Introduction:
As the world population faces an increase to more than 8 billion by 2025, the resources necessary for human survival, such as fossil fuels, water, and food, are depleting (Preshanthan Moodley 2021). Natural disasters and problems such as global warming, deforestation, ozone depletion and more have added even more problems to these challenges. One of the major problems is emissions, estimated to be around 35 billion tons each year(Hannah Ritchie and Max Roster 2020). These emissions are the gas carbon dioxide and is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. These fossil fuels are used by industries for production, driving cars, and other sources. One significant contributor to carbon dioxide is the agriculture industry and the food sector, as they contribute one-third of emissions (World Economic Forum 2022). Roughly two-thirds of the global emissions are from food production, refrigeration, and land use (United Nations 2021). Some reason why agriculture produces high carbon dioxide is the use of synthetic fertilizers, machinery operations, and irrigation, which result in significant carbon dioxide emissions.
Therefore, the need to decarbonize or find a sustainable solution to mitigate the carbon emission problem is urgent both now and in the future. One of the popular ways to address this issue is using biofuels, which is made a form of renewable energy source, as it is from waste, natural resources, and others. Although they seem to be a good alternative, they have their own downsides and positives. In the next passages, we will focus on the challenges in finding solutions and opportunities for utilizing biofuels.
Biofuels are materials produced from organic sources such as food crops, animal waste, wood, and other biological materials. As they are made from waste and organic, they provide a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels. At first, there are 2 generation types of biofuels. The first-generation biofuels come from edible crops or food-based feedstock which include biodiesel and bioethanol. Second-generation biofuels are produced from nonfood feedstocks; they include cellulosic ethanol and advanced biofuels (Shahid Ahmad Padder et al. 2024). Over the time, third generation and fourth generation biofuels are developed and can be a better solution than the last two.
Challenges of Decarbonizing the Food Sector:
Agriculture has been relying on fossil fuels for a long time. Transition would be difficult as they have already established for centuries these farming techniques, and their complex system, and the need to adapt their production process to a sustainable one, as a recent study said. Along with that, the global need for food gives high demand and the need to produce fast.
The food supply chain also includes a lot of stages like processing, packaging and transportation which also produces carbon emissions. Not only that, Agriculture and Food process uses around 200 Exajoules of energy for the supply alone. The main barrier to decarbonizing in agriculture is that the farmlands the farmers are cultivating are not in their possession. There´s also no strategic infrastructure, no succession plan and structure and the farmer´s skills, knowledge and experience of climate change. This way, farmers put low priority for climate mitigating measures (Alessia Acampora et al. 2023).
Challenges of using Biofuel in Agriculture
Although biofuels have a lot of advantages and a positive impact on the environment, there are several challenges to producing biofuels. Starting from limited land, high cost of feedstock and their amount, infrastructure, technical limitations and much more (Shahid Ahmad Padder et al. 2024). Some of the significant challenges are:
1) Competition for Scarce Land: The food system uses the largest area of land in the world. Around 1.39 Hectares of Land is used as cropland (Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser 2019). Because of the limited empty lands that are in competition to use between houses, buildings, manufacturing sites, expanding for biofuel production would be challenging to find additional land. Additionally, this also leads to deforestation and may disturb the balance of the ecosystem(Benjamin K. Sovacool et al. 2021).
2) Technological Limitations: The change from usual agriculture system to using biofuels need significant technological advancements for some processes, such as biofuel production and processing, farm machinery and crop production. These developments needed requires a lot of effort, money and may be time consuming. By doing research and development for the new generations of biofuels and their process production, it can help overcome the limitations in technology and improve the sustainability of biofuels.
3) Biofuel production: There are challenges associated with producing biofuels, including land use competition, feedstock cost and availability, technical limitations, sustainability issues, and infrastructure and market constraints. Biofuel production consists of a lengthy process such as pretreatment. Here, this process can create toxic product, therefore pretreatment is needed before release. There are also wastes from the biofuel that need treatment before disposal, as they can be toxic to the environment. Another high reason for the challenge is the high amount of water required to produce biofuel and refine the process system. Water is needed for the whole “bioprocess” steps, including fermentation, pretreatment, and downstream process. An alternative would be to use wastewater as a water source, but some treatment might be necessary before using. Combined with the high need for water, there’s also a high energy requirement (Ramesh C. Ray 2021).
