http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=143&art_id=vn20080210085730876C308900

Biofuels might prove worse than CO²

Quote :

"Growing crops to make biofuels results in vast volumes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere and does nothing to stop climate change or global warming, according to the first thorough scientific audit of a biofuel's carbon budget. Scientists have produced damning evidence to suggest that biofuels could be one of the biggest environmental con tricks because they actually make global warming worse by adding to the man-made emissions of carbon dioxide that they are supposed to curb. Two separate studies published in the journal Science show that a range of biofuel crops now being grown to produce "green" alternatives to oil-based fossil fuels release far more carbon dioxide into the air than can be absorbed by the growing plants. The scientists found that, in the case of some crops, it would take several centuries of growing them to pay off the carbon debt caused by their initial cultivation. Those environmental costs do not take into account any extra destruction of the environment, for instance the loss of biodiversity caused by clearing tracts of pristine rainforest. "All the biofuels we use now cause habitat destruction, either directly or indirectly," said Joe Fargioine of the United States Nature Conservancy, who was the lead scientist in one of the studies. "Global agriculture is already producing food for six billion people. Producing food-based biofuel too will require that still more land be converted to agriculture." Both studies looked at how much carbon dioxide is released when a piece of land is converted into a biofuel crop. They found that when peat lands in Indonesia are converted into palm-oil plantations, for instance, it would take 423 years to pay off the carbon debt. The next worse case was when forested land in the Amazon is cut down to convert into soya-bean fields. The scientists found that it would take 319 years of making biodiesel from soya beans to pay off the carbon debt caused by chopping down the trees in the first place. Such conversions of land to grow maize and sugarcane for biodiesel, or palm oil and soya beans for bioethanol, release between 17 and 420 times more carbon than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels, the scientists calculated. "This research examines the conversion of land for biofuels and asks the question: 'Is it worth it?' And surprisingly the answer is 'no', Fargione said. "These natural areas store a lot of carbon, so converting them to crops results in tons of carbon emitted into the atmosphere." Jimmie Powell, a member of the scientific team at the US Nature Conservancy, said: "In finding solutions to climate change, we must ensure that the cure is not worse than the disease." The European Union is already having second thoughts about its policy aimed at stimulating the production of biofuel. Stavros Dimas, the EU environment commissioner, admitted last month that the EU did not foresee the scale of the environmental problems raised by Europe's target of deriving 10 percent of its transport fuel from plant material. Professor Stephen Polasky of the University of Minnesota, an author of one of the studies published in Science, said: "We don't have the proper incentives in place because landowners are rewarded for producing palm oil and other products, but not rewarded for carbon management. "This creates incentives for excessive land clearing and can result in large increases in carbon emissions." "

Another link:

http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2008/02/10/ethanol-myth-blasted-in-new-science-mag.aspx

Excerpt:

Quote :

"Corn-based ethanol production is sure to go down as one of the greatest mistakes ever in U.S. energy policy, yet it is so heavily embedded in election-year politics it just won't go away. The government's recent move to boost ethanol production -- embedded in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 -- panders to Midwestern and Southern farm-state electorates that are influential in presidential races, yet will end up costing the nation billions more than it purports to save. I wrote about this scam back in October in a column titled, "Shuck the ethanol and let solar shine," but apparently for some reason my expression of outrage was not enough to prevent Congress from passing a law in late December that will cost taxpayers as much as $550 billion over the next four years."

I think solar is the way to go.

Free energy... you can't beat it. We just need to develop technology to efficiently convert it to electricity and store it on a large scale.

2/22/2008 7:04:15 PM

you should really say "corn-based ethanol"

2/22/2008 7:08:24 PM

i'm one of those people that totally hates the idea of ethanol

anyways just wanted to post a pic but then i thought i should state that first

2/22/2008 7:13:36 PM

We need to give it up our addiction to liquid fuels already. It's obvious that oil prices aren't going down anytime soon, and every attempt to make a replacement is proving to be futile. A combo of solar and nuclear is our only option at this point.

Wouldn't carbon-neutral fuels be sort of moot anyway? The huge amounts of carbon we've already put into the atmosphere will still be there, albeit slowly removed by natural systems. If we really want to save the environment, we need to find ways to actively scrub the CO2 and any other greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

[Edited on February 22, 2008 at 8:15 PM. Reason : grammar nazi]

2/22/2008 8:15:02 PM

0EPII1 is all about quoting dubious sources.

2/22/2008 9:45:01 PM

his sources may or may not be dubious, but his overall point stands.

