Page 22 - Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future

Biofuels technologies: An overview of feedstocks, processes, and technologies 15

of feedstock processing and environmental concerns have been among the
major issues discussed in scientific debates and policy considerations. While
conventional biofuels were introduced with an effort to increase energy
independency from fossil fuels (and foreign fuel imports), advanced biofuels
emerged as innovation spillovers and expanded at a progressive pace.
Accordingly a variety of new feedstocks has been explored and experimen-
ted with to alleviate economic limitations to those new technologies. The
main purpose of these investments was to bring down the production costs
and the final price of advanced biofuels, with the aim of making them com-
petitive with fossil fuels as transportation fuel and bioenergy. Although a
considerable success has been achieved in these areas, challenges still exist.
New technological inventions, such as nanotechnology and genetic engi-
neering of biofuel feedstocks could prove as a viable solution. However,
environmental and social issues of these technologies (including unexplored
consequences of their application and potential impacts on water resources,
soil, and the following influence on humans) have not been fully explored
yet. Social resistance to these technologies (as currently also analyzed in the
food sector) might be decisive in the mid- and long-term also for biofuels
production.
Governmental and private funding for research and development of new
biofuels technologies can bring about prospective solutions to those ques-
tions and make new generation biofuels more economically feasible, envi-
ronment friendly, and socially acceptable.

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