Climate change, sustainability, economic recession, food shortages, rising gas prices, inflation - it's hard to turn on the news today without hearing these terms, and it's even harder to decipher where one crisis ends and another begins. The truth is that most of these problems start and end with our choice of fuels. With oil approaching $150 per barrel and gas prices nearly surpassing rates of minimum wage, penny-pinching has become a common practice. The slow market, threat of recession and increasing need for environmental sustainability have kick-started the search for new, inexpensive and clean-burning fuels. Biofuels could be the answer.
Biofuels are clean-burning and made from recently dead organic matter, whereas fossil fuels, which are not clean-burning, are made from long-dead organic matter. Ethanol, one of the most prominent biofuels today, can be made from sugars or anything that can be converted into sugar, like starch or cellulose. Ethanol, which is primarily produced from corn crops, also used to be fairly inexpensive. But with the recent rise in demand for the fuel, corn prices have been rising. Since corn and its byproducts are used in a majority of food products today, this increased need has put upward pressure on the already rising price of corn products like ethanol.
Biodiesel, another popular clean-burning biofuel, is made from any type of used or new animal fat or vegetable oil (most commonly soy beans, according to Guyton Durnin, a biodiesel researcher at Rice University). Instead of requiring new resources like its corn-based cousin, biodiesel can be made from the millions of gallons of cooking oil that are discarded by restaurants, cafeterias and households each year.
Biodiesel and ethanol cannot be used in the same types of engines, so a movement towards biodiesel rather than ethanol would be more ecologically conservative, as well as more financially responsible, for the country. Several universities have already started creating and using their own biodiesel, such as Rice University, the University of Tennessee and the University of Colorado. UT has been using B20 biodiesel, which is 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petroleum diesel, in its vehicles since the year 2000, but it does not create its own biodiesel, according to Laurie Lentz, communication coordinator for UT's Facility Services.
To make the most out of sustainable biofuels, UT should take a page out of Rice's book. The Rice University Biodiesel Initiative, an organization under the umbrella of Rice's sustainability program, creates its own biodiesel from the school cafeteria's leftover cooking oil and uses it to fuel the school's lawnmowers as well as some vehicles around campus. Rice cannot produce enough biodiesel to fuel all of its diesel needs, and neither could we, but we have to start somewhere.
Here at UT, our Campus Environmental Center seeks to educate students and reduce environmental impact. Although UT donates its used cooking oil to RTI, a San Antonio based company that pledges to recycle the majority of oil they collect, the CEC doesn't have a biodiesel program.We need one. Between global climate change and nationwide inflation, education about sustainable and cost-effective energy sources is becoming more and more necessary. UT needs to prepare and educate its students for the future, and alternative fuel sources and sustainability are just the beginning.
Cleveland is a rhetoric and economics sophomore.
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