For both environmental and supply reasons, many businesses are making the transition away from fossil fuels such as petrol, diesel and shipping oil, and replacing them with biofuels, but whilst the latter are designed to work in the same engines, they are not the same.
This can have significant implications for the entire fuel infrastructure, from storing fuel in appropriate tanks with appropriately designed pressure valves through to the ways in which both fossil fuels and biofuels are acquired, processed and used in cars.
As countries around the world pledge to increase production of sustainable biofuels, understanding these differences is essential if you are expanding your biofuel operations or making the transition from petrochemicals.
Here are some of the most significant differences and the small but substantial adjustments society is increasingly making to adapt to a greener world.
How Are Fossil Fuels And Biofuels Produced?
The biggest difference between fossil fuels and biofuels is how they are produced and how long the process takes from start to finish.
Origins Of Fossil Fuels
As the name implies, fossil fuels are hydrocarbons made in part from the buried remnants of plants, animals and plankton that have been buried for thousands of years.
This raw sludge is extracted, refined and converted into coal, petroleum, diesel, natural gas, fuel oil, plastic and many other vital ingredients of the modern world.
Coal, oil and natural gas are particularly energy dense and, thanks to the development of technologies and infrastructure to transport them, have become the lifeblood of the modern world even as attempts are made to transition to green alternatives.
Origins Of Biofuels
By contrast, biofuels are fuels produced from renewable biological materials, which can either be crops, byproducts of other agricultural processes, waste oil or the use of complex processes to create drop-in electrofuels.
This can be as simple as using vegetable oil to power an engine or using a wood-burning stove as a source of power. However, biofuels as they are used today typically undergo significant treatment and additions in order to make them better resemble established fuel mixes.
They can be used by themselves or mixed with other fuels in order to create biofuel blends that provide greater sustainability without having to fundamentally change an engine.
Are Fossil Fuels And Biofuels Environmentally Friendly?
Fossil fuels are never environmentally friendly, as both production and use of petrol and diesel cause significant ecological harm. Biofuels are far more difficult to calculate, as whilst they can be better for the environment, this is not always the case.
Fossil fuels are non-renewable; it takes millions of years to produce them, and there is a serious risk of the world’s supply of usable fossil fuels being used up entirely unless there is a concerted effort to move power generation, transportation and shipping to renewable resources.
Are Biofuels Always Green?
Biofuels are inherently renewable, but they are not always environmentally friendly; in many cases, biofuel production emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it removes, counting point of use, refinement processes and energy generation.
This also does not factor in other environmental effects caused by biofuel production, such as land use change and its implications for shrinking biodiversity and greater vulnerability to climate change.
From a social standpoint, first-generation biofuels either rely on food crops such as corn or sugarcane, or require arable land to be used for crops that will not be used for food.
This is changing, and many biofuel manufacturers are either carbon neutral or carbon negative.
A greater proportion of biofuel production uses waste oil or agricultural byproducts rather than plants themselves, and more efficient processes are in place to produce greater amounts of biofuel for less energy.
Are Biofuels As Powerful As Fossil Fuels?
Biofuels are less energy dense, and so they will provide less energy if used in the same internal combustion engines as petrol or diesel.
Exactly how great the difference is has been widely debated, and large-scale pushes towards more significant biofuel blends such as India’s recent 20 per cent mix and Brazil’s historic use of flex-fuel cars will provide clarity on how the change will truly affect motorists.
What this means is that a fuel tank of biofuel or a biofuel blend will provide lower fuel economy, top speeds, acceleration and overall performance than an equivalent unleaded fuel.
All of this can be managed or offset; lower speeds are not as important on public roads with lower speed limits, whilst fuel economy can be offset by significantly lower prices at the pump if/when biofuel is produced at significant scale.
