Robert Rapier has an important post on the prospects for algal biodiesel:
[Algal biodiesel] will be subject to the Law of Receding Horizons, which simply means that energy sources that require high energy inputs will always see their point of economic viability pushed farther out as energy prices rise. Remember when oil was $20 a barrel, and oil shale was going to be viable at $40 oil? By the time oil got to $100, I was hearing that it would be viable at $120 oil.
This won’t stop people from throwing money at algal biodiesel. As John Benemann once said to me “This is a good research project, but nowhere close to commercialization.” Somehow, I don’t think this is the reason investors are throwing their money in that direction. They are falling victim to the hype of ‘the next big thing.’
Climate change and God
Comments
View as Flat
biodiversivist Posted 12:53 am
03 Mar 2009
They are using these perpetual fuels of the future to maintain the status quo. We are obligated to critique them as others critique clean coal, which is being used to perpetuate new coal plant construction.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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christophersj Posted 1:58 am
03 Mar 2009
I dont care if its hydrogen or Algal biodiesel. But it should be more free of carbon, than natural gas.
These items are constantly ignored on these boards at Grist.
These arent passenger cars.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:48 am
03 Mar 2009
Algal energy and GHG removal might be possible someday, with ocean based algae farms, we don't have the fresh water to waste on it. But we don't want biodiesel industry shills using it as an excuse to keep making crop based fuel.
The plan to take care of oil based transportation needs? Conservation, so we can keep using oil (and natural gas) until better technology comes along.
The conservation plan is multi-faceted.
First and most effective, switch from long haul trucks to freight rail, next electrify freight rail. Then build out electrified commuter rail, eventually replacing most car and air miles with high speed rail.
Next switch to plugin hybrid cars and trucks. Eliminating 90% of oil for those uses.
Then eliminate oil based heating, using solar cogeneration (heat + electricty) and ground source heating/cooling. Oil based grid power generation is small and easy to stop with renewable smart grid technology. Natural gas power generation is larger but that will yield to a smart grid as well.
With these methods of reducing oil use by 90%, oil reserves will last for decades, long enough that breakthrough technology like biogas fuel cells and much better battery technology can take over all remaining transportation needs. Hydrohen might even be a viable transport fuel someday with nano tech generation, storage and fuel cell research.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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biodiversivist Posted 3:02 am
03 Mar 2009
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
Gar Lipow Posted 3:12 am
03 Mar 2009
Something has to run large trucks, cranes, and airplanes -- even if its less efficient than batteries.
I dont care if its hydrogen or Algal biodiesel. But it should be more free of carbon, than natural gas.
Actually it has been mentioned, at least in my stuff.
1) Large trucks - replace 85% of heavy truck miles by electric trains. Cut the remaining 15% in half by using more efficient trucks and by reducing packaging, and by making stuff last longer, and by making stuff closer to where it is used. Another words ship mostly by electricity, run trucks more efficiently and ship less.
2)Cranes, Given that mining is electricified there is no reason we cannot electrify other heavy equipment.
3) flying. Regardless of how you fuel planes, water vapor persistance when released in the atmosphere means we will have to fly less. To some extent we can fly lower and more slowly, but there are limits to how much this reduces water vapor emissions. So there is no technical solution currently in queue to running airlines. We will have to substitute high speed rail for some flights, teleconcfrencing for others, and simply do without some of the rest.
With enough efficiency, enough conservation, and enough substitution of renewable electricity for fuel use we can use small amounts of fossil fuel and small amounts of biofuel from waste. In the U.S. we we could reduce combined use of fossil fuels and biofuels to about 8 quads.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:30 am
03 Mar 2009
Smart grid heat/cold storage in buildings and appliances, factory based solar furnace thermal heat storage for cogeneration at night or when the sun doesn't shine, and emergency battery backup in homes and buildings and plugin hybrid vehicle batteries. These are ready now.
