Contribution

The Impact of Bio-fuel on Global Warming

Arun Murali

There has been a lot of talk on Bio-Fuels in the international news, lately. US vows to cut down their dependency on foreign oil and reduce pollution by 20% in next 10 years. The UK government is all set to make 10% bio-fuel blended fuels compulsory. The US sells upto 85% ethanol blended fuel. Home made bio-diesels becoming common. And a lot more. So, what are bio-fuels ? And why are they given so much of importance ?

Bio-Fuels are basically fuels that can be extracted out of any natural content. One bio-fuel that we know and were using is the Gobar-Gas(Methane). The gobar gas is produced by putting a lot of compost and dried plants together. The fuel is then produced after some days. Some other bio-fuels are ethanol and biodiesel, which are making big news in the international energy market.

The Petroleum that we currently refine and use are extracted from underground where it was believed to have got accumulated some billion years ago through burying of carbon rich plants and animals through death and earth quakes. The fuels were formed under extreme pressures under the earth surface. The fuel that we extract is actually tons of carbon dioxide that are stored underground directly by plants and indirectly by animals. So, when we pump the fuel to burn them then we essentially are uprooting carbon dioxide(and energy) that was stored deep long time ago. The carbon dioxide is the reason bio-fuels got its attention, what if we produce some thing similar to the age old fuels from the currently living plants or animal fats. In fact the vegetable oils are the first used biodiesel(bio-fuel), used by diesel to demonstrate the idea of diesel engines.

The increase in carbon dioxide in our environment, most scientists believe, is the reason for global warming. In numbers we have produced about 27,000 million tons of Carbon dioxide in 2004. This is because carbon dioxide is believed to be a heat trapping gas. What is a heat trapping gas? The heat that the earth is absorbs from the sun during the day will generally be expelled during the night, thus bringing constant temperature for plants and animals to live in. But when carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere all the heat that is absorbed during the day is not expelled during the night resulting in increase in temperature of the earths atmosphere. This is in principle is similar to the green house. Thus it is called the Green House Effect.

The Infra Red rays are considered the carrier of heat energy. In frequency band infrared light is just below the visible red and hence the name. The infra red rays that enter the earth and hits the earth surface. On hitting the ground the frequency of the infrared rays decreases. The Carbon dioxide particles have a property that allow only high frequency infra red rays to pass through, low Frequency infrared particles are reflected back. Thus, the carbon dioxide particles reflects back the earth reflected infrared waves back into the earth and thus the heat, which leads to raise in heat.

The raise in heat is resulting in melting of ice mainly in arctic and antarctic regions and also in numerous other regions resulting in more water. Not only that, the raise in heat also makes earth non-livable for many animals and wipes out many animals, directly, living in the arctic and antarctic regions and indirectly in other regions by discouraging them to multiply. This will also affect humans by increasing the disease breeding rate and slowly reducing the chances of survival. So, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emission is very important for our very own survival. Thus, the global warming issue is very clearly one of the biggest challenges that humans have delved upon.

This is the reason reducing carbon emission has taken the front seat in recent years. Kyoto protocol was designed and signed by many nations who have agreed to reduce carbon dioxide production in their countries (Different nations have different goals based on economic viability and other factors). Nations in turn introduced carbon trading where companies that emit more carbon paid more tax. Encouraging all of them to reduce carbon emission by investing in more carbon saving technologies. This took care of emissions from industries. There are various other sources which emit carbon dioxide, the power generation and Transportation takes the next two biggest slots. In order to reduce carbon emission all the sources has to reduce, then we can achieve balanced reduction and load on industries. The power generation sector can easily reduce carbon emission by bringing renewable source power generation plants, like Hydro electric, wind, solar, geothermal etc. The transportation sector contributes upto 30% of carbon production and more than 15% are from road transports. Thus the automobile manufacturers are under high pressure to reduce the carbon emission. Many solutions have been found, some are implemented based on economic viability. One such a solution is bio-fuels. The bio-fuels do not directly emit much less carbon from the car's tail pipe. However, pollution from the overall process of making bio-fuels and using them, is less than extracting and using petroleum based fuels.

One of the biggest back log of the Kyoto protocol is US(biggest single carbon emitter) not signing it, being individually the source for 30% of the worlds Carbon dioxide emission. Some other nations like Australia are also in dilemma. This results in Kyoto protocol responsible for only controlling 55% of pollution.... [ to be continued ]