Role of Energy Crops to Meet the Rural Energy Needs: An Overview

Abstract

The dwindling energy resources are essential for our daily activities and socio-economic development. The excessive use of energy resources at national and international levels creates a burning problem of energy crisis. In rural sectors, multiple constraints limit the generation and availability of energy. To remove the rural sector energy crisis, it is essential to reduce the burden on the use of conventional sources of energy and to find out new avenues for the generation of non-conventional, renewable sources of energy. The people of the rural area have a feeble economic condition and many of them are from the marginal sections of the society, lying below the poverty line. The generation of renewable sources of energy like biofuel using biomass of energy crops as feedstock is possibly a viable concept in this context. The perennial, non-edible plants having high cellulose contents and requiring least pre-treatment are possibly the best option to be selected as energy crops under rural energy generation system. The biofuels like bioethanol and biodiesel produced from the biomass of energy crops have the potential to provide environmental security as these are low emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs) like CO2. The low cost bioenergy produced from the energy crops could be affordable for the rural people to use it as a source of energy input. The most supportive measure in this context is the expansion of research and development activities on production and consumption of biofuels at the global level. The success of this rural energy generation programme depends upon the acceptance and interest developed among the rural people to consume this energy to meet their requirements. This could further help in stabilizing the economic conditions of the people residing in the rural sectors. The current chapter mainly deals with utilization of energy crops as an alternative renewable resource to fossil fuels. Energy production processes from energy crops have been discussed along with their role to meet energy needs at the rural level. Current global statistics on energy production from the energy crops have been extensively reviewed. Further work on this aspect is essential to improve the energy demanding scenario of the rural sector and to strengthen the global economy.