The Depletion of Resources and Future of Biofuel

          The Depletion of Resources and Future of Biofuel

Elgiza Dursunova, Emir Kemelov, Stanislav Lim

                    American University of Central Asia

Analysts call last 10 years “The biofuel boom”. This trend in energetics is still on the stage of development in Russia and in the CIS countries. When leading countries of the world as Europe and U.S.A already have made bet on it. Euro commission decided that by 2020 20% of energy EU consume, should be produced from renewable sources, 14.4% out of 20% from biofuel. The use of biofuels has a number of advantages. It is an environmentally friendly fuel compared to other because it keeps the natural balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The value of biofuel and gasoline is almost the same, but the cost is lower. Renewability, ecological purity and safety make biofuel the future fuel for vehicles.

The issue of the day in the modern world is non-renewable energy resources. One of which is petroleum. “We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. The oil we rely on for 75 per cent of our energy is running out”, said the 39th President of the United States. “Oil reserve will last for approximately 53.3 years”, estimate the British Petroleum’s forecasts. This is also according the fact that during all the years until today new reserves of oil were founded.

The world leader in the production of oil is Saudi Arabia - over 10.5 million barrels per day. The world leader in oil consumption is the United States - more than 19.2 million barrels per day. Countries of the European Union consume less- about 13.6 million barrels per day.

For three hundred years, humans have used so much fossil fuel energy that took nature three billion years to produce. If we continue to do it; sooner or later it will lead to run out of fuel. Biggest part of the oil is spent on maintenance of land, sea and air transport around the world.

Land transportation consumes the largest amount of energy. Only automobile transport in developed countries consumes an average of 85% of the total energy consumption of the

transport industry. Car industry is responsible for increasing energy consumption over the last 25 years. Railway transport compared with cars still consumes 4 times less energy during passenger traffic and 2 times less in the transportation of goods. Energy consumption of rail transport is approximately 6% of the global energy consumption of the vehicle industry.

Maritime transport carries 90% of the volume of international freight shipping. Today, energy costs of maritime transport are up to 7% of the global energy consumption of the transport industry.

Air transport plays an important role in the globalization of transport networks. But at the same time aviation is one of the most environmentally damaging industries. The increasing of the amount of traffic increases its negative impact on the environment. Fuel utilization of the aviation industry is 8% of the global energy consumption. Fuel is the second largest expenditure item of the aviation - about 13-20% of the total expenses. Today it is about 1.2 million barrels per day.

Due to the non-renewability problem of gasoline and the need for alternative sources of fuel pave the way for biofuel. Three vehicle industries already implemented biofuel in practice.

Boeing considered the "green" diesel, which is used for land transport, as a new source of sustainable aviation fuels. The first commercial transatlantic flight on biofuel was on March 8, 2013. Boeing-777-200 KLM airline performed flight from Amsterdam to New York.^[1]

Naval forces of the USA successfully completed the most ambitious in the history of the use of biofuels demonstration troops. During the demonstration Spruance class destroyer made a 17-hour voyage along the west coast of the United States. Ship engines ran on a mixture of conventional fuel with specially processed oils derived from seaweed.US Navy plans to use only

alternative fuel in 2016, and to transfer the half of all fleet energy consumption to alternative sources by 2020.^[2]

Many countries actively introduce biofuels in the automobile industry. The supply of biofuels for for internal combustion engines in the United States should make 100 million tons by 2017; and Brazil already raised the biofuel consumption in overall up to 5% in 2013.^[3]

More than 300 Swedish gas stations offer a new diesel engine starting April 1, 2011. Sweden became the first country in the world where you can refuel the car with eco-diesel, which made on the basis of Swedish pine oil.^[4]

As world reserves of oil decrease and the consumption increases the prices will continue to rise. For example, in 2000s the price per barrel was 20 dollars. Current price is 60.63 dollars per 1 barrel. During 15 years it rose to 40 dollars. ^[5] EURIBOR forecasts say that by 2017 the price of oil will increase from 60 to 72 dollars per 1 barrel.^[6]

Oil prices increasing will cause a gradual impact on the automobile industry. Initially, people who have own cars will spend more on trips, trimming other expenses, and even getting into debt. Some car owners will transfer to public transport. The sales of cars with large engine capacity, which require a large expenditure of fuel, will fall. We can see the beginning of this trend in the US in the form of SUV sales falling.

Fuel prices rising can greatly influence to air transport. This industry is a highly competitive area and the profit of the companies working in the field usually is not high. Fuel price rising is an immediate increase in tickets prices.

The answer of marine transport companies to the increase of fuel prices may be the speed of ships reducing and a reduction in the ports list. Boats will enter only the ports with the highest turnover. ^[7]

All of the information above shows that biofuel’s renewability and low prices are a huge benefit compared to gasoline.

After World War II oil took leading positions in the energy sector. By 1970, European countries depended on oil imports by 70-80%. Biofuels are among the most promising replacement for oil.

Biofuels can be in liquid, gas or solid state. Liquid and gases biofuels derived from recycling resources such as food waste products, animal fats, sugars or vegetable oil. Solid biofuel made from wood, sawdust, domestic refuse, agricultural waste. The two most popular biofuels are ethanol and biodiesel. Ethanol is an alcohol fuel produced by fermentation of sugars found in sugarcane, rice and potato skin. Biodiesel is made from algae, fats or vegetable oils or recycled cooking grease.^[8]