Bio-Fuels farce

[Fairweather]

AlpineK & friends ain't gonna' like this......

 

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/ethanol.toocostly.ssl.html

[catbirdseat]

The last time this came around the democrats killed it in congress for the very same reasons given in the article. But they lost their majority in the Senate and they got Bush. It's just a way for Bush to pay back farmers in the Red States for reelecting him.

 

There is research going on to use biotechnology to make biofuel production more energy efficient, but it appears to be a long ways from being a means to reduce oil importation.

[Fairweather]

I'm more amused by the 'feel good' types who use bio-diesel and think they're making a real difference.

 

But you're right about the ethanol subsidies. And it isn't just Bush...it's every president in recent memory, I believe.

[AlpineK]

Life Cycle Studies

The U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have performed

a life cycle study of the energy balance of biodiesel produced from soybeans in the

U.S. This is the most comprehensive, credible and thoroughly peer reviewed study

available on biodiesel produced from soybeans. Among its key findings:

• For every one unit of fossil energy used in this entire production cycle, 3.2 unit of

energy are gained when the fuel is burned, or a positive energy balance of

320%.

• The energy balance for biodiesel produced from soybeans is so high because

the starting component, soybean oil, is already high in energy content. Oils and

fats are nature’s preferred way to store high density energy.

• This study started with bare soil and took into account all the energy inputs

associated with growing and harvesting soybeans: transporting and processing

the soybeans into oil and meal, transportation and production of the soybean oil

into biodiesel, and transportation of the biodiesel to the end user.

 

source

 

Also see

 

PS CBS is a major geek

[Fairweather]

Ak,

 

Where is Dept of Energy study?????

 

I only see National Bio-Diesel Board andbio-diesel.org. Their names indicate their bias, wouldn't you say?

[AlpineK]

Note the second link if you actually read it you would see that it's a report from the DOE and the DOAgriculture.

 

Of course a child of meth adicts like yourself isn't bright enough to figure that out.

[Fairweather]

The second link doesn't work, pothead. Only the address box lights up.

[AlpineK]

It works fine on my computer. You're really not very bright. That's why you believe Rumpy when he tells you that he loves you.

 

Tell him you need a reach around.

[Fairweather]

I must not have the magic cookie that you possess. First link works fine. I think you're lying. I think there is no second link.

[Dave_Schuldt]

It downloads a pdf file.

[AlpineK]

Try copying the link to your browser. there's more than one way to skin a cat.

[Fairweather]

So you have a study partly sponsored by the DOE, not [/i]conducted[/i] by. Hence, the .org and not the .gov.

 

Regardless, I choose to believe the Cornell Professor for now. If, for no other reason, the fact that his link worked on the first try.

[cj001f]

Spend sometime in the midwest. Ethanol = corn belt votes.

[foraker]

So, how do you feel about all those projects sponsored by, but not actually performed by the National Science Foundation? My guess is it depends on your political bias. Put away that tricorder, Mr. Spock! We need an E-meter!

[Dave_Schuldt]

Hemp produces the most oil per acer. It wont get you stoned 'cause it's bread for seeds and stems, not buds.

[j_b]

monbiot had an interesting piece on bio-fuels:

 

"A few thousand greens in the United Kingdom are running their cars on used chip fat. But recycled cooking oils could supply only 100,000 tonnes of diesel a year in this country,(3) equivalent to one 380th of our road transport fuel.

 

It might also be possible to turn crop wastes such as wheat stubble into alcohol for use in cars – the Observer ran an article about this on Sunday.(4) I’d like to see the figures, but I find it hard to believe that we will be able to extract more energy than we use in transporting and processing straw. But the EU’s plans, like those of all the enthusiasts for bio-locomotion, depend on growing crops specifically for fuel. As soon as you examine the implications, you discover that the cure is as bad as the disease.

 

Road transport in the United Kingdom consumes 37.6 million tonnes of petroleum products a year.(5) The most productive oil crop which can be grown in this country is rape. The average yield is between 3 and 3.5 tonnes per hectare.(6) One tonne of rapeseed produces 415 kilos of biodiesel.(7) So every hectare of arable land could provide 1.45 tonnes of transport fuel.

 

To run our cars and buses and lorries on biodiesel, in other words, would require 25.9m hectares. There are 5.7m in the United Kingdom.(8) Switching to green fuels requires four and half times our arable area. Even the EU’s more modest target of 20% by 2020 would consume almost all our cropland.

 

If the same thing is to happen all over Europe, the impact on global food supply will be catastrophic: big enough to tip the global balance from net surplus to net deficit. If, as some environmentalists demand, it is to happen worldwide, then most of the arable surface of the planet will be deployed to produce food for cars, not people.

