Enironmental Evaluation of Biofuels

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Enironmental Evaluation of Biofuels

Abstract
One of today’s most important environmental issues is the pollution caused by traffic and transport. There is no doubt that engine emissions, particularly from cars and trucks, have been linked with severe damages to the environment and human health. The substitution of conventional fuels (gasoline, diesel) by biofuels is considered to be a potential way to reduce pollution and support sustainable agriculture. The two most common biofuels are biodiesel and ethanol. The use of biofuels is considered to be environmentally friendly. The production of biofuels, however, might cause pollution. Life-cycle assessment is the scientific evaluation method to investigate the net environmental impacts of biofuels. By means of this method it is possible to determine whether the use of biofuels or the use of conventional fuels trigger more pollution to the environment. Biofuel policy might capitalize on the production of biofuels supporting rural economic development and sustainable agriculture.

Keywords: biofuel, biodiesel, ethanol, life-cycle assessment (LCA), sustainable agriculture.

1. Introduction
The reserves – known and affordable supplies of a nonrenewable resource such as oil – are considered economically depleted when 80% of the supply has been used; the remaining 20% is considered too expensive to extract. Oil’s fatal flaw is that its reserves may be 80% depleted within 35–84 years, depending on how rapidly it is used. At the current rate of consumption, global oil reserves will last at least 44 years. Undiscovered oil that is thought to exist might last another 20–40 years. Instead of remaining at the current level, however, global oil consumption is projected to increase by about 25% by 2010. This will hasten depletion of global oil reserves.

The estimated resources of today have aworldwide distribution which implies possible difficulties in future besides the fact that they are limited, while yearly consumption still rises. Since at least 5 years the safe resources are estimated at approx. 140 billion tons of fossil oils, the uncertainties in behind with additional 50% and thus the resulting gap must be filled with biomass (biodiesel, ethanol etc.)
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