Title: Course Glossary
Course: BFM 101 Biofuels Fundamentals > Section: BFM 101 Biofuels Fundamentals

Course Glossary

Terms

Term | Definitions | Glossary
Algae | Algae include cellular and micro-cellular plants that live in water. They conduct photosynthesis and store various forms of carbon. Algae have the potential to produce energy and other high value ... | Course Glossary
Aquifer | A geological formation containing or conducting ground water, especially one that supplies the water for wells, springs. | Course Glossary
Bagasse | The fibrous material left after sugarcane or sweet sorghum has been crushed and the juice extracted. It can be used directly as a feedstock for cellulosic biofuel production. | Course Glossary
Biochar or Black Carbon | Biochar is a form of charcoal resulting from gasification and pyrolysis. It is used most commonly as a fertilizer or soil amendment. | Course Glossary
Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) | The biological activity associated with disposal of the untreated or minimally treated wastewater with a high organic content that creates anaerobic conditions in the soil which causes release of ... | Course Glossary
Biodiesel | A diesel fuel substitute that can be made from a variety of oils, fats, and greases. It is made by reacting vegetable oil, animal fat or microalgae oil with an alcohol and a catalyst to separates ... | Course Glossary
Bioeconomy | A bioeconomy is an economy where the basic building blocks for industry and the raw materials for energy are derived from plant/crop-based (i.e. renewable) sources. | Course Glossary
Bioenergy | The renewable energy derived from recently living biological material, or biomass. | Course Glossary
Bioenergy Crops | Crops grown specifically for bioenergy production including starch-based crops (corn, wheat, barley), cellulosic crops (switchgrass, Miscanthus spp., sorghums and other perennial warm season grass ... | Course Glossary
Bioenergy Facility, also Biorefinery | An industrial facility that produces ethanol (feedstock fermented into mash, then distilled which separates the solid and liquids. | Course Glossary
Biofuels | Liquid, gas and solid fuels produced from two types of biomass materials – plant sugars and starches (e.g., grains), and lignocellulosic materials (e.g., leaves, stems and stalks). Liquid and ga ... | Course Glossary
Biomass | The majority of biomass for bioenergy feedstock’s comes from three sources: forests (wood, wood wastes), agriculture (agricultural crops and wastes), and waste (animal wastes, livestock operatio ... | Course Glossary
Biopower | Electricity generated from combustion of biomass or in combination with coal, natural gas or other fuel (termed co-firing). Heat and steam, or a combination of both, may also be produced through c ... | Course Glossary
Biotechnology | The use of living organisms or other biological systems in the manufacture of drugs or other products or for environmental management, as in waste recycling: includes the use of bioreactors in man ... | Course Glossary
Brasssica spp. | Members of the mustard family grown for the high levels of oil produced in their seed. Important Brassica species include canola (rape), oriental mustard and camelina. | Course Glossary
Cap and Trade | A cap and trade system is one in which a central authority (usually a government or international body) sets a limit or "cap" on the amount of a pollutant that can be emitted. Companies or other g ... | Course Glossary
Carbon Sequestration | Long-term storage of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere, underground, or oceans, so that the buildup of carbon dioxide (a principle greenhouse gas) concentration in the atmosphere reduces or slow ... | Course Glossary
Carbon-Neutral | Balancing the amount of carbon released by use of energy (e.g. burning fossil fuels and biomass or decomposition of plant biomass) with an equivalent amount put into and stored in soils, plant and ... | Course Glossary
Combined heat and power (CHP) or Cogeneration | The simultaneous production of electricity and heat from a single fuel source. Heat from an industrial process can be used to power an electric generator, used for industrial processes, or space a ... | Course Glossary
Corn | Seed from corn is currently the primary crop used to make ethanol in the U.S. Starch in the seed is converted to ethanol through fermentation and distillation. Stover can also be used for cellulos ... | Course Glossary
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) | CAFE is the sales weighted average fuel economy, expressed in miles per gallon (mpg), of a manufacturer's fleet of passenger cars or light trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 8,500 ... | Course Glossary
Dead Zone | An area in a body of water with insufficient oxygen to support life. | Course Glossary
