Skyrocketing oil prices and concerns about security of supply are encouraging many researchers to consider the potential advantage of plant-derived biofuels. Moving from fossil fuels to biofuels is still facing questions about its practicality. Moreover, is it possible to avoid contamination in biofuels?

Right now, many countries are using several plants, including miscanthus, switchgrass, hemp, corn, poplar, willow, and sugarcane to produce biofuels. As a solution to all these problems, researchers are looking for crops other than these, which are already been cultivated for commercial purpose.

In this category, Willow, Hemp and switchgrass, which are already being used in various industries such as rope making, basket making, etc., are likely to be the future target for biofuels. As an advantage, these crops do not compete with food crops.

But, various views, doubts and complexities leaves us in a dilemma. International Water Management Institute, which led a five-year global study on water involving more than 700 researchers, found that if China and India pursue their current biofuel plans, they would face water scarcity by 2030.

Goran Berndes, a researcher at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, expressed the problem in following words: “If you need less land, you cannot be sure you need less water.”

Nestle, the world’s largest food company is happily ready to lobby biofuel crops but, showed concerns about the growing prices of food crops.

To avoid such a calamity researchers are all set to harness second generation biofuel plants to avoid energy crisis as well as rising conflict about food crops which asks a genuine question that, whether is it more important to feed our cars than starving people.

There is some great news for all environment lovers. The nuclear fusion project has been given the go ahead, and hopefully, it will not be long before the team of physicists led by Mike Dunne of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxford, UK, will be able to successfully reproduce the power of the sun on earth.

Amazing is it not? To think how far science has progressed, and that now we will be able to replicate the sun’s energy! Nuclear fusion is the answer for the energy crisis which is looming ahead of us.

What is nuclear fusion? It is a nuclear reaction, in which, two light nuclei (like hydrogen) combine to form heavier nuclei (such as helium). Excess binding energy is released during this process, and it is this energy which scientists hope to harness fruitfully.

Nuclear fusion is not as easy as it seems, because, a considerable energy barrier must be overcome before fusion can occur. The energy barrier is produced because two naked nuclei always repel each other due to the presence of electrostatic force between their positively charged protons.

Do you know it is for the last 50 years that research is undergoing for the production of fusion power? It has definitely not been easy. Hydrogen bombs have been the most successful fusion reactions produced till date.

Well, one fervently hopes that scientists will soon be able to produce fusion power, and thus lessen our dependence on the fossil fuels.

When the world is getting serious with its global warming and greenhouse gas emissions issues, more and more energy producers are shifting to alternative or renewal resources to produce power.

But, it does not seem sufficient to just resort to alternative energy to stay in the ‘competitive paradigm shifting.’ To berge ahead, the companies are pushing hard to create something different, atleast enough to make a headline.

Perhaps, cuing with these lines, the German engineering giant Siemens has planned to build a wind farm. True, wind farms are no more a new concept, but they are planning to erect the ‘world’s first floating wind turbine!’

Alexandra Bech Gjoerv, the head of the energy division at Norsk Hydro — the Norwegian firm spearheading the project – said,

It’s attractive to have windmills out at sea. We can produce a lot of energy, out of sight.

Explaining the advantage of having a floating wind turbine, Walt Patterson, an energy expert at the Chatham House think-tank in London, said,

It’s a logical step. Floating turbines will be easier to make because you can do most of the fabrication on land and then float it out to sea.

But, the questing of keeping the turbines secure in the North Sea, where waves can reach 30m in height, arises. To face the waves, three cables will be loosely anchoring the base of the turbines to the seabed, a technology similar to that used for offshore oil platforms. But, this is with much greener credentials.

The prototype is initially expected to generate about five megawatts of electricity, which can supply at least 1,000 homes. And once successful, a small offshore windpark could be built by 2014, which would consist of about 200 turbines.

The floating wind turbine is expected to be up and running in under two years. Hope this would help environmental campaigners chill down with their claims that turbines are an eyesore for tourists – endangering the tourism industry.