Jay Nimbalkar, Lauren Southwell, Pooja Narasimhan

Biofuels are widely touted as a strong alternative for alleviating the harmful effects of conventional fossil fuels. Existing data on biofuel CO2 emissions, net emissions, land area and land type required, fuel yield, and energy efficiency metrics for both existing biofuels and biofuels in the research phase is compiled and a critical analytical review is conducted. Our analysis clearly shows the need to prioritize second generation biofuels and conduct further research into third generation biofuels to maximize the efficacy of this fuel source. Solutions to increase the sustainability and efficiency of biofuels are also proposed in our analysis of the literature explaining applications of biomass residues and emerging biofuel sources such as algae. Residues and algae have significant potential to produce biofuel energy in a more sustainable and flexible way by decreasing the amount of land needed to produce energy. However, significant consideration must be given to the impacts of residue use in the combustion processes and soil, and further research needs to be done with algae to make the harvesting process more cost-effective.