Densification | Any number of densification processes are used to make a fuel easier to transport and handle, and work better as a combustion fuel. Pelletizing, briquetting, and cubing reduce volume. In-woods pyr ... | Course Glossary
Disinfection by products (DBPs) | DBPs are formed when disinfectants used in water treatment plants react with bromide and/or natural organic matter (i.e., decaying vegetation) present in the source water. | Course Glossary
Dried Distillers Grains (DDGs) | A cereal by-product of the corn grain ethanol distillation process that has been dried to 10-12 percent moisture for storage purposes. | Course Glossary
Due Diligence | Such diligence as a reasonable person under the same circumstances would use, of reasonable but not necessarily exhaustive efforts. In the context of business, due diligence is the care that a pru ... | Course Glossary
Ecological Impacts | The effects on ecosystems and species within them (including humans). | Course Glossary
Ecosystem Services | Provisioning: the goods and products obtained from ecosystems, including food and fiber - both cultivated and wild. Regulating: the benefits derived from ecosystems' control of natural processes ... | Course Glossary
Environmental Impacts | The effects on geophysical systems such as water and climate. | Course Glossary
Evapotranspiration | The water lost by a plant through evaporation and transpiration. | Course Glossary
Feasibility Study | Analysis of the practicality of a proposed plan or method, based on factors like marketplace, competition, available technology, human resources, and financial resources. Feasibility studies use s ... | Course Glossary
Feedstock | Pre-processing biomass (Stems, stalks, leaves or seed from annual, perennial, or woody crops) used for the generation of bioenergy and the creation of other bioproducts. | Course Glossary
First Generation Biofuels | Alcohols produced through fermentation of sugars derived from wheat, corn, sugar cane, etc. | Course Glossary
Fourth Generation Biofuels | Syngas, char and bio-coal derived in bio-chemical and thermo-chemical processes such as pyrolysis, gasification and torrefaction. | Course Glossary
Glycerol or Glycerin | The primary co-product of the transesterification process used in biodiesel production. | Course Glossary
Greenhouse effect | The mechanism by which solar radiation is captured and earth is warmed to an extent necessary for supporting life. | Course Glossary
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) | Gases in the atmosphere that absorb and emit thermal radiation. Primary GHGs are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. | Course Glossary
Greenhouse Gas Emissions | Those greenhouse gases emitted solely through human activities, and through secondary processes that are a result of human land use (e.g. land use changes that result in GHG emissions, such as cha ... | Course Glossary
Herbaceous Crops | Those crops whose stem does not produce woody tissue and which generally die back at the end of each growing season. This includes grasses, forbs and herbs. Herbaceous bioenergy crops are Miscanth ... | Course Glossary
Hydrology | The study of the distribution, conservation, use, etc., of the water of the earth and its atmosphere, particularly at the land surface. | Course Glossary
Infiltration | The flow of a fluid into a substance through pores of small openings. It connotes flow into a substance in contradistinction to the word percolation. | Course Glossary
Intangible infrastructure | Includes public policy, regulatory structures, quality standards, and marketing institutions. | Course Glossary
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) | The use of several different methods of controlling a particular pest or group of pests, rather than relying solely on a single method of control. IPM is a holistic approach to pest management. | Course Glossary
Living Wage | A wage rate required to meet minimum [community] standards of living. | Course Glossary
Miscanthus spp. | A tall perennial grass that has been evaluated as a new bioenergy crop. Most of the Miscanthus cultivars proposed as a commercial crop are sterile hybrids (Miscanthus x giganteus). | Course Glossary
MMBTU | One million British Thermal Units (BTUs), a standard unit of measure. The energy of one MMBTU is roughly equivalent to the energy in 7.14 gallons of #2 oil or 293 KW of electricity. | Course Glossary
Monoculture | The production of the same plants over a large area, with no other types of plants present. | Course Glossary
Nitrates, Nitrites | Chemical that are water soluble and highly leachable. They can move with precipitation runoff or infiltration. Nitrates and nitrites are health concerns in drinking water for both humans and lives ... | Course Glossary
