Isoprenoids are the most abundant and highly diverse group of natural products. Many isoprenoids have been used for pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, flavors, cosmetics, food additives and biofuels. Carotenoids and isoprenoid-based biofuels are two classes of important isoprenoids. These isoprenoids have been produced microbially through metabolic engineering and synthetic biology efforts. Herei...

Ju ly 20 09 G et ty Im aG es By now it ought to be clear that the U.S. must get off oil. We can no longer afford the dangers that our dependence on petroleum poses for our national security, our economic security or our environmental security. Yet civilization is not about to stop moving, and so we must invent a new way to power the world’s transportation fleet. Cellulosic biofuels—liquid fuels...

Sustainability is a key principle in natural resource management, and it involves operational efficiency, minimisation of environmental impact and socio-economic considerations; all of which are interdependent. It has become increasingly obvious that continued reliance on fossil fuel energy resources is unsustainable, owing to both depleting world reserves and the green house gas emissions asso...

Since the 1990s the European Union’s biofuels policy has espoused several aims: energy security, greenhouse gas (GHG) savings, technology export and rural development. On these various grounds, by 2007 the EU was moving towards statutory targets, i.e. to mandate larger markets for ‘renewable energy’ including biofuels. However, controversy erupted over harmful environmental and social effects, ...

The previous chapter analysed mandatory blends and utilization targets as policy measures that can provide incentives for expanded biofuels production. GHG policies that create a carbon price either through an emissions trading system or directly by taxing GHG emissions also generate increased demand for biofuels. They do so by raising the price of burning the fossil fuels with which biofuels c...

Due to the depletion of the fossil fuels and major concerns about the security of energy in the future to produce fuels, the importance of utilizing the renewable energies is distinguished. Nowadays there has been a growing interest for biofuels. Thus, this paper reveals a general optimization model which enables the selection of preprocessing centers for the biomass, biofuel plants, and wareho...

Conversion of biomass into biofuels (gaseous and liquid fuels) can be achieved primarily by biochemical and thermochemical processes [2]. Although biochemical technologies are well developed and widely used for biofuels production [3], however, the types of biomass can be used are limited. Thermochemical gasification appears to be a promising technology that can exploit the embedded energy with...

Biofuels are promoted in many parts of the world. However, concern of environmental and social problems have grown due to increased production of biofuels. Therefore, many initiatives for sustainability criteria have been announced. As a part of the European Union (EU) renewable energy promotion directive (RED), the EU has introduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emission-saving requirements for biofuel...

Transport biofuels derived from biogenic material are used for substituting fossil fuels, 1 thereby abating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Numerous competing conversion options exist to 2 produce biofuels, with differing GHG emissions and costs. In this paper analysis and modelling of the 3 long-term development of GHG abatement and relative GHG abatement cost competitiveness between 4 crop-ba...

‘Biofuels’ is a broad term that includes the lowest technology, older fuels as well as some of the newest, highest tech fuels. In contrast to “fossil fuels” that were created millions of years ago, biofuels are “contemporary” materials such as wood, charcoal, and crop and animal waste, all of which are in wide use today throughout the developing world, where they expose their users to highly el...