Areas of WorkThe work of FAO on renewable sources of energy has been continuous since the UN conference on new and renewable sources of energy held in Nairobi in 1981 and was reflected in the World Food Summit and its Follow- up in 1996 and 2002 respectively. The issue of Bioenergy and the need to emphasize that access to energy facilitates the eradication of poverty was stressed during the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development celebrated in Johannesburg in 2002.
Since then, an internal process began to assess FAO's comparative advantages - extensive technological knowledge, presence in countries and ongoing partnerships - and how best to mobilize its interdisciplinary expertise on bioenergy matters, ranging across agronomic, climatic, land use, gender, technology, industry and environmental considerations. Download a summary of FAO's work on Bioenergy here. Facts and FiguresCurrently 1.6 billion people lack access to electricity and 2.4 billion people mostly in rural areas of developing countries lack access to modern fuels for cooking and heating. In Subsaharan Africa more than 92% of the rural population is without electricity. Over 85% of biomass energy is consumed as solid fuels (fuelwood and charcoal) for cooking, heating and lighting, often with low efficiency. Woodfuels dominate bioenergy consumption. In developing countries up to 95% of national energy consumption relies on woodfuels. Biofuels include solid, gas or liquid fuels. The latter account for less than 2% of road transport fuels worldwide. Future potential of biofuel development will remain low (current predictions amount to about 4 % in 2030) although doubling today's current proportion. Current liquid biofuels include bioethanol - based on the fermentation of sugar and starch crops, and biodiesel - based on the transesterification of plant oil and animal fats. The derived ethyl or methyl esters can be used as a pure biodiesel or be blended with conventional diesel. Also pure vegetable oil is used as fuel for diesel engines. Depending on agro-ecological and socio-economic context, feedstocks for bioethanol production include sugar beet, sugar cane and sweet sorghum as the most common sugar crops, with maize, potatoes and cereals the most common starch crops. In temperate regions, rapeseed, corn or other cereals are used as feedstock. In tropical regions, cane sugar, palm oil, and, to a lesser degree, soybean and cassava are used. There is potential for sugar beets to be adapted to tropical regions for sugar production as well. The main oil crops for biodiesel production include canola (rapeseed), palm and soybean, with complementary feedstock coming from animal fats and waste vegetable oils, and, at an experimental stage micro-.algae. First generation biofuels refer to those made from sugar, starch, vegetable oil, or animal fats using conventional technologies. Second-generation biofuels are made from lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks using advanced technical processes and are expected to become viable over the next 5-10 years.
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