Biofuels Make Greenhouse Gases Worse

vortex2.71 sends us to the Seattle Times for an account of two studies published in the prestigious journal Science pointing to the conclusion that 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. "The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These plant-based fuels were originally billed as better than fossil fuels because the carbon released when they were burned was balanced by the carbon absorbed when the plants grew. But that equation proved overly simplistic because the process of turning plants into fuels causes its own emissions — for refining and transport, for example. These studies... for the first time take a detailed, comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of natural land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuels development."

Names are easy... connecting the dots...

[denzacar]

Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change [sciencemag.org]
Timothy Searchinger 1*, Ralph Heimlich 2, R. A. Houghton 3, Fengxia Dong 4, Amani Elobeid 4, Jacinto Fabiosa 4, Simla Tokgoz 4, Dermot Hayes 4, Tun-Hsiang Yu 4

1 Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. German Marshall Fund of the U.S., Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute.
2 Agricultural Conservation Economics, Laurel, MD, USA.
3 Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA, USA.
4 Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.

How Green Are Biofuels? [sciencemag.org]
Jörn P. W. Scharlemann and William F. Laurance

Re:Stupid Article

[LaskoVortex]

Here is one reference [nih.gov]. Original references are usually much less alarmist than the stupid news stories created by journalists who don't understand what they are reporting. This is corn ethanol, which is known to be an inefficient source of energy, so the Science article comes as no great surprise--though it does contradict an earlier report [nih.gov] in PNAS. The journalism mistakenly groups all biofuels with corn here (unless the article irresponsibly leaves out other references). Independent studies would need to be done for every biofuel source to warrant the sweeping generalizations of the Seattle Times article.

There should be a law.

Re:Hm...

[omeomi]

So an effort to fix global warming made things worse? How surprising.

Scientists have been saying all along that food-product based bio-fuels--corn-ethanol in particular--are a bad idea. It's the politicians and auto manufacturers that are too stupid to listen.

Cellulosic ethanol

[milsoRgen]

U.S. Production:
still in development; no current production

Sources of Cellulosic Ethanol:

• Agricultural residues (left over material from crops, such as the stalks, leaves, and husks of corn plants)
• Forestry wastes like wood chips and sawdust from lumber mills, tree bark
• Municipal solid waste (household garbage and paper products)
• Paper pulp
• Fast-growing prairie grasses, such as switchgrass, which require less energy (tractors, fertilizers, etc.) and can grow on marginal land

Energy Balance
Fossil-fuel energy used to make the fuel (input) compared with the energy in the fuel (output)
1 to 2-36

Greenhouse gas emissions (production and use)
Gasoline=20.4, Cellulosic ethanol 1.9 (lbs/gallon)

Sources: U.S. DOE; U.S. EPA; Worldwatch Institute

Several Things to Consider

[KnightNavro]

There are a few thing to consider before dismissing biofuels entirely.

First, this study states that the break even point is 93 years. That's a reasonable timeframe when assessing anthropogenic global warming. Most of the time, the warming potential of gasses is measured using a 100 year potential. As a long term investment, biofuels still pay off.

Second, the study looks at corn as a fuel. Nobody except Iowans and pandering politicians think corn is a good biofuel. The technology for cellulosic ethanol is just around the corner. Biodiesel far more energy efficient than ethanol. Sugar is a far more viable alternative than corn, where it will grow.

Finally, it looks like the study considers only a monoculture. Multiple crops on the same area of land is more efficient. Of course, far too much of our agriculture is monoculture.

Re:Hm...

[Planesdragon]

to produce 1 gallon of oil equivalent for ethanol requires inputs of, say, 1.1 gallons of oil.

1: Sorry, you got the ratio wrong. One gallon of oil produces, worst-case, the equivalent of 1.1 gallons of gasoline as ethanol.

2: Even this slim ratio applies ONLY when you use corn kernels to produce ethanol. Not the stalk. Not the cob. Just the fracking kernel.

Brazil gets a 300% energy efficiency for growing sugar cane to make ethanol. That's "spending 1 gallon of gas to get the equivalent of 3 gallons."

Re:Hm...

