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Cameron McCarten's List: Biofuels

The fight for the world's food - Features, Extras - The Independent

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Food Prices Mexico tortillas Biofuels Ethanol corn extras on 2008-05-04
- On the one hand the growing affluence of millions of people in China and India is creating a surge in demand for food - the rising populations are not content with their parents' diet and demand more meat. On the other, is the use of food crops as a source of energy in place of oil, the so-called bio-fuels boom.
  As these two forces combine they are setting off warning bells around the world.
- Rice prices are climbing worldwide. Butter prices in Europe have spiked by 40 per cent in the past year. Wheat futures are trading at their highest level for a decade. Global soybean prices have risen by a half. Pork prices in China are up 20 per cent on last year and the food price index in India was up by 11 per cent year on year. In Mexico there have been riots in response to a 60 per cent rise in the cost of tortillas.
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- - n the past 12 months the global corn price has doubled. The constant aim of agriculture is to produce enough food to carry us over to the next harvest. In six of the past seven years, we have used more grain worldwide than we have produced. As a result world grain reserves - or carryover stocks - have dwindled to 57 days. This is the lowest level of grain reserves in 34 years.
    The reason for the price surge is the wholesale diversion of grain crops into the production of ethanol. Thirty per cent of next year's grain harvest in the US will go straight to an ethanol distillery. As the US supplies more than two-thirds of the world's grain imports this unprecedented move will affect food prices everywhere.
  - But bio-fuels are not a green panacea, as the influential economist Lester Brown from the Earth Policy Institute explained in a briefing to the US Senate last week. He said: "The stage is now set for direct competition for grain between the 800 million people who own automobiles, and the world's 2 billion poorest people."
    
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  - Soaring food prices have already sparked riots in poor countries that depend on grain imports. More will follow. After decades of decline in the number of starving people worldwide the numbers are starting to rise.
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reason of starvation ebscohost Biofuels LA on 2008-04-22
- Brazil just announced that deforestation is on track to double this year; Carter, a Texas cowboy with all the subtlety of a chainsaw, says it's going to get worse fast. "It gives me goose bumps," says Carter, who founded a nonprofit to promote sustainable ranching on the Amazon frontier.
- Brazil now ranks fourth in the world in carbon emissions, and most of its emissions come from deforestation.
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- - U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol--ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter--in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil's filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010
  - Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.
  - The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.'s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn't exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.
  - Indonesia has bulldozed and burned so much wilderness to grow palm oil trees for biodiesel that its ranking among the world's top carbon emitters has surged from 21st to third according to a report by Wetlands International.
  - Malaysia is converting forests into palm oil farms so rapidly that it's running out of uncultivated land.
  - The basic problem is that the Amazon is worth more deforested than it is intact.
  - ne groundbreaking new study in Science concluded that when this deforestation effect is taken into account, corn ethanol and soy biodiesel produce about twice the emissions of gasoline. Sugarcane ethanol is much cleaner, and biofuels created from waste products that don't gobble up land have real potential, but even cellulosic ethanol increases overall emissions when its plant source is grown on good cropland. "People don't want to believe renewable fuels could be bad," says the lead author, Tim Searchinger, a Princeton scholar and former Environmental Defense attorney. "But when you realize we're tearing down rain forests that store loads of carbon to grow crops that store much less carbon, it becomes obvious."
  - he improvements were only about 20% for corn ethanol because tractors, petroleum-based fertilizers and distilleries emitted lots of carbon. But the gains approached 90% for more efficient fuels, and advocates were confident that technology would progressively increase benefits.
    
    There was just one flaw in the calculation: the studies all credited fuel crops for sequestering carbon, but no one checked whether the crops would ultimately replace vegetation and soils that sucked up even more carbon. It was as if the science world assumed biofuels would be grown in parking lots. The deforestation of Indonesia has shown that's not the case. It turns out that the carbon lost when wilderness is razed overwhelms the gains from cleaner-burning fuels. A study by University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman concluded that it will take more than 400 years of biodiesel use to "pay back" the carbon emitted by directly clearing peat lands to grow palm oil; clearing grasslands to grow corn for ethanol has a payback period of 93 years. The result is that biofuels increase demand for crops, which boosts prices, which drives agricultural expansion, which eats forests. Searchinger's study concluded that overall, corn ethanol has a payback period of about 167 years because of the deforestation it triggers.
  - at's the reason a U.N. food expert recently called agrofuels a "crime against humanity." Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute says that biofuels pit the 800 million people with cars against the 800 million people with hunger problems. Four years ago, two University of Minnesota researchers predicted the ranks of the hungry would drop to 625 million by 2025; last year, after adjusting for the inflationary effects of biofuels, they increased their prediction to 1.2 billion.
Biofuels for Oil Addicts

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Quote from President Bush Biofuels Ethanol on 2008-04-22
- “We must break our addiction
  to oil”, President George W. Bush
- What are biofuels?
  
