Importance Of Efficient Biofuels

By: Kate King

Daily Campus

4/2/08

With the environmental movement becoming a more prominent issue in American discussion in recent years, a plethora of new buzzwords have emerged. Most people understand the general concepts of climate change and global warming, especially after the attention brought by "An Inconvenient Truth." But what about the more specific components of this complex global issue?

One word often heard in current environmental discussions is biofuel. It sounds eco-friendly, but what is it? According to Richard Parnas, a chemical engineering professor and head of biodiesel research at UConn, the term biofuel comprises two distinctly different energy sources, both of which have the potential to reduce American dependence on foreign oil and air pollution.

The first type of biofuel is biodiesel, which is completely different than the other type of biofuel, ethanol.

"Biodiesel is a direct substitute for regular diesel fuels and home heating oil," Parnas said.

Biodiesel is produced from vegetable oils through a simple chemical process. With current technology, biodiesel creates three times more energy than it takes to produce the fuel, Parnas said. This is a 300 percent benefit in comparison to regular diesel fuel.

Biodiesel is produced by recycling used vegetable oil, like the grease left over from French fry fryers at fast food restaurants, according to Parnas. The state of Connecticut alone has the potential right now to produce 14 million gallons of biodiesel from waste vegetable oil.

"Connecticut has the potential to replace about 3 percent of its petroleum with biodiesel using local resources," Parnas said. This could help the state reduce its dependency on foreign oil, 15 percent of which is imported from unstable parts of the world, according to Parnas.

While there is the potential for millions of gallons of biodiesel production in Connecticut, currently only a small fraction of that number is being produced. The company Connecticut Biopur, based in Bethlehem, Conn., produces 500,000 gallons of biodiesel per year. Another company, Hale Hill Biofuels, sells a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petroleum home heating oil for essentially the same price as 100 percent petroleum fuel, according to Parnas, who has used the company's oil for two years. At UConn, a lab produces 50 gallons of biodiesel per week for use in campus shuttle buses.

"We'd like to scale up that [production] to 500 gallons per week, and we're working with the university on that," Parnas said.

A switch to this type of fuel would also improve air quality. In addition to recycling used vegetable oil, biodiesel can also be produced from crops, as long as those crops are specifically designated for fuel production and are not being planted in the place of other important ecosystems such as rainforests, Parnas said. Biofuels produced from crops would reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted into the atmosphere because the plants used to produce the biodiesel would absorb a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while they were growing.

A different perspective on waste is necessary in order to increase the production of biodiesel fuel, according to Parnas.

"If the culture was to change slightly so that people were to regard their waste not as waste but as a product … then it would be very easy to produce biodiesel," Parnas said.

Another type of biofuel, ethanol, has the potential to provide even more efficient energy than biodiesel. This biofuel is produced from corn and currently used as an additive to gasoline, according to a 2005 study on biofuels by the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis. Potentially, ethanol fuel could offer ten times the amount of energy it takes to create, according to Parnas.

However, "with the current technology, ethanol is basically worthless." This is because right now ethanol creates the exact same amount of energy that it takes to produce. Technological improvements are necessary in order to harness the full potential of this type of biofuel.

Technologically, "the main barrier to a positive energy balance for ethanol is our inability to ferment the woody part of the plant," according to Parnas. Currently, scientists can use only 5 percent of a plant to produce ethanol, which provides much less energy than would be produced if technology could use 70 or 75 percent of the plant. While the problems are technological, the main obstacle facing a positive energy balance for ethanol is money.

"It's not a question of scientific ability, it's a question of economic feasibility," Parnas said. As of right now, it is very costly to develop a particular enzyme vital to ethanol production.

"The long-range potential of ethanol is higher than biodiesel, but with current technology we can do more with biodiesel," Parnas said.

Should these technological improvements materialize, Connecticut could produce a large amount of ethanol. This is because Connecticut has a high potential for growing woody biomass, a chief component to ethanol production.

"Connecticut is great at growing trees," Parnas said.

Should ethanol production become efficient, it will offer the same benefits of biodiesel, such as decreased dependence on foreign oil and improved air quality, Parnas said.



Contact Kate King at

Katherine.King@UConn.edu

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