Monbiot: Biofuels - A Lethal Solution

[GliderGuider]

A Lethal Solution

In the budget last week, Gordon Brown announced that he would extend the tax rebate for biofuels until 2010. From next year all suppliers in the UK will have to ensure that 2.5% of the fuel they sell is made from plants – if not, they must pay a penalty of 15p a litre. The obligation rises to 5% in 2010(1). By 2050, the government hopes that 33% of our fuel will come from crops(2). Last month George Bush announced that he would quintuple the US target for biofuels(3): by 2017 they should be supplying 24% of the nation’s transport fuel(4).

So what’s wrong with these programmes? Only that they are a formula for environmental and humanitarian disaster. In 2004 this column warned 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, by definition, richer than those who are in danger of starvation. It would also lead to the destruction of rainforests and other important habitats(5). I received more abuse than I’ve had for any other column, except when I attacked the 9/11 conspiracists. I was told my claims were ridiculous, laughable, impossible. Well in one respect I was wrong. I thought these effects wouldn’t materialise for many years. They are happening already.

Since the beginning of last year, the price of maize has doubled(6). The price of wheat has also reached a 10-year high, while global stockpiles of both grains have reached 25-year lows(7). 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.”(8) 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 both maize and wheat(9).

Already we know that biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum. The UN has just published a report suggesting that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia will be degraded or gone by 2022(10). Just five years ago, the same agencies predicted that this wouldn’t happen until 2032. But they reckoned without the planting of palm oil to turn into biodiesel for the European market. This is now the main cause of deforestation there and it is likely soon to become responsible for the extinction of the orang utan in the wild. But it gets worse. As the forests are burnt, both the trees and the peat they sit on are turned into carbon dioxide. A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or ten times as much as petroleum produces(11). I feel I need to say that again. Biodiesel from palm oil causes TEN TIMES as much climate change as ordinary diesel.

Needless to say, I agree with Monbiot 100%. Biofuels are the most pernicious, insidious misapprehension to be foisted on a gullible public so far in our frantic scramble for sustainability.

[mike_c]

1. yep-- I agree....

Monbiot also wrote-- correctly-- that each year's fossil fuel use consumes the equivalent of 400 times the Earth's annual primary productivity-- its TOTAL primary productivity. Humans already appropriate a significant percentage of that productivity for food, materials, etc, at considerable ecological cost. The margins for additional appropriation without ecologically disastrous consequences are simply not there, not on a planetary energy budget scale.

The ONLY solutions to this problem are to either develop an alternate energy source as rich as fossil fuels or to reduce global energy consumption to nineteenth century levels. Seriously.

[efhmc]

2. It would be true if biofuels were produced from only a few edible products.

85% of the corn in America goes to feed animals, not humans. Also, here in Texas, sorghum is the main product that is being touted for biofuel, since corn is not a big ag product. In W. Texas most of the people I know who are running biotrucks are using recycled vegetable oils. Many of those growing grains are looking to this technology to save them from ruin. As in most things, extremes are what gets us in trouble. We can make rules about where and what we accept as fuels, personally and as a nation. Biofuels are not the entire answer but part of the solution.

[GliderGuider]

3. Consumer awareness of the underlying issues is non-existent.

We can make rules about where and what we accept as fuels, personally and as a nation.

We can, but we're not. That's the problem. People have been sold this fuzzy notion that biofuels are somehow "The Answer" to both global warming and oil depletion (or as it's being sold, "energy independence"). As long as this meme stays embedded there is no incentive for individuals to refuse crop-based biofuels or to agitate for more restrictive legislation. Instead, all the agitation is for more: more fuels, more research, more subsidies, more crops devoted to fuel. It is not in the interest of either agribusiness or politicians to kill the goose that's laying the golden turds.

[yourout]

4. Amen.....

"Biofuels are not the entire answer but part of the solution...."

Could not have said it better.

Algae based bio growing on wastewater has great potential also.

[GliderGuider]

5. If that's the case we need to get some limits in place.

We need to decide as a society how much crop-based biofuel we can afford to produce over the long haul and what the least destructive sources are, then put legislation in place to define the limits of both quantity and source. Without such legislation there is nothing whatever to prevent agribusiness and politicians from pursuing their short-term goals at the expense of long-term costs to humanity.

Do you see such a discussion taking place in the public square? I sure as hell don't. IMO the reason such a debate isn't being fostered is because the interested parties know full well that the whole misbegotten idea would run up on the rocks if the first question of sustainable quantities was explored with any honesty.

