Biofuels Damage the Environment

[guardian]

Scientists working on behalf of the International Council for Science (ICSU), a Paris-based federation of scientific associations from around the world, have issued a new report that says biofuels do more to create global warming than burning fossil fuels. The reason is that the plants raised to be turned into ethanol and biodiesel release large volumes of nitrous oxide (N2O), which is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) as a greenhouse gas.

full article: http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/biofuels-damage-environment-nitrous-oxide-trumps-carbon-dioxide


So why are all the emphasis on bio-fuels? All it is doing is starving poor people around the world and having the opposite effect to global warming that its advocates promote.

[ejpoeta]

1. uggh! well, i am hoping for some solar breakthroughs that would make it

more cost effective and efficient. i hope there is no bad things about that.

[Sinistrous]

2. This "report" alleges that the PLANTS used to make biofuels

are polluters. Why do I Hear "JUNK SCIENCE" echoing from across the pond?

[kristopher]

3. Because you have a tin ear?

Their website: http://www.icsu.org/index.php

A brief history

Founded in 1931 to promote international scientific activity in the different branches of science and its application for the benefit of humanity, the International Council for Science (ICSU) is one of the oldest non-governmental organizations in the world. It represents the evolution and expansion of two earlier bodies known as the International Association of Academies (IAA; 1899-1914) and the International Research Council (IRC; 1919-1931). ICSU's strength and uniqueness lies in its dual membership, National Scientific Members and International Scientific Unions, whose wide spectrum of scientific expertise allows ICSU to address major, international, interdisciplinary issues which its Members could not handle alone.

ICSU seeks to accomplish its role in a number of ways. Over the years, it has addressed specific global issues through the creation of Interdisciplinary Bodies, and of Joint Initiatives in partnership with other organizations. Important programmes of the past include the International Geophysical Year (1957-58) and the International Biological Programme (1964-74). Major current programmes include the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme: A Study of Global Change (IGBP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), DIVERSITAS: An Integrated Programme of Biodiversity Science and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP).

In 1992, ICSU was invited to act as principal scientific adviser to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro and, again in 2002, to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg. Prior to UNCED, ICSU organized an International Conference on an Agenda of Science for Environment and Development into the 21st Century (ASCEND 21) in Vienna, in 1991, and ten years later, ICSU mobilized the scientific community even more broadly by organizing, with the help of other organizations, a Scientific Forum in parallel to the WSSD itself. ICSU is also actively participating in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, 2003 and Tunis, 2005.

In 1998, Members agreed that the Council’s current composition and activities would be better reflected by modifying the name to the International Council for Science, while its rich history and strong identity would be well served by retaining the existing acronym, ICSU.
http://www.icsu.org/5_abouticsu/INTRO_Hist_1.html

From The Economist:

Biofools

Apr 8th 2009

Farming biofuels produces nitrous oxide. This is bad for climate change

MANY people consider the wider use of biofuels a promising way of reducing the amount of surplus carbon dioxide (CO2) being pumped into the air by the world’s mechanised transport. The theory is that plants such as sugar cane, maize (corn, to Americans), oilseed rape and wheat take up CO2 during their growth, so burning fuels made from them should have no net effect on the amount of that gas in the atmosphere. Biofuels, therefore, should not contribute to global warming.

Theory, though, does not always translate into practice, and just as governments have committed themselves to the greater use of biofuels (see table), questions are being raised about how green this form of energy really is. The latest come from a report produced by a team of scientists working on behalf of the International Council for Science (ICSU), a Paris-based federation of scientific associations from around the world.

The ICSU report concludes that, so far, the production of biofuels has aggravated rather than ameliorated global warming. In particular, it supports some controversial findings published in 2007 by Paul Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. Dr Crutzen concluded that most analyses had underestimated the importance to global warming of a gas called nitrous oxide (N2O) by a factor of between three and five. The amount of this gas released by farming biofuel crops such as maize and rape probably negates by itself any advantage offered by reduced emissions of CO2.

