Biofuels Under The Spotlight

Somerville stated that there is no need to rely on CO2 emitting fossil fuels, as the Earth already receives about 4,000 times the amount of energy from the sun today that humans are predicted to need by 2050. As we have all learnt in school at one time or another, plants absorb the sun’s energy and convert it to bio-chemical energy during photosynthesis. Due to the large quantity of renewable plant cellulose (biomass) available around the globe there is a renewed interest in using plants as a source of renewable energy. “However, because of competing uses for land, a central challenge for 21st century biologists is to increase the efficiency of solar energy capture to the theoretical limit by rational methods,” said Somerville.

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