Renewable Energy
In search of tomorrow’s biofuels
Once seen as the solution for climate change, biofuels have since come under attack because of the use of fertile land to grow core biofuel crops. Now teams are developing biofuels that really could help save the planet.
Otrora considerada una solución al cambio climático, los biocombustibles han sido criticados, desde entonces, debido al uso de tierras fértiles para cultivar cosechas básicas para los biocombustibles. En la actualidad, existen equipos dedicados al desarrollo de biocombustibles que podrían realmente ayudar a salvar el planeta.
Die einst als die Lösung für den Klimawechsel angepriesenen Biokraftstoffe werden aufgrund der Nutzung von fruchtbarem Land für den Anbau von Biokraftstoffpflanzen angegriffen. Jetzt entwickeln Teams Biokraftstoffe, die wirklich zur Rettung des Planeten beitragen könnten.
Fig. 1. The British Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is administering the largest ever UK.public investment in bio-energy research.
Photo: Trelleborg AB.
T
he British Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is administering the largest ever UK public investment in bio-energy research.
Te money is being shared between six
groups of researchers throughout Britain who are working on different aspects of the problem to develop the next generation of biofuels. Alf Game, Science Manager and Deputy
Director of Research, Innovation and Skills at the BBSRC, is the pivot around whom the development of the program has revolved. “I’m not a good research scientist,” he admits.
“Never was.” Instead, Game has made a career of enabling the research of others, working for one scientific administrative body after another. And it’s no different this time. “Te Sustainable Bio Energy Centre is a
virtual centre of six teams led from five different universities and institutes that are working on
different aspects of the problem,” he says. “It’s not like a pipeline, where each of the teams feeds into the next; what we have are exemplars, models or patterns to be copied, of what can be done at different stages of the pipeline.” Game’s job has been to lead the conception and construction of the centre so that it keeps developing towards the future. Te first generation of biofuels was relatively
easy to produce. Plants produce their own concentrated stores of energy in seeds or tubers, and biofuels simply tapped into those, taking oils from seeds and ethanol from the sugars in tubers. But such crops compete directly with food for agricultural resources, and after the initial enthusiasm, it became clear that the quantities of fuel needed to make a difference would make serious inroads into food security. Now scientists are looking at the entire plant as a source of biofuels.
“Te next generation will either use by-
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