Although N2O is not common in the Earth’s atmosphere, it is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 and it hangs around longer. The upshot is that, over the course of a century, its ability to warm the planet is almost 300 times that of an equivalent mass of CO2. Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology at Cornell University who was involved in writing the ICSU report, said that although the methods used by Dr Crutzen could be criticised, his fundamental conclusions were correct.

N2O is made by bacteria that live in soil and water and, these days, their raw material is often the nitrogen-rich fertiliser that modern farming requires....

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13437705

[Sinistrous]

15. The OP said "PLANTS", not "FARMING to grow the plants".

I also noticed a distinct lack of quantification in the post and in your reply.

[kristopher]

19. You accused the ICSU of "junk science"

And that is absolutely one of the most absurd statements ever made on this forum - which considering the competition is saying a hell of a lot. Tap dance all you want now, but you should have taken the trouble to investigate before shooting from the hip.

[Sinistrous]

22. It would have been junk science if they had said what the OP

claimed they did. Your sanctimonious puffery doesn't change the fact that the OP blew it.

[kristopher]

23. Tap, tap tap... Way...down upon the Swanneeeeeee River....

Project much? The article was clear if you bothered to read it. You just shot off without knowing what you were talking about.

[Sinistrous]

25. I hope you don't get hurt too badly falling off

that high horse you are riding. But you'll probably be protected by your over-inflated ego.

Actually, I never before met anyone who reads every article cited in every post they respond to. Especially a post that contains such a ridiculous error. You are indeed SPECIAL.

[kristopher]

26. YOU said that the most prestgious scientific NGO in the WORLD produced "junk science"

Crawl back under your rock.

[Sinistrous]

28. Is this echo resonating

within your head?

I apologize for being mislead by the OP. There. Does that satisfy your flatulent little ego?

[kristopher]

29. The OP didn't mislead, YOU judged without knowledge.

Sinistrous
Sat May-23-09 03:55 PM
Response to Original message
2. This "report" alleges that the PLANTS used to make biofuels

are polluters. Why do I Hear "JUNK SCIENCE" echoing from across the pond?

You tried to shoot the messenger without knowing who the messenger was. DUH.

[Sinistrous]

32. The "messenger" I was reading is

someone posting under the name "guardian". He or she is the one who mislead. Had your sainted ICSU actually written what guardian claimed, my suspicion of junk science would have been justified. The fact that they did not makes my suspicion unfounded.

Suggest you look around. This is a message board, not a graduate seminar. I am comfortable commenting on messages as they are written, without lifting a set of rocks to figure out what a poster SHOULD have written.

[kristopher]

34. The "report" was written by the ICSU.

We can keep highlighting your foolishness in calling the work of the most prestigious scientific NGO in the world as "JUNK SCIENCE" as long as you care to keep doing it. They are your words.

[Sinistrous]

38. Some people can read and apply logic.

Then there is you who can do neither.

You are a waste of bandwidth, and I am sure any masochists reading this exchange will agree that you are nothing but a posturing twit.

Good by.

[kristopher]

39. Sayonara.

You know, a mature person could have responded initially with a simple "I should have checked a little further before responding. That is a valid source and what they are saying does look iimportant."

The Japanese have a phrase i like - "stonehead" a stonehead is sort of like a freeper in that from a staonehead we can expect endless defense of a totally illogical position no matter the actual facts of the matter - a refusal to accept reality that borders on delusional...

These folks exist everywhere.

[Fledermaus]

6. Yes, plants don't produce N2O

[GliderGuider]

7. Pesky scientific nuances

It's the soil microbes that produce the additional N20, due to the presence of large amounts of N from the fertilizer used on crops like corn and soybeans.

