|

Conventional Biofuels are Evil, Part 43124

Byoliveridley

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, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.

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.

The destruction of natural ecosystems — whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America — not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces.

Studies Deem Biofuels a Greenhouse Threat – New York Times

I think it is time to conclude that anyone who talks up biofuels is a) affiliated with an agri-biotech firm b) Big farmer c)Lobbyist, or d)Politician beholden to a,b and c.

It’s not even close. Clearing hitherto productive forest/grassland for biofuel growth  releases 93 times the amount greenhouse gases saved by the use of this biofuel. Diverting farmland for biofuel use makes things worse as the crop substituted will then be grown on land cleared.

The studies do give sugarcane and biofuel from agricultural wastes a cautious maybe. Corn ethanol and palm biodiesel will lead to the destruction of our ecosystems, make food more expensive and scarce, and actually exacerbate global warming.

References

  1. Joseph Fargione, Jason Hill, David Tilman, Stephen Polasky, and Peter Hawthorne. Land
    Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt. Science, page 1152747, 2008.
  2. Timothy Searchinger, Ralph Heimlich, R. A. Houghton, Fengxia Dong, Amani Elobeid, Jacinto Fabiosa, Simla Tokgoz, Dermot Hayes, and Tun-Hsiang Yu. Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change. Science, page 1151861, 2008.

Blogged with Flock

Tags:

Similar Posts

  • Best Primer to Climate Change ever

    Byoliveridley

    The Beeb does it again. Best use of simple graphics to clearly explain science.

    Gulf Stream

    1. Surface currents carry warm, salty water from the tropics.
    2. The water cools, its density increases and it sinks to the deep ocean.
    3. The cold water flows back to the equator, driving the “ocean conveyor” which in turn contributes to the Gulf Stream that warms northern Europe.
    4. As ice melts, freshwater dilutes the warm salty water from the tropics.
    5. The water becomes less dense so does not sink as fast, weakening the “conveyor” and therefore possibly disrupting the Gulf Stream.

    Gulf Stream

    Dramatic temperature shifts have happened in the past, driven partly by changes in a major ocean currents.

    A “great ocean conveyor” helps transport heat around the globe via surface and deep-sea movements of water.

    Scientists are exploring whether global warming might slow or shut it down – a scenario considered “low probability, high impact”.

    This could disrupt mostly wind-driven surface currents such as the Gulf Stream, which brings milder weather to Northern Europe.

    Low Probability, High impact indeed, aka the “Hell Freezes Over” Scenario. The Gulf Stream example is one of my favorites, check all the other animation out, it is great.

  • |

    An Ode to the Hummer? – Worst Column Ever

    Byoliveridley

    GM desperately needs an obnoxious, attention-grabbing brand to keep from turning into a dreary shadow of its former self. And America needs the Hummer to remind us of what has always made our automobiles stand out, from the tailfin 1950s to the muscle car 1960s and ’70s: swagger. Americans don’t just drive their cars — they proclaim something about themselves by driving them.It takes a certain kind of man — it’s almost always the owner of a Y chromosome — to take a gander at the Hummer, in all its broad, burly, paramilitary gas-guzzling glory, and see himself behind the wheel, striking fear and loathing in the hearts of ecologically sensitive motorists

    Matthew DeBord – Hummer, How We Need Thee – washingtonpost.com

    Yes, and we men need to beat our women and keep them pregnant all the time to avoid turning us men into dreary shadows of our former self.

    Seriously, this is the Washington Post, the newspaper of record of the capital city of the great United States, and this is not a satire. Way to paint the entire American male population as masculinity obsessed rageholics whose only aim is to strike fear in the heart of others while dressed in military fatigues. This man must possess an unhealthy degree of self-hatred to conclude  that disdain of a poorly designed, horrendously inefficient vehicle is somehow hippie and communist.This man is a disgrace to all mankind.

    This, on the other hand is satire…

    Ever since we changed our name from British Petroleum to BP (Beyond Petroleum) in 2000, we’ve led the way in developing progressive, environmentally friendly alternatives to gasoline. These last few years of pouring money into biofuels and renewable energy sources have been so great that I can’t for the life of me remember why we used to drill for dirty old oil in the first place! What’s that? You mean we’re still pumping that stuff from hundreds of refineries all over the world?

