Clueless in Seattle
Politicians are still pumping biodiesel 40
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Posted 10:37 AM on 10 Oct 2007
by Biodiversivist -
Posted in
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My real name is Russ Finley. I live in Seattle, married with children. Suffice it to say that although I am trained and educated as an engineer, my passion is nature. I very much want my grandchildren to live on a planet where lions, tigers, and bears have not joined the long and growing list of creatures that used to be. In an attempt to minimize the workload on Grist editors responsible for turning my submissions into intelligible articles, I will also be posting on a seperate blog called Biodiversivist, which will contain articles in addition to those submitted to Grist.
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jubatus Posted 3:45 am
10 Oct 2007
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cce Posted 4:03 am
10 Oct 2007
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FT13 Posted 4:08 am
10 Oct 2007
Secondly, I clicked the link to see the "experts" opinion on the "Biodiesel Reality Check". His arguements are actually childish. He states that standing next to a Jetta burning BD smells like burning veggie oil and this means that since you are smelling burned oil it is releasing soot. Have you ever stood next to a Jetta burning diesel? It smells horrible and you can see the black soot!!
Thirdly, this experts argues that we are better off driving petro diesel and eating beef because a vegan using BD uses 48 time more land. His calculations show that cattle use only .24 acres of land per year. He has overlooked the massive amounts of carbon that go into the production of the beef, as well as methane released from the animals. Not to mention a cow living on .24 acres is in a corporate feed lot.
CHECK YOUR REFERENCES!! YOU ARE PUBLISHING A STUDY FUNDED BY EXXON-MOBIL!!!!
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Erik Hoffner Posted 4:34 am
10 Oct 2007
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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Sam Wells Posted 4:39 am
10 Oct 2007
Diesel technology is progressing nicely although maybe 20 years behind light duty gasoline engines (emphasis on light-duty cars and pickups). Electronic controls, new piston designs, and variable valve timing have achieved substantial emission reductions and soon will compete with gasoline vehicles by matching emissions and having greater fuel economy. Emergent technology is already being considered for 2009 models such as with diesel particulate filters (DPF) and selective catalyst reduction (SCR). You can buy these kits today such for off-road equipment (it must be certified by the manufacturer for on-road use to more stringent standards).
But is it any good? My first impression is that it is a "boutique fuel" like diesel emulsion (water in fuel), ethanol diesel (yipes!), California and Texas low emissions diesel, and other formulations of which there are many.
My second thought is that emissions are a function and engine and fuel and they can't be considered independently. That's like asking if gasoline is bad. Of course it is. If you invented gasoline today and went to EPA to get it registered and certified, they would say it was too damn toxic.
/sam
Onward through the fog
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Biodiversivist Posted 8:22 am
10 Oct 2007
Thank you for pointing that out. Could you direct us to a source that would explain that chart in great detail? Thanks in advance.
cce,
A 2006 Jetta burns cleaner than older TDIs thanks to better engineering but they do not have pollution controls per say, like a catalytic converter because the sulfur in the diesel corrodes them. Trapping soot is difficult and so is nuetralizing NOx.
The EPA pollution score for a 2006 Prius is 9.5, for a diesel 2006 Jetta it is a 1 (out of 10), a biodiesel Jetta would fall somewhere in between (higher NOx than diesel, half as much soot as diesel, twice as much soot and four times as much NOx as gas version)
FT13,
I have this recurring problem where commenters put words in my mouth I didn't say and then tear me apart for it. I did not say ALL biofuels anywhere in my post. The chart shows your choice to be a good one.
I authored most of that site and there is nothing childish about it.
"Have you ever stood next to a Jetta burning diesel? It smells horrible and you can see the black soot!!"
Indeed I have. And as we all know, biodiesel produces half as much soot, but what we don't all know is that this is still four times as much as a gasoline Jetta (and over 4 times more NOx). I just came from this PR event and my throat is raw from all of the biodiesel smoke generated by the fleet of Jettas in attendance. The exhaust has such a strong odor because of all of those particulates we were all pulling into our lungs.
"Thirdly, this experts argues that we are better off driving petro diesel and eating beef because a vegan using BD uses 48 time more land. His calculations show that cattle use only .24 acres of land per year."
