engleski

Potentials for biofuel production in Croatia, with respect to the provisions set out by the European Union

Road transport is responsible for about 21% of all waste gases in the European Union. Oil is the almost exclusive source of energy in transport. Since oil reserves are rapidly diminishing in the whole world and as oil prices are changeable, a large number of countries, including the European Union, partly use biofuels instead of oil in transport. Biofiiel production technologies have developed and today, besides first generation technologies, second generation technologies are already in use. The various biofuel production technologies available are thus contributing to the solving of economic and ecological problems. Croatia has 2.955.728 ha of agricultural land (of which 2.149.080 ha are arable) and 2.608.358 ha of forests. As 4.500.000 people live in Croatia, there are 0, 48 ha of arable land per inhabitant. Thus, Croatia has on average more arable land than Europe (0, 38 ha/capita), and much more than Africa (0, 27 ha/capita) and Asia (0, 14 ha/capita). Considering the 30% of total available biomass in agriculture (cutting and harvest residues of various crops), and the 40% of annual cut with biomass residue in forestry, by using the second generation technology it is possible to obtain 1.028.992 t/year of biofuels in oil equivalents. To this should be added 244.538 t/year of oil equivalents in biogas production from organic residues in animal production. Thus, Croatia is currently capable of producing 1.273.530 t/year of biofuels in oil equivalents (and potentially even more), without reallocation of arable land used for food production. Croatia, however, currently consumes 1.809.300 t/year of diesel fuel and petrol in transport. As, pursuant to the EU directive, 5, 75% or 104 035 t/year of biofuel should be used by the year 2010 and 10% or 180.930 t/year by 2020, Croatia current potentials of biofuel production surpass the amounts that should be used in transport instead of fossil fuels.

Biofuel; oil; production technology; agriculture; forestry

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