Biofuels = stupid idea
February 10th, 2008
“Biofuels”, “biodiesel”, and all of the rest of that junk are bad ideas and rely on bad science. In particular, they are bad for the environment, not only in terms of carbon emissions (they result in more emissions) but in loss of ecosystems and primary forest. Here:
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 clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land, said Joseph Fargione, lead author of the second paper, and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “So for the next 93 years you’re making climate change worse, just at the time when we need to be bringing down carbon emissions.”
It’s all one big interconnected puzzle of supply and demand:
Likewise, Dr. Fargione said that the dedication of so much cropland in the United States to growing corn for bioethanol had caused indirect land use changes far away. Previously, Midwestern farmers had alternated corn with soy in their fields, one year to the next. Now many grow only corn, meaning that soy has to be grown elsewhere.
Increasingly, that elsewhere, Dr. Fargione said, is Brazil, on land that was previously forest or savanna. “Brazilian farmers are planting more of the world’s soybeans — and they’re deforesting the Amazon to do it,” he said.
Interesting to note that Ted Kulongoski, Oregon’s most anti-environment Governor in a generation, has shoved “biofuels legislation” down our throats.
The basic equation is this: if Oregon farmers take advantage of this tax incentive they will do so by swapping from producing crops for food to producing crops for fuel. Now, this doesn’t somehow mean that the demand for that food crop will vanish… nope. It just means that the price point will move higher, and, eventually, it will move high enough that it makes economic sense for someone down in, say, Brazil to start clearing his land and planting food crops.
It’s this reason why, say, tortillas in Mexico are priced so high:
Soaring international demand for corn has caused a spike in prices for Mexico’s humble tortilla, hitting the poor and forcing President Felipe Calderon’s business-friendly government into an uncomfortable confrontation with powerful monopolies.
The fact of the matter is that the solution to most of our environmental problems is not more or alternative consumption. It is simply LESS consumption.
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5 Comments Add your own
1. Kevin | February 10th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Less consumption would clearly do more to mitigate global warming than anything else. However, your characterization of biofuels is flawed.
Biofuels predicated upon commercial agricultural sources = stupid idea. That’s not the only way to do biofuels, though. Using recycled sources for biofuels would be a vast improvement. Not only would it increase the efficiency derived from what we already consume, but it would decrease the need for landfills and decrease the need/desire for commercial agricultural sources which are wasteful.
2. George Seldes | February 10th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Thank you for your post and for helping raise the alarm.
Can’t just blame Gov. Ted though — the Oregon Environmental Council (whose biofuels lobbyist is also named Kevin) and the Oregon League of Conservation Voters backed Big Ag’s big subsidy program and got Oregon to add a bunch of state sugar to the federal subsidies for, yes, you guessed it, commercial agricultural sources. The state is madly giving away tax credits to build biofuel facilities, for example.
Basically the green groups in Oregon bought into the biofuels craze lock, stock, and barrel and did a huge amount of name- calling and shouting down of anyone who tried to warn them about the environmental case against agrofuels.
Now that the greenwashed mask is falling away and the real ugliness of agrofuels subsidies is becoming apparent, they’re kind of feeling stuck because the thought of going to the Legislature and saying “Uh, we were wrong, we need to redo the bill that we just sold you on” is just too daunting.
The sad part of all this is that Oregon State U. did an important study before the session last year, making exactly the point that you are making and that Kevin makes — per dollar invested, we can get a lot more greenhouse gas reductions from things like proper tire inflation than we can from agrofuels, and that’s even before you use the analysis of agrofuels that account for the amount of carbon released from the soils when they are cropped, whether under corn or switchgrass. The Legislature, with the full encouragement of OLCV and OEC, ignored that study and said that anyone who wasn’t on the biofuels bandwagon was a tool of Big Oil.
Now that the truth is coming out, they are shifting over to the “Sure, these biofuels are harmful, but the NEXT generation will be wonderful …” — meanwhile, the subsidies and the tax credits continue to flow to THIS generation of agrofuels corporations.
3. Brian | April 23rd, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Yes! Biofuels are really stupid. The most efficient green plants convert about 0.1% of the solar power that falls on them to fuel.
Plus we are about to see WW3 start because converting food to biofuels is causing millions to starve to death…
We need to cover the state of Arizona with solar energy farms that convert 30% of the sun\’s energy to power. Use that power to make electricity, hydrogen, etc. Divert natural gas from power plants and use it to run cars and buses.
The amount of solar energy that hits the Earth is about 175 petawatts. That\’s 100,000 times the total energy that humans use. If we could capture 1/2% of that energy we could stop using carbon based fuels.
4. jj | June 9th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Um, yeah, Most of that is BS. Get your facts right. Biofuels release carbon emissions, yes, but in carbon DIOXIDE. That’s what the plants eat. It doesn’t matter how much fuel the plant makes from sunlight, because we are fermenting it anyways. Soybean oil and biodiesel contain no sulfur and generate no sulfur emissions, a major source of acidification in rain and surface water. This makes biodiesel the best technology currently available for heavy-duty diesel applications to reduce atmospheric carbon. So basically, the best we have for right now. Oh, yeah, and about the hunger stuff, I have a solution: DON”T USE FOOD CROPS! Use switch grass, poplar trees, and other fast growing plants that aren’t used for food. Easy enough. And the Amazon is a BIG forest. Their not cutting down all of it. But you are right about one thing: Rising tortilla costs are forcing those mexicans into america, which are taking our jobs here. DON”T USE CORN / KEEP OUT THE MEXICANS!
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