[qw0ntum]

I'm not surprised that biofuels actually make the situation worse. I've been saying that all along; our nation's approach to biofuels (particularly using corn) was a poorly thought out political move to cater to the corporate farm lobby. It was really convenient in that it allowed politicians to act "green" and look like they were moving away from supporting big bad Middle East oil (which is in large part financed by American companies under American-supported governments... that's a discussion for another day). Maybe this report will finally start convincing people that biofuels really, really aren't a proper solution to environmental problems. The only way to REALLY hit the root of the problem is to reduce consumption of stuff. I'm not going to pretend that's easy or even practical, but this talk about biofuels, alternative energy, etc. is just pussy-footing around the real issue that we as a species are consuming more than this planet can support.

It's also important to note that the VAST majority of our petroleum imports don't actually come from the Middle East! The DOE says so [doe.gov] itself. Our top two petroleum importing countries are... Canada and Mexico!

Biofuels were never about being a real solution. It was always about political capital for politicians and special interests. Now we at least have more science to show how messed up biofuels really are.

Re:Simplistic FUD piece...

[mechsoph]

The reason "high-fructose corn syrup" is used is because sugar cane is more difficult to grow.

No, the reason HFCS is in everything in the US is because our high sugar tariffs make the domestic sugar price double the global price. If it weren't for the tariff, we'd import cheap sugar from our friendly neighbors down south, and US Coke wouldn't taste so lousy.

Re:Hm...

[Oligonicella]

"... our nation's approach to biofuels (particularly using corn) was a poorly thought out political move to cater to the corporate farm lobby."

Yeah. Let's forget about the hundreds of thousands of people in general (and here on /.) screaming that "we must do something" and "better to do something than wait for destruction".

Not just for the corporates it weren't. Think Al Gore.

Re:Hm...

[DurendalMac]

Not really. This article fails to take into account advancements that can create biofuel from almost any vegetable matter, not just specific crops. You could get biofuel out of your lawnmower bag.

Re:lose-lose game ?

[evilviper]

Now the environmentalists want to blow up the dams that supply almost all of the state! I mean, you can't get much greener than a dam. But I guess fish are more important than people.

A significant portion of the humans on this planet survive almost entirely on fish. A damn might give your state a slightly higher amount of clean electricity, while it causes 1 billion people around the planet to starve.

Re:Hm...

[flyingsquid]

There are other ways of doing that: nuclear, or the massive oil fields in Alaska. But no politician seems willing to put them all on the table and compare the pros and cons of each.

Nobody's really sure how much oil is in ANWR, but the estimates run from 5.7-16 billion barrels, with a mean of 10.4 billion barrels. To put things in perspective, Saudi Arabia has about 250 billion barrels of reserves, and Iran and Iraq put together have about that much. Kuwait and the UAE each have about 100 billion barrels. Personally, I'm in favor of developing ANWR if we can ensure that a close watch is kept on the oil companies to make sure they don't screw up the environment, but there's no way it will end our dependence on the Middle East.

Re:Still works on a small scale though

[jfmiller]

While you sentiment is in the right place, there is a huge flaw in your logic. Most food impoverished countries are that way because it is unprofitable to farm the land. Why? because the US is dumping huge amounts of excise food onto the markets. If you want to help feed starving people, it would be much better to supply them with cash that they can use to pay local farmers rather then putting those farmers out of business with highly subsidized US corn and soy beans

There is a simple answer: biofuel from algae.

[NimbleSquirrel]

http://www.oilgae.com/ [oilgae.com]

Biodiesel from algae is not new, and algae doesn't use up land resources like converting farmland for ethanol production does. In fact growing algae utilizes waste water streams from sewage plants, making the water cleaner in the process. On top of that, the yield of oil from algae (and hence biodiesel yields) can be up to 200 times more per acre than the best performing vegetable oil crops. Biodiesel from algae isn't without it's faults: it is expensive to set up the infrastructure to produce it (although that is a one time cost), and extracting the oil can be difficult. However new technology in systems using supercritical fluid extraction (using a superfluid CO2 of all things) has been nearly 100% efficient. There are companies already doing this: http://www.aquaflowgroup.com/technology.html [aquaflowgroup.com]

The problem is that people are still focussed on ethanol as the solution, being a quick and easy replacement for gasoline. Ethanol production from crops is nowhere near as efficient as producing biodiesel from crops, and ethanol production is expensive from both an economic and energy point of view. Many of the crops used to make ethanol only grow well in specific climates, meaning farmers outside those climate ranges who convert to ethanol crops can expect very low yields per acre. An eventual solution would be to move to diesel/biodiesel engines over gasoline/ethanol engines, and use ethanol is only an intermediate step to cover that conversion. Jets already make use of biodiesel blends with jetfuel, and progress is being made to jets using biodiesel only fuels. http://www.stuff.co.nz/4218411a10.html [stuff.co.nz]

