The Impact of Biofuel in Today’s Society

Clarinsa Djaja

Mr. Sydney Muganzi

Science 10.4

February 28th 2016

The Impact of Biofuel in Today’s Society

As-one-of-the-most-popular-renewable-resources-today-where-a-considerable-amount-of-research-and-money-has-been-directed-to, biofuel-is-one-of-the-Earth’s-promising-solutions–of-growing-energy-problems (Petrou, 2009). However, with-the-recent-increase-of-oil-prices, along-with-a-growing-concern-of global-warming-through-greenhouse-gas-emissions, biofuels-have-started-to-regain their-popularity-since-the-early-20th-century (Thiessen, 2017). As an renewable alternative to fossil fuels and gasoline, there-has-been-much-debate-in-relation-to-the pros-and-cons-of-using-biofuels-to-subsitute-conventional-fuels. Moreover, they appear-to-provide-a-simple-solutions-to-three-key-main-problems-of-our-modern society: energy security , economic developemt and the need to mitigtae climate change and achieve lower GHG emissions. The three drivers above – which are somehwat interlinked – have become increasingly important in the development and sustainability of biofuels and eventually leading to several new supportive policies especially in the EU (Nuffield Council, 2014).

At the beginning of this new millenium, one of our bigest challengges continuing to meet the rising energy demands as it has become a constant worldwide issue. In the Eurpoean Comission (EC)’s 2000 Green Paper’s evaluation stated, “uninterrupted physical availability of energy products on the market, at a price which is affordable for all consumers; private and individual” (European Comission, 2013). This refers to the different energy security threats like the disrupt provision of energy and price spikes. More importantly, the-ability-for-biofuel-to-efficently-meet-the demand of technical-security (“the degree of certainty that energy supply will be available on demand for the consumers”) and geopolitical-or-economic-security-of energy supply or to be free on the reliance of sources of energy which are geopolitcally insecure and harmfully volatile in price-(Committee on Climate Change, 2008). These are the largest contirbutors to the attractiveness of this source (Nuffield Council, 2014).

In order to improve the wealth and well being of a nation’s citizens, supporting economic devleopment is an important goal of most modern governments. It is a significant concern especially in developing conutries as they are the main producers and consumers of non-renewable energy. Global economic growth has been on of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, which corresponds to Goal 7 which relating-to-energy sustainability-(Thiessen, 2017). In developing countries, energy consumption is predicted to increase by 84% by 2035 (Kirkland, 2010). This can be beneficial in relation to the nation’s agricultural industry through the diversification of agricultural output and added security of creation of new jobs leading to-increased national exports leading to greater involvement in global economic activity-(Petrou, 2009).

        Biofuels have been deemed esential as a part of our response to climate change due to the minimal amount of other carbon neutral options. Athough there is some dispute within the scientific community regarding the time frame of “ how long the Earth will last,” this popular topic is shown to be a main concern of today’s population-(Nuffield Council, 2014). The general-consensus of lowering GHG emmisions is one of the simplest and most efficeint strategies in tackling cliamte change. Therefore-due-to-the-fact that biofuels produce significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than are currently produced by fossil fuels, these three elements show the potential of biofuels to address much more problems (FAO, 2010).