Biofuels for Road Transport: A Seed to Wheel Perspective / Edition 1

by Lucas Reijnders, Mark Huijbregts

Overview

“Biofuels for Road Transport: A Seed to Wheel Perspective” provides a review of the history, the current status and perspectives for biofuels used in road transport, across the full ‘seed-to-wheel’ life cycle of these fuels. Successive chapters cover the history of biofuels; the first- and second-generation liquid fuels and biofuels for powering electric vehicles; fossil fuel replacement, land requirement, greenhouse gas balances and environmental burdens of ethanol, esters derived from fatty acids (‘biodiesel’), Fischer-Tropsch diesel and HTU diesel; competing technologies (fossil fuels, increases in energy-efficiency and photovoltaic power) and how they compare to biofuels; and the perspectives for biofuels. Cost, availability, technological development, competition with biomass for food and for soil organic carbon and environmental perspectives are also discussed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781848821378
Publisher:	Springer London
Publication date:	01/12/2009
Series:	Green Energy and Technology
Edition description:	2009
Pages:	170
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.60(d)

Table of Contents

Transport Biofuels: Their Characteristics, Production and Costs.- Energy Balance: Cumulative Fossil Fuel Demand and Solar Energy Conversion Efficiency of Transport Biofuels.- Non-energy Natural Resource Demand.- Climate Effects and Non-greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with Transport Biofuel Life Cycles.- The Impact of Expanded Biofuel Production on Living Nature.- Frequently Asked Questions in the Transport Biofuel Debate.

Editorial Reviews

This book addresses critical issues related to a biofuel-driven transportation network. Reijnders (biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics, Univ. of Amsterdam, Netherlands) and Huijbregts (environmental science, Radboud Univ. Nijmegen, Netherlands) have done a thorough job explaining the varieties of biofuels (e.g., ethanol, lipid-based, microalgae), including their characteristics and production... This well-researched work, with an extensive bibliography, will be of interest to all levels of readers and should be on every fuel professional's bookshelf... Highly recommended.

Choice (August 2009) (Reviewer: J. Tavakoli, Lafayette College)

From the Publisher