The problem I have with these studies is that they treat ethanol as the only biofuel available. There are other biofuels, from straight vegetable oil to biodiesel. They claim that it is more destructive than commonly made out, yet the do not mention it is nowhere near as destructive to the environment as fossil fuels (and related fuel processing). Once the infrastructure is in place, it is far better for the environment. The studies also make out that biofuel production has resulted in massive deforestation, yet massive deforestation has been happening for decades before biofuels became mainstream. The real culprits are primarily demand for wood, farmland (and not just biofuel crops) and resource mismanagement on an extreme level. While the studies have raise some important issues that must be considered, I can't help but feeling that somewhere along the funding chain for these studies is an oil company. On top of that oil companies' PR agents are having a field day, making sure these studies get published everywhere.

REAL math: UK decommission estimate 73 BIL pounds

[leftie]

Here's the real math from the UK where government contractors face a real threat of jail time if they are caught intentionally lowballing a cost estimate....

"Total cost of closing down nuclear sites rises to £73bn

The cost of decommissioning Britain's ageing nuclear power sites has risen from an estimated £61bn in 2005 to £73bn as the "start-stop" nature of the work is creating significant uncertainty for contractors, Whitehall's value-for-money watchdog reveals today.

The report by the National Audit Office (NAO) into the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will prove particularly uneasy reading for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who earlier this month gave the green light to a new generation of nuclear power stations - albeit that none will be built in Scotland because of the anti-nuclear stance adopted by the Scottish Government.

As well as reporting to the UK Government via the Department for Business, the authority also reports to Scottish ministers who agree its strategy and plans for sites in Scotland. By December 2007, 14 of 19 facilities across Britain had already shut down and were in the process of being decommissioned, which includes cleaning up the sites.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2003619.0.Total_cost_of_closing_down_nuclear_sites_rises_to_73bn.php [theherald.co.uk]

That's 150 BILLION DOLLARS... ON JUST 19 UK reactors. That means the REAL US cost of decommissioning US nuclear reactors is going to be well over ONE TRILLION DOLLARS!

Re:Better way to produce biodiesel is algae

[Anonymous Coward]

Biodiesel from algea has great yield per area and fertilizer input statistics, however its overall energy yield is not so great. The problem is, separating algea from water is energy intensive. Vegetable oil is relatively easy to extract and process and readily dried. An enzymatic process that would work in plenty of water might solve the problem, but no such process is mature enough yet.

Re:What about solar?

[martyros]

There's no such thing as overconsumption.

"Overconsumption" is akin to "overspending". If you have an income of $2000 and $100K in the bank, and you're spending $10000 a month, you're overspending. You can get away with it until your "banked" resources run out, at which case you will be spending only $2000 a month. The only question at that point is whether you've prepared your finances for that sudden change, or whether things will crash and burn (i.e., your home and car get reposessed, you have to pay exhorbitant cancellation costs for cell phone contracts, &c).

If your income is from your capital (i.e., if your income is dividends from stocks, &c), you have an even worse problem: that the more of your savings you spend, the less income you have. If you keep spending at your "overspending" rate, you'll eventually have no capital at all. Moderation early on may mean a sustainable income of $2000, but the longer you wait to adjust to your sustainable income, the lower your sustinable income will be when you finally get your head on straight.

Oil, coal, copper, steel, and other non-renewable resources are like money in the bank. Right now our energy consumption, as a society, is several times what our "income" is from renewable energy sources. We're running on our "bank" of oil, coal, &c. What happens when the oil & coal run out, if we don't find a renewable energy source that can provide us energy at the rates we're used to? "The market will adjust", certainly, but it's likely that it will "adjust" by massive wars, anarchy, starvation, and societal collapse. (See "Collapse", by Jared Diamond for a history of many such past societies that have had exactly that happen.)

Renewable resources like ocean fish, trees, and soil are like the stock market. If fishing and logging happen at replacement rate, then you have a sustainable renewable resource indefinitely. But if you fish or log at more than replacement rates, then your stock of reproducing fish or trees goes down, meaning a lower rate of the sustainable resource, until the resource is finally exhausted and cannot be renewed.