That is not what the 0.24 stands for. You misinterpreted that number. Those calculations are based on beef raised on cleared rainforest land. It does not account for the tremendous amount of greenhouse gases released to clear that land (the Science article referenced above, however, does). It only calculates acres usurped, not GHG emissions.
Eric,
"Actually, that site is registered and maintained by biodiversivist himself, anonymously. So it's not the greatest reference he could've chosen."
Actually, Eric, the math and sources could have been done by anyone. They speak for themselves. So, it really is not critical who posted the sources and calculations. They pretty much stand on their own; 2 + 2 is always equal to 4 no matter who runs the numbers and the validity of the sources is for the reader to judge.
Knowing that you drive a biodiesel Jetta, I have to take any critique you offer with a big grain of salt. You are both financially and emotionally invested in your choice of car/fuel, which has turned out to be a stinker, literally.
You do remember the email exchange we had not too long ago where I explained what happened when I made the mistake of taking the authorship of that site public once? My family inbox began to fill with hate mail and then I started to get phone calls because people were able to trace me down, address, phone number, and all. I tape recorded one of them and plan to do a post on it someday. I explained to you that the anonymity was to protect my family. I see you have been waiting to out me. I suspected you might. If I get another phone call like that last one, I'll be letting you know about it, publicly, in a post. The topic will be about human nature, status symbols, rationalization, and aggression.
Sam,
They are indeed restless today. You are right of course that for existing diesel vehicles biodiesel reduces emissions over diesel. The problem arises with all of these people buying cars to burn biodiesel in. I personally know five people who have done that so it must be very common. A gasoline Jetta is a much cleaner running machine than a biodiesel Jetta.
You are also right that clean diesel cars are just over the horizon. That is why the EPA has replaced the old diesel fuel with ultra low sulfur diesel. This will allow carmakers to install catalytic converters, soot traps and NOx neutralizers (air pollution controls). Of course at that point, the cleaner aspect of biodiesel becomes moot because it won't be any cleaner.
And you are right again about the complexity of the issue. That is why I made all of my comparisons between 2006 diesel and gasoline Jettas with manual transmissions.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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some jerk Posted 9:26 am
10 Oct 2007
...With the help of a special diesel catalytic converter, which further reduces NOx, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, the Jetta TDI meets the strict clean air standards set by the state of California....
Needless to say, a 2006 Jetta TDI is cleaner yet, and also includes a cat, along with a sophisticated EGR system to control NOx levels, which is about as far as you can go without ultra low sulfur diesel.
Now that USLD is here, with the introduction of particulate traps and SCR as in the Bluetec system, the exhaust coming out of a modern diesel can be cleaner particulate-wise than the air going in, as Mercedes demonstrated with the Bluetec E-Class and a napkin held to the tailpipe.
The cold hard fact is that a diesel will outperform a similar gasoline engine by 20% in a comprable drivecycle measuring CO2 emissions. Higher compression ratio, no throttling losses. It's thermodynamics, people. Get used to diesels. The 2009 Accord with the i-DTEC engine is going to be a big seller.
I'd highly reccommend reading Green Car Congress for a more balanced view of developments in this area.
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some jerk Posted 9:32 am
10 Oct 2007
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Delay And Deny Posted 9:48 am
10 Oct 2007
After 8 blissful years of intelligent leadership, I'm sure the enviros will welcome back lowbrow Clintonism with glee, as every retrograde science project will get funded.
Plug in your iPods.
Polish up the Gore Nobel Prize.
Get on the chartered flight to the brie and fondue brunch in Geneva with the IPCC.
And bath yourself in biodiesel.
The Bush 21st Century Vision of Hydrogen, Fuel Cells, nano-solar and clear air is slipping away....
John Bailo
Sutext:
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Sam Wells Posted 9:53 am
10 Oct 2007
Onward through the fog
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Biodiversivist Posted 10:22 am
10 Oct 2007
some jerk,
You're right.
Modern diesels do have two stage converters as opposed to three stage ones for gasoline cars. I have been going on information that was not accurate. The article I got my info from said that catalytic converters were not possible because the sulfur in diesel poisoned the catalyst. I suspect it was a wikipedia article. The one there now is more accurate, I hope. Turns out that only the third stage type is not feasible for diesels.
