Posted on 05/14/2007 2:16:01 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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.
The commission's fears are justified.
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.
Most of these additional deaths would occur in, surprise, Los Angeles.
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?
Ah, no. Stars have precursors, dust. In other words, there is a before energy state before stars, a state or states of energy that, sometimes, forms into stars.
Well then, lets be more fundemental. Oil is ‘enviro’ fuel.
Ethanol is merely a not very efficient method of turning solar energy into liquid fuel. The article uncited reference to ethanol needing more energy to produce than it contains is almost certainly the result of bad numbers and/or old numbers (probably both). Even the backers of ethanol only claim that they get 1.6 units of energy for every one unit of non-solar energy. There are several much more efficient methods to produce transportable fuel from solar energy. The ones that I know about are bio-diesel (probably only a niche fuel in the end); Hydrogen; and butanol if you believe BP's press releases.
“That’s fine, but because the market price of corn exceeds government target prices, corn growers don’t receive welfare. Much as, I suppose, because you have a job which exceeds minimum income standards you don’t receive welfare either.”
I’d love to have “government target prices” to insulate me from market realities. I’m thinking about starting my own Video Game Tester’s Union. Anyone wanna join? It’ll be great. We can form our own voting block (comprised mostly of high school dropouts and college dormrats). We can pressure some federal reps into introducing legislation which will establish a “minimum income standard” for us. If they don’t then we can show solidarity by voting someone into office who will pander to us. Any takers?
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