From the abstract of Crutzen's 2007 paper:

The relationship, on a global basis, between the amount of N fixed by chemical, biological or atmospheric processes entering the terrestrial biosphere, and the total emission of nitrous oxide (N2O), has been re-examined, using known global atmospheric removal rates and concentration growth of N2O as a proxy for overall emissions. The relationship, in both the pre-industrial period and in recent times, after taking into account the large-scale changes in synthetic N fertiliser production and deforestation, is consistent, showing an overall conversion factor of 3–5%. This factor is covered only in part by the ~1% of "direct" emissions from agricultural crop lands estimated by IPCC (2006), or the "indirect" emissions cited therein. This means that the extra N2O entering the atmosphere as a result of using N to produce crops for biofuels will also be correspondingly greater than that estimated just on the basis of IPCC (2006). When the extra N2O emission from biofuel production is calculated in "CO2-equivalent" global warming terms, and compared with the quasi-cooling effect of "saving" emissions of fossil fuel derived CO2, the outcome is that the production of commonly used biofuels, such as biodiesel from rapeseed and bioethanol from corn (maize), can contribute as much or more to global warming by N2O emissions than cooling by fossil fuel savings. Crops with less N demand, such as grasses and woody coppice species have more favourable climate impacts. This analysis only considers the conversion of biomass to biofuel. It does not take into account the use of fossil fuel on the farms and for fertilizer and pesticide production, but it also neglects the production of useful co-products. Both factors partially compensate each other. This needs to be analyzed in a full life cycle assessment.

Emphasis added.

This is obviously a fairly recent area of study, but I'd think that by now classical crop biofuels have enough strikes against them to be declared out of the running as general petroleum replacements for transportation fuel.

[Fledermaus]

8. Its not a recent area of study, Its been well understood for some time.

N2O pollution is the result of nitrogen fertilizer not plants. The industrial form of agriculture has broken the natural circulation of nitrogen and injected artificial forms and amounts of nitrogen into the biosphere.

If anything, biomass offers the only way to mend the broken nitrogen cycle.

[GliderGuider]

9. It's old news, but a 2007 paper is raising peoples' hackles?

Sounds like a few people didn't get the message back when it was still new news.

By the way, "biomass" won't mend broken the nitrogen cycle -- after all, even cultivated corn is "biomass". What might mend the broken nitrogen cycle is a change in industrial biomass production practices world-wide to reduce N-use. Fortunately that will inevitably, eventually happen. After all, any practice that is not sustainable can't continue indefinitely, and modern chemical-fuelled industrial monocrop agriculture certainly qualifies.

[Fledermaus]

16. It sounds like another bunch of kooks that missed the boat.

And reads like any of the other unintelligent crap people fling around to discredit renewable energy.

FYI biomass energy that closes the nitrogen loop is the fastest growing form of bioenergy.

Biogas growth predicted

Croatia to build largest biogas plant in Europe

Renewable energy: 450 animal-based biogas units installed

Farm fuels city's need for power

Government of Canada Helps Farmers Turn Waste Into Profitable Energy

[kristopher]

20. Kooks? The ICSU is probably the most respected scientific NGO in the world

And I'll take their word over your links which include:
1) "farming UK" an obvious farm industry website hosting an article saying NOTHING about NO

2) "Biofuels International" another group that obviously promotes biofuels for profit that hosts your linked article saying NOTHING about NO.

3) An article from the Pakistani "Daily Times" that deals with buffalo dung - something that couldn't possibly be related to the OP since it says NOTHING about NO.

4) Another article on harvesting methane from dung hosted by the "China Daily" - something that couldn't possibly be related to the OP since it says NOTHING about NO.

5) An article hosted by an unknown to me Canadian website that gives a straightforward account of harvesting methane from industrial food processing wastes and selling the by products as fertilizer - something that couldn't possibly be related to the OP since it says NOTHING about NO.

Nowhere is there an explanation of what you mean by your claim that there is some "form of biomass energy that closes the nitrogen loop". We are just left to speculate that this ambiguous claim is somehow supposed to refute the findings of very, very reputable independent scientists whose arguments you have made no connection with whatsoever.

