Forests paying the price for biofuels

[MarsThe Cat]

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825265.400&feedId=online-news_rss20

Forests paying the price for biofuels
22 November 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Fred Pearce

THE drive for "green energy" in the developed world is having the perverse effect of encouraging the destruction of tropical rainforests. From the orang-utan reserves of Borneo to the Brazilian Amazon, virgin forest is being razed to grow palm oil and soybeans to fuel cars and power stations in Europe and North America. And surging prices are likely to accelerate the destruction

The rush to make energy from vegetable oils is being driven in part by European Union laws requiring conventional fuels to be blended with biofuels, and by subsidies equivalent to 20 pence a litre. Last week, the British government announced a target for biofuels to make up 5 per cent of transport fuels by 2010. The aim is to help meet Kyoto protocol targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Rising demand for green energy has led to a surge in the international price of palm oil, with potentially damaging consequences. "The expansion of palm oil production is one of the leading causes of rainforest destruction in south-east Asia. It is one of the most environmentally damaging commodities on the planet," says Simon Counsell, director of the UK-based Rainforest Foundation. "Once again it appears we are trying to solve our environmental problems by dumping them in developing countries, where they have devastating effects on local people."

The main alternative to palm oil is soybean oil. But soya is the largest single cause of rainforest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon. Supporters of biofuels argue that they can be "carbon neutral" because the CO2 released from burning them is taken up again by the next crop. Interest is greatest for diesel engines, which can run unmodified on vegetable oil, and in Germany bio-diesel production has doubled since 2003. There are also plans for burning palm oil in power stations...

if it's not one thing, it's another...

[glitch]

1. This is so stupid. We don't have to raze the forests to grow biofuel crops

or for beef "production" either, for that matter.
It is greed that razes the forests, and it makes me furious.

[MarsThe Cat]

6. what do you suggest?

getting furious doesn't do anything to change the facts of life.
rainforests don't make a whole lot of money for the people who live there, unless they cut them down. and modern conveniences cost money- would you deny them the right to make a living with a legal product on their own land?

[glitch]

11. Thanks for the advice. And yes, I would deny "them" the right to cut down

"their" rainforests. In a heartbeat. The indigenous people living there are not the ones cutting down the environment they have lived in for centuries, they are being displaced by "their" government. Sounds familiar, but that it doesn't make it right.

Actually you answered your own question in post 3: algae is a much more efficient solution when all the costs are counted (not just the $ costs on the balance sheet).

[MarsThe Cat]

15. why do you say "their" rainforests...?

do you not believe that the forests and the land they're on belong to the people of the various countries the forests are contained in? and don't those people and their families deserve to utilize their resources in such a way as to provide for themselves and their families..? what do you suggest they do, seeing as you'd be so quick to deny them the right to utilize the resources they have?

[CAcyclist]

20. Its the corporations razing the rain forests

for large-scale plantation farms and, no, they don't have a right to do it. The rain forests are vital to the life on the entire planet. The indigenous peoples are not the ones doing this destruction. They are the ones suffering the most from the destruction.

I suggest that people who can, start riding a bicycle - I do - bicycling even 10% of otherwise car-using trips would be equivalent to any advanced gas alternative.

[MarsThe Cat]

22. and the farms provide jobs for the citizens of the country.

as do the lumber mills. and there is more land available to settlers and their families.
Americans especially have NO RIGHT to tell other countries what to do with their resources- many of the resources around the world have been despoiled in support of the american lifestyle.

[unpossibles]

2. this is smear-tactic bullshit

for one, hemp should be legalized 100% - it grows easily and has good oil.

Secondly, I have friends who run diesels on used grease. Sure, it has to be strained, but any kind of vegetable oil will work. They get theirs free at restaurants and strain it themselves.

I see this as a smear on biofuels. I think that other alternative fuels should be investigated for sure, but we need to realize that there are other solutions than razing the rainforest.

For example, the production of meat is a huge waste of land compared to the production of vegetables (including soy), but I don't see any stories on that.

Yes, razing of these forests is a problem as is the destruction of developing countries, but I see the problem as being in the practices of the companies doing it as well as our 'developed' culture's obsessive drive to over-consume, not inherent in biofuel technology itself.

