What are Biofuels and Where are They Going?
Channel: Everything Science
Date: 2020-08-02

What are Biofuels and Where are They Going?

With increasing CO2 emissions around the globe, toughening environmental regulations, and reductions in costs, biofuels now, for the first time ever, are starting to look like a viable option to compete with traditional fuels.

If you've ever wondered anything about biofuels from 'What are they?' to 'How are they made?' to 'Where are they going?' we'll cover all of that and more in this video!

A quick overview of the video (and to get some keywords in the description to optimize my SEO): A biofuel is simply any fuel derived from biomass, or something that was alive, usually farming crops. Both biofuel and normal fuel produce emissions, mainly CO2, but also other greenhouse gases like hydrocarbons and NOx. 

Probably the biggest and most obvious hurdle for the biofuel market is costs. Diesel fuel has been around for a little over 100 years, and in that time the production pipeline has been highly optimized and scaled for profitability, but the low volumes biofuel are produced in make it hard for them to compete on an even playing field. And wat’s worse than low margins, is the crazy high startup costs to build one of these factories.

We’re in a weird place with biofuel, similar to where renewable energy was a decade ago. Because production is so low compared to traditional diesel, biofuel production won’t be profitable for a while without government intervention and tax credits, especially because the upfront cost for opening these fuel plants can be 10’s or even hundreds of millions of dollars. But the hope is that, just like with renewable energies, that when the government subsidizes the initial growth, eventually they can reach profitability as they scale.

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