Biofuels: An Advisable Strategy?

[Dogmudgeon]

Edited for typos

ScienceDaily reporting on a study at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona concerning an energy Directorate of the European Economic Community. This is distinctly bad news for biofuel advocacy in general and biodiesel in particular:

The main argument behind the policies in favour of biofuels is based on the idea that biofuels would not increase the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In fact, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by biodiesel in the combustion phase is the same as that absorbed by the plant during its growth through photosynthesis, resulting in a neutral carbon budget. Moreover, substituting part of the oil products with biofuels would reduce the European energy dependency and increase energy security.

However, a more careful analysis of the life cycle of biodiesel reveals that the energy (and CO2) savings is not so high as it might seem at first sight, and in some cases might even be negative. In fact, the raw materials for biofuels are normally obtained with intensive agriculture, which imply a high use of fertilizers, pesticides and machinery. The reason is that, with less intensive agricultural methods, the yield would be lower and the land requirement and the costs would be higher. Also, fossil fuels are used in the processing phase (oil pressing, trans-esterification) and for transporting the oil seeds to the processing plant and from there to the final users.

...

For example, considering a very optimistic output/input ratio (the biodiesel produced using one unit of fossil fuels) of 2.5 , we obtain that reaching the 5.75% percentage (approximately 20 million tons of oil equivalent) would imply saving around 36 million tons of CO2 equivalent, i.e., less than 1% of the European Union emissions in 2004 (4,228 million tons CO2) If we take into account the emissions related to the transport of raw materials that are imported and the imports of food crops that would be substituted by energy farming, the savings would be even less, and if the oil seeds are imported from outside Europe possibly even negative.

Another point that is often raised to promote biofuels is urban pollution. Biofuels are not only seen as a "green" fuel on a global scale (reduction of greenhouse effect) but also on a local scale. They would contribute to reducing traffic contamination, and therefore the numerous ailments associated with it. In reality, the advantages from this point of view are very modest. For example, according to a study of the USA Environmental Protection Agency (2002), if diesel is replaced with a blend of 20% biodiesel (B20), Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) would increase by 2%, particulate matter (PM), unburnt Hydrocarbons (HC) and Carbon Monoxide (CO) would decrease by respectively 10.1%, 21.1% and 11% . Therefore, it can be assumed that with a 5.75% blend, the reduction in PM, HC and CO would be respectively 3%, 6% and 3% (and the increase in NOx would be negligible).

...

Due to the low yield, the land requirement is enormous. In the Biomass Action Plan (Annex 11) it is calculated that in order to achieve the 5.75% target (18.6 million toe biofuels), about 17 million hectares would be needed, i.e. one fifth of the European tillable land (97 million hectares). Since there is not so much marginal and abandoned land in Europe, the consequence would be the substitution of food crops and a huge increase of the food imports.

Read the entire article (there is much more than these excerpts contain) at ScienceDaily, March 8, 2007.

--p!

[Tommy Jefferson]

1. Bad EROEI

Biofuels have never provided a good EROEI.

They never will.

[GliderGuider]

2. People are starting to wake up to the realities of current biofuels

When you first hear about the idea it sounds like a no-brainer, but the more you examine the details the more it starts to look brain-dead instead. Biofuels from food sources are unethical, unsustainable, uneconomic and unhelpful. Biofuels from non-food sources are at the very least undeveloped and unproven, and quite probably uneconomic and unsustainable as well.

We should continue research into them, but the use of current biofuels in vehicles should be discouraged as strongly as possible. I stopped putting biodiesel into my Jetta TDI about a month ago, and will not buy it again.

[GliderGuider]

3. The final paragraph says it all

Summing up, biodiesel cannot contribute to the solution of the problems related to the high dependency of our economy on fossil fuels. The idea that biodiesel could be a solution for the energy crisis is not only false, but also dangerous. In fact, it might favour an attitude of technological optimism and faith in a technological fix of the energy problem. We should never forget that if we want to reduce the use of fossil fuels there is no magic wand: the only possible solution is to modify consumption patterns.

Modify consumption patterns.
Modify consumption patterns.
Modify consumption patterns.
Modify consumption patterns.
Modify consumption patterns.
Modify consumption patterns.
Modify consumption patterns.
Modify consumption patterns.
Modify consumption patterns.

Are we getting it yet?

