Biofuels may harm more than help

[Marnie]

Biofuels, championed for reducing energy reliance, boosting farm revenues and helping fight climate change, may in fact hurt the environment and push up food prices, a study suggested on Tuesday.

In a report on the impact of biofuels, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said biofuels may "offer a cure that is worse than the disease they seek to heal".

"The current push to expand the use of biofuels is creating unsustainable tensions that will disrupt markets without generating significant environmental benefits," the OECD said.

"When acidification, fertilizer use, biodiversity loss and toxicity of agricultural pesticides are taken into account, the overall environmental impacts of ethanol and biodiesel can very easily exceed those of petrol and mineral diesel," it added.

The OECD therefore called on governments to cut their subsidies for the sector and instead encourage research into technologies that would avoid competing for land use with food production.

"Governments should cease to create new mandates for biofuels and investigate ways to phase them out," it said.

The rest is here.

[rtwo]

I don't know about biofuels per se... but how about the government just stops creating mandates altogether?

[forrestkc]

Environmentalists have been against using corn for biofuels from the start. The problem is that by the time you figure in ethanol production, all the fertilizers and fuels used to grow it, and transportation expenses, you end up being worse off carbon emissions wise than you would have been with just going with traditional fossil fuels.

The only two biofuel sources that hold a lot of promise for temperate regions are hemp and algae. The problem with hemp is that cultivation is illegal in America and the problem with algae is the start up costs are prohibitive.

Poplar trees are being touted now as a possible bio-fuel source, but Grist.org details the drawbacks to it:

Oregon Public Broadcasting is reporting on the efforts of a WSU researcher to turn poplar trees into transportation fuel:

[P]oplars [are] an on demand fuel source. Trees can be chopped down year round, chipped up and then fermented to create ethanol.

According to the researcher, an acre of poplars could supply about one thousand gallons of ethanol per year -- which is about three times the per-acre yield of corn ethanol, with a lot less plowing and fertilizer consumption. Cool!

Of course, inveterate skeptic that I am, I had to run the numbers ...

Let's ignore, for a moment, any energy that's used in harvesting, chipping, and fermenting the poplars. (In a proper analysis, we'd "net out" those energy inputs from the final ethanol output.) Instead, let's just focus on the ethanol itself -- and how many acres of poplars it would take to satisfy our demand for transportation fuels.

Ethanol isn't quite as "energy dense" as gasoline. A thousand gallons of ethanol has about the same amount of energy as only 610 gallons of gas.

Here in the Northwest (British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho) we use about 6 billion gallons of gasoline per year. So if the poplar research is close to being right, it would take about 9.2 million acres of poplar plantations to satisfy our gasoline appetite.

That's a lot of land -- its area is about nine times the size of Washington's Olympic National Park, or roughly the size of New Jersey and Connecticut combined. Quite a poplar plantation, I'd say.

Scaling up to meet the total gasoline demand of the U.S. and Canada, you'd need a poplar plantation about the size of California plus Montana, with Mississippi thrown in for good measure, to satisfy the nations' demand for gasoline. And that doesn't even cover diesel or airplane fuel.

Needless to say, with numbers like these, it'd take a huge national effort, and a major disruption of forest ecosystems, for poplar-based ethanol to make a serious dent in our petroleum habit.

I don't mention all of this to throw cold water on alternative fuels. I, for one, am guardedly optimistic about cellulosic ethanol, and am delighted that WSU is doing the research. Still, it's important to keep in mind the scale of our fuel consumption: we use so much gasoline right now that biofuels just aren't a silver bullet. It's going to take a lot more -- everything from super-efficient vehicles, to compact neighborhoods that minimize travel, to incentives for filling empty seats -- if we're really going to create a transportation system that can last over the long haul.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/6/121651/4853

[rtwo]

Yup...

just imagine how much we could get done (like using hemp for biofuel) if the government would just stop interfering so much.

[georgesbluegirl]

Environmentalists have been against using corn for biofuels from the start. The problem is that by the time you figure in ethanol production, all the fertilizers and fuels used to grow it, and transportation expenses, you end up being worse off carbon emissions wise than you would have been with just going with traditional fossil fuels.

The only two biofuel sources that hold a lot of promise for temperate regions are hemp and algae. The problem with hemp is that cultivation is illegal in America and the problem with algae is the start up costs are prohibitive.

Poplar trees are being touted now as a possible bio-fuel source, but Grist.org details the drawbacks to it:

Oregon Public Broadcasting is reporting on the efforts of a WSU researcher to turn poplar trees into transportation fuel:

[P]oplars [are] an on demand fuel source. Trees can be chopped down year round, chipped up and then fermented to create ethanol.

