BIOFUEL - THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE
History
of Biofuels
Biofuels in the solid form has been in use ever since man
discovered fire. Wood was the first form of biofuel that was
used even by the ancient people for cooking and heating.
With the discovery of electricity, man discovered another
way of utilizing the biofuel. Biofuel had been used since a
very long time for the production of electricity. This form
of fuel was discovered even before the discovery of the
fossil fuels, but with the exploration of the fossil fuel
like gas, coal, and oil the production and use of biofuel
suffered a severe impact. With the advantages placed by the
fossil fuels they gained a lot of popularity especially in
the developed countries. Liquid biofuel have been used in
the automotive industry since its inception.
One of the first inventors to convince the people of the use
of ethanol was a German named Nikolaus August Otto. Rudolf
Diesel is the German inventor of the diesel engine. He
designed his diesel engine to run in peanut oil and later
Henry Ford designed the Model T car which was produced from
1903 to 1926. This car was completely designed to use hemp
derived biofuel as fuel. However, with the exploration of
huge supplies of crude oil some of the parts of Texas and
Pennsylvania petroleum became very cheap and thus lead to
the reduction of the use of biofuels. Most of the vehicles
like trucks and cars began using this form of fuel which was
much cheaper and efficient.
In the period of World War II, the high demand of biofuels
was due to the increased use as an alternative for imported
fuel. In this period, Germany was one of the countries that
underwent a serious shortage of fuel. It was during this
period that various other inventions took place like the use
of gasoline along with alcohol that was derived from
potatoes. Britain was the second country which came up with
the concept of grain alcohol mixed with petrol. The wars
were the periods when the various major technological
changes took place but, during the period of peace, cheap
oil from the gulf countries as well as the Middle East again
eased off the pressure.
With the increased supply the geopolitical and economic
interest in biofuel faded away. A serious fuel crisis again
hit the various countries during the period of 1973 and
1979, because of the geopolitical conflict. Thus (OPEC),
organization of the petroleum Exporting countries made a
heavy cut in exports especially to the non OPEC nations. The
constant shortage of fuel attracted the attention of the
various academics and governments to the issues of energy
crisis and the use of biofuels. The twentieth century came
with the attention of the people towards the use of biofuels.
Some of the main reasons for the people shifting their
interest to biofuels were the rising prices of oil, emission
of the greenhouse gases and interest like rural development.