Md. Mesbah Uddin Khulna University, Bangladesh: Speaker

Future Challenges For Biofuel production

Speaker: Md. Mesbah Uddin Khulna University, Bangladesh

What we have done!!! Biofuel & Present World 

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10,000 workers rioted close to the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, smashing cars and buses and vandalising factories in anger at high food prices and low wages. Dozens of people, including at least 20 police officials, were injured in the violence. Ironically, the country achieved food self-sufficiency in 2002, but food prices increased drastically due to the reliance of agriculture on oil and fossil fuels. Economists estimate 30 million of the country's 150 million people could go hungry.

World is Hungry A border guard sells rice at a government subsidized outlet at Nawabganj in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, April 11, 2008.

Biofuel & Present World

 "While

many worry about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs. And it's getting more and more difficult every day.“- World Bank's President, Robert Zoellick.

Biofuel & Present World

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said:

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"We need to be concerned about the possibility of taking land or replacing arable land because of these biofuels", "While I am very much conscious and aware of these problems, at the same time you need to constantly look at having creative sources of energy, including biofuels. Therefore, at this time, just criticising biofuel may not be a good solution. I would urge we need to address these issues in a comprehensive manner."

Biofuel & Present World U.S. President George W. Bush, On April 29, 2008

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"85 percent of the world's food prices are caused by weather, increased demand and energy prices", and "15 percent has been caused by ethanol". “ The high price of gasoline is going to spur more investment in ethanol as an alternative to gasoline. And the truth of the matter is it's in our national interests that our farmes grow energy, as opposed to us purchasing energy from parts of the world that are unstable or may not like us.“, he added.

Biofuel & Present World

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4th July 2008, a leaked report done by the World Bank said that the use of biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%.  The study also found that biofuels derived from sugarcane did not have as dramatic an impact as that derived from grains and vegetable oil.

Biofuel & Present World

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An estimated 100 million tonnes of grain per year are being redirected from food to fuel. (Total worldwide grain production for 2007 was just over 2000 million tonnes.) Land and resources available for food production were reduced correspondingly. This has resulted in less food available for human consumption, especially in developing and least developed countries, where a family's daily allowances for food purchases are extremely limited. Filling a tank of an average car with biofuel, amounts to as much maize (Africa's principal food staple) as an African person consumes in an entire year.

How to Solve this Problem  Second-

and third-generation biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol and algae fuel, respectively may ease the competition with food crops, as non food energy crops can grow on marginal lands unsuited for food crops.  The raw material is plentiful. Cellulose is present in every plant, in the form of straw, grass, and wood.

It is estimated that 323 million tons of Transforming them into ethanol using efficient cellulose containing raw materials that This includes 36.8 million dry tons of urban wood and cost be effective hemi(cellulase) enzymes or could used to create ethanol are wastes, 90.5 million dry tons of primary mill other processes might provide as much as thrown 45 away each residues, million dryyear. tons of forest residues, 30% of the current fuelofconsumption the and 150.7 million dry tons corn stover &in wheat United straw. States — and probably similar figures in other oil-importing regions like China or Europe.

Key Biological Barriers to Cellulosic Ethanol Production Cellulosic ethanol production more costly and less efficient compared to cornstarch .

One important heterogeneous biomass.

barrier is lower sugar yields due to the and recalcitrant nature of cellulosic

More effort is needed to pretreat and solubilize hemicellulose and cellulose Cell wall because they are locked into a rigid cell-wall structure with lignin Harsher Plant Cell

thermochemical pretreatments generate chemical by-products that inhibit enzyme hydrolysis and decrease the productivity of fermentative microbes. The crystallinity of cellulose also makes it more difficult for aqueous solutions of enzymes to convert cellulose to glucose.

These are:-

1. Understanding what aspects of plant cell-wall structure and composition make some plant materials easier to break down than others.

Overcoming these and other barriers will require a more 2. complete Investigating regulatory mechanisms that controlof cellunderstanding wall synthesis so that new bioenergy crops optimized for efficient biomass breakdownfactors can be developed. several biological thatFor example, minimizing lignin content would improve enzyme access to cellulose duringthe the hydrolysis step, thus increasing sugar yields. impact conversion process: 3. Surveying natural microbial communities to discover and analyze a more diverse range of enzymes that can break down cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin.

4. Creating new enzyme mixtures and analyzing their collective activities to determine the best combinations needed for rapid and complete breakdown of different components of biomass. 5. Identifying the many genes that determine the mostdesirable traits for fermentative microbes and understanding how these genes are regulated. 6.

Integrating all hydrolysis and fermentation steps into a single microbe or stable mixed culture to streamline the entire process and reduce costs.

Biotechnology is Playing a Key Role in the Rapid Expansion of Used in Producing theHow Biotechnology Ethanol IsIndustry and Ethanol from Cellulose Overcoming Biological Barriers to Cellulosic Ethanol

Obvious Need for Sustainable Solutions

Conclusion The socio-economic and political condition throughout the world has been greatly influenced by the petroleum crisis. In this regard, as the world is coming towards an end of its fossil fuel, there is no way elsewhere but invent new replacement of petroleum that can efficiently be seated in position. The advents of biotechnology have shown the way by BIOFUEL. Though the question about food grain usage that is said to arise food crisis can’t be knocked down, but there is no other way out. So, the task is upon us. We have either to invent a renewable source, or develop modified energy crops to make a balance between food & fuel. But seemingly the only path that can lead us to overcome the current power crisis is BIOFUEL and BIOFUEL ONLY.

Thanks to All