The Biofuel Boondoggle
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Energy, Environment, MoneyI said it before, and it bears repeating, biofuels aren’t the answer for the long term.
In the short term it can be argued they may be a useful way to ween ourselves off of foreign oil, but everything I’ve read so far suggests even if biofuel production was firing on all cylinders, we’d still have to purchase a ton of oil from the Middle East.
More from NY Times:
Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green†fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.Together the two studies offer sweeping conclusions: It does not matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared, the greenhouse gas contribution is significant. More important, they discovered that, taken globally, the production of almost all biofuels resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new lands being cleared, either for food or fuel.
“When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses substantially,†said Timothy Searchinger, lead author of one of the studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton University. “Previously there’s been an accounting error: land use change has been left out of prior analysis.â€
And so it goes…
Time to start thinking about nuclear energy?
This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 and is filed under Energy, Environment, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 8th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Actually, NPR’s Science Friday show dealt with this issue today. They pointed out what I considered obvious, which is that while using food crops or other crops grown on land fertile enough to grow food crops for biofuels is a bad idea there are alternatives. Some of the plants that can be converted to biofuels can grow on marginal lands that can’t grow food at a profit. There are also promising approaches to creating biofuels from trash or algae.
But what we need is a combination approach. Safe nuclear energy, solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources should be used where they are available. Some people say that the renewable sources are useless because they can’t power industrial plants or other large energy users. These people somehow fail to realize that a multi-pronged approach is the only workable one. The more homes and small businesses that can use these other resources the less power has to be provided by the larger plants like the safe nuclear ones we need. I think electric cars with a small supplemental engines to recharge the batteries would be the best approach to cars. And those engines could easily run off of biofuels given how little fuel they’d use.
February 9th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
No, because it has been pooh-poohed by the Prophet, Al Gore. Even though 80% of Europe’s electricity comes from nuclear, as does over 90% of Japan’s and South Korea’s.
Also, did you know that scientists are concerned about a lack of sun-spot activity, which might indicate a coming ice-age? Or that Global Warming may actually cause less hurricanes? Or that there has been record cold throughout the globe this winter?
If we had a choice where either we need to pump out more CO2 from Industrial processes, or we must accept an increase in human suffering, which should we choose? More global warming, but less human suffering? Or less global warming but more human suffering? Pick one. It may indeed be the case, particularly if you consider how an increase in CO2 output is directly proportional to economic development in the third world.
March 28th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Biofuels (and carbon capture) are a ‘catastrophe’ for future humankind. The decisions being taken by governments around the world in the quest for sustainability are a catastrophe for humankind in the long-term. Two of these decisions at the forefront of news are biofuels, and carbon capture and storage.
Biofuels — the fuel revolution that will supposedly help us:
(1) Growing crops in the United States for biofuels requires around the same energy input for fertilisers and processing the crops as that saved by replacing petrol on the forecourt (Biofuels – A solution worse than the problem, Daily Telegraph).
(2) By harvesting the peat bogs for biofuels, we release 30 times more carbon dioxide than will be recouped by burning the biofuel produced (Prof. Jack Riley, University of Nottingham).
(3) Growing biofuels takes a lot of land and huge amounts of water — neither of which the world has to spare.
(4) China and India risk famine if they proceed with their biofuels plans, because they don’t have enough water to grow both fuel and food (International Water Management Institute).
(5) Biofuels are killing forests and leading to more global warming, besides taking land away from food crops (Global Forest Coalition).
(6) The diversion of land meant for food crops to agrofuel production is a “crime against humanity” (Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food).
Carbon Capture — putting off today what others will have to solve tomorrow:
(1) Carbon sequestration and storage (under our oceans and land) is an untried method of locking up carbon dioxide forever, but there is not a 100 per cent assurance that it will not escape. Possible escape routes include earthquakes, land shifts, terrorism (holding the world to ransom) or human disasters/accidents.
(2) Sequestration and storage of carbon dioxide is not a solution, but a problem that humankind will have to face in the future — one that might eventually threaten the existence of human life itself on Earth, for nothing ever designed has lasted forever.
(3) Governments, as usual, are only looking at solving problems today without any understanding of what this will bring in the future. They are attempting to lock up gases that are toxic to humans — leaving any problems for future generations to solve.
(4) If there was a rupture in the storage vessel, the ramifications for the world would be immense, to say the very least. Therefore, carbon capture is a method of putting off today what others will have to fix tomorrow (if they can).
Dr David Hill
World Innovation Foundation Charity
Bern, Switzerland