Particulate Matter | Minute, solid, airborne particles that result from combustion. | Course Glossary
Perennial bioenergy crops | Perennial bioenergy crops include herbaceous and woody crops grown for their cellulose. Perennial herbaceous crops include grasses like switchgrass and Miscanthus spp. Perennial non-forest woody c ... | Course Glossary
Polyculture | Ecologically designed, mixed-crop planting that maximizes biological diversity. | Course Glossary
Poplar | A short rotation, fast growing tree that can be used for pulpwood or to make cellulosic ethanol. | Course Glossary
Pyrolysis | The thermal decomposition of biomass at high temperatures (greater than 200° C) in the absence of air. The end products are solids (char), liquids (oxygenated oils), and gases (methane, carbon mo ... | Course Glossary
Quad | Quadrillion Btu 10^15 Btu | Course Glossary
Renewable energy | The energy contained in biomass is energy from the sun captured through natural processes of photosynthesis. As long as the quantity of biomass used is equal to or less than the amount that can be ... | Course Glossary
Renewable Portfolios Standards (RPS) | An RPS requires electric utilities and other retail electric providers to supply a specified minimum amount of customer load with electricity from eligible renewable energy sources. | Course Glossary
Return On Investment | ROI is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment. To calculate the benefit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed ... | Course Glossary
Ridge-till | Row crop cultivation for weed control that builds ridges then plants into the ridge the following year. | Course Glossary
Second Generation Biofuels | Fuels produced from non-food crops (such as perennial grasses). Cellulosic plant materials, for example, are used to produce cellulosic ethanol. | Course Glossary
Sedimentation | The accumulation of matter settling to the bottom of a liquid. | Course Glossary
Slash | Logging slash is any material left on the ground after trees have been cut. | Course Glossary
Soybeans | An oilseed crop common in the U.S.. Oil from the seed can be used to make biodiesel. The cost of the crop and value for food grade oil make soybean only marginally valuable as a biodiesel feedstoc ... | Course Glossary
Stomata (pl), Stomate (sing.) | Small pores usually on the underside of leaves for gaseous exchange (of water vapor, oxygen, and carbon dioxide). | Course Glossary
Strip-till | Tilling only part of the field in the row zone for the subsequent crop to be planted. | Course Glossary
Sugarcane | Grown only in the southernmost parts of the U.S., sugar squeezed from the stalks can be used to make ethanol. The remaining part of the plant (bagasse) can be used to make cellulosic feedstock. Re ... | Course Glossary
Sustainability | Sustainability can be described as 1) a set of goals; 2) practices and behavior that support such goals; and 3) a branch of science. The most popular definition of sustainability can be traced to ... | Course Glossary
Sweet Sorghum | A potential bioenergy crop being evaluated for the high level of sugar in the sap of the stalk. In the south, this sap is pressed out and used to make molasses. Once the sap is squeezed out, the r ... | Course Glossary
Switchgrass | Panicum virgatum is a warm season perennial grass native to the tallgrass prairies once found across much of the U.S., and now grown mainly as a forage crop or as ground cover in the Conservation ... | Course Glossary
Tax Increment Financing (TIF) | TIF is used by cities and other development authorities to finance certain types of development costs for redevelopment of blighted areas, construction of low- and moderate income housing, provisi ... | Course Glossary
Third generation biofuels | Those derived from algae. | Course Glossary
Tilth | The workability of soil. | Course Glossary
Transpiration | The release of water vapor from plant parts, especially the leaves via stomates. | Course Glossary
Trihalomethanes (THMs) | Any of various organic compounds that can occur in chlorinated water as a result of reaction between organic materials in the water and chlorine added as a disinfectant. Trihalomethanes are though ... | Course Glossary
Water Cycle/Hydrologic Cycle | The continuous movement of water on, in and above the surface of the earth. | Course Glossary
Watershed | The area of land that drains to a common point (lake, river, etc.). | Course Glossary
Wet Distillers Grains (WDGs) | A cereal by-product of the corn-grain ethanol distillation process that has not been dried, which means that it has a much shorter storage window than dried distillers grains. | Course Glossary
Willow | A short rotation woody crop that can be grown on marginal lands. Willow can be used as feedstock for cellulosic ethanol or can be burned to generate electricity in cogeneration plants. | Course Glossary