Just think rationally about ethanol or plant-based fuels work. We know that we can only extract as much energy from the plant as we put into it + energy the plant gains from the sun and the earth. The earth corn and sugar grow in is so overworked it is depleted of all its natural resources, so we have to abundantly fertilize it. Fertilizer is a horrendous waste of energy in and of itself, in the amount of energy it takes to create (the nitrogen to create the fertilizer comes from, guess what, fossil fuels!), transport, spread, etc. So really, then only net gain we can get from plant-fuels is what the plant absorbs from the sun. If we wanted to collect energy from the sun, I'm not sure planting thousands of acres of corn which take an incredible amount of additional outside energy to plant, grow and harvest, is the way to do it.

Really - the only reason ethanol is trendy or being pushed right now is the massive government subsidies the farmers are getting. Otherwise, they would be losing their shirts on this inefficient and wasteful process.

2/22/2008 9:53:55 PM

got to keep those farmers happy

2/22/2008 9:59:56 PM

What better time to be running as a senator from Illinois...

Seriously though, I wonder if this applies to the growth of biomass such as algae or switchgrass.

2/22/2008 10:05:31 PM

^ it all depends on how self-sustaining the plant is and how much energy can be extracted from it. If you can find a plant that can grow and thrive off of natural, renewable resources and doesn't require tons of fossil fuel based fertilizer to grow it, and it's also easy to harvest and can be burned efficiently, then yeah - maybe there's potential there

2/22/2008 10:28:28 PM

we get fertilizer from fossil fuels only because they are cheap. We invented fertilizer long before we discovered oil and natural gas, not to mention the many other ways we have developed to make fertilizer since then. All that is required to make fertilizer is air (got that) and energy (nuclear?). But it might be silly to use energy to grow energy; perhaps we would be better off replacing our acres and acres of plants with solar panels?

2/23/2008 12:26:39 AM

Ethanol is only talked about because lazy farmers want government handouts.

2/23/2008 12:31:12 AM

Quote :

"Ethanol is only talked about because lazy farmers greedy agribusinesses want government handouts."

there, fixed it for you

2/23/2008 1:22:28 AM

Quote :

"it might be silly to use energy to grow energy"

This is the precise problem I have with hydrogen-powered anything. People keep talking about what a miracle energy source fuel cells will be. There's just one problem with that magical thinking; YOU NEED ENERGY TO MAKE THE HYDROGEN IN THE FIRST PLACE! Energy that, I may add, is going to get more and more expensive as fossil fuels run out.

But back on topic, no matter what energy source we turn to it's going to rely on solar in some way (with the obvious exception of nuclear). Biofuels is just a fancy way of taking solar energy and converting it into liquid form. I completely agree with you that it'd be more efficient to just make acres and acres of solar panels, and invest lots of money in developing the technology.

2/23/2008 10:29:59 AM

Quote :

"A combo of solar and nuclear is our only option at this point."

if by solar you mean algae based biofuels then I would agree... provided we ever get to the point technologically we can do that. Otherwise, we're mostly screwed.

2/23/2008 12:11:27 PM

We can also thank our government for supporting inflation. The increase in demand for corn has led to a sharp increase in the price for wheat, soy, ect given the number of farmers switching from these crops to corn. Additionally, given corn is a major input for feeding livestock, we have higher meat and dairy prices as well. In the end, we are spending much more for a less efficient energy source in more than one way.

2/24/2008 10:35:02 AM

Thank goodness the air cars are coming by 2010. I'm saving money NOW.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4251491.html?series=19

http://zeropollutionmotors.us/

2/24/2008 11:46:56 AM

Quote :

"I wonder if this applies to the growth of biomass such as algae or switchgrass."

I heard about this on NPR. Algae and swtichgrass both still show promise as I understand it, largely because they grow fairly easily with minimal human aid. Hell, look at the great plains, grasses are abundant with minimal maintenance.

Corn is a con, but the farm lobby is too powerful to let it go away.

Liquid fuels power the world. They're not going away any time soon, so we need to find ways to conserve them as much as possible and to find as many efficient liquid fuels as possible. Algae and switchgrass may still prove to hold that promise.

2/24/2008 12:15:09 PM

Quote :

"Algae and switchgrass may still prove to hold that promise."

Until they find out that growing and processing these on a large scale also has a self-defeating environmental impact.

2/24/2008 12:31:02 PM

how so? Grassland abounds out west with minimal human interference.

I'm not disagreeing with you necessarialy, I'm just saying that what I've read doesn't seem to think this is a problem.