 

This prospect sounds, at first, ridiculous. Surely if there was unmet demand for food, the market would ensure that crops were used to feed people rather than vehicles? There is no basis for this assumption. The market responds to money, not need. People who own cars have more money than people at risk of starvation. In a contest between their demand for fuel and poor people’s demand for food, the car-owners win every time. Something very much like this is happening already. Though 800 million people are permanently malnourished, the global increase in crop production is being used to feed animals: the number of livestock on earth has quintupled since 1950.(9) The reason is that those who buy meat and dairy products have more purchasing power than those who buy only subsistence crops.

 

Green fuel is not just a humanitarian disaster; it is also an environmental disaster. Those who worry about the scale and intensity of today’s agriculture should consider what farming will look like when it is run by the oil industry. Moreover, if we try to develop a market for rapeseed biodiesel in Europe it will immediately develop into a market for palm oil and soya oil. Oilpalm can produce four times as much biodiesel per hectare as rape, and it is grown in places where labour is cheap. Planting it is already one of the world’s major causes of tropical forest destruction. Soya has a lower oil yield than rape, but the oil is a by-product of the manufacture of animal feed. A new market for it will stimulate an industry which has already destroyed most of Brazil’s cerrado (one of the world’s most biodiverse environments) and much of its rainforest."

 

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/11/23/feeding-cars-not-people/

[EWolfe]

The most productive oil crop which can be grown in this country is rape

 

This doesn't translate well...

[jkeller]

I'm a long time lurker but this thread has finally forced me to register. Here's something I dug up on another board regarding Pimentel:

 

Just be aware that Pimentel releases this "finding" every other summer, Looking at the dates below, he's a month ahead of schedule this year.

 

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/01/8.23.01/Pimentel-ethanol.html

 

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/03/8.14.03/Pimentel-ethanol.html

 

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/ethanol.toocostly.ssl.html

 

I can't speak to this newest report, but Pimental's work has been repeatedly critiqued, and one of the main compliants it that he uses out of date numbers for yield and conversion efficiency:

 

http://www.mda.state.mn.us/ethanol/balance.html

 

http://www.usda.gov/oce/oepnu/aer-814.pdf

 

http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_rooster.html

 

http://www.ncga.com/public_policy/PDF/03_28_05ArgonneNatlLabEthanolStudy.pdf

 

http://www.ethanol-gec.org/corn_eth.htm

 

All that having been said, Pimental is right that soy and corn alone cannot replace our petroleum addiction.

[Dru]

The most productive oil crop which can be grown in this country is rape

 

This doesn't translate well...

 

90's flashback!

[JoshK]

Good post jkeller, and welcome

 

FW, I again ask you as I did in another thread...when are we going to start moving away from oil? Do we wait another 50 years until the technology for alternate energy sources is absolutely perfect or do we start working towards that goal now. The technology will get better and better and more cost effective as it enters in the market. YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE!!!

[olyclimber]

whew! I'm glad that Bio-fuel shit is a farce! I would hate to think of what the world would be like if we were less reliant on petro. what the fuck is wrong with you fairweather? are you actually glad?

[AlpineK]

Fairweather is only happy if we are sending billions of dollars to the Saudis or hilltop mining every peak in west virginia.

[prole]

"Fairweather is only happy if we are sending billions of dollars to the Saudis or hilltop mining every peak in west virginia."

 

Don't forget nuking China!

[foraker]

Please, it's not "nuking China", it's the Palahniuk Doctrine for Erasing the National Debt. Get on board, liberal scum!

[Recycled]

Life cycle studies are a bitch. I happen to believe most of them do not provide much enlightenment. For example, you can't compare the energy used to produce biodiesel with fossil fuel accurately unless you also include all of the prospecting, extraction, distribution and vapor losses of liquid fuels. It's rare to get an accurate assessment of this.

 

It's also bogus to focus on Soy oil as the long-term source of feedstock for biodiesel. The use of biofuels is in its infancy, so you should expect a shift to other, more productive, feedstocks as demand grows. Rapeseed is one, but mustard seed has even higher yields. King County is currently producing biodiesel from mustard seed grown on farmland fertilized with biosolids. The biodiesel is used to supplement the diesel used to haul the biosoids to the farm.

 

I've used 100% biodiesel for 3 years. The reasons are: (1) sustainability; (2) not using sequestered carbon with the obvious climate change implications; and (3) to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, with all the obvious foreign policy considerations.

 

It's really funny to see the "conservative" response to this. You would think conservatives would be strongly supportive of alternative fuels: no need to continuously intervene in the Middle East to "safeguard" our oil supply, moving toward strategic energy independence, and support for American jobs. I guess not. They just spew about how silly alternative fuels are and get there panties in a bunch about modest subsidies. Well, how about eliminating all subsidies and adding amortizing the costs of the past 20 years of Middle East wars and aid over the fuels we derive from the region. That way gas would be $10/gallon and biodiesel would be $3/gallon. We could even value military and civilian lives lost at whatever the neocons value a soldier's life ($10, $100, $1000?) Fair enough?

 

Sorry that came out as too much of a rant. Our neighbor just lost his brother in Iraq and I'm getting tired of the farce.