[efhmc]

9. As an organic, biodiversity advocate, I can tell you that this is not a

new development in the U.S. The misuse of land is a deep and complicated issue. Going back to the many of the settlers who saw the land, which was unbelievable fertile and productive (because nature had kept it that way by burning, grazing, mulching with manure from the grazers, aerating from the hooves of the grazers, cutting back on the grazing when their was less grass by not producing as many grazers, etc.) as a never ending source of production. See what happened to the land. It was overgrazed, has invasive species, lost many water sources, lost many native grasses, was poisoned by the use of pesticides and herbicides, and has lost its fertility. People who have been eking out a bare living see biofuel production as a way to make a good living and do not see the long term consequences. Then big business gets involved and the user mentality of greed takes over completely. We probably will have little or no luck in changing this dynamics, people who have little see something as better than nothing. We can change what we do and what we buy but this boom is not going away. As with land use, diversity is the key. See what dependence on one major source of fuel has gotten us.

[Tyler Durden]

6. NOT if their manufacture is equal or worse than fossil fuels.

We should not give two shits whether or not there's enough oil to last 10 years or 1000. The issue is GREENHOUSE GASSES. If it takes X amount of CO2 to make gasoline and .95X amount of CO2 to make ethanol (no matter where it comes from), then it's a loser.

And then there's the food angle: maybe we should stop looking at our God-Given right to tool around in individual fuel using transportation, and start looking at the God-Given responsibility to not let our fellow humans starve to death, with the caveat of not turning the planet into an outhouse.

[efhmc]

10. I absolutely does not take as much energy to produce bioproducts

as it does to produce gasoline and those who say that are playing into the hands of the oil industry. The reason is that biofuel can be made from any organic source. People in the midwest are producing it from wood byproducts and turkey droppings. As with so much over the top rhetoric, the answer is not in "either or" but is in some combination of using good sense and resources in a way that works without harming others or the earth.

[GliderGuider]

13. EROEI

Energy Returned on Energy Invested is the "coin of the realm" for net energy analysis. There's some dispute about the exact magnitude of some of these numbers and they are at best very rough approximations but here's a look. In each case, it's the number of units of energy you get out of a process for every unit you put in:

Early Texas or Saudi crude:: 100:1
Current conventional crude: 10:1
Biodiesel from soybeans or canola: 3:1
Syncrude from tar sands: 2:1
Corn ethanol: 1.3:1

Very little energy is lost in the refining process of crude oil relative to the energy of the processed product: refinery losses are about 15%. That makes oil the hands down winner in the net energy sweepstakes, and one of the reasons it has dominated the energy market for the last 100 years.

[efhmc]

16. Does this take into account the cost of getting the oil out of the ground and

transporting it as well as the number and amount of people involved in its production and the cost of the energy used to get them to work. (Lived in Houston for 25 years and you would eliminate about 75% or more of the cars on the road there if they were not selling/refining oil in the area.) As you know, all organic crops have energy contained in them and the amount of energy in extracting them is becoming more and more efficient. Plus as I indicated, fuel can also be produced from byproducts which have no production energy involved but only the energy used to concert them to fuel.I was recently at a bioenergy conference where efficiency was discussed. These people were mostly producers. The subject turned to energy independence, which does have merit, but I did not have the facts about EROEI. Thanks.

[Tyler Durden]

18. I lived in Houston too. Where would those people work?

Would they not drive THERE? Just because you get rid of the industry, the driving public is still there. Now don't get me wrong; if I could take light rail to work, sign me up. I'll even GIVE you my car.

Transportation and a paradigm shift is what must be examined. What you pour in the tank is not the long view solution.

[efhmc]

21. That is a conudrum. I just meant to show the amount of people that are

involved in the production of oil as opposed to producing bio products. Also, you are exactly right. Take away the immense lust/need for fuel and we would be in a different place all together. I would much rather eat a good meal and have to walk to get it than to drive to an empty kitchen. There is no reason, however, we cannot get there another way (mass solar run transportation) and still have a good meal.

[Tyler Durden]

22. EXACTLY.

We must stop our E85/Ethanol/Biodiesel/Hybrid mentality that keeps us from making the hard but inevitable decision to stop pissing in our own water cooler because we're too lazy to walk to the john.

When you offer easy stopgaps, it only delays the required result, possibly until it is far too late. Personally, I'd rather breath...and not tread water.

[GliderGuider]

19. For oil it includes all extraction and transportation costs

If you want to consider a specific fraction like gasoline or diesel you need to factor in the refinery losses I mentioned. The Syncrude input number includes the energy costs of extraction (mining the tar sands), manufacturing costs (process heat, natural gas for hydrogen upgrading of the bitumen etc.) and transportation. For biodiesel and ethanol it's similar - the input energy includes everything needed to plant, fertilize, weed, harvest and transport the crop, the energy needed for manufacture (especially distillation heat for ethanol which is what drops its EROEI below biodiesel) and transport of the final product, all suitably offset to account for the residual energy in usable byproducts like Dry Distiller Grains.