A small scale technology (only used in a few utility grids, my regional one here uses it), superconducting electromagnetic storage is ready for HVDC grid backup (expanded to the scale used in modern fusion research), in fact an HVDC super grid even without storage really is a great substitute for most backup fossil fuel generation (not to mention, a great partner for electrified railways).
I also have an idea for compressed air storage that could make it a geothermal power generation method. And without water use or metal sulfide carrying steam escaping into aquifers.
It would use extra wind power, for instance, to pump compressed air into a long drill pipe into a geothermal heat source. When grid power was needed, the compressed air (with the geothermal heat adding 2 or three times the original energy to the air) would be released through a turbine generator on demand. Solar thermal heat could also be used to supplement this sytem.
(Thanks to Pomp's inspiration with his solar furnace/geothermal backup power plant idea, and Sunflower's idea of storing solar concentrator heat in underground wells)
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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tdmeeh Posted 6:45 am
03 Mar 2009
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~ychisti/TLReprint.pdf
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biobrent Posted 1:37 pm
03 Mar 2009
According to EPA figures, US biodiesel reduced carbon emissions by 11.9 billion pounds. What did grist do lately? Bitch and moan from your lounge chair?
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biobrent Posted 1:39 pm
03 Mar 2009
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christophersj Posted 2:07 pm
03 Mar 2009
It seems, for me at least, that those options which we find unsuitable for the cars of the world may find niche markets in heavy machines that move and fly for long distances. This shouldn't be mistaken as a wholesale endorsement of those technologies for cars. I just have doubts about an electric backhoe. And I'd rather CNG be only a transition fuel for them and not a final solution.
I AM going to fly in the future, and Id prefer it be CO2 free (if possible).
By the way, PBS NOVA episode from a few years ago claimed that jet contrails actually dimmed the sun and contributed to a larger dimming phenomenon (along with old-school particulate pollution) that masked some of the effects of warming. Is that idea in conflict with the water vapor idea?
Or could it be that both effects happen, but at different times in the life of the vapor?
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amazingdrx Posted 2:14 pm
03 Mar 2009
Since the amount of the GHG effect from nitrous oxide released by chemical fertilizer is equal to 2/3 of the CO2 uptake of the crop, and lots of other energy inputs go into growing and refining, that would put that biodiesel at around twice the GHG effect of oil?
Or do you want to claim all your biodiesel comes from palm plantations, grown on burned down rain forest? Where destroying the GHG cancelling effect of the natural ecosystem also raises the GHG effect of biodiesel far beyond oil.
And anyway, who is defending oil? We want to replace 90% of oil use with renewable electricity. Get off that bio-oil addiction, it's not helping the GHG balance, it is diverting from the real solution.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 2:32 pm
03 Mar 2009
Construction equipment is hydraulic, an electric motor can run a hydraulic pump. Rail road engines are diesel generator/ electric. The unmatched torque of the electric motor from zero RPM is why it is preffered over a direct diesel motor. No clutch to burn out and waste energy.
A plugin hybrid tractor with a backhoe could have an electric motor with batteries and a solid oxide fuel cell/turbine generator that runs at 70% efficieny that runs on biogas/natural gas.
Aircraft could run on hybrid natural gas/jet fuel fuel cell turbofan engines with 4 times the efficiency of normal turbines.
Besides, what is the amount of oil used in aircraft and construction equipment? 10% of the total? Make these devices 4 times as efficient, as well as eliminating 90% of oil use, and oil will last for decades.
This is not going to be a major problem over a 10 to 20 year transition to renewables.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:33 pm
03 Mar 2009
-David Ahlport
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:34 pm
03 Mar 2009
-David Ahlport
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:40 pm
03 Mar 2009
Yeah, we kinda call bullsh*t on EPA figures.
http://greyfalcon.net/svlglca.png
http://greyfalcon.net/n2o.png
http://greyfalcon.net/n2ostudy.png
-David Ahlport
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:52 pm
03 Mar 2009
Sure. I did not say no flying, I said less. Which means your flights will be more expensive. We may fly little enough that you can drive your planes with biofuel from derived from waste. We do know processes to make jet fuel from just about any oil source, including waste grease and waste cooling oil. But I'm afraid putting natural gas or hydrogen into the jet plane mix is out. Fewer carbon emissions, but more water - and water vapor is twice as big a problem as fuel when vapor is emitted at high altitudes.
