Ashwini Kumar
Alexander von Humboldt Fellow
Energy Plantation Demonstration Project Centre.
Department of Botany, University of Rajasthan,
Jaipur – 302 004, INDIA
Phone : 0141-2711654 (Off.) 0141-2654100 (Resi.) 09461663610 (Mobile)
E-mail : Ashwanikumar214@gmail.com
ABSTRACT: Fossil fuel consumption produces green house gases and use of biofuels helps in green house gas mitigation. Global climate change has stimulated efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. During last decades we have developed agrotechnology for the biofuels: hydrocarbon yielding plants, oil yielding plants and wood biomass and three tier system has been developed encompassing all the three biofuel producing components. Photosynthetic organisms use solar energy to generate reducing equivalents and incorporate atmospheric CO2 into organic molecules. Today, ethanol and biodiesel are predominantly produced from corn kernels, sugarcane or soybean oil. However another biofuel feedstock, lignocellulose—the most abundant biological material on earth is being explored. Lignocellulose is everywhere—wheat straw, corn husks, prairie grass, discarded rice hulls or trees. The race is on to optimize the technology that can produce biofuels from lignocellulose sources more efficiently—and biotech companies are in the running. There is campaign, which advocates that 25% of US energy come from arable land by 2025.