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[jeezeweeze]

An upcoming event for you. I wish I could attend.




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[Made in the USA]

Been trying to tell you folks for months, that the bottom was gonna fall out of the ethanol boom. It is not economically feasible for many reasons! There are 85 plants being built in the U.S. at the moment, with many more on the drawing boards. The bio-diesel situation is similar, but actually worse due to several factors, including inconsistencies of product, microbiological contamination, etc.

[Value Pack]

Green Dreams - National Geographic Magazine

Very good article on ethanol. Good reading.

There is no magic-bullet fuel crop that can solve our energy woes without harming the environment, says virtually every scientist studying the issue. But most say that algae–single-celled pond scum–comes closer than any other plant because it grows in wastewater, even seawater, requiring little more than sunlight and carbon dioxide to flourish. NREL had an algae program for 17 years until it was shut down in the mid-1990s for lack of funding. This year the lab is cranking it back up again. A dozen start-up companies are also trying to convert the slimy green stuff into a viable fuel.

The boom has already pushed corn prices to heights not seen in years, spurring U.S. growers to plant the largest crop since World War II. Around a fifth of the harvest will be brewed into ethanol–more than double the amount only five years ago. Yet such is the thirst for gasoline among SUV-loving Americans that even if we turned our entire corn and soybean crops into biofuels, they would replace just 12 percent of our gasoline and a paltry 6 percent of our diesel, while squeezing supplies of corn- and soy-fattened beef, pork, and poultry. Not to mention Corn Flakes.

Published on Saturday, October 20, 2007 by Inter Press Service
Biofuels - Great Green Hope or Swindle
by Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada - A raft of new studies reveal European and American multibillion dollar support for biofuels is unsustainable, environmentally destructive and much more about subsidising agri-business corporations than combating global warming.1020 05

Not only do most forms of biofuel production do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, growing biofuel crops uses up precious water resources, increasing the size and extent of dead zones in the oceans, boosting use of toxic pesticides and deforestation in tropical countries, such studies say.

And biofuel, powered by billions of dollars in government subsidies, will drive food prices 20-40 percent higher between now and 2020, predicts the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute.

“Fuel made from food is a dumb idea to put it succinctly,” says Ronald Steenblik, research director at the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Biofuel production in the U.S. and Europe is just another way of subsidising big agri-business corporations, Steenblik told IPS.

“It’s (biofuel) also a distraction from dealing with the real problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” he asserts.

Making fuel out of corn, soy, oilseeds and sugar crops is also incredibly expensive, Steenblik and his co-authors document in two new reports on the U.S. and the European Union that are part of a series titled ‘Biofuels at What Cost? Government Support for Ethanol and Biodiesel’.

Their analysis shows that by 2006 government support for biofuels had reached 11 billion dollars a year for Organisation of Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD) countries. More than 90 percent of those subsidies came from the European Union and the U.S.

These subsidies will likely climb to 13-15 billion dollars this year the report estimates.

“More subsidies are coming as the biofuel industry expands,” says Steenblik.

In fact, countries will have to spend more than 100 billion dollars a year to get biofuel production levels high enough to supply 25 or 30 percent of transport fuel demands.

And those levels of annual subsidies will have to continue because the industry is dependent on them, he says.

It might be worth it if biofuels resulted in significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) but Steenblik calculates the amount of subsidies that goes into making enough ethanol to reduce emissions equivalent of a tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) is between 2,100 to 4,400 euros (2,980 to 6,240 dollars) depending on the support programmes.

However, the European carbon trading markets sells a similar saved or sequestered tonne of CO2 for less than 25 euros (35 dollars) through various projects like planting trees or installing solar panels.

Various analysis that take the full environmental costs of growing, shipping and processing maize into ethanol show there is only a small reduction in GHG emissions over burning fossil fuels. Newer research shows some biofuels could even be far worse.

Rapeseed biodiesel and maize ethanol may produce up to 70 percent and 50 percent more GHG emissions respectively than fossil fuels, according to work published in September by Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen and University of Edinburgh colleague Keith Smith.

They found that growing biofuel crops releases around twice the amount of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) than previously thought. The N2O results from using nitrogen fertilisers.

About 80 percent of Europe’s biodiesel comes from rapeseed and in America the vast majority is maize ethanol.

“What we are saying is that growing biofuels is probably of no benefit and in fact is actually making the climate issue worse,” Smith has said in media reports.

Last January, U.S. President George W. Bush set a biofuel target of 35 billion gallons per year by 2017, more than five times the current production of less than 7 billion gallons.

However that target would leave some U.S. waterways polluted and some regions with severe water shortages the National Research Council (NRC) said in a report released this month. The NRC is the research arm of the US National Academy of Sciences.

The additional fertilisers used to grow all that maize will contribute to the overgrowth of aquatic plant life that produces “dead zones” like those in the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere, the report said.

Similar water warnings were issued by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in Sri Lanka regarding India and China’s growing interest in biofuels. IWMI, part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, recommends in its October report that the two countries invest in cellulosic biofuel the so-called second generation biofuel technology that is still a number of years from commercialisation.