Are you trying to say that technologies beyond ethanol are being unfairly stigmatized? If that is indeed you message and you just haven't made it clear, I can see your point but I wouldn't agree since they have very clearly defined the study as applying to farmed feedstocks - an group of industries that massively dominate the biofuels industry now and for the foreseeable future.
I agree that the there are biofuels that have potential to avoid the negatives, but they aren't at issue and bringing them up to refute this study completely misses the point.

[Fledermaus]

27. Gosh, plants don't create N2O pollution, and neither you nor the previous poster or

the original article are the ISCU.

Gosh!!!Nutrient recycling? It should be obvious to anyone who understands the conservation of mass and the nitrogen cycle.

We used the term cycle earlier when discussing the flow of nutrients from soil to plant to animal to soil, as well as global carbon and nitrogen cycles (chapter 4). Some farmers depend more on natural soil nutrient cycles as contrasted with purchased commercial fertilizers to provide fertility to plants. Is it really possible to depend forever on the natural cycling of all the nutrients the crop needs? Let's first consider what a cycle really is and how it differs from the other ways that nutrients move from one location to another.

When nutrients move from one place to another, that is a flow. There are many different types of nutrient flows that can occur. When you buy fertilizers or animal feeds, nutrients are "flowing" onto the farm. When you sell sweet corn, apples, alfalfa hay, or milk, nutrients are "flowing" off the farm. Flows that involve products entering or leaving the farm gate are managed intentionally, whether or not you are thinking about nutrients. Other flows are unplanned: when nitrate is lost from the soil by leaching to groundwater or when runoff waters take nutrients along with eroded topsoil to a nearby stream. When crops are harvested and brought to the barn to feed animals, that is a nutrient flow, as is the return of animal manure to the land. Together these two flows are a true cycle, because nutrients return to the fields from which they came. In forests and natural grassland, the cycling of nutrients is very efficient. In the early stages of agriculture, where almost all people lived near their fields, nutrient cycling was also efficient (figure 7.1a). However, in many types of agriculture, especially modern "industrial-style" farming, there is little real cycling of nutrients, because there is no easy way to return nutrients shipped off the farm. In addition, nutrients in crop residues don't cycle very efficiently when the soil is without living plants for long periods, and nutrient runoff and leaching losses are much larger than from natural systems.

The first major break in the cycling of nutrients occurred as cities developed and nutrients began to routinely travel with the farm products to feed the growing urban populations. Few nutrients now return to the soils that grew them many miles away (figure 7.1b, 7.1c). The accumulated nutrients in urban sewage have polluted waterways around the world. Even with the building of many new sewage treatment plants in the 1970s and 1980s, effluent containing nutrients still flows into waterways, and sewage sludges are not always handled in an environmentally sound manner.

The trend to farm specialization has resulted in the second break in nutrient cycling by separating animals from the land that grows their feed. With specialized animal facilities (figure 7.1c), nutrients accumulate in manure at the same time that crop farmers purchase large quantities of fertilizers to keep their fields from becoming nutrient deficient.

http://www.sare.org/publications/bsbc/chap7.htm

Closing the Global Energy and Nutrient Cycles through Application of Biogas Residue to Agricultural Land – Potential Benefits and Drawback

Abstract: Anaerobic digestion is an optimal way to treat organic waste matter, resulting in biogas and residue. Utilization of the residue as a crop fertilizer should enhance crop yield and soil fertility, promoting closure of the global energy and nutrient cycles. Consequently, the requirement for production of inorganic fertilizers will decrease, in turn saving significant amounts of energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, and indirectly leading to global economic benefits. However, application of this residue to agricultural land requires careful monitoring to detect amendments in soil quality at the early stages.

http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/2/226/

[kristopher]

30. I agree about the waste products and capturing methane

But that doesn't support a critique of the study or the ICSU, which is aimed at corn and cellulosic ethanol. You obviously called this organizaion "Kooks" in an attempt to discredit the study; and that isn't surprising since you've been blindly and with great ignorance supporting every pro-ethonol post that has ever been made here.

The reason I love arguing on the internet is because certain people try to act like they said something other than what they did, and they just can't get away with it here....

