Biofuels Make Greenhouse Gases Worse 506
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."
Re:Still works on a small scale though (Score:4, Interesting)
For small values of "most" (Score:3, Interesting)
There is some additional point pollution but I run a catalytic stove from Woodstock Soapstone which reburns the smoke so you can barely smell the woodsmoke outside (and I own enough forestland to eat my share of pollution). Besides that most of that 'pollution' was sequestered from the environment within the past thirty years.
If they want to argue against most fermentation-based biofuels, fine, but most cultures burn wood and have before 1830 when the planet started heating up.
Other possibilities (Score:4, Interesting)
Just today I was listening to CBC's "Quirks and Quarks" talking to Sandia labs about using solar energy to convert CO2 and H2O into H2 and CO, which can be effectively combined to make hydrocarbons. Unlike bacteria or algae, this process uses a special solid substance that, when exposed to the intense light, has its oxygen molecules stripped off, releasing O2 into the atmosphere. Then this substance is taken out of the sunlight, exposed to CO2 and Water, and it rips the oxygen molecules out of those substances, leaving H2 and CO behind, both of which can be fairly economically combined into hydrocarbons like methanol and gasoline. What's intriguing is that the substance they are using to rip the oxygen out of the water and CO2 can do this over and over again. Right now they are using CO2 from sources other than the atmosphere, making this not carbon neutral. However they plan to work towards harvesting CO2 from the atmosphere. In the meantime, though, this is a great way of increasing the efficiency of energy extraction from, say coal. If, someday, we could capture all CO2 from coal plants and convert it to gasoline for use in autos, that would have an overall decrease in our CO2 emissions because the coal could now be used to generate electricity *and* drive cars, reducing the CO2 emissions from refined gasoline. Assuming we can control particulates, nitrous oxides, and sulfur dioxides from burning gasoline, in the future perhaps gasoline-burning cars will be the cleanest things on the planet! Certainly as the scientist pointed out, gasoline (hydrocarbons anyway) is the best way of storying energy. Generating electricity is nice, but we have to use it as we generate it. Batteries and H2 production aren't really that good at storing energy as densely. The radio program is http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/07-08/feb09.html [www.cbc.ca] and the Sandia press release is http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/sunshine.html [sandia.gov]
If we are wise, then I think the push to biodiesel or solar gasoline will ultimately be our ticket.
Re:Names are easy... connecting the dots... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%."
Huh? Why would you grow switchgrass on corn lands? The whole point of switchgrass it that you can grow it on marginal lands, freeing croplands for food production. On crop lands, cellulosic ethanol is to be made from corn stover and the like.
Here's [autobloggreen.com] an interesting analysis of the studies from a member of the UC Davis faculty. He strongly disagrees with the methodology used.
Well, either way, I think we can all agree that corn ethanol from the corn itself is lousy, cellulosic ethanol from waste streams is good, and everything else is up in the air.
Vegetarians are bad for the planet too (Score:1, Interesting)
Each bite of vegetable travels on average 2000 miles. And the fuel used to power the travel came from even further away.
Vegetarianism requires conversion of forest to crop land which this article points out has a 93 year carbon-debt payback time for fuel production and of course an infinite period payback for growing vegetable since they don't carbon offset anything.
Vegetables use irritation which requires energy to move the water (most large scale irrigation is done in proximity to hydro electric dams for a reason: water+power.
Vegetables use irritation which makes the land salty and eventually depletes the soil.
Plowing weeding planting, ferilizing, storing and drying consume energy. In contrast with beef, the cows are self propelled, and can even deliver themselves to colllection points. 100% of the animal is used. And only the high density nutritious parts have to be shipped.
Beef will graze in forests and other areas without destoying them. They don't need irrigation, there is no huge loss of water to evaporation. No pesticides enter the water stream.
Most beef spends only a short portion of it's life cycle on a feedlot. And feed lot animals produce 1/3 of the methane as grain fed animals. The net methane production of cattle affecting the environment is a flawed notion when you consider there are half as many cows in the US as buffalo that used to roam.
Re:Hm... (Score:4, Interesting)
What about solar? (Score:2, Interesting)
(I know I'm super-simplifying the idea --but I'm just asking; and you seem like you know what you're talking about)
What percentage of the world's energy could possibly come from solar?
(And what percentage after most of our cars are electric?) (if that ever happens)
Re:Still works on a small scale though (Score:2, Interesting)
A 'nutshell' illustration of the issue of food distribution is bird feeding. I put out bird seed in a feeder in the old orchard here. Since I choose to do so, I consider it my ethical responsibility to continue to put it out throughout the winter. I can't decide not to feed the birds for a week in February, the birds depending on that feeder would starve. Some people say that it's bad to upset the balance of nature by feeding birds at all. Others argue that a central feeding location draws in an unnaturally large population of birds, creating a central location for disease to spread from. There are many thoughtful issues regarding even something as simple as putting out a bird feeder. Feeding a human population is much, much more complex.
Better way to produce biodiesel is algae (Score:4, Interesting)
Biodiesel production from high oil content algaes doesn't need to use crop land. From a University of New Hampshire study...
"...NREL's research focused on the development of algae farms in desert regions, using shallow saltwater pools for growing the algae. Using saltwater eliminates the need for desalination, but could lead to problems as far as salt build-up in bonds. Building the ponds in deserts also leads to problems of high evaporation rates. There are solutions to these problems, but for the purpose of this paper, we will focus instead on the potential such ponds can promise, ignoring for the moment the methods of addressing the solvable challenges remaining when the Aquatic Species Program at NREL ended.