>By the way, PBS NOVA episode from a few years ago claimed that jet contrails actually dimmed the sun and contributed to a larger dimming phenomenon (along with old-school particulate pollution) that masked some of the effects of warming. Is that idea in conflict with the water vapor idea?
All I know is IPCC thinks the next effect for water vapor from planes is twice the forcing effect of the fossil fuels they burn. I do know that it turned out that a lot of particulates that were thought to have a net dimming effect actually have a net warming effect. Black carbon (which is one form of particulate from inefficient burning of fossil fuel or biofuel) is a net forcing rather than a net dimming.
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biobrent Posted 2:57 pm
03 Mar 2009
Well, actually its a DOE study that did account for all the fertilizer inputs.
"Since the amount of the GHG effect from nitrous oxide released by chemical fertilizer is equal to 2/3 of the CO2 uptake of the crop, and lots of other energy inputs go into growing and refining, that would put that biodiesel at around twice the GHG effect of oil?"
Show me the study and I'll go dig an oil well with you and your petro loving crowd.
"Or do you want to claim all your biodiesel comes from palm plantations, grown on burned down rain forest? Where destroying the GHG cancelling effect of the natural ecosystem also raises the GHG effect of biodiesel far beyond oil."
Actually the biodiesel produced in the US was from soy, animal fats and used cooking oil. You are fabricating a big evil where none exists. in the meantime your hurting the only real alternative and benefiting big oil.
If we are going to be serious about stopping global warming that means using everything we have at our disposal in tandem. Maybe you haven't heard, but there is no silver bullet. We have to use biodiesel and renewable electric as much as possible.
What you may or may not understand is that people like you are actually hampering the progress to a more sustainable world. Why not quit fighting the on of the solutions and go and fight the real enemies like big oil.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:12 pm
03 Mar 2009
Oh yeah, you want to see the study eyyh? Oh you like to study, do you REALLY like to study? Hehey.
Show me your government study first.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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biobrent Posted 3:13 pm
03 Mar 2009
Your first chart shows someones random guess of indirect land use. There is no science behind it because there is no way to establish a baseline. Also, Indirect land use is not relevant to any of the 3 main biodiesel feedstocks because 1) used cooking oil comes from restaurants 2) Animal renderings come from slaughter houses and the third main feedstock is soy, which is grown for the meal not the oil. (Meal is around 80% of the mass), all the oil does is add some bottom line to the margins of the soy farmer. All the soy grown in the US is grown on existing land and decisions are not made based on oil prices but based on meal prices.
Your third link doesnt even have any of the main feedstocks for biodiesel on it. So quit being a hater....why not go outside and do something positive.
BTW...you didn't answer the question...
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amazingdrx Posted 3:16 pm
03 Mar 2009
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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biobrent Posted 3:25 pm
03 Mar 2009
Billion not million.
And yes fats and oils were a much bigger contributor to the biodiesel feedstock pie last year due to high soy prices at the first half of the year. I know cause im in the industry trying to make a difference in this world, not sitting around complaining like you petro lovers.
As for studies the EPA uses this...
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24089.pdf
but there are also the 12 institutions and governments that have conducted full lifecycle assessments for biodiesel that have concluded that it is at least 41 percent better than petroleum - all of them. The average of the studies suggests biodiesel is a little more than 60 percent better than petroleum. And these sources include the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Academy of Sciences, Argon National Laboratory, the California Air Resources Board,
Natural Resources Canada, the European Commission, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, the United Kingdom Department of Transport, and a research arm of the Australian
Commonwealth.
