While the dangerous and unreturnable fossil fuel’s environmental consequences and market volatility have emerged the need for biofuel production. Due to this, in Nigeria, work has been done on large-scale yet sustainable biofuel production.
Is the Unrefined Palm Oil fuel story of tomorrow?
UPO, also known as Unrefined Palm Oil, is one of the most significant yet commercially available products. It is especially in countries with palm plants. It is extremely popular in the ASEAN countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand.
However, the extracted oil from palm plants can effectively be used in the production of biodiesel.
Amazingly, in Thailand, palm oil is being used to produce biodiesel. It is then mixed with the petroleum diesel for:
B10: containing 90% of petroleum diesel and 10% of biodiesel
B5: containing 95% of petroleum diesel and 5% of biodiesel.
Additionally, the government here is also working on various amazing policies for developing and studying biodiesel production.
The trend emerged: More palm oil for energy.
The trend was adopted in the year 2009, the RED (Renewable Energy Directive) promoted the use of biofuels. 10% national target was set in the transport sector for renewable energy use by 2020. It led to a rapid uptake in the consumption of biofuels. However, food crops are the sources for this, with a major increase coming from palm oil consumption for energy.
Besides this, the biodiesel tax credit of $1 per gallon on top of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard Tax Credits is appealing. Even more, the reduced Rin exposure has also raced the production capacity of renewable diesel. It seems to transform the industry of biomass-based diesel in America within few years.
Even though the federal tax credit in America is guaranteed through 2022 only. However, it is still enough for developers to transform about half the dozens of oil refineries in the United States. Oil refineries here are continuously transforming into renewable diesel plants.
Even more, the existing renewable diesel plants are also proceeding for a massive expansion to ensure biofuel production on a large scale. Ultimately, the increasing capacity of these renewable diesel plants is impressive itself.
Why is biodiesel getting popular with the passage of time?
Large-scale, stable, and sustainable production of biofuel or biodiesel has become an important need of the present time. It is mainly because of the dangerous environmental impacts caused by the use of fossil fuels in traffic.
However, biodiesel is here to offer some proven advantages over diesel fuel. Some of these amazing advantages include:
Renewability
Non-toxicity for environment
Biodegradability
Enhanced safety
Final Remarks:
Still, more research is being done on the use of biodiesel. Currently, biodiesel has not replaced petroleum diesel completely. However, countries like Thailand are using biodiesel for mixing with petroleum diesel. Future can have new things for us and biodiesel can give us surprises too.