With these kind of fixed resources, "overconsumption" definitely has a well-defined meaning that has nothing to do with "externalities".

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[account_deleted]

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i wrote this before

[memnock]

but i'll add anyway. David Tilman from U of MN has worked quite extensively with mono- and polycultures of plants/grass for purposes of productivity. his paper here [sciencemag.org] talks about using switchgrass in combination with other plants to use degraded/poor ag. lands and still get better, even carbon negative, output than corn or soy beans for ethanol, without a lot of input. i don't know why this didn't get more press.

Re:Ethanol for Racing?

[cloudmaster]

Many non-top fuel racing engines are starting to use ethanol, partially due to the low cost (a gallon of nitromethane is pretty expensive) and ready availability (seen a nitro pump at the local gas station recently?). A gas engine can basically run a higher compression ratio and replace a few fuel fittings, and subsequently make more power on E85 than it could on gasoline. The growing commonality of turbocharging gives a pretty easy way to raise compression (or change the pulley on the supercharger already on that race car, whichever), and alcohol-compatible fuel systems have been common in racing for years.

Re:Hm...

[cheesygrapes]

Umm, no. Environmentalists were always huge opponents to Biofuel. The main reason I was skeptical about biofeul was because if all the Environmentalists are opposed to something that politicians say "will help the environment", something seemed pretty wrong. When Bush last visited Brazil there were Environmentalists protesting his visit. Why? Because Bush was supporting biofeul and biofeul companies were cutting down their rainforests for sugarcane. Here's an article about environmentalists opposing biofuel because it would damage the bay that I found in about 2 seconds, you can find stuff like this everywhere: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/16/AR2007071601845.html [washingtonpost.com] Environmentalists have always been the staunchest opponents of biofuel that I've seen (though of course probably not for the same reasons you may have opposed it). I know they tend to also be nuts and are easy to make fun of, but it looks like they got it right for once. At first I thought your post was probably meant as a troll but when you got a (5 interesting) from an ignorant rant about something you apparently know nothing about, it seems that you aren't the only one to base their perception of environmentalists on what politicians say rather than what environmentalists actually say.

oh please

[zogger]

Pointing out data is not trolling, it is just facts. Right now, there is no free lunch with energy, if you are discussing trapped heat. If you add excess heat-from any source at all, including nuclear, plus "trap" it more, you will get global warming to a larger degree than what would have been normal without any anthropocentric additions. Uranium in the ground gradually decays and gives off the heat, that isn't the issue really, the issue is the rapidity by which the heat is released and then trapped compared to normal human society evolution. Natural decay=zillions of years, whereas inside a fission reactor than down to the consumer = a few years = rapid rise in global temps if done on a huge scale. And it scales quite literally, one for one. Nuclear fission power is an anthropocentric addition to global warming. that huge amount of heat is *released*, that's all a reactor does is get "hot", we use turbines to make electricity and transfer that energy around, but it all gets back to just transferring the heat around. Just reality. Same with burning biomatter, whether dug up out of the ground, pumped out, or grown on the surface. The biological stuff on the surface though is a lot closer-not perfect but a lot closer- to being neutral in heat addition and the "trapping" effect with the gases compared to coal or oil or nuclear fission plants. Solar thermal is probably about the same level as purposefully grown biofuels.

I repeat, no free lunch, and a massive addition of hundreds or thousands more nuke plants around the world will, without any doubt whatsoever, add to global warming in a significant degree, unless one suspends the laws of thermodynamics somehow, which I don't think is all that possible. And the faster it happens, the faster the warming happens, the less chance humans have of adapting to it in a non chaotic or socially destructive way.

Re:Hm...

[tylernt]

Which is about 5% more expensive (and correspondingly about 5% more energy dense)

But diesel engines are well over 5% more fuel efficient, so you still come out ahead.

Excellent talk from last week's NPR Science Friday

[AaronW]

A very good talk on this was given last Friday, 02/08/2008 on NPR's Science Friday [sciencefriday.com].

Re:Hm...

[WGR]

Wait, you're saying trees make it rain more?

Yes trees do make it rain much more than grass crops like sugar cane or corn.

The evapotranspiration of any vegetation is proportional to the leaf area. Forests have vastly more leaf area than croplands.
So the atmosphere over forests, rain forests, contains much more moisture, therefor it rains more.

Study agrometeorolgy to learn how it works.