So what are you reading lately...
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amazingdrx Posted 3:59 pm
03 Mar 2009
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/5/16/124957/304
http://soil.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/71/2/430
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Gar Lipow Posted 1:27 am
04 Mar 2009
Total life cycle emissions of hydrocarbons are 35% higher for B100, compared to petroleum diesel. However, emissions of hydrocarbons at the tailpipe are actually 37% lower.
This is for soybean biodiesel. So soybean biodiesel lowers petroleum usage, (and energy usage) but not emissions. It lowers CO2 and methane but increases other greenhouse emissions.
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Dashka Slater Posted 8:37 am
04 Mar 2009
A second point -- and this comes from people at Boeing, GE Aviation, and several airlines -- is that the additional fuel burn generated when you change altitude to avoid forming contrails might have a greater forcing effect than the contrails themselves. No one in aviation seems to think that changing altitudes is a good solution. They do think that slowing down is.
Dashka Slater, environmental journalist
http://www.dashkaslater.com
Dashka Slater
http://www.dashkaslater.com
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Gar Lipow Posted 8:43 am
04 Mar 2009
Also, I'm pretty sure that lifespan of emissions is already taken into account when calculating effects of water vapor emissions. Also isn't the problem that some of the vapor when released at sufficient heights does remain for months? If it just stayed around for hours, like it does near the ground, it would be a feedback, not a forcing.
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biodiversivist Posted 11:30 am
04 Mar 2009
Biobrent, the one link you provided is over a decade old. Old science is often proved wrong by new science. That's the way it works. That's why we no longer think the Earth is only 6,000 years old. We are quoting peer reviewed research done in the last two years.
Also, your source makes no mention of 11.9 billion tons CO2 saved as you claim.
soy, which is grown for the meal not the oil. (Meal is around 80% of the mass), all the oil does is add some bottom line to the margins of the soy farmer. All the soy grown in the US is grown on existing land and decisions are not made based on oil prices but based on meal prices.
Because soybean oil accounts for 25%-50% of the value of a soy crop--depending on the relative prices of oil and meal at the time of sale--decisions to plant are made on the total value of the crop, not just the meal or oil independently. If biodiesel demand drives up the price of soy oil to the point that a farmer will get say $10 a bushel instead of $8 he may decide to plant more soybeans like the Brazilian farmers are doing, and destoying the Amazon carbon sink as a result. Put food in a gas tank and someone on the planet will plant extra crops to fill the void. To do that they typically convert an existing carbon sink into farmland.
Imagine a soy farmer trying to make a profit without the value of the oil, dumping 25 to 50 percent of the value of his crop down the toilet. Soy oil is a highly valued vegetable oil traded on futures markets.
According to all of the latest peer reviewed science, your promotion and consumption of soy-based biodiesel is exascerbating global warming worse than people who use regular diesel.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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biobrent Posted 3:27 pm
04 Mar 2009
the second featured the following in its conclusion:
"It is possible that more intensely and properly managed high-production agricultural row crop systems could have a greater potential to sequester C at a faster rate than low-management-intensity CRP prairie plantings."
It hardly makes a case that biodiesel is somehow destroying the world and we should stick with petroleum.
To your points:
the US biodiesel industry has grown from production of less than a million gallons in 2000 to about 700 million last year. In that same period the soy bean production in the US has been almost flatline, going from 74 million acres in 2000 to 75 million acres in 2006 and then dropping to 64 million acres in 2007. (link below) In fact is we have grown the same amount of soy beans in the US since the 80s. This clearly illustrates that 700 million gallons of biodiesel in the US has not caused and additional crop acrage or deforestation or indirect land use or aditonal fetilizer.
None whatsoever. What it has caused is a reduction in life cycle CO2 emissions of about 17.3 pounds per gallon as compared to diesel fuel. (links below) Multiply that by the 700 million gallons produced last year and it means that we have reduced co2 in the US by about 12.1 billion pounds.
