1.  What is BioEnergy and BioFuel?
2.  Why is there so much interest in BioFuel today?
3.  How does the use of BioFuel help fight climate change

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1.  What is BioEnergy and BioFuel?

The term BioEnergy usually refers to all plant or animal-based sources of energy that can be used as substitutes for fossil fuels. Common examples include:

• BioFuel: liquid fuels like BioDiesel and Ethanol, which substitute Diesel and Gasoline, Petrol, or Kerosene respectively. BioDiesel is primarily made by chemically processing vegetable oils or animal fats.  Ethanol is primarily made by fermenting sugar or starch from crops like sugarcane and corn.
• BioMass: solid fuels like wood, charcoal, cattle dung, etc. which might substitute Coal.
• BioGas: gaseous fuels produced by biological or thermochemical decomposition of organic matter to substitutes Natural Gas.

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2.  Why is there so much interest in BioFuel today?

There are many factors behind the interest in renewable energy and BioFuel:

• Sustained rises in fossil fuel prices due to concerns over fossil fuel reserves, global political uncertainty, and growing demand from emerging economies
• Increased concern over energy security is forcing many oil-importing countries to promote domestic energy production. This also benefits local farming communities.
• Growing environmental awareness and concern over climate change is driving government policies, business operations, and customer behaviour towards using more sources of renewable energy
• New technologies and financing structures are making the use of renewable energy more affordable and attractive

BioFuel has been an area of tremendous interest because transport is one of the biggest sectors of energy use, and produced sustainably, BioFuel can be a useful part of the solution to rising energy prices, energy security, and environmental issues.

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3.  How does the use of BioFuel help fight climate change?

BioFuel produced from plants or trees can help prevent further increases in CO2 in the atmosphere. 

This is because the crops that provide the raw material for BioFuel production absorb CO2 from the atmosphere during their lifetimes.  So when the BioFuel is burned the amount of CO2 taken up by the plants during growth is released back into the atmosphere and there is no net increase in the CO2 concentration.

When a fossil fuel is burned however, CO2 that was trapped underground as oil or coal for thousands of years is now  transferred into the atmosphere where it starts accumulating.

Of course, some fossil energy may be needed to process and make BioFuel. So unless the production process is very efficient, no BioFuel will be 100% carbon neutral. 

BioFuel produced from trees have additional advantages because the trees sequester (or store) much more carbon (e..g in their roots, trunks and branches) for much longer than regular crops. So some carbon stays trapped even after the BioFuel is used.

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