I have also read, and hope it is accurate, that historically most pollution reduction for diesels has come by way of better engine design. They simply could not go much further to reduce pollution without getting the sulfur out of the fuel. And, as I always end up saying in the comments, with the advent of low sulfur diesel, cars like the Jetta will soon move from being a 9 on the EPA pollution score to a 1 or 2. Which is all fine with me.
My article is not a diatribe against diesel cars. I like diesel cars. I just want to inform people about the negatives of industrial agridiesel fuel. The fact that it is burned in diesel engines does not make the engines or the cars a bad idea.
I will update the reality check site based on your feedback. Thanks.
As for how far along algae is, take a look at this site: http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2007/05/algal-biodiesel-f ...
It appears to be no closer to reality than carbon sequestration, cellulosic, hydrogen, or fusion power. I surely wish we had something better than what we are using now.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Erik Hoffner Posted 10:23 am
10 Oct 2007
I'm not surprised that you thought I might "out" you, (if that's even possible in this case) because I told you that I would.
I told you I thought the facts on the site were cherry picked and some were just wrong, but that it was immaterial, you should make your arguments at Grist or wherever using just the facts, not a link to an external "expert" site which proved you right. You've done that numerous times here, and it's plain dishonest. Just share the facts, yourself. People will believe it's really you.
Sure, I own a waste-veggie-powered biodiesel Jetta. And you own a petro-powered Prius. So we can agree to be mutually skeptical.
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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some jerk Posted 10:56 am
10 Oct 2007
Such plants already are in the business of growing algae, but obviously the process is not optimized for it at the moment. With peak oil, ideas about what is commerically viable are going to be in flux. I don't advocate massive palm oil plantations necessarily, but any feedstock that is a carbon sink is an improvement over pumping it out of the ground, especially when the resulting product can fuel all stages of production and transportation.
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Sam Wells Posted 11:48 am
10 Oct 2007
Why? Because in a war or emergency the DOD has to be able to mobilize hundreds of thousands of trucks (and buses) as a matter of national security. As a part of that effort, most DOD supply movements turn out to be contracted to on-the-road truckers.
I don't mean to trivialze the huge number of light passenger cars that are congesting our roads, but do your research and history and I think you'll find that as far as Interstate Highways I'm correct. State and local officials are left with the messes near urban cities and have mandates for the mobility impaired, but still no guarantee that you'll ever get to work on time.
It's all about heavy-duty diesels, what can I say?
Onward through the fog
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Ron Steenblik Posted 12:06 pm
10 Oct 2007
Last month, The Oil Drum provided a good review of the EMPA report (in English), which also includes a copy of the chart with the axes labeled.
Dr. Zah is a quiet, studious researcher, with no hidden agenda. He and his team were asked by the Swiss government to evaluate a range of biofuel options, as the country has very little capacity to produce any significant amount of biofuels domestically (see our report on Swiss biofuel policy), and they genuinely wanted to know the answer to the question: OK, if we're going to use this stuff, likely imported, what kinds and from where have the lowest impact? In that regard, they compared not only life-cycle emissions for different biofuels with gasoline, but also other environmental impacts.
Finally, BioD, while I agree with your assessment of the cluelessness of many politicians on the issue of biofuels, please don't go jingoist on us. If we accept the idea that biofuels reduce dependence on Middle East oil (not by much, I would argue), and diversify energy sources (again, not by much), the fact that some of the feedstock might be imported from abroad should not count too much against it, especially if the suppliers are different from those selling us petroleum. I mean, come on, should we get upset if some of the oils might come from Canada?
I'm not trying to refute your basic point, just suggesting that noting that Imperium is currently getting its oil from a foreign country (your emphasis) ... Canada (our partner in NAFTA, for cripes sake!) ... is a rather weak indictment.
Let's stick to the environmental and economic issues of biofuels. There's plenty enough problems in those areas as it is.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:47 pm
10 Oct 2007
I'm not criticizing the fact that it comes from abroad. I am using that fact to criticize the politicians who are using the energy independence argument as an excuse to continue subsidizing it. Also, Canada is our biggest petroleum supplier. They can just as easily end up selling it all to China some day.
You are familiar with the long running dispute we have had on Canadian lumber? The Canadians tolerate us, they don't love us. Similar things are going to happen with biofuels, you can bet on it.
I'm not trying to refute your basic point, just suggesting that noting that Imperium is currently getting its oil from a foreign country (your emphasis) ... Canada (our partner in NAFTA, for cripes sake!) ... is a rather weak indictment.
