Developed and industrialised countries such as USA, Germany, NewZealand, Spain and Canada are on the forefront of using biofuels to replace fossil fuel. Other developing countries such as India, Brazil, Malaysia and many others are also catching up as the demand soars high. Biofuels made from plants and waste are gaining popularity over fossil fuel because they are more environmental friendly as they do not emit carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases into the air.
Many of the biofuel companies extract the fuel from plants and crops while others use waste collected from homes, restaurants, hospitals, the farms, schools and other places. One of the major biofuel is ethanol used in automobiles and alcoholic drinks. To make biofuel, the companies use fermentation that breaks down starches and sugars to turn it into fuel.
Though there is controversy over the rising use of biofuel with some organisations spread across the world, the technology of converting waste and food crops to fuel to turn it into energy comes with many benefits. Below are some of the most notable benefits of choosing biofuel over fossil fuel.
Biofuel benefits
Eco-friendly
The most important and crucial benefit of using biofuels is to save the environment from toxic gas and carbonemissions. Fossil fuels emit too much pollution into the air, which is a hazard to all living things. Biofuels on the other hand release less pollutants emitted from vehicles, greenhouses and many other places.
For the companies that collect recyclables for their production of biofuels, they save the environment from toxic emissions from landfills and other places in the local communities.
Easier availability of source materials
It is easier to get source materials for biofuels than it is for fossil fuels. The main sources of biofuel are kitchen waste, manure, crop waste, used cooking oil, crops such as palm oil, corn, sugarcane and soya, feedstockand many others by products.
The crops grown for biofuel production are also easily renewable and there is always the availability of waste material from everywhere making it easy to recycle into biofuel. Fossil fuel sources on the other hand take long to produce.
Job creation
With more and more countries embracing the use of biofuels, more waste collection and recycling companies are also sprouting up even in rural areas. This creates jobs for more people from across the globe. The move has actually seen a very high rise of direct job creation, which is also making a big impact on the economy.
Some of the people benefiting locally from biofuel technology are farmers engaging into biofuel crop production. Construction workers and engineers building biofuel biorefinaries locally, researchers that develop innovation processes and technologies, marketers and distributors and people in direct and indirect biofuel support industries.
Stabilisation of fuel costs
Transporting fossil fuel from foreign countries is costly. Producing biofuel to replace the importation of the same cuts down on transportation costs as the production is done locally. This helps to stabilise the cost of fuel in the country and to protect consumers from any fluctuations that come with the unavailability of fossil fuel.
Better security over local energy
Because the production of biofuels is local in many countries, this reduces the country’s dependency on foreign energy. With countries reducing their decency on foreign energy, they gain more security over their energy resources making them safer from any influences from foreign countries.
Wrapping it up
There are disadvantages that come with the production of biofuel. However, many of the countries opting to replace fossil fuel with renewable, more eco-friendly and cheaper biofuel, are weighing the pros and cons to determine which one of the two is more viable for the economy.
In addition, with more research and development of biofuel production going on around the world, there is no doubt that it will not be too long before majority of the countries worldwide adopt it in place of fossil fuel.
