Fuels Rush In (Biofuels May Cause More Pollution)

Climate Change: A Danish commission looks at the negative effect of biofuels on the environment as a new study shows ethanol use may actually increase pollution. The Kyoto deal is full of unintended consequences.

The recently formed Cramer Commission, named after Dutch Environment Minister Jacqueline Cramer, who chaired it before entering the cabinet, was formed to develop ways to ensure that crops used to create biofuels as replacements for oil and gas don't do more harm than good.

It seems that in the rush to develop these alternative fuels, forests in Asia have been burned to clear land for palm oil along with large swaths of the Amazon rain forest being stripped of diverse vegetation for soy and sugar plantations used to produce the raw material for making ethanol.

Marcel Silvius, a climate expert at Wetlands International in the Netherlands, recently led a team that compared the benefits of palm oil to the ecological harm from clearing virgin Asian rain forests for new plantations.

He concluded that as a fuel palm oil was more like snake oil, noting: "As a biofuel, it's a failure."

Palm oil's attractiveness is that it is relatively cheap and can be used in existing power stations. It is even said to be, to use Al Gore's favorite phrase, "carbon-neutral," in that it absorbs as much carbon dioxide during growth as it emits when burned as fuel.

Certainly the European Union likes it, with palm oil consumption fueled by subsidies in many EU member states. EU imports have risen 65% since 2002.

The four-year study in Indonesia and Malaysia, where 85% of commercial palm oil is grown, by a team from Wetlands, Delft Hydraulics and the Alterra Research Center of Wageningen University, details the environmental harm caused by the use of palm oil as an alternative energy source.

The study found that 1.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide go up in smoke every year from rain forest fires set to clear new land for biofuel plantations.

Another 600 million tons seeps into the air from drained peat swamps. That 2 billion tons of CO2 constitutes 8% of the earth's total fossil fuel emissions.

In the U.S., the alternative fuel du jour is ethanol. It can be made from corn or sugar or perhaps even wood chips and leftover copies of the New York Times. But here too there are consequences to its use that may exceed any benefits.

We already know that ethanol consumes more energy in its manufacture than it produces when consumed, that it is difficult to transport and evaporates easily.

We also know that using virtually all available land to produce an ethanol crop like corn would make only a small dent in our energy mix, and that by competing with crops grown for food, raises food costs.

A study just published by Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University civil and environmental engineering professor, in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science and Technology, adds another consequence — that 200 more people would die each year from respiratory problems if all U.S. cars ran on ethanol.

According to Jacobson, ethanol actually produces more hydrocarbons than gasoline and less nitrogen oxide. Ethanol produces longer-lasting chemicals that eventually turn into hydrocarbons spread over a larger area.

The actual science is complicated but in an area like L.A. when nitrogen oxide reach a certain level, it actually begins eating up some of the ozone. So less is bad, not good.

The first rule of environmentalism, like medicine, should be to do no harm. Or to put it in terms the greenies understand, are they destroying the earth in order to save it?

I’m not as familiar with that. I would assume it produce more fuel (than other methods...other than algae). I’m not sure of the enviromental effects of such. Probably not much. Although ethanol fuels would require changes in infrastructure. Biodiesels would be less of head-ache, because much of the structure already exists.

My preferences are with algae, because it can be produced in deserts, and it can combine with coal power plants ie it can siphone off a sigificant amount of carbon from them. It’s a ‘food’. It can also use waste as food....so it’s an all around way of producing fuel. Cost seems to be the only real big issue.

Oh, and theoretically it can produce higher yields than any other biomass. I guess theory and practice are two different things.

There are many reasons,....

In my opinion, the problem with this debate is the same problem we have had with energy/auto/truck regs for the last 40 years: we want the scientists and industry to come up with potentially contradicting solutions to multiple problems.

For instance, for pedestrian safety, cars and trucks are being required to meet new regulations heightening the front of the vehicle. This might improve safety, but it hurts energy consumption and adds emissions(wind resistance/added weight).

Some of the emissions requirements forced additions to vehicles that compromised fuel efficiency (early catalytic converter designs, for instance). Increasing fuel standards sometimes made cars less safe because the cars were made lighter and because of stalls and hesitation (infamous Chrysler lean burn).

Some time ago, the power plant in New Haven Connecticut was told to go from coal to oil for environmental reasons. After they complied, they were told to go from oil back to coal because of an oil shortage. It is not often that I feel sympathy for a large utility, but I could feel their exacerbation when they pleaded with the regulators to pick a fuel, any fuel, but stick with it!

In The New Realities, Peter Drucker points out that the failure with large enterprises, government or private, is that they often set up multiple and conflicting goals. Public schools worked better when they worked to ensure that the graduates could read and write. Add the social engineering, and you lose the reading and writing.

I suggest that we have to pick our treasure. IF we thought it was reducing greenhouse emissions, we would do whatever it took to reduce that, and to hades with the economy. IF we thought that it was safety, we would mandate bazillions of safety features and performance regulators in automobiles without regard to the price, or the effect on fuel consumption and the environment from the added weight of having to buy bigger cars to fit booster seats for all the kids, for instance.

BUT, if our goal is to reduce dependence on foreign oil, we would stop distracting the automakers with requirements to install another four airbags, we would not require them to figure out how to reduce CO2 and CO output at the same time that they are trying to propel a car a bit farther with what they have.

If the goal is to reduce oil dependence, ethanol and biodiesel can be a part of the solution. (Ethanol doesn't save much energy, but non-oil energy can be used in its production) (We might also dump the sugar tariff, as a trade off to the infinite demand that will fall ADMs way. It would be nice to not have to get Mexican Coca-Cola in order to have real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup). Methanol can also be part of the solution. REAL electric cars (charged from nuclear plants!) from people who don't hate cars (e.g. Tesla Motors) could be an important part of the solution. If some of the solutions ameliorate the safety and environmental concerns (e.g. electric cars don't have gas tanks to explode, and don't emit) all the better, but if you take safety and pollution (however you define it) out of the picture, then business can get job #1 done, and later, once the winning technologies are in place, can we work to refine them.

To me, hybrids are a dumb idea, as I see no point to having a heavy drivetrain in an electric car, and no point to making a gasoline engine carry around a bunch of heavy batteries.

The libertarians around here might say, why have any goal at all? Let the market do its work? I am inclined the same way. Back in the '80's, the Japanese government poured a lot into supercomputing. It turned out that American-based companies like IBM and Cray kept ahead of them in the big iron department. Part of the problem is, the subsidized program would take an approach, and would be unable to change course to accommodate new technologies. Something as simple as a new RISC processor or higher speed memory technology would render ALL of the work obsolete. The Japanese government wasted the money, and those brains would have been better off working with the Intels, Motorolas and Fujitsus of this world.

That said, we know the lefties are going to have a different set of priorities, so unfortunately I don't think it's politically viable to create the kind of environment we had in the early 20th century that showed cars of every type (including electric and steam powered) until a very affordable usable model came along (Ford). The Department of Energy, Transportation, Homeland Security, Interior etc. are all in existence to keep that from happening. The regulatory vehicle WILL move ahead. So I would like to see the manufacturers pressured to reduce oil dependency, and nothing more. (And yes, I remember Jimmy Carter's failed SynFuels program).I would like the regulations to be in terms of incentives and tax relief rather than proscriptions. That, I believe is possible.

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