If we want to save the planet, we need a five-year freeze on biofuels

Guardian UK ^ | 3/27/2007` | George Monbiot

[Uncledave]

It used to be a matter of good intentions gone awry. Now it is plain fraud. The governments using biofuel to tackle global warming know that it causes more harm than good. But they plough on regardless.

{snip}

So what's wrong with these programmes? Only that they are a formula for environmental and humanitarian disaster. In 2004 I warned, on these pages, that biofuels would set up a competition for food between cars and people. The people would necessarily lose: those who can afford to drive are richer than those who are in danger of starvation. It would also lead to the destruction of rainforests and other important habitats.

{snip}

Since the beginning of last year, the price of maize has doubled. The price of wheat has also reached a 10-year high, while global stockpiles of both grains have reached 25-year lows. Already there have been food riots in Mexico and reports that the poor are feeling the strain all over the world. The US department of agriculture warns that "if we have a drought or a very poor harvest, we could see the sort of volatility we saw in the 1970s, and if it does not happen this year, we are also forecasting lower stockpiles next year". According to the UN food and agriculture organisation, the main reason is the demand for ethanol: the alcohol used for motor fuel, which can be made from maize and wheat.

{snip}

Farmers will respond to better prices by planting more, but it is not clear that they can overtake the booming demand for biofuel. Even if they do, they will catch up only by ploughing virgin habitat.

[P-40]

That is a very deceptive way of comparision.

In a lot of ways, it is. Same as the 'ethanol takes more energy to make than it gives back argument.' It is all how you slice and dice it, what you include and what you don't, and how it was produced to begin with.

[P-40]

You have friends on the left.

What friends would those be? President Bush? And sorry, I saw the market solution to America's energy needs back in the 80s and the big hole in New York that resulted from it. I'm more than happy to see some government intervention to create a new solution.

[thackney]

Yes, selecting which data compare can promote any point of view. Liars and statistics.

[P-40]

selecting which data compare can promote any point of view.

Yup. It got Al Gore an Oscar. :)

[Porterville]

I'm tired of this garbage. I'm just going to try to become obscenely rich, by what ever I want, live how ever I want, and make sure my kids and their kids are rich as well.

[Porterville]

buy

[anglian]

Late last year in Goldfield, Iowa, a refinery began pumping out a stream of ethanol, which supporters call the clean, renewable fuel of the future. There's just one twist: The plant is burning 300 tons of coal a day to turn corn into ethanol.

An hour south of Goldfield, another coal-fired ethanol plant is under construction in Nevada, Iowa. At least three other such refineries are being built in Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota.

The reason for the shift is purely economic. Natural gas has long been the ethanol industry's fuel of choice. But with natural gas prices soaring, talk of coal power for new ethanol plants and retrofitting existing refineries for coal is growing, observers say.

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/33969/

[Don W]

Actually, the diesel engine was originally meant to run on coal dust, according to my engineering texts

[saganite]

I guess those would be Bush's friends at Arthur Daniels Midland, one of the biggest lobbyists in DC and one of the biggest beneficiaries of govt subsidies in the US. Too bad you can't see past your nose. Ethanol isn't a solution, in fact it's almost as big a hoax as global warming.

You either believe in the free market or you don't. You obviously don't. Blaming the free market for the WTC disaster is a sophistry and I'm sure you know that. You probably just thought it sounded like a neat argument. Cute.

[Don W]

ONE of my engineering texts, that is.

[P-40]

I think you are listening to Alex Jones a bit too much.

[ClaireSolt]

I really think that is the whole behind the scenes story. People are constrained in what they can venture by special interests acting on Congress. Anwar is a good example.

[P-40]

People are constrained in what they can venture by special interests acting on Congress.

I haven't seen that yet. The Energy Bill of 2005 kind of opened the door as wide as it can go as far as investment in the alternative energy sector is concerned. There is no shortage of venture capital but there is still a shortage of infrastructure. If there is going to be some competition, that is where it is going to occur.

[Blue Highway]

"...and an interior quieted by ground rubber taken from Nike athletic shoe outsoles."

I know it is the outsoles and not the insoles, but knowing hundreds of peoples feet as the composition for the sound deadening is in my car would not sit well with me knowing it is a new car, and one that would be fairly expensive.

[Tenacious 1]

[It is not physically possible to grow enough ethanol and biodiesel crops to satisfy demand.]

You keep saying this. Please link three sources here saying that we can not provide enough crops to support it. Then I can intelligently debate it with you. I don't claim to be an expert and have done very little research myself. But I don't just buy it because someone said so. Give me something objective that I can chew on please. What little I have read says that are farming capacity is at about 50% of what it could be based on available farming land and current farm land that is not planted on. Again, I would have to go find where I got that, but based on what I know about how are government regulates and restricts farming, I believe it to be plausible. BTW - we are one of (if not still) the worlds largest farming exporters in the world.

[eraser2005]

Why?

That material is absolutely perfect for sound deadening. Its not like you'll actually see the material.

When your garage door vibrates too much, what do you do? Put a piece of rubber between the opener and the braces it hangs from. There are countless examples of this, and this material is really ideal for killing NVH problems.

[eraser2005]

BTW -

the material from the nike shoes?

Also what many new athletic tracks are made of and the same stuff as you see spray out of the field on new football fields covered in fieldturf.

Great stuff...

[JamesP81]

You keep saying this. Please link three sources here saying that we can not provide enough crops to support it. Then I can intelligently debate it with you. I don't claim to be an expert and have done very little research myself. But I don't just buy it because someone said so.

OK.

This article references some production figures for how many gallons of ethanol per acre can be produced at various ethanol plants. The best figure is 464 gallons per acre, but for simplicity of calculations, we'll optimistically assume a production level of 500 gallons of ethanol per acre.

This article indicates US gasoline consumption at 146 billion gallons annually.

This article indicates that it takes 1.4 gallons of ethanol to equal the output of 1 gallon of gasoline.

So it's simple math. If we use 146 billion gallons of gasoline per year, then multiplying by 1.4 brings that figure to 204.4 billion gallons of ethanol to displace gasoline. Optimistically assuming 500 gallons of ethanol per acre, that means we'd need 408.8 million acres of corn dedicated to ethanol production to produce the required 204.4 billion gallons of ethanol.

And according to this article farmers have planted an enormous amount of corn this year: 75.6 million acres, a figure which is expected to increase from what I can tell to around 89 million acres.

Nevertheless, 85 million acres is far short of the optimistic 408.8 million acres. And we're talking about displacing gasoline; we haven't even begun talking about displacing fuels used for heavy industry like diesel and jet fuel and heating oil. And let's not forget that people actually need to eat to, ya know. We're also not figuring in the fuels used to create the ethanol in the first place.

Ethanol is a bad idea. You can mix it with gasoline if you want, but you don't get good benefit from ethanol unless you run it in a high compression engine. And an engine of sufficiently high compression is to high for even 93 octane gasoline; you'd get severe knocking in the engine. Flex fuel vehicles can't get much energy from ethanol because they have to run at low enough compression suitable for gasoline.

You'd need to get 5 times as much ethanol as we presently can from an acre of corn, 2500 gallons, just to keep our gasoline power cars running (again not dealing with diesel yet), and that's assuming we can do without eating corn.

This whole idea is a complete non-starter. Our arable land is not up to this. Look elsewhere for a fuel source.

[JamesP81]

And BTW, I work for ag commodities trader. My information is pretty solid.

[numberonepal]

I guess it's lights-out for planet Earth, then. Hey, let's not all be sad. It was a good run.

Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.