[Fledermaus]

33. Your funny Robert, the less you understand the more noise you make.

From the original post.

The reason is that the plants raised to be turned into ethanol and biodiesel release large volumes of nitrous oxide (N2O), which is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) as a greenhouse gas.
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/biofuels-damage-environment-nitrous-oxide-trumps-carbon-dioxide

FYI plants don't produce N2O pollution. Perhaps you should take some time to understand the laws of physics and how they apply to the natural world.

There is nothing wrong with biomass. However, modern agriculture is broken. There is a difference. The biomass systems that close the loop and restore balance will thrive and grow and there is nothing you can do about it. The only thing you can do is look foolish because you refuse to understand.

[kristopher]

35. Robert?

Not sure what that means but your comment still doesn't support a critique of the study or the ICSU, which is aimed at corn and cellulosic ethanol. You obviously called this organization "Kooks" in an attempt to discredit the study; and that isn't surprising since you've been blindly and with great ignorance supporting every pro-ethanol post that has ever been made here.

The reason I love arguing on the internet is because certain people try to act like they said something other than what they did, and they just can't get away with it here....

[excess_3]

4. biofuel ... better than petroleum from the middle east

people are not fighting wars,
over a grove of palm oil trees


you have to start somewhere

[GliderGuider]

5. The problem is,

Compared to global climate change, the impact of war is but a drop in the ocean. Yes, wars are catastrophic to the individuals affected, but to the species as a whole they are evolutionary noise.

You have to start somewhere, but that somewhere should not threaten all other life on the planet as well as our own.

My personal preference would be a decline in the global aggregate material standard of living by about 75% over the next 50 years. Thankfully, I think that's achievable (though perhaps not voluntarily).

[EvilStepfather]

18. IF the economy keeps tanking

you may get your wish.

A lower standard of living isn't always a good thing. Look at Haiti, and it's environmental devastation.

[NickB79]

10. If biofuels actually accerate global warming, we'll be fighting wars over food and water

Wars that will make the current war we're in over oil look like a water balloon fight between the kids...

[excess_3]

12. how so?, most studies (IIRC) rate biofuels are neutral

most studies (IIRC) rate biofuels are carbon neutral,
or nearly so,

as compare to gasoline, which has
carbon 100% from the deep earth

[kristopher]

13. That's the claim - in most cases it is false.

Plenty of claims are made to deceive people for purposes of obtaining funding, but close analysis is needed to verify the legitimacy of such claims. In this case, the OP study clearly shows most biofuel feedstocks have problems. If you'd like to describe any particular feedstock and try to justify the claim that it is carbon neutral, that would be great.
None of the ones that are currently in production are, and while a couple on the horizon have the potential to be CO2e neutral, most production techniques don't live up to the promise.

[Ready4Change]

11. Interesting. Read deeper and you find FERTILIZERS are the real problem.

The N2O comes from soil microbes that produce it when consuming excess nitrogen rich fertilizers. Also interesting in that Corn, which is most talked about in this article and is also one of the WORST choices as a bio-fuel crop, is also one of the worst in terms of leaving behind unused fertilizers and thus leaving a bounty for these soil microbes to feast on.

Thinking further, this would seem to be a problem with ALL crops, food as well as fuel. And again, overuse of fertilizers is the real problem.

Reminds me of something my grandfather used to laugh about. his neighbors sold their farm to a factory outfit, which then destroyed the soil through overuse of fertilizers, and refusal to use simple, time test techniques like rotating crops. Meanwhile my grandfathers soil stayed dark and rich, his corn tall and healthy, his soybeans richly productive, and with very little problems with pests or disease.

I now suspect his fields N2O output was pretty darn low too. No fertilizers, no problems.

[joshcryer]

14. Correction: geoagriculture damages the environment.

News at eleven.

[EvilStepfather]

17. So let's throw out the baby with the bathwater

We should be skeptical of any claims like this. They're likely bullshit.

This is like saying that pianos should be banned because ivory is used for the keys. Used to be true, right? A slight adjustment made, and it's no longer a problem, right?