2/24/2008 1:37:21 PM

Quote :

"I think solar is the way to go. "

you must not do much thinking then. if you're content with your lights being on only during hours when you could just open the blinds, then solar would be fine.

2/24/2008 3:02:55 PM

there are methods of storing the energy using compressed air without much loss that scientists are working on (and there have been systems in place in germany and alabama that use this model for decades now).

2/24/2008 3:14:41 PM

^^what an idiot

2/24/2008 3:19:13 PM

you people are out of your fucking mind if you think simplistic systems that work for a few kilowatt's worth of output could be scaled up to work for the grid. Battery backup systems could even be made to work for a house, but they are completely unrealistic at larger scale operations. Jesus Christ you people are fucking stupid.

If he had said that windmills were the way to go, I would listen. If he suggested geothermal or tidal operated generation, I could go along with that. But to suggest that solar power is anything more than a fickle pipe dreams indicates that he has no understanding of what the real problems with renewable energy are.

2/24/2008 3:27:57 PM

well considering they have been using this system in germany for over thirty years, i don't think it's all that stupid.

2/24/2008 3:35:10 PM

ahahah, yeah, because no progress is ever made to make anything more efficient.



ever.

2/24/2008 3:35:13 PM

NB: I don't think solar is THE answer, but it should definitely be a big part of the solution (including wind, geothermal, nuclear, etc)

2/24/2008 3:39:10 PM

Wind is cheap, but it's also even more intermittent than wind.

Tidal is complete crap.

Geothermal has potential (and we should by all means develop it further), but probably of a limited scale similar to hydro. And you also have a similar destroy the environment or do it cheap tradeoff.

Compressed air storage is also heavily reliant on the environment depending on the formulation. Most plans call for large salt formations to be hollowed out, and then essentially a mine is pumped with the air and used when needed. Producing our our pressure vessels, filling them with compressed air, and using them for peak times on the grid is laughably infeasible.

HVDC saving the world, on the other hand, is a boldface lie/myth as far as I can tell. There is nothing to indicate that intermittency differs strongly by location for any competitive form of renewable power. Solar - duh, sun shines the same time of day unless you transport half way across the world, the cloud problem can be somewhat dealt with. Wind - look at a weather report, all the wind turbines in an entire nation can go practicality idle for a week and it don't matter how far you have them connected. Tidal - same problems as solar, only worse b/c it doesn't cycle conveniently per time of day.

And don't even THINK any of these can begin to provide something like a solution to the [quickly] developing world.

--
Basically we're mostly fucked one way or the other. We're most fucked if we listen to the "greens".

2/24/2008 3:43:23 PM

Quote :

" Basically we're mostly fucked one way or the other. We're most fucked if we listen to the "greens"."

because they're the ones pushing for those cripplingly higher fuel standards AMIRITE!? they really do hate our freedom.

2/24/2008 3:48:08 PM

Quote :

"ahahah, yeah, because no progress is ever made to make anything more efficient. ever."

This is the stupidest comment yet made in this thread, but sadly, I've heard quite a few times.

The problem is completely ignored by spouting off this shit. The problem is that fuels are being used up on a global scale and the world is in need of more energy. Not less, more. Efficiency is always being improved, and the "trends" that we have to work with include a provision for efficiency, just as it has always been softening the increase in demand.



What people are really saying when "efficiency" comes up, means

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/11/ealights111.xml

turning out the lights and accepting a lower standard of living, epically for the poorest of society.

[Edited on February 24, 2008 at 3:53 PM. Reason : ]

2/24/2008 3:52:06 PM

Solar has a lot of potential for the developing world, actually. Across most of Africa and the Middle East, sun is plentiful and consistent. Current PV cells only convert about 10% - 20% of sunlight into energy. Advances in efficency are bound to come, even if they come slowly. The only issue will be the storage of capacity for the evening. It won't supplant more traditional sources of energy but that doesn't make it worthless.


Anyone thinking petroleum will be replaced in under 50 years is dreaming . . . you're probably looking at a much further event horizon, but I don't want to underestimate the exponential path of technology growth.

2/24/2008 3:52:35 PM

^^i think he means efficiency of the power plants/storage of that power.

[Edited on February 24, 2008 at 3:53 PM. Reason : .]

2/24/2008 3:52:55 PM

it's not a question about the efficiency of the system. Devices of this nature don't scale up easily. Nobody in the industry gives a shit about a test program working for 30 years when they know that the technology will never be scalable to offer any real world solutions to the grid as a whole. We've had high temperature superconductor transmission technology in operation at certain test facilities for over a decade now, but it's still not seeing any implementation anywhere else in real-world applications.

solar power will serve it's purpose on the grid of the future: to provide peak shaving capabilities on hot days, where we are currently using gas turbine units and some diesel units to provide that power. Solar power will do almost nothing to solve issues with peak shaving in winter load areas, which happens to be a large portion of our country.