    Yes, when the Onion is better than the Washington Post, you know your country’s going to the dogs.

  • |

    The NY TImes on India’s Water Issues

    Byoliveridley

    The New York Times starts a three part series on water issues in India.
    In Teeming India, Water Crisis Means Dry Pipes and Foul Sludge – New York Times

    The crisis, decades in the making, has grown as fast as India in recent years. A soaring population, the warp-speed sprawl of cities, and a vast and thirsty farm belt have all put new strains on a feeble, ill-kept public water and sanitation network. The combination has left water all too scarce in some places, contaminated in others and in cursed surfeit for millions who are flooded each year. Today the problems threaten India’s ability to fortify its sagging farms, sustain its economic growth and make its cities healthy and habitable. At stake is not only India’s economic ambition but its very image as the world’s largest democracy.

    This has not changed since I was a kid, we had the exact same problems growing up, and it is not likely to get any better real soon. Depressing to read first thing in the morning.

  • Canada's Greatest Scientist

    Byoliveridley

    Is apparently someone called Rex Murphy who writes political and social columns for Canada’s premier newspaper, who has done what thousands of scientists all over the world could not do: Solve the issue of global warming by pointing out that Toronto is having a very cool July.

    So where’s that global cooling alert? – The Globe and Mail

    Now, however, Toronto in July is cool and I am waiting in vain for the lips of just one forecaster to ask how can this be. Waiting just once to hear the familiar phrase “global warming” in a sentence that even hints that the theory behind it is so much more tentative than we have been urged with such fervour to believe.

    It was so easy, the solution was in front of us all this time, why did no other scientist not use the obvious connecting equation: Weather (in one’s hometown in July) = Climate?? Damn, there goes my Nobel. Sometimes, it is that easy!

    Next week on the Globe and Mail: Isee Flaturtha stands on top of a hill, looks all around, can see nothing but flat land for miles and miles, publishes an opinion piece proving that the Earth is flat and excoriating the so called “Round Earth” scientists.

    I am glad that Canada’s best newspaper is open to such great scientific writing. Clearly, Canada’s future is bright.

  • EPA Calls for End to Releases of Chemical in Teflon Process

    Byoliveridley

    Check out this story from the January 26, 2006 LA Times.

    In a rare move to phase out a widely used industrial compound, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it was asking all U.S. companies to virtually eliminate public exposure to a toxic chemical used to make Teflon cookware and thousands of other products.

    EPA’s system of regulating chemicals leads to some really perverse incentives. The burden of proof shifts to the EPA to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a chemical has definite harmful effects on humans at ambient exposure levels. So the preferred route has been for the EPA to “suggest” to the companies to participate in a voluntary phaseout.

    No one knows how the chemical is getting into people’s bloodstreams and in the bodies of polar bears and other animals. Although it is used in production of cookware, it is not found in the cookware, clothing and other fluoropolymers after manufacture.

    Well, not quite. This from a paper published in the Environmental Science and Technology on January the 25th.

    Polyfluorinated telomer alcohols and sulfonamides are classes of compounds recently identified as precursor molecules to the perfluorinated acids detected in the environment. Despite the detection and quantification of these volatile compounds in the atmosphere, their sources remain unknown. Both classes of compounds are used in the synthesis of various fluorosurfactants and incorporated in polymeric materials used extensively in the carpet, textile, and paper industries. This study has identified the presence of residual unbound fluoro telomer alcohols (FTOHs) in varying chain lengths (C6-C14) in several commercially available and industrially applied polymeric and surfactant materials…

    This study suggests that elimination or reduction of these residual alcohols from all marketed fluorinated polymers and fluorosurfactants is key in reducing the prevalence of perfluorinated acids formed in the environment.

    Well, that explains it a little better, this article from ES&T provides a nice executive summary like context.

    An emerging theory that explains how PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and other PFCAs (perfluorocarboxylic acids) have contaminated the Arctic has received a boost from a new modeling study published in this issue of ES&T (pp 924–930). The theory contends that Arctic contamination is due to atmospheric transport and breakdown of fluorotelomer alcohols, chemicals that are used in products that include stain protectors, microwave-popcorn bags, fast-food wrappers, polishes, and paints.