NREL's research showed that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced from 200,000 hectares of desert land (200,000 hectares is equivalent to 780 square miles, roughly 500,000 acres), if the remaining challenges are solved (as they will be, with several research groups and companies working towards it, including ours at UNH). In the previous section, we found that to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification - I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required). That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals.
The algae farms would not all need to be built in the same location, of course (and should not for a variety of reasons). The case mentioned above of building it all in the Sonora desert is purely a hypothetical example to illustrate the amount of land required. It would be preferable to spread the algae production around the country, to lessen the cost and energy used in transporting the feedstocks. Algae farms could also be constructed to use waste streams (either human waste or animal waste from animal farms) as a food source, which would provide a beautiful way of spreading algae production around the country. Nutrients can also be extracted from the algae for the production of a fertilizer high in nitrogen and phosphorous. By using waste streams (agricultural, farm animal waste, and human sewage) as the nutrient source, these farms essentially also provide a means of recycling nutrients from fertilizer to food to waste and back to fertilizer. Extracting the nutrients from algae provides a far safer and cleaner method of doing this than spreading manure or wastewater treatment plant "bio-solids" on farmland.
These projected yields of course depend on a variety of factors, sunlight levels in particular. The yield in North Dakota, for example, wouldn't be as good as the yield in California. Spreading the algae production around the country would result in more land being required than the projected 9.5 million acres, but the benefits from distributed production would outweigh the larger land requirement. Further, these yield estimates are based on what is theoretically achievable - roughly 15,000 gallons per acre-year. It's important to point out that the DOE's ASP that projected that such yields are possible, was never able to come close to achieving such yields. Thei
Algae (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:For small values of "most" (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it worse than the Smoke [flickr.com] from a huge fire? No. The smoke in the air does make for pretty sunsets [flickr.com].
Is it better than the pollution from natural gas/propane/fuel oil?
Yes, smog is bad for people with athsma, and can irritate the respiratory system. Small fires are usually better than big huge ones [wikipedia.org], and are more manageable.
Using the wood to make paper or something is probably better from an air-pollution prospective, sure. Taking trees out of forests to get back to a "natural" density of trees is good for the forests. Firewood is just one way to use that wood, and yes does create some pollution in the air. But, it is a very renewable, carbon-recycling source of heat.
Agri subsidies (Score:3, Interesting)
Agri subsidies have been a major problem between Europe+US vs. rest of the world. Due to subsidies, it is cheaper for people in Nigeria to actually buy corn and wheat from US/Europe than to actually grow it themselves. Agri subsidies are essentially screwing the third world for monetary, political and strategic reasons (ie. country can feed itself without imports - strategic advantage).
The only problem is that all this is anti-WTO. Anti global free-trade. So, how can politicians fix the problem? How can they continue to subsidize agriculture without being contrary to the WTO agreements they want? They subsidize "new technology" called biofuels. Then the agri-subsidies take an extra step to get to farmer, but end result is the same. Subsidies continue while WTO is happy.
The only problem is that this is again at the cost of the environment. More land cleared. More jungles and peat bogs destroyed to make "environmentally friendly" fuel. Subsidies are why bio-fuel from corn, sugar cane, wheat, even grass. But no bio-fuel from oily algae grown on treated sewage lagoons. No, that fertilizer is just dumped to kill lakes instead.
Bio-fuels are just a cover to continue with agri subsidies in US and Europe. That's why politicians love it.
Re:Hm... (Score:3, Interesting)
While I agree with your first conclusion, this one is doubtful. The loonies did try that once during the oil crisis (1973, iirc), and the result was simply a bunch of bankrupcies in the west and decreased sales and eventually lower price. As long as they actually want to maximize their income they cant raise the prices beyond certain levels (and that includes levels that would make alternative fuels more popular).
So it's a mutual addiction; they want the money and the US wants the cheap energy, which keeps prices just below the pain limit but not lower or higher. The European way of enforcing a lower dependence through taxes seems smarter in retrospect, and at the very least offers a wider field of options when the oil runs out. (Though those perpetually higher prices also indicate that alternative fuels would not have been developed within past oil price ranges; adaption would have been accomplished through lower use of cars, less suburban sprawl and so on.
And protecting oil interests is most likely a play on words anyway. As I've pointed out, it's unlikely that the actual end price to the US consumer would have fluctuated much due to economics, so the 'oil interests' in question are most likely the oil corporations rather than any nebulous national interest.
Is Europe less socialistic than the US on Energy? (Score:3, Interesting)
You're more wrong than right to point out that Europe hasn't responded by producing a very specific solution at your command.
Europe is not a command economy, in respect to energy it may even be a LESS socialistic economy - which opens a very interesting discussion.
If you place the US - with its Universal Gasoline Plan and largely private pay-as-you-go Health care system, next to Europe with its Universal Health Care and pay-at-the-pump fuel system, it begins to explain the concentration of innovation in bot economies. We tend to innovate in health-care, while our energy and transportation sectors are third-world; while Europe has a largely second-rate health-care reputation - but many more leading energy companies and public transportation manufacturers.
AIK
next to Europes more of subsidized pump prices in a continuum with Europe