues with the use of hydroelectricity. Some claim that it poses a problem for fish and aquatic plants on both sides of the dam. Because the flow of water has been altered, the nutrient rich silt which helps crops grow, could be affected which is exactly what happened when the Aswan Dam was completed in Egypt.

But there are ways to fix that and the bigger picture is that power produced from hydroelectric plants do not generate any emissions or waste which happens to be much better than operating a coal-fired power plant.

There is another way to generate hydropower and you get this form the sea. This is also known as wave power or wave energy which uses changes in the air levels of sealed chambers to power turbines. When a wave rises into the chamber, the rise water pushes the air out which then turns a generator.

Once the wave goes down, air flows into the turbine and back into the chamber through doors that will close.

These chambers remain afloat on the ocean and how much power it produces varies. A lot of these are used on the western coasts of Scotland, northern Canada, southern Africa, Australia, and the northwestern coasts of the United States. These systems are usually small and can power a warning buoy or a small lighthouse.

There is also tidal energy. The difference with wave energy is that when the tide approaches, the water is trapped in reservoirs behind dams. When the tide drops, the water behind the dam is released thus producing power similar to a hydroelectric power plant.

This can only work if you have tides that are at least 16 feet and since there are only a few places in the planet that can do that.

Lastly, you have ocean thermal energy. Here, you get power based on the different temperatures in the water. For this to work, you need at least 38 degrees Fahrenheit difference between the warmer surface water and the colder deep ocean water. Still in the trial stage, it is used Japan and Hawaii.

Hydropower is a green energy source. It is safe to use and what is even better is that it is renewable.

The energy crisis has already prompted a war; that is if you believe conspiracy theorists and the media. There might be some truth to this matter, at least if we take a closer look at the dynamics of supply and demand of fuel all over the world.

What is BioFuel?

Biofuel is an energy source derived from recently deceased biological matter while fossil fuel (i.e. raw material for gasoline, kerosene, diesel and etc.). In theory biofuel can be derived from any carbonated source, but in practice it usually comes from plants like corn, palm, sugar cane, wheat, and algae. These feedstock sources are popular for the two most popular end products which are used for cars and machineries: bioethanol and biodiesel. Bioethanol comes from either sugar crops or fermented starch. Biofuel does not just come from plant crops, although a margin of them does.

Since bio fuel may be gaseous, liquid, or solid fuel, other categories also apply. Way up in the Tibetan mountains, biofuels have been in use for hundreds of years. Tibetans use manure from their goats, donkeys, horses, and cows as a substitute for wood. Animal waste are common pollutants, converting it into useful energy helps eliminate its negative effects.

Biowaste

Other alternative fuel resources are used oils. People eat, and thousands and millions of gallons of used oils are thrown down the drain, which leads to rivers and oceans. Oil does not decompose so recycling and converting it into biofuel is in order. In addition, landfills maybe of some use after all. Landfills emanate polluting gas which contains methane, a combustible gas which is the primary content of the gas we use for cooking, and heat.

Biofuel and Cars

Liquid biofuels are getting generous media attention because of the worsening air conditions in severely populated areas. Cars produce almost 60% of our air pollution. Vehicles need highly combustible energy to function. Liquids and gases are easier to handle because it can be contained and pumped, so handling is less expensive.

There are two types of biofuels that maybe used in cars: biodiesel and bioethanol. Biofuel is very popular in Europe. In that part of the world most car manufacturers make vehicles with diesel engines, so using biodiesel instead of pure diesel is a relatively easy transition. If a car is unmodified, owners may blend up to 20% biodiesel with regular diesel. Biodiesel comes from fats and used oils, these by products are the processed through transesterification. Transestirification is a chemical reaction produced by adding an acid base to the fats. The result is biodiesel.

Bioalcohol is produced when starch, sugar, and cellulose are fermented. The results are three popular types of alcohols: ethanol, butanol, and propanol. Among the three it is argued that either ethanol or biobutanol may be used in gasoline running cars, but it seems that biobutanol won the bid because it now called biogasoline. Biogasoline is formed by acetone, butanol, and ethanol fermentation and scientific modifications.

With social enlightenment and a new found concern for the welfare of the environment, more and more sustainable power resources are being discovered and invented.