  Biofuels are fuels derived
  from crop plants, and include biomass that’s directly burned, biodiesel
  from plant seed-oil, and ethanol (or methanol) from fermenting grain, grass,
  straw or wood. Biofuels have gained favour with environmental groups as
  renewable energy sources that are “carbon neutral”, in that they do not
  add any greenhouse gas into the atmosphere; burning them simply returns
  to the atmosphere the carbon dioxide that the plants take out when they
  were growing in the field.
  
  However, they take up valuable land that should be used for growing food, especially
  in poor Third World countries. Realistic estimates show that making biofuels
  from energy crops require more fossil fuel energy than they yield, and do not
  substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions when all the inputs are accounted
  for. Furthermore, they cause irreparable damages to the soil and the environment
  (see main text).
  
  Biofuels can also be produced from wood chips, crop residues and other agricultural
  and industrial wastes, which do not compete for land with food crops, but the
  environmental impacts are still substantial.
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on 2008-04-22
- But there is concern in many quarters about the "green" energy boom, which critics say is having a serious environmental impact around the globe as forests are levelled and farm land is set aside to grow biofuel crops.
- It concludes that growing trees and restoring forests is a far more effective way to reduce emissions linked with global warming and climate change.
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- - "In all cases, forestation of an equivalent area of land would sequester two to nine times more carbon over a 30-year period than the emissions avoided by the use of the biofuel," says the report by Renton Righelato of the World Land Trust and Dominick Spracklen of the University of Leeds. Taking this into account, "the emissions cost of liquid biofuels exceeds that of fossil fuels."
  - Only biofuel from woody biomass may be compatible with retention of the carbon now locked in forests, the researchers say. It might be possible to "sustainably" extract wood from standing forests to produce fuel without destroying the soil carbon stocks that are particularly important in temperate forests, Mr. Righelato said via e-mail.
  - "Of course, the woody biomass harvested would return to CO2, but trees would probably quickly regrow in the space vacated," he said. "It remains to be established whether such extraction would be economically viable."
The biofuel myths - International Herald Tribune

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on 2008-04-22
- Biofuels will not cause hunger.
  
  Hunger results not from scarcity, but poverty. The world's poorest already spend 50 to 80 percent of household income on food. They suffer when high fuel prices push up food prices. Now, because food and fuel crops compete for land and resources, both increase the price of land and water.
- The International Food Policy Research Institute has estimated that the price of basic staples will increase 20 to 33 percent by 2010 and 26 to 135 percent by 2020. Caloric consumption declines as price rises by a ratio of 1:2.
The biofuel myths - International Herald Tribune

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on 2008-04-22 and saved by 3 people
- Every ton of palm oil generates 33 tons of carbon dioxide emissions - 10 times more than petroleum. Tropical forests cleared for sugar cane ethanol emit 50 percent more greenhouse gases than the production and use of the same amount of gasoline.
- Biofuels will not result in deforestation.
  
  Proponents of biofuels argue that fuel crops planted on ecologically degraded lands will improve rather than destroy the environment. Perhaps the government of Brazil had this in mind when it reclassified some 200 million hectares of dry-tropical forests, grassland and marshes as degraded and apt for cultivation.
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- - Soybeans supply 40 percent of Brazil's biofuels. NASA has correlated their market price with the destruction of the Amazon rainforest - currently at nearly 325,000 hectares a year.
  - Small holders will be forced out of the market and off the land. Hundreds of thousands have already been displaced by the soybean plantations in the "Republic of Soy," a 50-million hectare area in southern Brazil, northern Argentina, Paraguay and eastern Bolivia.
The False Hope of Biofuels