I think you may have misconstrued my argument, which would be easy to do considering what a crappy post this has turned out to be. I am not using it as an indictment. I am using it to refute the politicians claim that it will bring a meaningful measure of energy independence as an excuse to continue supporting it. It's not from here. It is not under our control. It is foreign oil.
Your report makes it clear where that table came from. I assumed people would go to your report to find out details like that. Hopefully they are doing so because I can only put so much detail into one of these posts before it becomes unreadable or at least more so. I may expect too much from people. I also slapped this post together in about an hour early this morning so it is pretty rough.
You have chastised me before on my foreign oil argument. Biofuels are not going to end warfare and human conflict. Just because Imperium is presently ramping up production with Canadian rapeseed does not mean much. They will eventually be obtaining stock from all parts of the world.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:37 pm
10 Oct 2007
Let's not let this turn into another of those Hybrid/diesel pissing matches. I have repeatedly pointed out that TDIs are great cars. I am criticizing burning industrial agridiesel in them, not the cars. A diesel Jetta burning waste veggie oil is the greenest car on the road even though it has higher tail pipe emissions than a gasoline car because it is recycling a carbon neutral fuel. And when the new models show up with the new pollution controls they will be be even better.
I will have to drop my local air pollution argument when those cars show up and rely solely on other ones. That's OK because proponents also loose a talking point when regular diesel fuel releases no more local pollution than biodiesel. The arguments are changing year to year but they don't seem to be getting better for the agridiesel.
I saved that email exchange. I know exactly what was said and your recollection is way off.
I'm going to say this one more time. The anonymity was for the safety of my family. There is nothing dishonest about it. Your willingness to not respect that is suggestive. How absurd that I would try to bestow legitimacy on that site by not taking credit for it. The site is legitimate because someone who is not invested in biofuels who has followed the biofuel issue daily for two years wrote it. At this point, I probably know more about the issue than anyone on the planet. Admittedly, I haven't had much competition.
The site needs an update. I don't need to concentrate just on soy any longer. The arguments supporting this fuel are unraveling faster than I can keep up with them. The biofuel enthusiasts also have a lot more targets than just me and Monbiot nowadays. And if I choose to leave it anonymous that will be my business, not yours, sir.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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JMG Posted 3:46 pm
10 Oct 2007
"When you're getting lots of flak, it means you're over the target."
Why do otherwise sensible people not get that acting like Amway salesmen (shouting down skeptics and questioning their motives, family heritage, patriotism, etc.) does not help make their particular scam (biofuels) any more respectable?
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Pangolin Posted 6:59 pm
10 Oct 2007
Most vehicles, even most heavy duty engines, run on start/stop cycles due to traffic, intermittant loads, maneuvering or other work cycles. Sit and watch earthmoving equipment and you will see that what they do mostly is idle. An idled engine wastes fuel and pollutes for no reason.
Plug-in hybrid engines are superior for intermittant load scenarios. The energy recovery capability of an electric drive system trumps fuel type. Coupled with wind power on a massively distributed network and you have a system capable of absorbing intermittant/cheap power supplies when power is available and returning that power as grid power, motive power, or emergency power in case of disruptions.
Buy an off-the-shelf Prius and you have the possibility of doubling your mileage with an add on plug-in kit. You just can't do this with a diesel Jetta. Whatever mileage you get driving off the dealers lot it's just going to get worse.
A post 2004 Prius can now take advantage of off-the-shelf plug-in kits that allow them fuel economies of 100 mpg or greater depending upon usage patterns. Sometime soon somebody will figure out how to simply replace the gasoline motor in the Prius with another electric motor and battery pack.
This is where the Prius shines. Due to the massive numbers built and proven reliability it provides a distributed test-bed for incremental improvements on fuel/electric drive systems. If you want to test the mileage of a smaller diesel engine in a Prius you can. Just yank the ICE out of your Prius, store it in the back of your garage and prove your toy works better. Likewise you can test Stirling generators, rankine steam engines, ultra-caps, nth-generation batteries or any other component. You will be testing against a known quantity.
Ultimately the factor of energy density allows a PHEV to trump a biodiesel vehicle. A PHEV can get 80% of it's power from a solar array measureing 4 meters per side or a modestly sized wind turbine. The same power output in biodiesel would require several acres of productive farmland shifted from food production or environmental reserve to vehicle fuel production. It's not a sustainable equation.
