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Concept
Second-generation biofuels
Summary
Second-generation biofuels, also known as advanced biofuels, are fuels that can be manufactured from various types of non-food biomass. Biomass in this context means plant materials and animal waste used especially as a source of fuel.
First-generation biofuels are made from sugar-starch feedstocks (e.g., sugarcane and corn) and edible oil feedstocks (e.g., rapeseed and soybean oil), which are generally converted into bioethanol and biodiesel, respectively.
Second-generation biofuels are made from different feedstocks and therefore may require different technology to extract useful energy from them. Second generation feedstocks include lignocellulosic biomass or woody crops, agricultural residues or waste, as well as dedicated non-food energy crops grown on marginal land unsuitable for food production.
The term second-generation biofuels is used loosely to describe both the 'advanced' technology used to process feedstocks into biofuel, but also the use of non-food crops, biomass and wastes as feedstocks in 'standard' biofuels processing technologies if suitable. This causes some considerable confusion. Therefore it is important to distinguish between second-generation feedstocks and second-generation biofuel processing technologies.
The development of second-generation biofuels has seen a stimulus since the food vs. fuel dilemma regarding the risk of diverting farmland or crops for biofuels production to the detriment of food supply. The biofuel and food price debate involves wide-ranging views, and is a long-standing, controversial one in the literature.
Second-generation biofuel technologies have been developed to enable the use of non-food biofuel feedstocks because of concerns to food security caused by the use of food crops for the production of first-generation biofuels. The diversion of edible food biomass to the production of biofuels could theoretically result in competition with food and land uses for food crops.
First-generation bioethanol is produced by fermenting plant-derived sugars to ethanol, using a similar process to that used in beer and wine-making (see Ethanol fermentation).
Official source
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