Andrzej Wasiak
Various aspects of manufacturing and production processes contribute to technological, energetic, and economic efficiency in relevant production. The present paper gives preliminary considerations concerning the influence of biofuel production, and its energetic efficiency on potential fulfillment of agricultural energy demand and consequently sustainability of agricultural production. The energetic efficiency is defined as the ratio of energy obtained from biofuels produced basing on crops from particular area to energy required to satisfy needs of all subsidiary processes assuring correct functioning of plantations on that area.
The effects of energetic efficiency of industrial processes converting agricultural crops onto biofuels also have to be analyzed.
The derived model gives quantitative relations between energy efficiency of sc. “energetic plantations”, energetic efficiency of industrial biofuel processing plants, and energy demand for other types of agricultural production. Investigations are aimed towards determination of the role of biomass as a source of energy, the possibility of assuring energetic self-sufficiency of agriculture and its effect on global energy demand.
An attempt is also made to formulate quantitative basis for describing the idea of sustainable development.
The effects of exclusion of a fraction of crops from food production towards biofuel production are also discussed.
