27 October 2007
Why Biofuels Don’t Make Sense
Lately, I have been hearing a lot of politicians promoting biofuels, mainly biodiesel and bioethanol. They seem to believe that biofuels are going to play a major role in solving our upcoming energy crisis, but logic and science do not support that idea. I gave a few reasons in my earlier article on the coming energy crisis, and an article I just read in Science News adds even more. Here are some thoughts:
- We need to generate more energy. The world’s population is growing, and per capita energy use is increasing as the developing world raises its average standard of living. Experts estimate we will need to approximately double the world’s energy production by 2050.
- Biofuels are really a means of transferring energy, not generating energy. Scientists who carefully calculate the energy used in planting, fertilizing, harvesting, transporting, and refining biofuels find that it takes nearly as much (or in some cases more) energy to create the biofuels as the biofuels contain. So, we can use biofuels as a means of transferring energy from one form to another, but we cannot really use them as a means of generating energy.
- We need to grow more food. As the world’s population grows, we will clearly need to produce more food in order to feed the population (unless we all convert to vegetarianism, which would allow us to eat food currently being used to feed farm animals).
- Biofuel crops are grown on agricultural land. If we want to produce biofuels, we will need to either convert food-crop land to fuel-crop land, or convert non-agricultural land to fuel-crop land.
- Biofuels use a large amount of land. For instance, if we converted an entire year’s U.S. corn production to bioethanol, we could only replace only 6% of the year’s U.S. gasoline consumption.
- 35% of the earth’s ice-free land is already used for agriculture. Converting more land to agriculture means cutting down forests. This is already happening in Brazil, which is converting Amazon rain forest to sugar cane production for bioethanol.
Given the above, I cannot see any reason to devote resources to developing biofuels. We cannot afford to use land for growing biofuel crops, and biofuels are not a significant net generator of energy anyway. How can we bring this to the attention of the public and our politicians?
RSS
What remains ignored in all this fuss about energy, resources and conflict is that there are simply too many people. Darfur has blown up because the land cannot support the population (400% increase since 1960). Ruwanda collapsed into genocide when there was not enough land to support both the Tutsis and Hutus. World oil prices are skyrocketing, not because of reduced output but accelerating demand. CO2 levels continue to rise because more and more people simply want the same standard of living as we have.
But not to worry, Nature will prevail. The only question is whether we are part of the solution or not.
Robert - I agree with you: there are too many people, and we (especially those of us living here in the USA) are using too many resources.
–Jennifer
I agree with the analysis above as well as most of your earlier posting. However around the fringes these technologies do have some benefit. We can’t replace all the fossil fuels using spent fryer oil as biodiesel, however when it can not be used for fries it still has use left for combustion. Biofuels direct from corn or even sugar cane may be energy neutral or even negative but biomass such as digestion to form methane of agricultural waste can provide an apealing alternative to rural populations used to cooking and heating with wood or burning dung directly. Using these technologies you are significantly improving the lives of these people (improved health, less time gathering fuel) without putting a strain on the existing power system. These materials are going to decompose anyway generating greenhouse gasses we might as well get use out of the energy currently being (lost). Speaking of which energy is not generated it can only be concentrated or captured to perform work or scattered to be lost.
Good points! Thanks for your comments. You are right that there is probably some potential in converting materials that would otherwise simply be wasted into biofuels.
Also in your point that energy is only transferred around. I should have been more precise. My meaning was that because of the amount of fossil fuels used in fertilizer, pesticides, transportation, and other aspects of agriculture, direct agricultural biofuels are not really replacing fossil fuels, but transferring the energy from fossil fuels into another form.
–Jennifer
Amen to all what has been said here. One point we have forgotten to mention: how about preserving, preserving in general ? Why does the Automobile Industry still pumps out the 5.0l muscle cars, even re-invents them ? Why does someone have to drive a Lexus SUV or Hummer, even worse, living in rural NC I see many of the old 70s 80s Flagships of cars, some of them need to have a gasoline truck attached to them. Yes, with population increase the need of ‘fuels’ raises, but we can extend the time till we run out of them by preserving and regulating the consumption. We all need to be on the same page, gentle efforts are already being made by the government stipulating that all cars have to have a 34mpg rating or better. How about we go with that and also use biofuels ‘waste’ as an addition (hybrid vehicles). I am aware that this is not the solution to the problem at hand, but it would buy us some time until other ways have been found. just my 2 cents.
My opinion is that we (Americans especially) need to start consuming less in all aspects of our lives. It really worries me when the economists talk about promoting more consumption as a solution to economic difficulties. Our economy needs to adjust itself so that consuming less is OK.
–Jennifer
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004171188_ethanol08.html
More evidence…
–Jennifer
Blog sobre biocombustibles y alimentos en el diario La Vanguardia:
http://www.lavanguardia.es/lv24h/20080429/53457994768.html
Not that I need convincing that we need to preserve our sources, but a couple of weeks ago I pulled into a gas station, and the guy in front of me (old style hummer) did not even bother to switch his engine off to fuel up. I almost walked up to him to point out that he wasn’t gaining on the fuel pump :-)
What I would like to say here is that the environmental movement has not been effective when promoting the *bigger* issues, and as a result we’re hopelessly behind. One screw up is bio-fuel = cleaner planet, when in reality it means less food, and more environmentally unfriendly processing plants. Another screw up is the position on nuclear power.
Clean, noise free power = electric power. Plenty of electric cars out there = need to recharge them using mostly coal-fired power plants. Nuclear energy = nearly zero emissions. A near total decline in research (business needs a financial incentive to innovate, and it does not have it when they cannot build nuclear power plants). Improved (safe, with a reasonable by-products disposal policy) nuclear power can be the answer.
The Sierra club is quietly supporting more than 40 applications for nuclear power plants. The cost is 30+ years of pollution, decades-delay in the development of electric cars, and noise all around us.
Fossil fuels? all the power to those who produce them. Instead of cutting more trees, we can use nuclear-generated power to process fossil fuels into synthetic materials that replace (and outperform) wood (building products and other applications), and metals, and make them 100% recyclable. That way OPEC will remain in business, US oil interests will not be harmed and we can breathe easier with more trees around.
Hi people… i have a question… Why U. S, and E. U, have enormous interest about bio fuel??, They don’t have enough land to produce it, i guess so… and what about solar energy??? Do you think that is an option for produce clean, and sufficient energy??