Bioenergy Potential, Energy Crops, and Biofuel Production in Mexico
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Bioenergy Potential, Energy Crops, and Biofuel Production in Mexico Héctor A. Ruiz 1 & Alfredo Martínez 2 & Wilfred Vermerris 3,4
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Keywords Bioenergy . Biofuels . Biomass . Biorefinery . Energy crop . Lignocellulose pretreatment
The negative impact of burning fossil fuels on the global climate, uncertainty over the long-term price of fossil fuels— caused in part by geopolitics and pending decisions on the exploration of oil shale and gas, tar sands and arctic oil reserves, and in part by uncertainty over future regulations on greenhouse gas emissions—and the increasing global demand for energy resulting from population growth and economic development drive the need to deploy renewable energy on a large scale. Mexico is a promising country in the development of renewable energy due to its warm and sunny climate, which supports solar energy generation and crop cultivation throughout the year, and its relative abundance of agricultural land
* Héctor A. Ruiz [email protected] * Alfredo Martínez [email protected] Wilfred Vermerris [email protected] 1
Biorefinery Group, Food Research Department, School of Chemistry, Autonomous University of Coahuila, 25280 Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico
2
Departamento de Ingeniería Celular y Biocatálisis, Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apdo. Postal 510-3, 62250 Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
3
Department of Microbiology & Cell Science, University of Florida, PO Box 103610, Gainesville, FL 32610-3610, USA
4
UF Genetics Institute, University of Florida, PO Box 103610, Gainesville, FL 32610-3610, USA
that is suitable for energy crops, but not for food crops, thus minimizing competition between food and energy production. With a well developed infrastructure of roads, ports, and industrial centers, and a relatively low cost of labor, Mexico is among the most relevant emerging bioeconomies. In a recent study, Alemán-Nava et al. [1] reported the current use and future potential of renewable sources in the production of renewable energy, which included solar, hydroelectric, geothermal and wind energy, and bioenergy. However, these alternative sources of energy have not yet been fully exploited in Mexico. According to the Mexican Ministry of Energy (SENER) and the National Energy Balance databases [2], in 2014, Mexico produced 8826 PetaJoule (PJ = 1015 J) of energy from the following sources: fossil fuels 91.31% (crude oil 63.42%, natural gas 23.56%, coal 3.44%, and condensates from natural gas production 0.89%), nuclear energy 1.14%, and renewables 7.56% (hydroelectric 1.59%, geothermal 1.47%, solar 0.10%, wind 0.26%, biomass 4.12%, and biogas 0.02%); these statistics indicate that fossil fuels still dominate, and that biomass represents only a small proportion of the total. While there are multiple renewable alternatives for the generation of electricity, biofuels are currently the only alternative source of liquid transportation fuels, and while the market share of electric cars is expected to in
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