Which is the equivalent of taking over 1 million cars off the road last year alone. (average car=11,450 lbs of carbon/yr - link below)
So now you guys are gonna do backflips to prove my usda and DOE data is wrong and convince your readers that we should all just sit back and leave those 1 million cars on the road spewing diesel pollution and killing kids because you "heard" that "biofuels are bad".
What you are doing here is the height of irresponsibility, because you haven't even done the basic research but you continue to distort the facts to try to bring down the only viable, low-carbon alternative to diesel fuel in favor of more petroleum while you whine on blogs and dream up electric tractor trailers?
Your biodiesel lies and distortions truly compromise the integrity of your blog, and i stongly urge your readers to beware of the misinformation.
us annual soy data -- http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo ...
diesel co2 emissions (22.2 lbs/gallon) -- http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/420f05001.htm#carbon
Biodiesel co2 emissions (78% reduction = 4.7 lbs/gallon) -- http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24089.pdf
Average annual auto co2 emissions (11,450lbs/year) -http://www.epa.gov/oms/consumer/f00013.htm
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Erik Hoffner Posted 12:08 am
05 Mar 2009
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/1/29/15305/7969
John was largely upset about the idea of it perpetuating CAFO economics, but it's emblematic of the treatment biofuels usually get. Sometimes for fine reasons, sometimes not.
But regarding this:
"Your biodiesel lies and distortions truly compromise the integrity of your blog, and i stongly urge your readers to beware of the misinformation."
Any perceived distortions are not the result of an editorial bent at Grist - most folks who write blog posts here, like myself, are 'guest contributors' and not Grist staff - check the left side bar to see who the staff actually are.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more
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amazingdrx Posted 12:59 am
05 Mar 2009
I'm in favor of biofuel from the waste stream, biogas. I've been supporting it for years, now finally I'm getting some agreement, from Gristmillers and farmers and even government.
I have been allowed to endlessly repeat my arguments that biogas and organic fertilizer eliminate GHG and can provide enough backup for a 100% renewable grid, while saving the farm economy.
I even get to keep on arguing that ocean based algae farming could be a way to reverse GHG climate disaster by adding biomass to waste stream biogas/organic fertilizer production.
Editorial policy here is not the problem with chemical ag based fuel farming. The GHG emissions and ecosystem/soil degradation inherent in the process are the problem.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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biodiversivist Posted 9:36 am
05 Mar 2009
There is a disclaimer at the bottom of the blog:
The comments of Gristmill users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?
Here are some posts on the topic of biofuels by the Grist staff for your perusal:
Tom Philpott
Dave Roberts
the US biodiesel industry has grown from production of less than a million gallons in 2000 to about 700 million last year. In that same period the soy bean production in the US has been almost flatline, ... This clearly illustrates that 700 million gallons of biodiesel in the US has not caused and additional crop acrage or deforestation or indirect land use ...
Not so clear. If we converted 700 times more vegetable oil into car fuel in 2008 than in 2000, but did not produce more soy oil, how do you suppose the global food supply filled that hole in the human food chain? Somebody somewhere grew more vegetable oil crops, canola, palm, soy, corn, whatever. Biodiesel made from food crops cannot be scaled. Soybean biodiesel uses twice as much land as corn ethanol.
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/photo/biofuelgrowth.gif
First, your 78% reduction in CO2 on a life cycle basis for soy based biodiesel comes from that eleven year old study done with the Department of agriculture to promote a use for soy oil. A more recent study explains:
NRELs 1998 analysis of energy inputs to soybean-derived diesel fuel production is sound, but it left out a comprehensive accounting for all the fossil energy costs of agriculture. Those energy costs have now been accounted for by Hill et al. (2006).... Conversion of the world soybean crop to biodiesel in 2005 would satisfy 14% of distillate oil consumption in the US
The above study dropped the 78% to 41%. Also note that unless you can explain how the missing 600 million gallons of vegetable oil that went into our gas tanks got replaced without growing more vegetable oil crops of some kind somewhere, we have to assume it was replaced by growing more vegetable oil crops of some kind somewhere.