[Edited on February 24, 2008 at 3:56 PM. Reason : too slow for karats]

2/24/2008 3:54:56 PM

^^ correct. I was addressing the future potential of PV technology, and gains in efficency in general, not claiming that overall demand in the world will drop. I appreciate your knee-jerk assumption of my own ignorance though. Classy

^ you're assuming we're only discussing energy use in the United States.

[Edited on February 24, 2008 at 3:58 PM. Reason : ^]

2/24/2008 3:55:00 PM

What are you going to make the pressure vessels out of? Sunshine and happy faces?

I'm thinking they'll be made of steel, of which the price is conveniently going up for. Grid storage is already efficient. Not cost efficient.

2/24/2008 3:57:36 PM

my point still stands for the rest of the world. large portions of the developed world live in winter peak areas.

2/24/2008 3:57:46 PM

larger portions of the developing world live in areas of abundant sunlight. What is your point?

2/24/2008 3:59:32 PM

Very true, the developing world is mostly in hotter, more tropic climates than the developed world.

And once solar starts producing more than 0.04% of the worlds energy, I'm sure that much of the developing world population will have a marginal resource advantage over the developed world. Then they will all die from the effects of global warming.

[Edited on February 24, 2008 at 4:03 PM. Reason : ]

2/24/2008 4:02:32 PM

what makes you so certain that the developing world is actually going to develop? Most of Africa seems to be heading backwards instead of forwards. South America has been very slow to develop.

[Edited on February 24, 2008 at 4:10 PM. Reason : the developing world isn't who uses the most electricity now.]

2/24/2008 4:09:28 PM

yes, I suppose that's convent for us...

I thought the general idea is that we would help them develop?

But in terms of resource competition, I think China is already doing plenty.

2/24/2008 4:12:36 PM

you can't help people that won't help themselves.

2/24/2008 4:14:54 PM

Quote :

"larger portions of the developing world live in areas of abundant sunlight."

You sure about that?


Solar insolation map


Population density map

2/24/2008 4:27:07 PM

1) Why the insistence on liquid fuels?

2) What exactly is wrong with using compressed air for automobiles (as the links I posed above discuss)?

From Popular Mechanics:

Quote :

"The Air Car caused a huge stir when we reported last year that Tata Motors would begin producing it in India. Now the little gas-free ride that could is headed Stateside in a big-time way. Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM) confirmed to PopularMechanics.com on Thursday that it expects to produce the world’s first air-powered car for the United States by late 2009 or early 2010. As the U.S. licensee for Luxembourg-based MDI, which developed the Air Car as a compression-based alternative to the internal combustion engine, ZPM has attained rights to build the first of several modular plants, which are likely to begin manufacturing in the Northeast and grow for regional production around the country, at a clip of up to 10,000 Air Cars per year. And while ZPM is also licensed to build MDI’s two-seater OneCAT economy model (the one headed for India) and three-seat MiniCAT (like a SmartForTwo without the gas), the New Paltz, N.Y., startup is aiming bigger: Company officials want to make the first air-powered car to hit U.S. roads a $17,800, 75-hp equivalent, six-seat modified version of MDI’s CityCAT (pictured above) that, thanks to an even more radical engine, is said to travel as far as 1000 miles at up to 96 mph with each tiny fill-up. We’ll believe that when we drive it, but MDI’s new dual-energy engine—currently being installed in models at MDI facilities overseas—is still pretty damn cool in concept. After using compressed air fed from the same Airbus-built tanks in earlier models to run its pistons, the next-gen Air Car has a supplemental energy source to kick in north of 35 mph, ZPM says. A custom heating chamber heats the air in a process officials refused to elaborate upon, though they insisted it would increase volume and thus the car’s range and speed. “I want to stress that these are estimates, and that we’ll know soon more precisely from our engineers,” ZPM spokesman Kevin Haydon told PM, “but a vehicle with one tank of air and, say, 8 gal. of either conventional petrol, ethanol or biofuel could hit between 800 and 1000 miles.” Those figures would make the Air Car, along with Aptera’s Typ-1 and Tesla’s Roadster, a favorite among early entrants for the Automotive X Prize, for which MDI and ZPM have already signed up. But with the family-size, four-door CityCAT undergoing standard safety tests in Europe, then side-impact tests once it arrives in the States, could it be the first 100-mpg, nonelectric car you can actually buy? "

2/24/2008 4:29:57 PM

^^ ummm, I think there is a pretty good correlation between African population centers and all but the heaviest sun. Ditto the Middle East and India.

