Читать книгу Liquid Biofuels - Группа авторов - Страница 39

Fuel and energy resources for fossil fuels in use today, natural gas, coal, nuclear energy, hydrogen, geothermal, wind, solar, electricity from methane gas, wood/wood/forest and wave energy. Although the demand for heavily used fossil fuels continues to increase, sustainable consumption of these fuels in the future will not be possible due to reduced reserves and negative environmental impacts. For these reasons, and especially in order to reduce greenhouse gas impacts, it is expected that in the future fuels derived from solar, hydrogen, wind and biomass, which are nuclear and renewable sources of energy rather than petroleum products, will come to the fore. One of the major sources within alternative and renewable energy technologies is biomass. Living or inanimate biological substances used for energy generation are called biomass. Biomass energy resources consist of plant, animal and urban wastes of organic origin. The biomass energy sources used extensively today are weed and woody energy crops, industrial crops, agricultural crops, agricultural product wastes, forest wastes, urban solid wastes, biomass processing wastes and animal wastes.

It has been determined that plants and plant residues to be used in biofuel production are alternative sources and environmentally friendly renewable energy sources that do not harm human nutrition and environmental health. In this context, fuels of vegetable origin are grouped as bioethanol, biodiesel, biogas, biomethanol, biomethyl ether and bio-oil. The most common of biofuels are bioethanol and biodiesel. Bioethanol is a high octane number of biofuel, originated from starch and obtained from agricultural products. Bioethanol is obtained as a result of the fermentation process applied after the conversion of starch to sugar, which is present in agricultural product. It can be mixed directly with gasoline. The main plants that can produce bioethanol are wheat, sugar beet and corn. Utilization of biomass can be in the form of direct combustion or by increasing the quality of fuel in various ways, and obtaining biofuels close to known energy sources or having equivalent properties. Nowadays, there is no rapidly growing agricultural production area built to provide biofuels. Researchers are working to find alternative energy sources from renewable raw materials because of the limited and depleted of conventional petroleum fuels. Renewable energy technologies have an important place in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as eliminate the world’s energy demand. Biomass energy potential is the most promising energy source among its renewable energy sources due to its worldwide availability. Apart from this, biomass has unique advantages such as providing solid, liquid and gaseous fuels that can be stored, transported and used away from the starting point among the fuels other than renewable energy sources. Biofuels have many priorities that offer sustainability, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, regional development, social structure and agriculture. As a result, biofuels can be a valuable source of energy with planned production.

Biofuels provide very effective values both in terms of ecological balance and environmental health. Because of the increasing demand for biofuels, interest in fossil fuels is decreasing. Depending on this, new fields are being formed in agriculture, which increases arable agricultural areas. Accordingly, the wastes left over from agricultural products are evaluated and this contributes to the economy of the country. When we look at it from an environmental perspective, biofuels are very important. The value of high CO₂ in the air decreases and the exhaust emission values decrease. Due to its beneficial effect on the environment, climatic differences due to global warming are greatly reduced. In addition to the positive effects of biofuels, some negative causes occur. For example, since biofuel production depends on agricultural activities, more agricultural areas need to be processed. In this case, the existing forest and pasture areas to be opened to production by plowing can cause the reduction of CO₂. In addition, due to the narrowing of the existing areas, there may be problems related to grazing animals. In addition, due to declining agricultural areas, large areas become fragmented and food prices rise due to declining agricultural areas. At this point, consumption of primary energy sources, especially those based on oil and coal, has destroyed one-third of the world’s natural resources, 12% of forests, one-third of the biodiversity in the oceans and 50% of fresh water. Another disadvantage of these energy sources is that they are not renewable. However, attempts to solve the world’s energy problem with renewable energy and biofuels through “clean energy” have begun and are progressing rapidly. Interest in biofuels will increase in the coming years with academic studies and new policies of countries.