“Subsidies for ethanol are more about securing votes from the powerful agricultural lobby than bringing environmental benefits,” says Walter Hook, executive director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, an environmental NGO based in New York City.

Simple and cheap programmes like a congestion charge - an extra fee for driving in city centres - and the widely successful Paris, France free bike programme reduce air pollution and GNG emissions immediately at very low cost, Hook said in an interview.

Launched in July, Paris put thousands of low-cost rental bikes - the first 30 minutes of use are free - at hundreds of high-tech bicycle stations. A million trips were taken in just 17 days. “Absolutely amazing, every city should be thinking of doing this,” he said.

In Paris, an advertising company provides the bikes for free, runs the system, gives all the revenue to the city and pays 4.3 million dollars a year in exchange for exclusive control of the city’s advertising billboards.

Mobility - getting from A to B - with the minimum of GHG emissions is the core problem we should be addressing not finding greener fuels, says Steenblik.

Indeed, Canadian transportation analyst Todd Alexander Litman has demonstrated greener fuels and improvements in fuel efficiency result in people driving more because they can afford to. And that just makes “traffic congestion, accidents, road and parking facility costs, and the lack of options for non-drivers worse,” said Litman, director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, in British Columbia, Canada.

In his ‘Win-Win Transportation Solutions’ report released in September, Litman documents a variety of cost-effective transportation strategies that could reduce motor vehicle travel by 30-50 percent, produce substantial reductions in GHGs and bring a range of economic developments. His simple solutions include making urban areas more walkable, creating bike lanes, improving the quality of mass transit and a dozen more ideas. None involved producing more biofuels.

“Subsidising biofuels is just about the dumbest way to go,” Litman told IPS.

Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, uses stronger language: increasing biofuel production is a “total disaster” for starving people, he told a Swiss media outlet last week.

“There are serious risks of creating a battle between food and fuel that will leave the poor and hungry in developing countries at the mercy of rapidly rising prices for food, land and water,” Ziegler warned the UN General Assembly last August.

On Oct. 25, he will ask the UN General Assembly, to adopt a five-year global ban on the conversion of land for the production of biofuels.

Despite the growing evidence that biofuels are a huge mistake, governments will continue to pour billions more tax dollars into boosting production levels.

“Governments rarely phase out subsidies,” laments Steenblik. “We’re hoping that countries will come to their senses in the next few years.”

© 2007 Inter Press Service

[Detector]

Let me guess Unregistered, you're in the oil industry?

OK kidding aside. I understand bio-fuels have a long way to go before we can really call them "green alternatives." but the way I see it anything that stands to reduce Americas dependency on foreign oil is a step in the right direction.

Besides, if America would except these alternatives they are sure to improve with research and time. Back in the 70's America excepted the fact our 10mpg gas guzzlers had to improve and now we have vehicles getting 40+mpg. Until we take it serious it will never improve.

[Made in the USA]

The "oil industry" has nothing to do with it. It is just plain chemistry, biology, and common sense. America, and the world, need to be looking at other alternatives. The hydrogen fuel cell is one, but it has alot of bugs to work out first. The by-product of the hydrogen fuel cell is water.

[Bubba]

The real problem is that ethanol takes more energy to make than it produces when used as a fuel. Also, when you use ethanol in your vehicle, it will spend more time in the service bay than if you just use plain gasoline. Another bad thing is that you will spend more money at the pump because your vehicle will not travel as far on ethanol as it will on gasoline. But, the worst problem is that ethanol takes an enormous amount of water to grow the corn that they keep using to make it, and it takes an enormous amount of water to produce it in the plants that convert the corn to ethanol. Water is a more precious resource than oil and I would argue that it is becoming more scarce than oil. Without water, it won't matter if there is global warming because nobody will be left alive to see the effects of the global warming.

[88-31-10]

Originally Posted by Bubba

The real problem is that ethanol takes more energy to make than it produces when used as a fuel. Also, when you use ethanol in your vehicle, it will spend more time in the service bay than if you just use plain gasoline. Another bad thing is that you will spend more money at the pump because your vehicle will not travel as far on ethanol as it will on gasoline. But, the worst problem is that ethanol takes an enormous amount of water to grow the corn that they keep using to make it, and it takes an enormous amount of water to produce it in the plants that convert the corn to ethanol. Water is a more precious resource than oil and I would argue that it is becoming more scarce than oil. Without water, it won't matter if there is global warming because nobody will be left alive to see the effects of the global warming.

Amen Bubba. Ethanol is nothing more than another farm subsidy for corn. Look what it's done to the price of corn. And at who's expense? The consumer. Higher corn prices mean higher milk prices, higher meat prices, etc. They get you coming and going..........

[Bubba]

Farm subsidy = welfare for farmers

[88-31-10]

Originally Posted by Bubba

Farm subsidy = welfare for farmers

Farm subsidy = welfare for farmers = higher prices for consumers