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Posted on 07/23/2012 4:33:48 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
ndur Goklany calculated that biofuels policies killed nearly 200,000 people in 2010 alone. That was before this study showed things may be worse than we suspected.
Brazil is the largest sugar cane ethanol producer in the world, but people are burning four times the area of sugar cane plantations than previously realized, and it’s producing far more pollution than they thought. For every unit of energy generated, the ethanol-biofuel use produces a lot less CO2 (plant fertilizer) but more volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), more carbon monoxide, more nitrous oxides, as well as more sulphur dioxides. (See Graph b below).
Compared to gasoline and diesel, over its whole life cycle, every unit of energy produced with sugar cane produces 10 times as much volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), carbon monoxide, and nitrous oxides. The amount PM10′s and PM2.5′s produced with ethanol fuels is even higher. Most of the pollution comes from burning fields of sugar cane (see graph a). Hence the people suffering the most from ethanol production will be villagers and rural farmers living near areas of sugar cane production. While there have been efforts to encourage farmers to produce cane without burning fields, over half of sugar-cane crop loads continue to be burned. Presumably there is a cost to producing sugar cane without burning. Perhaps sugar-cane production is viable and competitive without burning but this study does not discuss the reasons farmers prefer to burn fields.
If you care about pollution, and want less of it, and you care about the health of people in developing countries then clearly we should encourage gasoline and diesel use, and discourage production of ethanol that involves burning sugar cane-fields.
Likewise, to promote growth in the Amazon (by increasing CO2 levels), we ought to be burning fossil fuels and not fields of cane.
(Excerpt) Read more at joannenova.com.au ...
Sugar in the gas tank trick..
Liberals always cause a 2 problems with every solution they try
Monday, July 16, 2012
U.S. Air Force tests biofuel at $59 per gallon
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy angered Republicans by spending $26 a gallon for biofuels for this week’s Great Green Fleet demonstration, but the Air Force received little attention when it paid twice as much per gallon to test synthetic jet fuel last month.
The Air Force bought 11,000 gallons of alcohol-to-jet fuel from Gevo Inc, a Colorado biofuels company, at $59 a gallon in a program aimed at proving that new alternative fuels can be used reliably in military aircraft - once, that is, their pricing is competitive with petroleum, which now costs $3.60 a gallon.
The cost of the Air Force demonstration - $639,000 - was far less eye-catching than the $12 million the Navy spent for biofuels to power a carrier strike group on alternative energy for a day.
But it was part of the same Pentagon push, which has escalated under the administration of President Barack Obama, to adopt green solutions to rising fuel costs.
Some Republican lawmakers have criticized the high price-per-gallon paid by the Navy as wasteful Pentagon spending at a time of significant budget cuts and a shrinking fleet.
They have also blasted Obama for making green energy a cornerstone of his agenda, with federal funds flowing to alternative energy companies that may not make economic sense, as in the case of bankrupt solar-panel maker Solyndra.
http://agrinewspk.blogspot.com/2012/07/us-air-force-tests-biofuel-at-59-per.html
Don’t worry ... the corn crop failed, there’s no ethanol, gas at $4.25 by election day ... Bush’s fault.
Don’t worry ... the corn crop failed, there’s no ethanol, gas at $4.25 by election day ... Bush’s fault.
fyi
Who cares, as long as it feels and sounds good.
Fewer BTUs in a volume of ethanol than in the same volume of gasoline. The public is getting screwed economically as usual.
However, someone is making big bucks producing ethanol and erecting stupid windmills while we have plenty of good American energy buried in the ground.
From the comments:
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I said earlier today that Climate Science is science done backwards.
There are reputedly two reasons for creating biofuel.
1) Peak Oil. If you’re going to run out of conventional oil sources you have start creating petroleum from feedstock derived from a Fisher-Tropsch type chemical process that uses biomass as the raw material. The technology does actually work and one company even licenses its process around the world. Presumably Big Oil knows how much more fossil oil they can extract, so if they aren’t getting into biofuel in a big way already, why would anyone think we are imminent danger of running out? In 50 to 100 years, perhaps, but right now it’s jumping the price signal gun, pre-empting the natural market solution.
2) Global warming and ocean acidification from CO2. Because the carbon in biofuel comes from the atmosphere so it creates a closed cycle that doesn’t increase atmospheric CO2. Thus averting… what problem exactly? Well we’ve done this one to death multiple times but it keeps rising like an undead climate alarm zombie.
So in biofuel we again seem to have a solution in search of a problem. Backwards into the future.
Expect the “side effects” of the solution to in fact be the primary motivation of the plan.
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You’ve cracked the code. Making Poverty Universal is what it’s all about. Beach-dwelling alarmists will be exempted.
GWB got a bit hoodwinked on the ethanol regulations. I bet he has been informed in recent years how bad it was to go that route. Damaged is done.
********************************EXCERPT***************************************
John Kehr back in year 2010 pointed out that Ethanol fuel INCREASES Ozone pollution
December 19,2010
EXCERPT:
The EPA is ignoring the growing evidence that ethanol increases ozone pollution. Every increase in ethanol use as fuel will increases the amount of ozone pollution in the United States. This is one of the times where regardless of a persons views on global warming, the pollution effects of ethanol are real and need to be taken into account.
Ozone is one of the most more hazardous pollutants that is regularly produced by emissions. It is so corrosive that it will degrade stainless steel in periods of less than a year.
===================================================
He also brings up the damage by VOC’s:
These VOC’s include formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, 1,3-butadiene, benzene and PAN. All of these VOC’s are directly unhealthy for humans, but they also generate ozone when they decompose in the atmosphere.
The question should be is why has the EPA overlook these facts when Ethanol in fuels are discussed while the EPA’s own website says it is BAD near ground level.
Probably, though, if you're going in for ethanol production, you want to find the crop that best suits the process, rather than simply grow corn or sugar cane because you've always grown them.
Ethanol has less energy than gasoline and therefore gives worse mileage. It also produces more pollution. It’s bad enough that 10% of gasoline has ethanol added but now it’s being increased to 15%.
That’s because they don’t know the difference between ‘Feeling’ and ‘Thinking’.
Heh. You wish.
When they came for the beach-dwelling alarmists, I said nothing because I lived in the hills.
Ouch. Sugar cane ethanol 10X more pollutive than diesel,gasoline. wow. That should send some greenies jumping off of cliffs.
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