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biofuels LA on 2008-04-22 and saved by 3 people
- Even if all of the 300 million acres (500,000 square miles) of currently harvested U.S. cropland produced ethanol, it wouldn't supply all of the gasoline and diesel fuel we now burn for transport, and it would supply only about half of the needs for the year 2025. And the effects on land and agriculture would be devastating.
- Even if all of the 300 million acres (500,000 square miles) of currently harvested U.S. cropland produced ethanol, it wouldn't supply all of the gasoline and diesel fuel we now burn for transport, and it would supply only about half of the needs for the year 2025. And the effects on land and agriculture would be devastating.
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- - Some researchers even claim that the net energy of ethanol is actually negative when all inputs are included -- it takes more energy to make ethanol than one gets out of it.
  - it would still take four gallons of ethanol from corn to equal one gallon of gasoline.
  - The United States has 73 million acres of corn cropland. At 350 gallons per acre, the entire U.S. corn crop would make 25.5 billion gallons, equivalent to about 6.3 billion gallons of gasoline. The United States consumes 170 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel annually. Thus the entire U.S. corn crop would supply only 3.7 percent of our auto and truck transport demands
  - Using the entire 300 million acres of U.S. cropland for corn-based ethanol production would meet about 15 percent of the demand.
  - Using the crop residues (called corn stover) from corn production could provide about 10 billion gallons per year of ethanol, according to a recent study by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
  - Perhaps more important: The agricultural effects of such a large-scale program would be devastating.
  - ots of excitement and media coverage about how Brazil produces ethanol for its automobile fuel and talk that America should follow its lead.
  - Brazil consumes only 10 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel annually, compared with America's 170 billion.
  - 4 million miles of paved roads in America -- Brazil has 60,000
  - Brazil is the leading producer of sugar cane -- more than 300 million tons annually -- so it has lots of agricultural waste to make ethanol.
  - Every day more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes -- one child every five seconds.
  - It would be morally wrong to divert cropland needed for human food supply to powering automobiles.
  - eplete soil fertility and the long-term capability to maintain food production.
  - We would destroy the farmland that our grandchildren and their grandchildren will need to live.
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ebscohost Biofuels on 2008-04-23
- ut two new studies show that biofuels don't just suck up billions of dollars in federal subsidies and inflate food prices in the Third World -- they also speed up global warming.
- The worst offender, is that darling of farm-belt politicians, ethanol: Burning corn in our SUVs spews roughly double the carbon dioxide of conventional gasoline.
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- - In theory, energy crops should be climate-friendly, since they suck up CO₂ as they grow. The trouble is, planting crops for fuel destroys rain forests, releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
  - UMPING PALM OIL Indonesia has lost seventy percent of its forests.
Fuel Options for the Future : Alternative Fuels - Flash Player Installation

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Car power biodiesel ethonal electricity Hydrogen on 2008-04-30
- Biodiesel is an eco-friendly fuel that can be made from animal fats, algae, or from recycled vegetable oils like those used by restaurants to cook up French fries and other greasy goodies. Clean, veggie-based, and carbon-neutral, this fuel can usually run in any diesel car or truck with little or no modification to the engine.
- Biodiesel burns cleaner than fossil fuel diesel, expelling fewer aromatic hydrocarbons and less soot and carbon monoxide. Because the carbon dioxide released by biodiesel is the same kind absorbed by the plant (or animal) source from where the fuel came, biodiesel is called a carbon neutral fuel. Unfortunately, biodiesel releases more nitrous oxide than regular diesel, a factor in smog. In 2005, the U.S. produced around 75 million gallons of this alternative fuel and in 2006, 65 companies reported having biodiesel plants under construction.
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- - Ethanol is another popular alternative fuel that is usually made from fibrous materials like wood chips or from the starch or sugar found in common crops like corn. Ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline while reducing greenhouse gases.
    
    Ethanol is already in use, powering nearly six million flex-fuel vehicles already on the road. The United States is widely considered the world's largest ethanol producer, cranking out 4.6 billion gallons of ethanol each year.
  - Vegetable oil can power a diesel engine after just a few simple modifications, turning junker cars into low emissions vehicles. Before use, vegetable oil must be put through a conversion system so that it is heated to the appropriate temperature to properly run an engine, but once users get the hang of the process, there are many benefits beyond the low emissions.
    
    Because both unused and used vegetable oil work to fuel a car, people who convert often brag about never having to pay for their fuel, instead relying on the never-ending supply of used cooking oils from restaurants.
  - Electricity isn't new, but modern science has found interesting and eco-friendly uses for it. Electric vehicles are eco-friendly because they don't produce tailpipe emissions, although the generators producing the electricity used to charge EV batteries do emit pollutants. However, these pollutants are considered to be minimal when compared to the usage of gas. There were over 55,000 Full-Electric Vehicles in 2004, and this doesn't even include hybrids! Annual growth has skyrocketed since then at an approximate growth rate of 39%
  - Hydrogen currently isn't powering any consumer vehicles, though many city bus systems have already made the switch to this zero-emissions alternative fuel. Because of the many benefits, it seems to be only a matter of time until this efficient fuel makes its way into your vehicle. The U.S. government is working towards overcoming the cost and production challenges and anticipates progress sometime soon.
  - Compressed Natural Gas is clear, odorless, and non-corrosive. Impressively, vehicles run off of natural gas show an average reduction in ozone-forming emissions of 80 percent compared to gasoline vehicles, and CNG is produced at a relatively low cost and is cleaner burning than gasoline or diesel fuel
YouTube - The Truth About Biofuels in America

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food prices biofuels video LA on 2008-04-24
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biofuels_vs_food_3.jpg Biofuels Ethanol on 2008-05-04
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Cameron McCarten

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Updated on 2008-05-04
Created on 2008-04-23

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Cameron McCarten's List: Biofuels

The fight for the world's food - Features, Extras - The Independent

Student Research Center - powered by EBSCOhost

Biofuels for Oil Addicts

What are biofuels?

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The biofuel myths - International Herald Tribune

The biofuel myths - International Herald Tribune

The False Hope of Biofuels

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Fuel Options for the Future : Alternative Fuels - Flash Player Installation

YouTube - The Truth About Biofuels in America

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