Ideally we need to research ways to make energy from other sources that are not as destructive.

[MarsThe Cat]

3. actually, algae is much better than hemp, bio-fuelwise.

there are plenty of good reasons to legalize hemp, including bio-fuels & bio-plastics, but some algaes are even better-suited to it than hemp.

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

"One of the important concerns about wide-scale development of biodiesel is if it would displace croplands currently used for food crops. In the US, roughly 450 million acres of land is used for growing crops, with the majority of that actually being used for producing animal feed for the meat industry. Another 580 million acres is used for grassland pasture and range, according to the USDA's Economic Research Service. This accounts for nearly half of the 2.3 billion acres within the US (only 3% of which, or 66 million acres, is categorized as urban land). For any biofuel to succeed at replacing a large quantity of petroleum, the yield of fuel per acre needs to be as high as possible. At heart, biofuels are a form of solar energy, as plants use photosynthesis to convert solar energy into chemical energy stored in the form of oils, carbohydrates, proteins, etc.. The more efficient a particular plant is at converting that solar energy into chemical energy, the better it is from a biofuels perspective. Among the most photosynthetically efficient plants are various types of algaes.

The Office of Fuels Development, a division of the Department of Energy, funded a program from 1978 through 1996 under the National Renewable Energy Laboratory known as the "Aquatic Species Program". The focus of this program was to investigate high-oil algaes that could be grown specifically for the purpose of wide scale biodiesel production1. The research began as a project looking into using quick-growing algae to sequester carbon in CO2 emissions from coal power plants. Noticing that some algae have very high oil content, the project shifted its focus to growing algae for another purpose - producing biodiesel. Some species of algae are ideally suited to biodiesel production due to their high oil content (some well over 50% oil), and extremely fast growth rates. From the results of the Aquatic Species Program2, algae farms would let us supply enough biodiesel to completely replace petroleum as a transportation fuel in the US (as well as its other main use - home heating oil)..."

[unpossibles]

8. awesome

even better.

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. But algae t-shirts don't quite cut it

Hemp not only is a good biofuel but it is a good replacement for cotton and pulp for paper. Just think of all the oil you would save just by reducing the import of cotton?

[Psephos]

4. I agree with you emotionally, but...

We live in the world as it is, not as it should be. Therefore, our solutions must be reality-based.

As the price of palm oil (and to a lesser extent, soy oil) rises, it incentivizes third world production. We need to figure out how to incentivize preservation of tropical forests instead. Getting pissed off and blaming it on the usual suspects is not enough, judging by the results.

We may also have to consider that biofuels based on monoculture farming may not be as good a solution as we thought.

Peace.


Edit: typo

[Xithras]

12. Meat production typically takes place on non-farmable land.

There are very few areas where cattle are raised on land that could be used for other (more profitable) agricultural uses. Cattle production typically takes place on marginal land where the terrain is either unsuitable for farming, or insufficient water is available to grow anything. Here in California, ALL of our beef production takes place in the foothills, where the terrain is simply too steep to plant anything. In the midwest, where most US production comes from, beef are raised almost exclusively on dry land without enough water to grow anything other than grass.

Farmers raising corn or tomatoes make far more money per acre than cattlemen do, because traditional agriculture produces more food per square acre than you can get by raising beef. As a result, beef production is pretty much limited to marginal lands.

[unpossibles]

13. I was including the land needed to grow feed, but thanks for the info n/t

[MarsThe Cat]

16. people like meat...it isn't going to go away.

and if everyone was using used grease, your friends wouldn't be getting it free anymore.

and if we get rid of meat production, where is the grease going to come from in the first place?

btw- are your grease-using friends vegetarians? because if it's not okay to eat meat(on moral grounds), it certainly can't be acceptable to use beef tallow for fuel.

[unpossibles]

18. I was not attacking the meat industry

but I was making a valid point that there is land 'abuse' there also.

One of them is a vegetarian and uses a blend of grease from deep friers - there is probably some animal grease in it, but most restaurants use vegetable oils for those. And frankly, I don't really see that there is a tallow industry except as a byproduct, but I see what you mean.

