Sojourners and the United Nations are the latest in a series of bad
press for biodiesel (or "agrofuels" in general) which is not completely
undeserved and not completely new to me. I'm more interested in
biodiesel than ethanol (at least corn based ethanol) and I'd heard of
the countries, like Malaysia, which burned forests to grow palm oil for biodiesel.
I'd heard of the Nitrous Oxide issue (biodiesel produces a higher level
than regular diesel, although much lower on a variety of other
greenhouse gases). I knew that biodiesel wasn't a silver bullet to
solve all our problems -- that even at maximum production it would only
satisfy a fraction of our current demand. But I'm interested in the
little niche markets that can be tapped for fuel, like animal fats
and waste vegetable oil (WVO), which can be converted into biodiesel.
(I have toyed with the idea of converting our car to run on straight
vegetable oil and making a symbiotic relationship with a nearby
take-out Chinese food restaurant, where I'd collect their waste oil and
filter it for fuel use, but I'm not convinced it's without risk to the engine). The biodiesel we get from our co-op
is from local soybeans, so we are probably contributing to an increase
in the cost of tofu, but I still think it's a step better than
conventional diesel or gasoline. Hopefully the fact that the demand is
here can focus attention and research dollars on renewable
alternatives to petroleum. Despite
the ominous tone to the Sojourners article, I think I mostly agree with
it -- especially the last part: the best solution to the issue is to
use less fuel of any variety.
From the Sojourners article(free registration required for full article):
But the most important take-home lesson is conservation: We must
stop using so much power. If we converted into ethanol every single
grain of corn, wheat, rice, and soy the U.S. grows, that ethanol would
power only about 4 percent of the country’s current yearly energy
consumption.
Fortunately, there’s a lot of waste we can cut. We don’t need to
ship practically everything we buy thousands of miles across the ocean.
(Don’t put that New Zealand apple in your mouth—it’s soaked in
low-grade maritime fuel!) We don’t need to drive sport-utility
behemoths, live in McMansions, or avoid mass transit. It’s not going to
be easy, but in return we will get better-tasting food (in season), a
coastline that’s not under water, and a planet for our grandchildren to
live on.
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- The world's rush to
embrace biofuels is causing a spike in the price of corn and other
crops and could worsen water shortages and force poor communities off
their land, a U.N. official said Wednesday.
Speaking
at a regional forum on bioenergy, Regan Suzuki of the U.N.'s Food and
Agriculture Organization acknowledged that biofuels are better for the
environment than fossil fuels and boost energy security for many
countries.
However, she said those benefits
must be weighed against the pitfalls - many of which are just now
emerging as countries convert millions of acres to palm oil, sugar cane
and other crops used to make biofuels.
"...Besides cutting production costs to fire sale prices, the process avoids some key drawbacks of making ethanol from corn, company officials said. It wouldn't impact the food supply, and its net energy balance is high because the technique works almost anywhere using almost anything with great efficiency. The end result will be E85 sold at the pump for about a dollar cheaper per gallon than gasoline, according to the company..."
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.
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 latest studies, published in the prestigious journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy.
...
The European Union and a number of European countries have recently tried to address the land use issue with proposals stipulating that imported biofuels cannot come from land that was previously rain forest.
But even with such restrictions in place, Dr. Searchinger’s study shows, the purchase of biofuels in Europe and the United States leads indirectly to the destruction of natural habitats far afield.
For instance, if vegetable oil prices go up globally, as they have because of increased demand for biofuel crops, more new land is inevitably cleared as farmers in developing countries try to get in on the profits. So crops from old plantations go to Europe for biofuels, while new fields are cleared to feed people at home.
...
International environmental groups, including the United Nations, responded cautiously to the studies, saying that biofuels could still be useful. “We don’t want a total public backlash that would prevent us from getting the potential benefits,” said Nicholas Nuttall, spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program, who said the United Nations had recently created a new panel to study the evidence.
“There was an unfortunate effort to dress up biofuels as the silver bullet of climate change,” he said. “We fully believe that if biofuels are to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, there urgently needs to be better sustainability criterion.”
...
The European Biodiesel Board says that biodiesel reduces greenhouse gasses by 50 to 95 percent compared to conventional fuel, and has other advantages as well, like providing new income for farmers and energy security for Europe in the face of rising global oil prices and shrinking supply.
But the papers published Thursday suggested that, if land use is taken into account, biofuels may not provide all the benefits once anticipated.
Dr. Searchinger said the only possible exception he could see for now was sugar cane grown in Brazil, which take relatively little energy to grow and is readily refined into fuel. He added that governments should quickly turn their attention to developing biofuels that did not require cropping, such as those from agricultural waste products.
Roger Cohen, in today's NYT: "Bring on the Right Biofuels"
Quote:
Fads come fast and furious in our viral age, and the reactions to them can be equally ferocious. That's what we're seeing right now with biofuels, which everyone loved until everyone decided they were the worst thing since the Black Death.
Where fuel distilled from plant matter was once hailed as an answer to everything from global warming to the geo-strategic power shift favoring repressive one-pipeline oil states, its now a "scam" and "part of the problem," according to Time magazine. Ethanol has turned awful.
The supposed crimes of biofuels are manifold. They're behind soaring global commodity prices, the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, increased rather than diminished greenhouse gases, food riots in Haiti, Indonesian deforestation and, no doubt, your mother-in-law's toothache.
Most of this, to borrow a farm image, is hogwash and bilge...
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