Either way, PV at the micro level can power individual houses in isolated areas where electricity doesn't reach. This, in turn, raises the living standard of people in those areas. While, yes, increased living standards cause increased consumption, gains in efficiency will (hopefully, eventually) overcome those disadvantages. Furthermore, emerging economies in poor areas offer an opportunity to experiment with "sustainable" power sources due to the lack of resistance from pre-existing infrastructure.

I'm not claiming PV is THE answer, I'm not claiming that Apollo will come riding in on his sun-horse and save us from ourselves, but to dismiss it as worthless because you can't see beyond the immediate limitations is asinine.

^ Right now, there are few alternatives to liquid fuels to power container ships and aircraft. We're going to be dependent on liquid fuels for quite some time to come.

2/24/2008 5:20:32 PM

Quote :

"Furthermore, emerging economies in poor areas offer an opportunity to experiment with "sustainable" power sources due to the lack of resistance from pre-existing infrastructure. "

poor economies offer even greater resistance because they can't afford the technology or the higher cost of renewable energy. The only major resistance right now to renewable energy in the US right now is the unwillingness of the American public to shell out ten times as much money for a kilowatt hour. People bitch enough about their energy bill as it is, yet they have absolutely no clue how much renewable energy costs.

The fact that you keep talking about photovoltaic cells somehow being the wave of the future shows just how little you know about the technology. solar steam turbines are already proving to be much more efficient, cost effective, and scalable. They could even be retrofitted to existing coal and natural gas facilities to reheat or preheat the boiler water and improve efficiency and output.

[Edited on February 24, 2008 at 10:09 PM. Reason : apparently you can't read a map either.]

2/24/2008 10:08:18 PM

2/24/2008 10:10:08 PM

^^ I never said they were the wave of the future, just not worthless as you called them. I think I made it pretty clear that I saw them as a suppliment, not a solution.

2/24/2008 10:14:29 PM

if they don't offer a viable base load generation capacity, they are effectively worthless for the purpose of this discussion.

besides, there are plenty of other people in this thread that seem to be under the impression that solar power will someone solve all of our energy needs and that "the evil power companies" are holding us back. the reality is that the only thing holding us back is our unwillingness to pay for the technology and the impracticality of somehow constructing and implementing this new technology in a short timeframe.

2/24/2008 10:31:30 PM

Quote :

"1) Why the insistence on liquid fuels? 2) What exactly is wrong with using compressed air for automobiles (as the links I posed above discuss)?"

The energy to compress the air has to come from somewhere. If it's from the grid it'll come from either a fossil-fuel power plant or a nuclear plant, most likely. If they are trying to freeze a gas like nitrogen and then heat it up to power the car, they still need something to drive the cooling and heating processes. Compressed air is simply stored energy, more akin to a battery than a fuel source.

Also compressed air has poor energy density and is very dangerous in the event of a crash (ruptured air tanks typically explode, shooting shrapnel in all directions). Don't save your money for a car that likely won't meet US auto safety standards.

[Edited on February 24, 2008 at 11:18 PM. Reason : 2]

2/24/2008 11:17:50 PM

What about blanketing regions where it is never cloudy with solar collectors and then placing a giant solar reflector in orbit which will direct sunlight, at night, at the collectors?

Sure, not even the solar collectors are viable today, but they may be in the future.

Anyone have any idea what such a configuration would look like? I assume it would look like daylight in the target zone and some bizare twilight as you move away due to the scattering effects of the atmosphere causing light pollution.

If we put the reflector in geosync orbit, we could use it to increase the intensity of the light on the collectors during the day, increasing their day-time production as well. Any ideas how severe the heating effect would be on a desert region where the sun never sets?

[Edited on February 24, 2008 at 11:33 PM. Reason : .,.]

2/24/2008 11:29:49 PM

^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9YD9-_WTjk

This is on the same scale as fission. Optimistic estimates make it 7 cents/kWh - ish, in other words, best case scenario, it's a medium to poor solution.

Also see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Gundam_00

Yes, an orbital elevator could make it viable. That should happen 2307-2308 AD.


What we need
* tethered high altitude wind generation
* Algae-Based Biodiesel
* The advanced nuclear fuel cycle
* Google to save the world from imminent destruction

2/25/2008 12:40:34 AM