What it has caused is a reduction in life cycle CO2 emissions of about 17.3 9.1 pounds per gallon as compared to diesel fuel
But only if you ignore crop displacement effects, including those within our own borders as conservation reserve carbon sinks were put under the plow.
Multiply that by the 700 million gallons produced last year and it means that we have reduced co2 in the US by about 12.1 6.37 billion pounds....Which is the equivalent of taking over 1 million 556 thousand cars off the road last year alone.
But only if you ignore crop displacement effects, including those within our own borders as conservation reserve carbon sinks were put under the plow.
By the end of this year, the Prius fleet will have saved 4.3 billion pounds with pure efficiency gains (375,000 cars off the road)--without using one acre of food oil or usurping a single acre of forest carbon sink or a dollar a gallon from fellow citizen's taxes (assumed 750,000 Priuses getting double the American average of about 24 mpg).
So now you guys are gonna do backflips to prove my usda and DOE data is wrong and convince your readers that we should all just sit back and leave those 1 million cars on the road spewing diesel pollution and killing kids because you "heard" that "biofuels are bad".
Done, done and done.
What you are doing here is the height of irresponsibility, because you haven't even done the basic research but you continue to distort the facts to try to bring down the only viable, low-carbon alternative to diesel fuel in favor of more petroleum while you whine on blogs and dream up electric [hybrid] tractor trailers?
I would suggest the opposite. What you are doing is the height of irresponsibility. You have not done even the basic research. You continue to distort the facts to try to promote what has been found by several new peer reviewed research papers to be a fuel far more destructive than even fossil fuels. Brazil and Indonesia are right behind the US and China in GHG production and it is because of deforestation, grassland and peat bog carbon sink destruction from growing demand for agriculture. The food-based biofuels of today exacerbate the problem. They don't scale.
It seems to me that the tide has turned for most informed environmentalists. Growing biofuels on arable cropland was a big mistake from an environmental perspective. George Monbiot, author of Heat is also a huge critic of today's biofuels. The tide began turning with the publication in peer reviewed science journals of evidence that food based biofuels are worse for global warming than the fuels they replace on a full life cycle basis due to a combination of land displacement effects and higher than realized nitrous oxide release (Science, The Journal of Amospheric Chemistry and Physics, and The Journal of Conservation Biology). These papers in turn kicked off an article in Time Magazine and one in the New York Times that made the public aware of them
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
biodiversivist Posted 9:56 am
05 Mar 2009
There is a disclaimer at the bottom of the blog:
The comments of Gristmill users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?
Here are some posts on the topic of biofuels by the Grist staff for your perusal:
Tom Philpott
Dave Roberts
the US biodiesel industry has grown from production of less than a million gallons in 2000 to about 700 million last year. In that same period the soy bean production in the US has been almost flatline, ... This clearly illustrates that 700 million gallons of biodiesel in the US has not caused and additional crop acrage or deforestation or indirect land use ...
Not so clear. If we converted 700 times more vegetable oil into car fuel in 2008 than in 2000, but did not produce more soy oil, how do you suppose the global food supply filled that hole in the human food chain? Somebody somewhere grew more vegetable oil crops, canola, palm, soy, corn, whatever. Biodiesel made from food crops cannot be scaled. Soybean biodiesel uses twice as much land as corn ethanol.
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/biofuelgrowth.gif
First, your 78% reduction in CO2 on a life cycle basis for soy based biodiesel comes from that eleven year old study done with the Department of agriculture to promote a use for soy oil. A more recent study explains:
NRELs 1998 analysis of energy inputs to soybean-derived diesel fuel production is sound, but it left out a comprehensive accounting for all the fossil energy costs of agriculture. Those energy costs have now been accounted for by Hill et al. (2006).... Conversion of the world soybean crop to biodiesel in 2005 would satisfy 14% of distillate oil consumption in the US
The above study dropped the 78% to 41%. Also note that unless you can explain how the missing 600 million gallons of vegetable oil that went into our gas tanks got replaced without growing more vegetable oil crops of some kind somewhere, we have to assume it was replaced by growing more vegetable oil crops of some kind somewhere.