[jpak]

4. Cherry pickin' nonsense

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/314/5805/1598?rss=1

Carbon-Negative Biofuels from Low-Input High-Diversity Grassland Biomass

David Tilman,1* Jason Hill,1,2 Clarence Lehman1

Biofuels derived from low-input high-diversity (LIHD) mixtures of native grassland perennials can provide more usable energy, greater greenhouse gas reductions, and less agrichemical pollution per hectare than can corn grain ethanol or soybean biodiesel. High-diversity grasslands had increasingly higher bioenergy yields that were 238% greater than monoculture yields after a decade. LIHD biofuels are carbon negative because net ecosystem carbon dioxide sequestration (4.4 megagram hectare–1 year–1 of carbon dioxide in soil and roots) exceeds fossil carbon dioxide release during biofuel production (0.32 megagram hectare–1 year–1). Moreover, LIHD biofuels can be produced on agriculturally degraded lands and thus need to neither displace food production nor cause loss of biodiversity via habitat destruction.

<end abstract>

Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/103/30/11206

Jason Hill*, Erik Nelson, David Tilman*, Stephen Polasky* and Douglas Tiffany

Negative environmental consequences of fossil fuels and concerns about petroleum supplies have spurred the search for renewable transportation biofuels. To be a viable alternative, a biofuel should provide a net energy gain, have environmental benefits, be economically competitive, and be producible in large quantities without reducing food supplies. We use these criteria to evaluate, through life-cycle accounting, ethanol from corn grain and biodiesel from soybeans. Ethanol yields 25% more energy than the energy invested in its production, whereas biodiesel yields 93% more. Compared with ethanol, biodiesel releases just 1.0%, 8.3%, and 13% of the agricultural nitrogen, phosphorus, and pesticide pollutants, respectively, per net energy gain. Relative to the fossil fuels they displace, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced 12% by the production and combustion of ethanol and 41% by biodiesel. Biodiesel also releases less air pollutants per net energy gain than ethanol. These advantages of biodiesel over ethanol come from lower agricultural inputs and more efficient conversion of feedstocks to fuel. Neither biofuel can replace much petroleum without impacting food supplies. Even dedicating all U.S. corn and soybean production to biofuels would meet only 12% of gasoline demand and 6% of diesel demand. Until recent increases in petroleum prices, high production costs made biofuels unprofitable without subsidies. Biodiesel provides sufficient environmental advantages to merit subsidy. Transportation biofuels such as synfuel hydrocarbons or cellulosic ethanol, if produced from low-input biomass grown on agriculturally marginal land or from waste biomass, could provide much greater supplies and environmental benefits than food-based biofuels.

<end abstract>

Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/311/5760/506

Alexander E. Farrell,1* Richard J. Plevin,1 Brian T. Turner,1,2 Andrew D. Jones,1 Michael O'Hare,2 Daniel M. Kammen1,2,3

To study the potential effects of increased biofuel use, we evaluated six representative analyses of fuel ethanol. Studies that reported negative net energy incorrectly ignored coproducts and used some obsolete data. All studies indicated that current corn ethanol technologies are much less petroleum-intensive than gasoline but have greenhouse gas emissions similar to those of gasoline. However, many important environmental effects of biofuel production are poorly understood. New metrics that measure specific resource inputs are developed, but further research into environmental metrics is needed. Nonetheless, it is already clear that large-scale use of ethanol for fuel will almost certainly require cellulosic technology.

<end abstract>

UC Berkeley press release...

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/01/26_ethanol.shtml

Ethanol can replace gasoline with significant energy savings, comparable impact on greenhouse gases

BERKELEY – Putting ethanol instead of gasoline in your tank saves oil and is probably no worse for the environment than burning gasoline, according to a new analysis by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

The researchers note, however, that new technologies now in development promise to make ethanol a truly "green" fuel with significantly less environmental impact than gasoline.

The analysis, appearing in this week's issue of Science, attempts to settle the ongoing debate over whether ethanol is a good substitute for gasoline and thus can help lessen the country's reliance on foreign oil and support farmers in the bargain. The UC Berkeley study weighs these arguments against other studies claiming that it takes more energy to grow the corn to make ethanol than we get out of ethanol when we burn it.

Dan Kammen and Alex Farrell of the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley, with their students Rich Plevin, Brian Turner and Andy Jones along with Michael O'Hare, a professor in the Goldman School of Public Policy, deconstructed six separate high-profile studies of ethanol. They assessed the studies' assumptions and then reanalyzed each after correcting errors, inconsistencies and outdated information regarding the amount of energy used to grow corn and make ethanol, and the energy output in the form of fuel and corn byproducts.

<snip>

THIS PARAGRAPH SEZ IT ALL

"The people who are saying ethanol is bad are just plain wrong," he said. "But it isn't a huge victory - you wouldn't go out and rebuild our economy around corn-based ethanol."

<end snip>

People are waking up from the anti-renewable energy BS they have been force-fed for decades...

[Chemical Bill]

5. I hope people wake up...

but the oil companies can always pay people like Patzek and Pimental to lie for $$$.

Bill