Biofuels produced from renewable resources offer a more sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. The new edition of this book provides updates on the previously discussed pathways for transportation biofuels.

“Biofuels for Road Transport: A Seed to Wheel Perspective” provides a review of the history, the current status and perspectives for biofuels used in road transport, across the full ‘seed-to-wheel’ life cycle of these fuels. Successive chapters cover the history of biofuels; the first- and second-generation liquid fuels and biofuels for powering electric vehicles; fossil fuel replacement, land requirement, greenhouse gas balances and environmental burdens of ethanol, esters derived from fatty acids (‘biodiesel’), Fischer-Tropsch diesel and HTU diesel; competing technologies (fossil fuels, increases in energy-efficiency and photovoltaic power) and how they compare to biofuels; and the perspectives for biofuels. Cost, availability, technological development, competition with biomass for food and for soil organic carbon and environmental perspectives are also discussed.

The world is on the verge of an unprecedented increase in the production and use of biofuels for transport. The combination of rising oil prices, issues of security, climate instability and pollution, deepening poverty in rural and agricultural areas, and

In the absence of strong government policies, the IEA projects that the worldwide use of oil in transport will nearly double between 2000 and 2030, leading to a similar increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Bio fuels, such as ethanol, bio diese

Current world fossil oil production is struggling to meet demand and may even show a decline after 2010. It is therefore necessary to develop new energy-efficient production pathways for transportation biofuels. This book offers an insight into three promising and innovative pathways for the biological production of ethanol, biogas and biodiesel. These unconventional methods should provide higher product yields, less stringent feedstock specifications, lower chemical additive demand, reduced waste production and much better energy balances when compared to more traditional methods. One pathway concerns the enzymatic production of a new kind of biodiesel where no glycerol waste is produced and an up to twenty percent higher product yield is obtained. The other two pathways are based on the biological conversion of syngas into ethanol or methane using various kinds of lignocellulosic biomass as the starting point. For each of the three pathways a comparison will be made with competing production methods. The contents reflect extended desktop research and show practical experimental results. Government scientists, academics and biofuel producers with an interest in novel transportation fuels will all find this book to be essential reading.

Changes in the world energy context, the increasing awareness of the environmental stakes and the development of research on the production of second and third generation biofuels revealed a clear need to write a new book which updates and complements all technical, financial and environmental aspects of Les Biocarburants—État des lieux, perspectives et enjeux du développement (Biofuels—Current status, outlook and development stakes) published in 2006. This book provides a detailed state of the art of the first generation biofuel production technologies. It describes the new «second generation» pathways which use lignocellulosic biomass as raw material and are starting to find industrial applications, thereby reducing the competition between the food resource and the use of agricultural materials for energy purposes. It also provides a technical update on the algaeto-energy pathway (third generation) and the production of methane and hydrogen by biochemical pathways. The book arrives at exactly the right time to renew the interest in biofuels, including for air transport, and provide an insight on the technological research and development axes currently being investigated. It is intended for transport companies, refiners, forestry companies, the agricultural and agribusiness sectors as well as the public authorities, students, university teachers and researchers.

Según análisis realizados por la Agencia Internacional de la Energía, el combustible utilizado en el transporte se duplicará entre 2000 y 2030, llevando a un incremento similar en las emisiones de gas de efecto invernadero. Los biocarburantes como el etanol, biodiesel y otros combustibles líquidos y gaseosos podrían ofrecer una alternativa importante al petróleo en este período y ayudar a reducir la contaminación atmosférica. El libro analiza las tendencias más recientes en la producción de biocarburantes y muestra el futuro posible si tales alternativas desplazaran al petróleo en el transporte. Analiza la industria de biocarburantes y los costes y beneficios de las diferentes iniciativas llevadas a cabo en diferentes lugares del mundo. A corto plazo la producción de biocarburantes convencionales en los países de la AIE podría ayudar a reducir el uso del petróleo y por tanto las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, sin embargo, los costes pueden ser elevados. A largo plazo, posiblemente en la próxima década, los avances en la producción de biocarburantes pueden llevar a reducciones mayores. Países como Brasil están ya produciendo biocarburantes de relativo bajo coste con reducciones sustanciales en el uso de energías fósiles y en las emisiones de gas de efecto invernadero.