What Are The Pros And Cons Of Having Biofuels (and/or Nuclear Energy) As An Alternative To Oil?
There are many different types of biofuels. Both ethanol and bio-diesel are just first generation biofuels which have relatively few benefits, though bio-diesel is a much better idea than ethanol. However, the next generation biofuel promises to be much better even to the point of being carbon negative.
Specifically, if synthetic gasoline/diesel is synthesized from syngas produced by gasification of biomass which could be trash or even dried sewage, carbon could be sequestered in the charcoal byproduct used as biochar. Unlike ethanol, hydrogen, and battery based technologies, these synthetic fuels would not need new vehicles nor would they need separate or improved distribution infrastructures.
The biggest problem with any biofuel is that there isn’t enough biomass to provide our current energy consumption let alone future needs. However, it’s not necessary to use biomass to synthesize gasoline/diesel. With clean sources of energy such as solar, hydro, wind, tidal, geothermal and nuclear, gasoline/diesel could be synthesized directly from CO2 and H2O as demonstrated by Sandia Labs. This would only be carbon neutral instead of the carbon negative of using biomass as the feedstock but the two approaches combined would still be modestly carbon negative without having to manufacture new vehicles and build new infrastructure.
The only advantage of bio-diesel is that in theory it might be cheaper than going to war overseas, killing people and stealing their oil, except market influences causes the price of diesel to remain pegged to the price of bio-diesel so its technically slightly more expensive (unless you make your own, in which case that is a complete waste of farmland).
Nuclear energy will never be used in cars. Too damn expensive and risky.
EXTRA NOTE: Hydrogen energy however is already being used in cars. Its already done being tested. It is combined with oxygen to make water and during the combination process it produces electricity which then turns an electric motor to drive the car. Plus producing hydrogen is just as cheap as gasoline is. No greenhouse gases, all you need is electricity and salt water for hydrolysis.
The automotive industry is currently duking it out to see who will be the first automaker to get a hydrogen car to mass production and a hydrogen distribution network in place. See the link below called “Eco Car Battleground”. Once that happens hybrid cars and other gasoline or diesel cars will essentially be obsolete (and eventually phased out).