Sustainable biofuel

This includes 12 principles:[2] Several countries and regions have introduced policies or adopted standards to promote sustainable biofuels production and use, most prominently the European Union and the United States.

[3] Biofuels, in the form of liquid fuels derived from plant materials, are entering the market, driven by factors such as oil price spikes and the need for increased energy security.

Responsible commercialization of biofuels represents an opportunity to enhance sustainable economic prospects in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

A healthy supply of alternative energy sources will help to combat gasoline price spikes and reduce dependency on fossil fuels, especially in the transport sector.

Some researchers fear that a major switch to biofuels from such crops would create a direct competition with their use for food and animal feed, and claim that in some parts of the world the economic consequences are already visible, other researchers look at the land available and the enormous areas of idle and abandoned land and claim that there is room for a large proportion of biofuel also from conventional crops.

[8] Second generation biofuels are now being produced from a much broader range of feedstocks including the cellulose in dedicated energy crops (perennial grasses such as switchgrass and Miscanthus giganteus), forestry materials, the co-products from food production, and domestic vegetable waste.

[12][13] The university's researchers have stated that the source of the "TU-103" Clostridium bacteria strain was most likely from the solid waste from one of the plains zebra at New Orleans' Audubon Zoo.

[15] In 2008 the Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul J. Crutzen published findings that the release of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in the production of biofuels means that they contribute more to global warming than the fossil fuels they replace.

[24][25] Brazil sugarcane ethanol fuel program success and sustainability is based on the most efficient agricultural technology for sugarcane cultivation in the world,[26] uses modern equipment and cheap sugar cane as feedstock, the residual cane-waste (bagasse) is used to process heat and power, which results in a very competitive price and also in a high energy balance (output energy/input energy), which varies from 8.3 for average conditions to 10.2 for best practice production.

[22][27] A report commissioned by the United Nations, based on a detailed review of published research up to mid-2009 as well as the input of independent experts world-wide, found that ethanol from sugar cane as produced in Brazil "in some circumstances does better than just "zero emission".

[31] This evaluation also found that consumption of agrochemicals for sugar cane production is lower than in citric, corn, coffee and soybean cropping.

[36][38] Another concern is the risk of clearing rain forests and other environmentally valuable land for sugarcane production, such as the Amazon rainforest, the Pantanal or the Cerrado.

[31] In order to guarantee a sustainable development of ethanol production, in September 2009 the government issued by decree a countrywide agroecological land use zoning to restrict sugarcane growth in or near environmentally sensitive areas.

The government considers that the suitable areas are more than enough to meet the future demand for ethanol and sugar in the domestic and international markets foreseen for the next decades.

Local sustainable production of biofuel in Cambodia, based on the Jatropha or other sources, offers good potential benefits for the investors, the economy, rural communities and the environment.

[54] The Yucatán Peninsula, for instance, in addition to being a corn-producing region, also contains abandoned sisal plantations, where the growing of Jatropha for biodiesel production would not displace food.

The fuel was a 70:30 traditional jet fuel biojet blend produced from Jatropha oil provided by three Mexican producers, Global Energías Renovables (a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S.-based Global Clean Energy Holdings), Bencafser S.A. and Energy JH S.A. Honeywell's UOP processed the oil into Bio-SPK (Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene).

Sweet sorghum is grown on already-farmed drylands that are low in carbon storage capacity, so concerns about the clearing of rainforest do not apply.

Sweet sorghum is easier and cheaper to grow than other biofuel crops in India and does not require irrigation, an important consideration in dry areas.

Biofuels producers that meet to these criteria are able to show buyers and regulators that their product has been obtained without harming the environment or violating human rights.

In this way biofuels may play a key role in energy sector transformation, climate stabilization, and resulting worldwide revitalisation of rural areas.

[67] In 2008, a multi-stakeholder process was initiated by the World Wildlife Fund and the International Finance Corporation, the private development arm of the World Bank, bringing together industry, supply chain intermediaries, end-users, farmers and civil society organisations to develop standards for certifying the derivative products of sugar cane, one of which is ethanol fuel.

[71][72] Air New Zealand set several criteria for its jatropha, requiring that "the land it came from was neither forest nor virgin grassland in the previous 20 years, that the soil and climate it came from is not suitable for the majority of food crops and that the farms are rain fed and not mechanically irrigated".

The company has also set general sustainability criteria, saying that such biofuels must not compete with food resources, that they must be as good as traditional jet fuels, and that they should be cost competitive.

According to the research, if cultivated properly, "jatropha can deliver many benefits in Latin America and greenhouse gas reductions of up to 60 percent when compared to petroleum-based jet fuel".

Unlike previous research, which used theoretical inputs, the Yale team conducted many interviews with jatropha farmers and used "field measurements to develop the first comprehensive sustainability analysis of actual projects".

[77] In December 2011, the FAA awarded $7.7 million to eight companies to advance the development of commercial aviation biofuels, with a special focus on alcohol to jet fuel.

The FAA is assisting in the development of a sustainable fuel (from alcohols, sugars, biomass, and organic matter such as pyrolysis oils) that can be "dropped in" to aircraft without changing current practices and infrastructure.