Even the military understands this and is investigating hybrid engines and solar panels for next generation Humvees. Fuel reduction and the ability to self-produce fuel will always trump fuel type when logistics are tight. With climate change logistics just might get very, very tight for all of us.
Put the Carbon Back
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Ron Steenblik Posted 7:54 pm
10 Oct 2007
Regarding your energy-security argument, however, I still maintain that it is beside the point. You say:
I am using it [the fact that a biodiesel producer is procurring its feedstock from outside the USA] to refute the politicians' claims that it will bring a meaningful measure of energy independence as an excuse to continue supporting it. It's not from here. It is not under our control. It is foreign oil.
Even the disposition of the USA's own petroleum (and vegetable oils) are not under the government's control, at least after they have been extracted by private oil companies. A considerable amount of Alaskan oil is exported to Japan, for example. Indeed, the USA, as a member of the International Energy Agency and signatory to its many agreements, has promised not to interfere with exports of energy. So, in the event of another oil embargo, for example, it would be obliged to share the pain, as would other members of the IEA. Banning exports, for example, would just not be on.
Meanwhile, the USA continues to export corn and soybeans to other countries. Globalization is here. I think on this we agree: whether a biodiesel manufacturer obtains its oils from the State of Washington, Canada or Brazil, it is still contributing to the global increase in the demand for vegetable oils. And that means that, somewhere, somebody is going to have to increase production -- either through increasing yields (the intensive margin) or putting new land under the plow (the extensive margin). And, increasingly, that new production is coming from former orested land in places like Latin America and south-east Asia.
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John former Marine Posted 12:18 am
11 Oct 2007
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John former Marine Posted 12:22 am
11 Oct 2007
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John former Marine Posted 12:25 am
11 Oct 2007
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gmunger Posted 2:06 am
11 Oct 2007
As an alumnus of hybrid v diesel pissing matches with BioD, I have since realized that, once again, we are wasting our time fighting amongst each other over who is greenest. Meanwhile, the corporate parent of our beloved Prius is fighting changes in CAFE standards (I know, arguably irrelevant, but I'm just sayin'), and most of the American sheeple are still clueless.
That said, and as someone who bought a tdi (at least in part) because I thought burning commercial biodiesel was part of the solution, I have to say the arguments I have seen on this site against large-scale biodiesel development are very compelling. If we can just stick to the facts, and what is in context, and what is most important, I think we'll continue to move forward.
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Sam Wells Posted 2:32 am
11 Oct 2007
Onward through the fog
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:47 am
11 Oct 2007
Well, maybe not on the highway.
But certainly virtually all freight on the railway is already diesel electric hybrids.
Just can't move a heavy train smoothly/efficiently unless you have that gignourmous torque afforded by electric engines.
http://greyfalcon.net/torque.png
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trock Posted 4:58 am
11 Oct 2007
Ted Kennedy did something like that only to delay and try to stop putting in large Wind Turbines because of claims the Wind Turbines cause interference with National Defense radar. Kennedy just wanted to stop wind turbines off of Martha's vineyard or something.
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Matt G Posted 5:59 am
11 Oct 2007
Many of Seattle's busses that use the bus tunnel use hybrid diesel engines. Busses weigh around 44,000 pounds empty, then add another good 15,000 pounds for people. The step to other heavy trucks isn't a huge one - the limiting factor is money (hybrid busses are costing around 20% more than standard busses). Seattle is finding large maintenance savings, but not high fuel savings (attributed to the type of service and cleaner but less efficient engines). If we would only charge for pollution these things would be everywhere.
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Matt G Posted 6:10 am
11 Oct 2007
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Pangolin Posted 6:28 am
11 Oct 2007
An off the lot Prius can be quickly modified with off-the-shelf components that effectively double its mileage. This just isn't possible with a TDI equipped vehicle. Hybrids are superior to diesels precisly because of this ability to be upgraded on existing vehicles.
The large number of Prius in existence make them an ideal test platform for other advanced drive components. That means that you could put a tiny diesel in a Prius replacing the Atkinson cycle engine. Or you could install a steam engine such as the Cyclone and test that out. Or you could use a sterling generator to replace the ICE.