The great thing about biofuels is that they can be grown on marginal farmland, hell, land that isn't even farmland, using plants that aren't good for anything else.

I love how The Powers That Be have managed to make biofuels a dirty word with the liberal crowd. "They're bad for the environment" RIGHT. They're bad for the bottom line of Exxon is what they're bad for.

They're bad for the status quo.

[kristopher]

21. You don't know what you are talking about.

The US policy under GWB aimed to have the US produce 351 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2020. Cellulosic feedstocks are still a future promise and even though they use marginal land, that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the point of either the article or the study behind the article (I doubt if you bothered to read either). They looked at cellulosic production and found the problem with increased NO to be present with that at roughly the same level it exists with corn.

And if you are bothered by "the liberal crowd" perhaps you are at the wrong website.

[NickB79]

24. Those plants that "aren't good for anything" growing on that marginal land are vital to wildlife

While growing food crops on the fertile soil, and biofuel crops on the marginal land, where will we be sending off the deer, turkeys, wolves, bears, oak trees, maples, butterflies, etc? Or will we convert those into biofuels while we're at it?

[JohnWxy]

31. This group's conclusion is based on the ideas of P.J. Crutze, Max Planck Inst.

who estimates the N2O emissions from crop lands about 3 to 5 times those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Prof Crutze is a highly respected researcher in the field of atmospheric chemistry (Nobel prise in Chemistry, 1995) but I think it's safe to say his assertion is controversial in scientific circles. IF he is right, this would be very bad. But one does have to wonder could the IPCC estimates be THAT FAR off?


http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/389/2008/acp-8-389-2008.pdf

[kristopher]

37. The IPCC didn't really look at nitrogen, did they?

From the Economist article:
"This week Dr Townsend, and others involved in something called the International Nitrogen Initiative, are meeting in Paris to try to organise an international assessment of what is going on. This would do for nitrogen what the IPCC has done for carbon. To some, worries about nitrogen will doubtless seem to be no more than the latest environmental bandwagon. But the case of biofuels shows that without proper consideration of all greenhouse gases, not just CO2, it is too easy to rush headlong into expensive methods of mitigation that actually make things worse."

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13437705

If you haven't already, you can read the full SCOPE report here:
http://cip.cornell.edu/biofuels/

[JohnWxy]

40. Oh yeah, I think they checked everything. see links:

4. Atmospheric Chemistry and Greenhouse Gases

4.2.1.2 Nitrous oxide (N2O)

[kristopher]

41. Yes, I know they looked at it

But the statements assert that they didn't give it the attention they gave CO2 and have consequently missed a great deal of information on the inter-relationships and unintended consequences.

[NickB79]

43. With all the "faster than expected" reports coming out

I think the simple answer is yes, the IPCC estimates can be that far off in their study of the impacts of global warming.

[Turborama]

36. How much N2O does Algae give off?

[Nihil]

42. Err ... people?

Just to point out that you've been conned again by a renowned hit & run
poster who lobbed a carefully (re-)worded OP into the forum then buggered
off while the 40+ replies bickered over its meaning ...

I know it wasn't April 1st but treat this guy as if it always was ...

:hi:

[guardian]

44. What "carefully (re-)worded" ?????

Come out of your paranoid delusion. My OP was a DIRECT COPY of the first paragraph of the link provided in the post. I "re-worded" nothing. It just goes to show some people are never satisfied. I post a reference to a report produced by a respected organization and you accuse me (falsely) of "carefully" re-wording the article--implying I'm trying to trick the forum.

I think bio-fuels are a bad idea. Mainly because biofuels increase the cost of food causing many millions of poor people around the global to STARVE. EXCUSE ME FOR HAVING A CONSCIENCE.

[Nihil]

45. I think most bio-fuels are a bad idea too ...

... but it doesn't alter the fact that you are a hit & run
climate change denier who delights in stirring up the people
in the E&E forum.

Be that as it may, I apologise for the "re-worded" crack as
it was inappropriate in this case.