In the case of biofuels, all the raw energy in the feedstock (corn or oil seeds) is solar energy that was sequestered by the plant during the growing season. The efficiency of photosynthesis is low enough that it's remarkable that we can get positive net energy out of these processes. Crude oil is also the product of solar energy, of course, but it has been concentrated by geological processes over time, thus giving it such favourable net energy characteristics.

[Tyler Durden]

14. I don't trust Archer Daniels Midland.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2002/2002-10-03-07.asp

Seems that manufacturing ethanol produces toxic emissions.

"The Minnesota ethanol plants agreed to install air pollution control equipment that will reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) by 2,400 to 4,000 tons per year and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions by 2,000 tons per year. The settlement will also reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions by 180 tons per year, particulate matter (PM) by 450 tons and other hazardous air pollutants by 250 tons."

REDUCED BY XXXX TONS? How much DO they emit? Think ADM will agree to the same guidelines VOLUNTARILY?

Just like all the other stopgaps, 85Ethanol or pure ethanol is NOT the answer. removing the concept of the INDIVIDUALLY FUELED vehicle IS.

Even the PRO ethanol forces agree that the energy balance isn't there. Their argument is that if you take out transport costs (HIGH) and other inputs, then the process comes closer to balancing.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:J4He9ixJK_gJ:www.ethanol.org/documents/NetEnergyBalanceissuebrief_000.pdf+ethanol+manufacture+efficiency&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

The problem is: ENERGY TRANSFER. Thermodynamics will kill you every time. You cannot get more juice out of any system than you put in, and when you rely on sun/growth/processing/refining you've stepped that process down considerably. Simply stated, YES, burning ethanol/biodiesel DOES cut down on the amount of fossil fuel produced, but bottom line: you are still running a less than 30% efficiency in energy transfer HEAT ENGINE.

So all of these points are moot. The goal is to RID OURSELVES of CO2 producing vehicles, machines that reduce energy transfer efficiency from SUN to the ROAD to less than 20% net.

Whew.

[jpak]

25. My thoughts too

Biofuels *done right* are part of a sustainable renewable energy future.

And any energy scheme (renewable or otherwise) that is not sustainable or contributes to GHG emissions will not be tolerated.

[nealmhughes]

7. Monbiot has addressed this much earlier, especially loss of food production and the switch

from food ag to palm oil ag in the tropics, which he sees as an unmitigated disaster in the making in Indonesia, Malasia, Phillipines, etc. The same for cane and maize in the Americas.

It is not the "bio" against which George rails so much as it is the monoculture of energy crops v. food crops and in a corporate culture which views agriculture as "just" another energy resource, v. the keystone of human existence.

Inedible crops, such as algae, or switch grass would not be a problem under Monbiot's analyses, were the biodiversity of the production area preserved and not at the expense of food.

[GliderGuider]

8. It would be interesting

...to actually see some commercial cellulosic ethanol and algal biodiesel production at some point.

[efhmc]

11. Agreed, but as usual the dimwit presenting the info to Americans hates

science and gives mouth service only to our deep and destructive problem. Put the money going to destroy Iraq into this problem and we will have it conquered post haste.

[Tyler Durden]

15. Even if Ethanol WAS the answer...

...What do we do when emerging nations do what they do when they fish, which is, throw away the normal catch to sell the MONEY CATCH?

I do not want to fight a war over rice.

[efhmc]

20. I have had this conversation many times with those who seem to care

little or nothing about food production in the US. Here is my point: if we think the price of fuel is outrageous, just wait until you see what happens when we are dependent on others for our food. No one has any respect for the individual producers in America, neither they are libs or conservatives. They do not comprehend their importance. This is exactly what is happening in the undeveloped countries with this bio boom.

[efhmc]

12. An interesting site I used when I gave a presentation recently:

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/.

[Tyler Durden]

17. This isn't about jobs or the economy.

PISS on jobs AND the economy. This is about CARBON FOOTPRINT, and if Ethanol (after you take out the processing gunk) reduces Carbon Footprint by 25% per vehicle, then all we did for global warming is buy a couple of years grace: Florida will still end up treading water.

[efhmc]

23. You are right but you will find that most people just want

to have food on the table now. If we can convince them that the changes that must be made are going to provide jobs and help the economy, then we can make the changes we need to. Have you EVER looked at the Americans people? They believe Faux and Limbaugh and many of them voted for *bush. We have to change them in ways that work and that always involves their bare basic needs, jobs and money.

[Tyler Durden]

24. Oh I don't disagree with you at all.

I think the whole thing is going to bite the big "Kishko" in real short order. I hope as we crawl out of the economic and social rubble of the inevitable crash that we will do it a little better.

Doubt it. Hope springs eternal, but doubt it.

[efhmc]

26. I found this to be a very interesting discussion and recommended it.