Having a uniform testbed with high performance characteristics gives other developers of engines, batteries, ultracaps or perpetual motion gadgets a platform to prove that they can beat the best available standard.
As for moving freight over highway miles; hybrid vehicles would be much more efficient for this as road electrification of major freeways would be a sensible place to start. Simple pantograph and trolly systems could easily handle the power loads of road frieght. In urban stop and go electric systems would be far superior to a large diesel that requires 12 forward speeds to accelerate. This is why very large mine vehicles are always diesel-electric hybrids. They save fuel, reduce complexity and improve performance.
Put the Carbon Back
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gmunger Posted 6:55 am
11 Oct 2007
Your first 5 (of 8) paragraphs are devoted to cheerleading for the Prius and running down the tdi. Characterize my writing as a rant if you want, but it wasn't defensive. YOUR latest post certainly was.
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Patrick Mazza Posted 8:30 am
11 Oct 2007
The fuel from this specific pump is Canadian canola from long established cropland on the priaries that would never have been a forest and would be an unlikely site for a forest in any event. The reference here seems to be to biodiesel from tropical forest that is cleared. So granting the point about the rainforest biodiesel, it does not seem correct to apply this to canola biodiesel. Or do you have another read on the data that backs your statement?
"The journal study (by a multinational team of researchers including a Nobel Prize winner) says it releases 70% more greenhouse gases (in the form of NO2) than diesel."
Another study that also looks at nitrous oxide and other agricultural emissions from Adler, Del Grosso and Parton, "Lifecycle Assessment of Net Greenhouse Gas Flux for Bioenergy Cropping Systems," (Ecological Applications 17(3), 2007, pp 675-91) find significant greenhouse gas reductions still, on the order of 40% for biodiesel. Can you contrast the two studies for me and explain why they are coming up with such sharply different results?
Patrick Mazza
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Ron Steenblik Posted 9:23 am
11 Oct 2007
All of these kinds of analyses depend critically on assumptions about fertilizer rates, losses through N2O, and credits for co-products. Some Canadian researchers claim that N2O emissions associated with canola production in their country are significantly less than for canola grown in some other countries. If anybody can point me to an authoritative study backing up that claim, I'd be interested.
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bookerly Posted 10:59 am
11 Oct 2007
The world will be adding around 2 billion more people in the next fifty years or so. American Sponsored Global Warming will cause major disruptions to current croplands worldwide.
Wasting land to grow any form of biodiesel will make it harder to feed the world population.
Biodiesel will raise the price of basic crops, which will increase hunger (corn prices are already up).
It may be a suitable toy for rich guys to play with, but for the poor of this world, it is an unmitigated disaster. Charts or no charts.
patrick in Beijing
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:48 pm
11 Oct 2007
The chart in that study shows that rapeseed diesel would produce twice as much GHG as leaving temperate grasslands alone. But that is nothing. The real damage is being done by leakage into places like Brazil where they slash and burn rainforest carbon sinks to increase soy production. When you divert highly valued food oil from the human food chain to 20% efficient internal combustion engines, somebody will grow more somewhere else to profit from the shortfall. Brazil is about to overtake the United States in soy production. It isn't all for biodiesel but biodiesel certainly is exacerbating it and the problem grows with every extra gallon of demand. Leakage is the fatal flaw in the use of industrial food crops to make agridiesel.
Another study that also looks at nitrous oxide and other agricultural emissions from Adler, Del Grosso and Parton, "Lifecycle Assessment of Net Greenhouse Gas Flux for Bioenergy Cropping Systems," (Ecological Applications 17(3), 2007, pp 675-91) find significant greenhouse gas reductions still, on the order of 40% for biodiesel. Can you contrast the two studies for me and explain why they are coming up with such sharply different results?
I'm sure I could but I'm a little tired of interpreting studies for other people. Why don't you do it? Let us know what you find out. Just from reading the intro it looks like it studies a corn soybean rotation cycle which would cover two years and produces an average GHG measure of the two crops. Maybe by avoiding nitrogen fertilizers they could keep the amount of NO2 low. Of course, such a cycle cuts biodiesel production per unit time in half, and since wealth is a rate problem, the amount of profit you could capture from it would be halved as well. To make up for that lost profit you could double the amount of land under rotation and continue via leakage to mow down the last carbon sinks. Just postulating here. And after you figure that out, I want to know why the study that found soybeans to be 78% carbon neutral (the golden standard for the last two years) is so far off from the study you reference as well.