Perhaps I should have pointed to other things instead - like strip mining for coal, clear cutting, and drilling.

[Emillereid]

5. The real alternative fuel -- muscle power!

We must get past our addiction to cars and the like and build smaller, sustainable communities that use less energy. Who knows, we might also get healthier as a consequence!

[MarsThe Cat]

7. raking the leaves this weekend, and breaking a sweat-

it occurred to me how ironic it was that people use labor-saving devices, like leaf-blowers, and then use the time they save to go to the health club to work up a sweat.

[dutchdemocrat]

9. Most of the Soya production in Brazil

Goes to feeding China.

The working machine needs fuel too.

If it's not one thing... it's another.

[patcox2]

10. Biodiesel is a myth.

Never work as the main source, only viable now as sort of a parasite on the fossil fuel economy. If more than one in a million people used old vegetable oil from McDonalds, the supply would get pretty tight pretty quick; thats why it only works on the fringes.

It could only work as the primary fuel source if also combined with massive conservation and reductions in consumption.

But if we do the necessary massive reductions in consumption, we could have oil for a thousand more years.

Its a nice fantasy though. An energy economy based on peaceful hippie communes growing hemp and algae in a bucolic setting (and think of the side-crop that hemp would produce!). Anybody up for some hacky-sac, man?

[MarsThe Cat]

14. industrial hemp and pot are 2 different things

one of the reasons given by repukes for the continued ban on industrial hemp, is that hemp fields would be great cover for growing pot- when in actuality, legally grown hemp would ruin outdoor pot-growing- industrial hemp has a thc level that is almost nil, and the pollen it put in the air would pollinate any high-grade pot plants in the vicinity, and decrease the potency of the crop.

[dutchdemocrat]

25. You really need to read more about what is happening in Brazil

With Biodiesel

http://www.anba.com.br/ingles/especial.php?id=248

and Ethanol

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,16781,1648504,00.html

It's no pipedream.

Raping the Amazon aka lung of the earth is going to be the result - as soybeans become not only food to fuel chinese workers but also fuel for cars.

[truthisfreedom]

19. solar and wind. we need tons more of both of these...and hybrid vehicles

that plug-in to solar systems.

[DoYouEverWonder]

23. There is so much we can do right now

with the technology that we already have to drastically cut our fuel consumption and it doesn't even have to be that painful.

Alternative energy is not just one thing or another. It's a combination of a lot of things.

[Selatius]

21. The fact is we cannot have an economy run primarily on biofuel

If we tried to switch over to biofuels and simply kept the same consumption rates of today, then it is likely we would have to convert a significant percentage of the arable land on all of planet earth not to growing food to keep people alive but fuel for our machines.

The answer is a holistic solution of every renewable source of energy technology can allow us to exploit from solar, wind, hydrogen, wave power, geothermal power, and even nuclear power on top of biofuel. Another, often quite, quite neglected, component is reduction of consumption rates and an adoption of a lower standard of living that is not only survivable for people but also sustainable for the planet.

[unpossibles]

24. I could not agree more

but we also need to start somewhere, and this is something that is a fairly easy conversion.

[SomewhereOutThere424]

26. BLITHERING idiots!

Over 17 effecient engines which burn NOTHING of this sort have been suggested, invented, tested and proved. The government bought the patents for these and never released them. One of which was from a bean found commonly in the united states and china, two of the largest sources of air pollution, and would be so completely effecient it even ran better than gasoline.

Why do they reject only good ideas? Why are some people so stupid they'd think this is a better alternative, when so many other greater alternatives already exist, but remain withheld to the american public.

I seriously think the only thing capable of bettering this country is civil war against the terrorists, in the WH.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. Patents, by their very definition, are always released

Do you mean 'never manufactured them'? When do the patents expire? Are any other countries manufacturing them, and ignoring the patents? If not, why not?

[NNadir]

28. This is yet another demonstration that NO energy is risk free.

The best one can do is to make energy risk minimized.

None of this is actually necessary. One can and should educate oneself about these issues with an open and rational mind.