What it has caused is a reduction in life cycle CO2 emissions of about 17.3 9.1 pounds per gallon as compared to diesel fuel
But only if you ignore crop displacement effects, including those within our own borders as conservation reserve carbon sinks were put under the plow.
Multiply that by the 700 million gallons produced last year and it means that we have reduced co2 in the US by about 12.1 6.37 billion pounds....Which is the equivalent of taking over 1 million 556 thousand cars off the road last year alone.
But only if you ignore crop displacement effects, including those within our own borders as conservation reserve carbon sinks were put under the plow.
By the end of this year, the Prius fleet will have saved 4.3 billion pounds with pure efficiency gains (375,000 cars off the road)--without using one acre of food oil or usurping a single acre of forest carbon sink or a dollar a gallon from fellow citizen's taxes (assumed 750,000 Priuses getting double the American average of about 24 mpg).
So now you guys are gonna do backflips to prove my usda and DOE data is wrong and convince your readers that we should all just sit back and leave those 1 million cars on the road spewing diesel pollution and killing kids because you "heard" that "biofuels are bad".
A biodiesel powered Jetta is a lot dirtier than the gasoline version. If you are really concerned about children's health you would advocate retrofitting modern air pollution devices on school buses which are now feasible thanks to the introduction of ultra low sulfur diesel.
What you are doing here is the height of irresponsibility, because you haven't even done the basic research but you continue to distort the facts to try to bring down the only viable, low-carbon alternative to diesel fuel in favor of more petroleum while you whine on blogs and dream up electric [hybrid] tractor trailers?
I would suggest the opposite. What you are doing is the height of irresponsibility. You have not done even the basic research. It is you who continue to distort the facts to try to promote what has been found by several new peer reviewed research papers to be a fuel far more destructive than even fossil fuels. Brazil and Indonesia are right behind the US and China in GHG production and it is because of deforestation, grassland and peat bog carbon sink destruction from growing demand for agriculture. The food-based biofuels of today exacerbate the problem. They don't scale.
It seems to me that the tide has turned for most informed environmentalists. Growing biofuels on arable cropland was a big mistake from an environmental perspective. George Monbiot, author of Heat is also a huge critic of today's biofuels. The tide began turning with the publication in peer reviewed science journals of evidence that food based biofuels are worse for global warming than the fuels they replace on a full life cycle basis due to a combination of land displacement effects and higher than realized nitrous oxide release (Science, The Journal of Amospheric Chemistry and Physics, and The Journal of Conservation Biology). These papers in turn kicked off an article in Time Magazine and one in the New York Times that made the public aware of them. Where have you been? You're still quoting from an eleven year old USDA/DOE soybean study.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
biodiversivist Posted 9:58 am
05 Mar 2009
There is a disclaimer at the bottom of the blog:
The comments of Gristmill users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?
Here are some posts on the topic of biofuels by the Grist staff for your perusal:
Tom Philpott
Dave Roberts
the US biodiesel industry has grown from production of less than a million gallons in 2000 to about 700 million last year. In that same period the soy bean production in the US has been almost flatline, ... This clearly illustrates that 700 million gallons of biodiesel in the US has not caused and additional crop acrage or deforestation or indirect land use ...
Not so clear. If we converted 700 times more vegetable oil into car fuel in 2008 than in 2000, but did not produce more soy oil, how do you suppose the global food supply filled that hole in the human food chain? Somebody somewhere grew more vegetable oil crops, canola, palm, soy, corn, whatever. Biodiesel made from food crops cannot be scaled. Soybean biodiesel uses twice as much land as corn ethanol.
