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The Issue of BioFuels
I think the choice of corn based ethanol is politically motivated. It looks good, it sounds good but has absolutely nothing to do with efficiency, economy, or green consciousness. it’s another cynical bit of window dressing allowing huge amounts of money to be funneled to favored interests.
But, we cannot simply call all biofuels bad, we need to concentrate on solutions that address the issues. This is a young industry with a lot of growing room, and many options to be considered. Many companies and even the US government, are working on better sustainable solutions.
Of course energy efficiency and less use need to be part of the solution, but the world will need fuel, and fossil fuels will disappear.
By using figures that are based on current technologies and systems in the biofuel arena, one is painted only a bad picture of biofuels, giving ammunition to those who don’t want petroleum to go away. It is very important to separate one biofuel from another when talking about them. It’s foolish to use figures from corn ethanol as it is done today and just say “ethanol” or “biofuels”. Believe it or not but even the US Dept of Energy/NREL/Biofuels recognizes we need to switch from starch (corn) to cellulosic ethanol in order to have a sustainable and efficient supply. Alternatives to soy are also being developed. Algae-based biofuel will be ~100x less resource intensive and many times over more efficient to produce, so the input-to-output ratio versus petro will be very high compared to soy, corn, even sugar cane. Biofuels can also be made from woody-based biomass like poplar trees that can be planted in deforested and deleted lands, not taking away from food production.
However, biofuels – made by producing ethanol, an alcohol fuel made from maize, sugar cane, or other plant matter – may be a penny wise but pound foolish way of doing so. Consider the following:
- The grain required to fill the petrol tank of a Range Rover with ethanol is sufficient to feed one person per year. Assuming the petrol tank is refilled every two weeks, the amount of grain required would feed a hungry African village for a year
- Much of the fuel that Europeans use will be imported from Brazil, where the Amazon is being burned to plant more sugar and soybeans, and Southeast Asia, where oil palm plantations are destroying the rainforest habitat of orangutans and many other species. Species are dying for our driving
If ethanol is imported from the US, it will likely come from maize, which uses fossil fuels at every stage in the production process, from cultivation using fertilisers and tractors to processing and transportation. Growing maize appears to use 30% more energy than the finished fuel produces, and leaves eroded soils and polluted waters behind
- Meeting the 5.75% target would require, according to one authoritative study, a quarter of the EU’s arable land
- Using ethanol rather than petrol reduces total emissions of carbon dioxide by only about 13% because of the pollution caused by the production process, and because ethanol gets only about 70% of the mileage of petrol
- Food prices are already increasing. With just 10% of the world’s sugar harvest being converted to ethanol, the price of sugar has doubled; the price of palm oil has increased 15% over the past year, with a further 25% gain expected next year. Little wonder that many are calling biofuels “deforestation diesel”, the opposite of the environmentally friendly fuel that all are seeking.With so much farmland already taking the form of monoculture, with all that implies for wildlife, do we really want to create more diversity-stripped desert?
Others are worried about the impacts of biofuels on food prices, which will affect especially the poor who already spend a large proportion of their income on food.
The BBC international version website gives a different viewpoint from the news we get fed here in the US.
I recommend it.
Douglas Savage
The Mill River Company
www.crystalcleanglass.com
The smart (albeit, not popular) thing to do is FIRST cut waste, cut BACK on consumption, THEN find replacements … provided replacements would even BE needed with proper and responsible conservation.
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