Potentials of Biofuels
1) Replace fossil fuels: fossil fuels, when combusted, create a large amount of carbon dioxide emissions, which leads to global warming and climate change. Biofuels in exchange produce less carbon dioxide and has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and produce sustainable energy. The production of biofuels also produces less carbon dioxide, in comparison to fossil fuel extraction and transportation which causes oil spills and environmental degradation (Danny Ovy 2023).
2) Circular Economy Approach: Biofuels can be produced from agricultural residues, reducing waste, and utilizing biomass that would otherwise be discarded. This circular economy approach can enhance resource efficiency and promote sustainability in the food sector. Additionally, biofuel production can be integrated with food production systems through co-products, such as using biochar generated during biofuel production as a soil amendment to improve soil health and fertility.
3) Energy Independence: By producing biofuels locally, countries can reduce their dependence on fossil fuel imports. This can enhance energy security and foster economic development in rural areas through biofuel production and associated industries. Additionally, decentralized biofuel production systems, such as small-scale biodiesel or biogas production from farm waste, can provide energy solutions to agricultural communities.
How to Utilize Biofuels in Agriculture to Decarbonize:
1. Biofuels can potentially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When growing the plants needed for biofuel, they absorb CO2 from the environment, which can reduce the emissions surrounding them. This creates a balanced carbon cycle, as they produce and take. However, other process steps need to be taken into account, including the transportation, processing, and combustion.
2. Second-generation biofuel can be an innovative approach to mitigate climate change and as a renewable energy alternative. They offer a more effective solution to greenhouse gas emissions and have a more efficient carbon life cycle compared to the first-generation biofuel.
3. Biotechnology when combined with nanotechnology, can play a role in the biofuel industry. Biotechnology can be used for research and optimization of the biological process of the biofuel production; nanotechnology serves as the solution for chemical and mechanical processes. Together they can reshape the whole biofuel production system to a more sustainable one (Rafael Cardoso Rial 2024).
Conclusion and Future plans:
There are some other generations of biofuels that are being advanced to create certain techniques, such as artificial photosynthesis, that would create a new system for efficient energy and more sustainable practices.
To get the most benefit out of biofuels, some movements and changes needs to be done:
· Effective governmental policies: To make sure that every country exchanges their use of fossil fuels to biofuels, regulations and structures to change the agriculture practices are needed. The government can subsidize the farmers and gives policies, a stable infrastructure, tax exemptions, to reduce the production cost and increase supply of biofuels.
· Research and development: more investments to the research and development on how to produce biofuels effectively to create more innovations and systems
· Public awareness: More knowledge and information about biofuels would give a brand to the name “biofuels” and can increase acceptance among people (Rafael Cardoso Rial 2024)
The more people know about biofuels and it´s potentials and advantages, the more people are willing to use that in their agriculture process.
In conclusion, government, researchers, and other stakeholders need to work together to create a strategy for sustainable practices and to support the development of biofuels in agriculture. As the world really needs sources and change into renewable energy to a more sustainable life cycle, significant changes such as using biofuels I agriculture is needed.
Publication bibliography
Alessia Acampora; Luca Ruini; Giovanni Mattia; Carlo Alberto Pratesi; Maria Claudia Lucchetti (2023): Towards carbon neutrality in the agri-food sector: Drivers and barriers. In Resources, Conservation and Recycling 189, p. 106755. DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2022.106755.
Benjamin K. Sovacool; Morgan Bazilian; Steve Griffiths; Jinsoo Kim; Aoife Foley; David Rooney (2021): Decarbonizing the food and beverages industry: A critical and systematic review of developments, sociotechnical systems and policy options. In Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 143, p. 110856. DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2021.110856.
Shahid Ahmad Padder; Rabia Khan; Rauoof Ahmad Rather (2024): Biofuel generations: New insights into challenges and opportunities in their microbe-derived industrial production. In Biomass and Bioenergy 185, p. 107220. DOI: 10.1016/j.biombioe.2024.107220.