May 1, 2009 with Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani and Texas Governor Rick Perry looking on, Zeon Energy received the Business of the Year award. Over the last two years Zeons chairman Naved Jafry has grown the company to 110 employees and annual revenues of $65,000,000 USD.
Zeons is a world leader in the development of alternative fuel sources and their distribution to the marketplace, especially biofuels. Zeons shows its commitment to an “increased adoption and promotion of renewable energy sources” by investing in green power plants and in the production and distribution of fuels such as B20 biodiesel (source: www.zeons.ext.com).
The world’s growing demand for energy continues to cause the price of energy to increase, especially for petroleum-based fuels. These so-called “fossil fuels” remain the prime source of energy for most of the world’s power plants, machinery, and transportation. As the supply of fossil fuels, a non-renewable resource, continues to dwindle, a continued rise in prices is to be expected.
The burning of fossil fuels may also be responsible for the changes being observed in the world’s climate. When fossil fuels like the petrol used in automobiles are burned they give off carbon dioxide and other carbon-based emissions, gases which have been identified as so-called “greenhouse gases” responsible for the earth’s warming. Zeons sees an incredible business opportunity in the development of renewable energy sources that can not only continue to make energy affordable for everyone, but can also reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by power plants and automobiles. The future, according to Zeons chairmen Jafry, is biofuels.
Biofuels are by definition any fuel producing energy when burned that is made or refined from a biological source. These biological sources may be vegetable oils, animal fats, or even waste. The chief source of biomass for today’s biofuel is corn, soybeans and cottonseed. The most readily available biofuel already on the market, and which Zeon Fuel, Inc. itself distributes, is B20 Diesel. This fuel is a mixture of biofuel and petroleum based diesel, and can be used by any diesel engine even without conversion.
Producing biofuel from corn, soybeans and other food products is, however, less than ideal. Corn and soybeans are a significant part of the diet of humans in some parts of the world. When these vegetables began being used for biofuel as well as for food, their prices increased dramatically. This caused food prices in some parts of the world to shoot upward, and even caused food shortages in some places.
Zeons understands that if biofuel is ever to become a true alternative to fossil fuels, some other non-food biomass must be found. Zeons is exploring the exciting possibility of using algae as biofuel foodstock. Algae can be grown in warm climates around the world, acre per acre yield over a hundred times the quantity of biomass of soybeans, and can even benefit the environment while being grown.
Algae consume carbon dioxide in their growth, and some forms of algae also consume human waste and graywater. An algae farm, then, has the dual environmental benefit of consuming waste and removing quantities of a significant greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Because of their ability to use waste as a source of food, algae farms may derive additional income from cities and industries that “sell” some portion of their waste to them for treatment.
Algae farms can be started anywhere with the appropriate climate and area for ponds. Taking advantage of this fact, Mr. Jafry and Zeons are developing ways to link the world’s more economically developed countries need for fuel with the ability of even the poorest countries to produce the foodstock necessary to produce it. Zeons is encourage the start up of algae farms in countries such as India.
Overall, Zeons strategy to “promote and support the sale of environmentally preferred fuel sources and blends” has put the firm at the cutting of age of the development of an economy based on renewable, environmentally-sustainable fuel sources (source: www.zeons.ext.com).