According to the researcher, an acre of poplars could supply about one thousand gallons of ethanol per year -- which is about three times the per-acre yield of corn ethanol, with a lot less plowing and fertilizer consumption. Cool!

Of course, inveterate skeptic that I am, I had to run the numbers ...

Let's ignore, for a moment, any energy that's used in harvesting, chipping, and fermenting the poplars. (In a proper analysis, we'd "net out" those energy inputs from the final ethanol output.) Instead, let's just focus on the ethanol itself -- and how many acres of poplars it would take to satisfy our demand for transportation fuels.

Ethanol isn't quite as "energy dense" as gasoline. A thousand gallons of ethanol has about the same amount of energy as only 610 gallons of gas.

Here in the Northwest (British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho) we use about 6 billion gallons of gasoline per year. So if the poplar research is close to being right, it would take about 9.2 million acres of poplar plantations to satisfy our gasoline appetite.

That's a lot of land -- its area is about nine times the size of Washington's Olympic National Park, or roughly the size of New Jersey and Connecticut combined. Quite a poplar plantation, I'd say.

Scaling up to meet the total gasoline demand of the U.S. and Canada, you'd need a poplar plantation about the size of California plus Montana, with Mississippi thrown in for good measure, to satisfy the nations' demand for gasoline. And that doesn't even cover diesel or airplane fuel.

Needless to say, with numbers like these, it'd take a huge national effort, and a major disruption of forest ecosystems, for poplar-based ethanol to make a serious dent in our petroleum habit.

I don't mention all of this to throw cold water on alternative fuels. I, for one, am guardedly optimistic about cellulosic ethanol, and am delighted that WSU is doing the research. Still, it's important to keep in mind the scale of our fuel consumption: we use so much gasoline right now that biofuels just aren't a silver bullet. It's going to take a lot more -- everything from super-efficient vehicles, to compact neighborhoods that minimize travel, to incentives for filling empty seats -- if we're really going to create a transportation system that can last over the long haul.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/6/121651/4853

[boblandis]

There is one big untruth in this article. They are blaming rising food prices on biofuels. Being in thr transportation business myself, I can tell you with true certainty that rising food prices have been caused by rising fuel prices. The price of a tank of diesel fuel has gone up over 150% over recent years. That cost has been passed on to whatever you buy. I think this article is a shameful farce. No offense to you at all Marnie, they get me now and again too.

[Celtic Warrior]

There is one big untruth in this article. They are blaming rising food prices on biofuels. Being in thr transportation business myself, I can tell you with true certainty that rising food prices have been caused by rising fuel prices. The price of a tank of diesel fuel has gone up over 150% over recent years. That cost has been passed on to whatever you buy. I think this article is a shameful farce. No offense to you at all Marnie, they get me now and again too.

BUT it is very much indicative of how conservatives (and most people) will grab ANYTHING that supports or builds up what they already WISH to believe instead of seeking out the real truth. How quickly 'we' judge and condemn what 'we' wish to feel superior too, regardless of how much of God really is in what 'we' wish to believe (and yes I already know that the conservatives on this site will pervert all them "we"'s, sad to say)

[JustinM]

Celtic Warrior, you are no FresnoJoe. If you wanna preach to us, I suggest you take your comments to the inner court.

As for biofuels: I always thought burning up our food supply for energy was the dumbest thing anyone has ever thought of. Nuclear power is the way to go. I can't think of a more efficient way of producing energy than the use of nuclear technology.

Not 1 person in the U.S. has died of radiation poisoning from Nuclear Power plants. How many people have died mining coal, or refining oil?

[Guest]

BUT it is very much indicative of how conservatives (and most people) will grab ANYTHING that supports or builds up what they already WISH to believe instead of seeking out the real truth. How quickly 'we' judge and condemn what 'we' wish to feel superior too, regardless of how much of God really is in what 'we' wish to believe (and yes I already know that the conservatives on this site will pervert all them "we"'s, sad to say)

Celtic Warrior, why don't you forget the words "conservative" and "liberal" and a few others while you're at it?

I think you'll find you will get a better response with honey instead of vinegar, as my grandparents would have said.

The energy issues we are facing are real. Its not really much different than that bridge that collapsed outside Minneapolis. That wasn't a Republican bridge, and it wasn't a Democrat bridge, yet thousands of people used it each day -- and it failed, and people died. Fuel is the same sort of problem. Nothing is going anywhere without it, and we need solutions, not more finger pointing. If biofuels and nuclear are part of the solution, great. If not, then we try something else until we find a solution - that's something Americans used to be good at. If we could send men to the moon we can solve the energy problem too. It might just take some time.

BTW: Welcome to the real world, Celtic Warrior. If "you" drive a car or use electricity, "you" are part of the problem -- "you" are down here in the trenches with the rest of us, no matter what political name tag you want to wear.