    Well, it sure looks like we need to focus much more on the PFOA precursors rather than on the PFOA itself. Dupont and 3M are not going to be happy about that!

  • Corn Can't Solve Our Problem – washingtonpost.com

    Byoliveridley

    A must read for anyone who likes articulate scientists writing very approachable articles about important subjects!
    Corn Can’t Solve Our Problem – washingtonpost.com

    If every one of the 70 million acres on which corn was grown in 2006 was used for ethanol, the amount produced would displace only 12 percent of the U.S. gasoline market. Moreover, the “new” (non-fossil) energy gained would be very small — just 2.4 percent of the market. Car tune-ups and proper tire air pressure would save more energy.

    Proper tire pressure is not sexy, and does not lead to billions of dollars of profits!

    The net effect is that ethanol from corn grown in the Corn Belt does increase atmospheric greenhouse gases, and this increase is only about 15 percent less than the increase caused by an equivalent amount of gasoline

    Corn is such a boondongle, it’s amazing what the ADMs and Monsantos of the world can do.

    This means that when tropical woodland is cleared to produce sugar cane for ethanol, the greenhouse gas released is about 50 percent greater than what occurs from the production and use of the same amount of gasoline. And that statistic holds for at least two decades.

    Brazil will not solve all your problems (unless they’re samba related!). Increased demand for ethanol from Brazil could lead to clearcutting of the rain forest/other fallow grassland.

    Across the full process of growing high-diversity prairie hay, converting it into an energy source and using that energy, we found a net removal and storage of about a ton and a half of atmospheric carbon dioxide per acre. The net effect is that ethanol or synthetic gasoline produced from this grass on degraded land can provide energy that actually reduces atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

    It’s a very well written article.

2 Comments

  1. Does this mean local producers of biofuels are contributing to global warming? or is this study more about the effects of neo-liberal business practices aka globalization? i.e. destroying rainforest for new biofeul crops and shipping the raw goods long distances. Can we paint all biofuel producers with the same brush?

    BTW – I don’t really have a horse in this race AND I am for the end of using combustion engines some day. Plus I’m not a, b, c. or d. I’m just thinking about selling my gasoline vehicles and getting a diesel to run biodiesel.

    But I am concerned these studies may have corporate sponsorship that could have serious pro-oil bias. (I am ready to be wrong.) I learned recently about what happens when the media hypes a new article in the journal Science BEFORE it can be vetted in a open manner.

    I’m asking some science friends in the know to look into it. 🙂

  2. Brian:

    I read the abstracts. The papers are not yet out on academic institutional subscriptions, so I will know more in a day or two. The work is genuine and reinforces the scientific wisdom that biofuels based on conventional commodity agriculture such as corn ethanol, palm oil biodiesel, etc are not sustainable, dangerous and will cause many more problems than they solve.

    Biodiesel made from leftover grease, on the other hand, is not that bad. What the science is telling us is that uncultivated land is a huge carbon sink and every time you clear land not previously used for agriculture and start growing input intensive crops such as corn, you are screwing the carbon balance over.

    So, simple rule of thumb, look for the source of the biofuel. If it is from a cultivated plant, it is not acceptable (sugarcane may be an exception, but not a sustainable one if Brazil starts chopping down its rain forests to grow cane). If it from some previously unutilized waste product such as vegetable oil, fast food grease, agricultural waste, etc, the lifecycle analysis is much more favorable as land use and the destruction of carbon sinks do not come into the picture.

    On a side note, big oil is already diversifying its holdings in the US corn ethanol based economy and stands to benefit a lot from the promotion of conventional biofuels. So, they are not in conflict, but in concert here. Big oil has the money and the infrastructure know how to get involved in new refinery building, pipelines, etc. Also, fertilizer production uses a lot of oil and natural gas, and increased corn planting leads to, you guessed it, increased oil/natural gas sales!

    On getting a car to run biodiesel, again, the source of your fuel is the most important thing. Piedmont Biofuels tries very hard to use local feedstock and locally generated waste. So they’re good. But if you start buying biodiesel sourced from Malaysia, woe betide you!

Comments are closed.