The environmental destructiveness of feeding industrial agridiesel monocrops to our cars is guaranteed by leakage. The GHG uncertainties arising from all of these studies are just more nails.
Of course all of this can be dismissed by invoking the "bridge to better things" argument or the "war for oil" argument, or any number of other arguments because you can only lead a horse to water.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:00 am
12 Oct 2007
John former Marine,
Peace?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:08 am
13 Oct 2007
About that study.
To start off with, it was published by employee's of the USDA.
The USDA has a habit of heavily discounting the emissions/inputs of biofuels.
The key part of that study they mention is, "Displaced fossil fuel was the largest GHG sink" This should send up amazing red flags about potential biasing. Considering their previous record using "fossil fuel" metrics to put together an entirely misleading representation of the facts.
_
Furthermore, the Crutzen study mentioned that the N2O decomposition rate was double what was the previously accepted value. Considering N2O is nearly 300x more potent than CO2, thats a pretty huge difference.
Can you contrast the two studies for me and explain why they are coming up with such sharply different results?
Because the USDA has a track record of being less than honest about their biofuels studies.
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:08 am
15 Oct 2007
Patrick,
Some more thoughts. Rapeseed requires lots of nitrogen fertilizer whereas soy actually fixes nitrogen in soil. However, soy requires about three times more land for the same output. It gets complicated fast. You have to consider the stock used for a given biofuel. For example, you can't just say that biodiesel is 78% carbon neutral. That study was for soybeans. Palm, cane, rapeseed, all have way different outputs per acre. Palm and cane are amazingly carbon neutral when compared to soybeans if all you measure is fossil fuel used to grow, process and transport it. When you begin measuring things like nitrous oxide and conversion of carbon sinks into cropland things get less rosy.
I also realized that some people may not know what leakage is. An example would be when a farmer takes over cow pasture to grow soybeans because America is now growing corn instead. His cows "leak" into the surrounding forest. He is forced to cut down the forest around the soy farm to pasture his cows, which also eventually ends up as a soy field to meet biodiesel demand, repeat until last carbon sink is in atmosphere.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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chemrat Posted 4:25 pm
21 Oct 2007
To me, this has to do with (a) economics, power and truth (b) the lack on any credible energy conservation plan in the US (c) the joy that lobbyists, farmers big and small and politicians must have felt when they figured out how to funnel tax breaks to ag business in the guise of helping the environment (d) this strange but persistent belief, held all over the world, that something "natural" or organic is automatically better than something man-made (as is petrochemicals don't come from organic and natural sources) (e) the willingness of developing nations to exploit themselves and their own environment as badly as industrialized nations did and do, and the the rest of the alphabet.
I think it is very important, however, that we disagree in forums such as this and educate each other in the process. I'm still learning about the bioenergy world (daily) and post related articles, original writing and news stories on my blog "Chemistry for a sustainable world" at wordpress. Jim the chemrat
Jim Bashkin aka chemrat aka nearlynothingbutnovels
http://greenchemistry.wordpress.com
http://nearlynothingbutnovels.blogspot.com/
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amazingdrx Posted 12:48 am
22 Oct 2007
The simple mechanistic view of life is giving way to the organic. The bottom line POV says 20 store bought tomatoes are better than one home grown tomato.
We all know the store tomatos are nearly inedible.
The simple mechanistic approach throws anti-biotics around into the food stream and that has caused good old organic evolution to produce anti-biotic resistant bacteria. You can't beat the nuance and complexity of real reality with mechanistic corporatism.
You can wreck the human friendliness of the climate and the ecosystyem..from microbial to glacial... with corpora-think. You can destroy the quality of life. But you can't control the natural world with it. Mother nature still holds sway.
What you can do with simple minded technology is mass produce wind machines, solar panels, geo heat exchange heated and cooled buildings, electric mass transit, and plugin hybrid vehicles.
Working with nature. Instead of genetically modifying soy beans to resist herbicides to fill up millions of square miles of the earth's surface to produce fuel for 14% efficient infernal combustion gas guzzling.
A solar panel over the garage and parking area charging up a plugin hybrid. That's the simple minded nature friendly/human friendly approach.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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