http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/biofuels-make-climate-change-worse-scientific-study-concludes-779811.html

and

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=biofuels-bad-for-people-and-climate



Bummer

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Cheers,
Robert

On a finite planet with finite resources, continuing to breed people makes the problem unavoidable! I will still burn biofuels because I don't like sending money to the middle east. Uncontrolled populatuon growth will do much more damage!

Don't Drink and Park! Accidents cause people!

The first article sounds somewhat incomplete and broad in its distillation of how carbon costly each crop is. 17 to 420 times as much? What's the best and what's the worst?

...either way gotta break a few eggs to make an omlette...

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1974 240D 3.0L 4(M) - 250K -OM617.910 + 300D FW + Rajay turbo power!
1977 6.9 3(A) - 84k

That's going to take the wind out of a lot of sails who think that they are helping the earth

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Always ask,
" Is this true?"
Then, follow the money.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

I think what the articles reference is correct. The clearing of forest ect. will have a negative effect on the climate. Also, the fertilizer needed for crops such as corn has negative effects on the eco system. Sometimes very far from the source. I don't think the article is fair to all forms of biofuels though. I see biodiesel and alcohol (E85) produced from wate products as a win-win situation. There is a cost for disposal of waste. I think alge based biodiesel or biofuels will be the way to go. From what I read its still about 3-5 years away from being comercially viable. My understanding is there is some waste from biodiesel production (glycerin). This can be converted into alcohol. So more fuel.
Tom

The folks that we know making biodiesel, sell the glycerin to make-up and body lotion (skin care) producers, thus refering to it as a positive “by-product” of their fuel production. Not as “waste”.

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1980 300D - Veggie Burner !

I think agri-fuels and WVO are great small scale. When you start applying them large scale you run into some pretty wasteful inefficiencies.

There's still the possibility of algae produced agri-fuel which is in the infancy of research. There was also an interesting book out stipulating that if we made all vehicles flex fuel we would break the monopoly of the world oil trade - can't remember the authors name.

Can't remember where I heard it but I recall it costing about 1.5 gallons of diesel to produce and transport 1 gallon of agri-fuel to the pump.

Anyway, Routers is now in the mix. The gist is that it's bad for the carbon balance, which is the new make believe economy:

Food-Based Biofuels Can Spur Climate Change - Study
WASHINGTON - Alternative fuels made from corn, soybeans, sugarcane and palm trees can in some cases increase the amount of climate-warming carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere, US researchers reported on Thursday.
These so-called food-based biofuels can actually hurt the environment if they are produced on land that was formerly grassland, rainforest or savanna, the scientists said in the journal Science.
Nonfossil fuels -- ethanol made from corn or sugarcane and biodiesel made from palm trees or soybeans -- are meant to lessen dependence on petroleum products, which release the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide when they burn.
However, biofuels can release carbon even before they are burned, depending on how they are made, said study co-author Jason Hill of the University of Minnesota.
As demand for these alternative fuels grows, farmers are plowing under forests and grasslands that used to store carbon and keep it from getting into the atmosphere, and using these lands to grow the food crops that now can be used for ethanol or biodiesel.
Biofuels grown this way come with a "carbon debt," the researchers found. Instead of cutting greenhouse pollution, the net effect is to increase it.
The carbon lost by converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas and grasslands outweighs the carbon savings from biofuels. Some conversions release hundreds of times more carbon than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels.

CENTURIES OF CARBON DEBT
For example, the scientists wrote, Indonesia's conversion of peatlands for palm oil plantations had the world's greatest carbon debt, one that would take 423 years to repay.
The next worst case was the planting of soybeans in the Amazon, which would not pay for itself in renewable soy biodiesel for 319 years.
There are biofuel sources that do not rack up these formidable carbon debts, Hill said: nonfood plants including perennial grasses that only have to be harvested, without plowing under existing species that hold on to carbon.
"Our group has looked at using diverse mixtures of native species ... (on) prairie land, land that's restored back into prairies," Hill said in a telephone interview. "We essentially have no native prairies left in this nation but we can restore land into prairies, thereby restoring an ecosystem that was natural and also getting the biofuel benefit from it."
Biofuels, whether made from prairie plants, corn or soybeans, lack the potential to satisfy US fuel needs, Hill said.
"If we take every corn kernel we produce in this nation and convert it to ethanol, we would offset only 12 percent of our gasoline use," he said. "And that doesn't include the energy it took to produce that ethanol in the first place.
"None of these are solutions, but we better be sure we're not making the problem worse, and that's what's happening with the current generation of food-based biofuels," Hill said. (Editing by Xavier Briand)
Story by Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
Story Date: 8/2/2008

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

.

These studies are about cutting down parts of the rain forest to grow soybeans.

And converting natural growing grasslands into fields.

That has noting do do with biofuels.
That is land management.

Verry verry missleading titles.

Thanks
RichC

.

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When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
Jimi Hendrix

^^

That's exactly what Brazil has done and is doing.

Once again though, the danger is not in the carbon scheme as that's a totally fabricated economy. The danger is in the inefficiency where you use more petro fuel per unit than agri fuel produced. It is simply a feel good scheme, like carbon credits.

__________________
-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

I'm gonna invent a lignite-burning behemoth and drive that sucker at velocities such that

Attached Thumbnails

 

A coal burning Delorean?

__________________
-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

Better: A coal-burning Lorentz Transformationizer!

Cool! (figuratively, not literally)

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

I think we should keep burning oil and coal remorselessly until a 100% clean 0 footprint fuel is found, or until perpetual motion machines are created and perfected. Because if it's not perfect, it's crap.

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1984 300TD