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/biofuelgrowth.gif
First, your 78% reduction in CO2 on a life cycle basis for soy based biodiesel comes from that eleven year old study done with the Department of agriculture to promote a use for soy oil. A more recent study explains:
NRELs 1998 analysis of energy inputs to soybean-derived diesel fuel production is sound, but it left out a comprehensive accounting for all the fossil energy costs of agriculture. Those energy costs have now been accounted for by Hill et al. (2006).... Conversion of the world soybean crop to biodiesel in 2005 would satisfy 14% of distillate oil consumption in the US
The above study dropped the 78% to 41%. Also note that unless you can explain how the missing 600 million gallons of vegetable oil that went into our gas tanks got replaced without growing more vegetable oil crops of some kind somewhere, we have to assume it was replaced by growing more vegetable oil crops of some kind somewhere.
What it has caused is a reduction in life cycle CO2 emissions of about 17.3 9.1 pounds per gallon as compared to diesel fuel
But only if you ignore crop displacement effects, including those within our own borders as conservation reserve carbon sinks were put under the plow.
Multiply that by the 700 million gallons produced last year and it means that we have reduced co2 in the US by about 12.1 6.37 billion pounds....Which is the equivalent of taking over 1 million 556 thousand cars off the road last year alone.
But only if you ignore crop displacement effects, including those within our own borders as conservation reserve carbon sinks were put under the plow.
By the end of this year, the Prius fleet will have saved 4.3 billion pounds with pure efficiency gains (375,000 cars off the road)--without using one acre of food oil or usurping a single acre of forest carbon sink or a dollar a gallon from fellow citizen's taxes (assumed 750,000 Priuses getting double the American average of about 24 mpg).
So now you guys are gonna do backflips to prove my usda and DOE data is wrong and convince your readers that we should all just sit back and leave those 1 million cars on the road spewing diesel pollution and killing kids because you "heard" that "biofuels are bad".
A biodiesel powered Jetta is a lot dirtier than the gasoline version. If you are really concerned about children's health you would advocate retrofitting modern air pollution devices on school buses which are now feasible thanks to the introduction of ultra low sulfur diesel.
What you are doing here is the height of irresponsibility, because you haven't even done the basic research but you continue to distort the facts to try to bring down the only viable, low-carbon alternative to diesel fuel in favor of more petroleum while you whine on blogs and dream up electric [hybrid] tractor trailers?
I would suggest the opposite. What you are doing is the height of irresponsibility. You have not done even the basic research. It is you who continue to distort the facts to try to promote what has been found by several new peer reviewed research papers to be a fuel far more destructive than even fossil fuels. Brazil and Indonesia are right behind the US and China in GHG production and it is because of deforestation, grassland and peat bog carbon sink destruction from growing demand for agriculture. The food-based biofuels of today exacerbate the problem. They don't scale.
It seems to me that the tide has turned for most informed environmentalists. Growing biofuels on arable cropland was a big mistake from an environmental perspective. George Monbiot, author of Heat is also a huge critic of today's biofuels. The tide began turning with the publication in peer reviewed science journals of evidence that food based biofuels are worse for global warming than the fuels they replace on a full life cycle basis due to a combination of land displacement effects and higher than realized nitrous oxide release (Science, The Journal of Amospheric Chemistry and Physics, and The Journal of Conservation Biology). These papers in turn kicked off an article in Time Magazine and one in the New York Times that made the public aware of them. Where have you been? You're still quoting from an eleven year old USDA/DOE soybean study.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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biodiversivist Posted 9:59 am
05 Mar 2009
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Erik Hoffner Posted 10:28 am
05 Mar 2009
Admit it, biodiversivist, you oppose soy biodiesel b/c its continued growth would constrain world production of tofu.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more
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biodiversivist Posted 12:38 am
06 Mar 2009
http://www.bonappetit.com/images/tips_tools_ingredients/ingredients/ttar_tofu_h.jpg
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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