America devours oil like no other country in the world. Representing 5 percent of the global population, the country consumes fully a quarter of the world's oil. Every year, to move ourselves and our goods around, we burn 140 billion gallons of gasoline and 40 billion gallons of diesel -- enough to propel the average U.S. car around the world 1.6 billion times. But rising prices, climate change, and seemingly endless crises in the Middle East have sparked a reckoning.
We love to pump, and it shows.
Photo: hawaii.gov
While there is plenty of disagreement about how best to end what President Bush has called our "addiction to oil," a rough consensus has formed in support of biofuel as an alternative to crude oil. But biofuel -- energy gained from plant or animal matter -- is a broad category. The term lumps together a number of energy sources that are, in fact, quite different, from turkey innards to corn stalks. (Mmm, sounds like Thanksgiving dinner.)
So far, three fuels have emerged to lead the U.S. biofuels pack, whether in practice or in our collective imagination: corn ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, and biodiesel.
They are hailed as carbon-neutral solutions for an emissions-happy era. And in one sense, all biofuels can indeed be thought of as CO2 neutral, since any carbon released at the tailpipe was recently captured by the plants for photosynthesis. But plant-derived fuel doesn't emerge from a vacuum. Crops must be cultivated, harvested, moved, and transformed -- processes that are hardly carbon neutral. And here is where the vast discrepancies cloaked by the term "biofuels" emerge.
Conventional Ethanol
People have been making conventional ethanol for about as long as they've been getting drunk. Creating it involves leaching simple sugars from plant matter and fermenting them into alcohol, just like the process for making "corn liquor," or moonshine. It's affordable and effective -- Henry Ford even reckoned that ethanol would power his Model T cars. (Presumably he was sober at the time.)
What about cob?
Photo: eere.energy.gov
Since conventional ethanol relies on simple sugars, it works best when derived from crops that concentrate starches in their seeds. That's why corn makes a better feedstock than wheat, and sugarcane makes a better feedstock than corn. But the same quality also limits conventional ethanol's efficiency when it comes to mass production: since it can use only a relatively small portion of each plant, a lot of biomass goes unused in the process.
In the United States, corn, the nation's most prolific crop, is by far its dominant ethanol feedstock: some 95 percent of all ethanol produced in the U.S. comes from the starchy yellow kernels. Corn-based ethanol remains the only biofuel produced in serious quantity in the U.S., though biodiesel is making a push (see below). Yet even after brisk recent growth, ethanol producers will churn out the equivalent of just 3 percent of U.S. gasoline consumption in 2006.
Still, production trends point steeply upward. Output was 3.9 billion gallons in 2005, and increased to a projected 4.8 billion gallons for 2006 -- the largest jump in production since 1980, the year industry began tracking such data. Production is expected to swell to 7.5 billion gallons in the next few years, and the number of ethanol plants under construction in the U.S. has gone from 16 in 2005 to 33 today.
Rising oil and gasoline prices have clearly spiked recent interest in ethanol, but its boom in popularity has other sources too. The Energy Policy Act passed by Congress in 2005 includes a Renewable Fuel Standard stipulating that gasoline sold in the U.S. must include a certain amount of renewable fuel. This year, 4 billion gallons of renewable fuels must be used in gasoline, rising to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. Gasoline refiners have also begun turning en masse to ethanol as an alternative to the octane booster MTBE, which many states have recently banned.
Among environmentalists, however, the growing consensus is that corn-based ethanol is more fool's gold than eco-treasure.
Conventional agriculture relies on fertilizer and pesticides derived from fossil fuels. Diesel powers the tractors and other machinery that plow, plant, and spray crops, as well as the vehicles that haul away the final product (due to ethanol's tendency to absorb water, it must be transported in special containers on trucks or trains instead of in the cheaper pipeline system used for oil and gasoline). Figure in the fuel -- mainly coal and natural gas -- burned in the distillation process, and experts reckon each gallon of ethanol takes the energetic equivalent of roughly three-quarters of a gallon of ethanol to produce.
Then there are greenhouse-gas emissions. After accounting for the coal and natural gas burned to process it, the nitrous oxide -- a greenhouse gas hundreds of times more potent than CO2 -- generated from fertilizer production, and other factors, a recent study in Science found that ethanol use reduces greenhouse-gas emissions by just 13 percent compared to gasoline use.
Despite its clearly limited environmental benefits, domestic ethanol draws plenty of help from Washington. Since 1978, the fuel has qualified its producers for a federal tax credit, which now stands at 51 cents to the gallon. Ethanol producers also benefit from a 54 cent-per-gallon tariff on sugarcane ethanol imported from Brazil -- a country where production is not only cheaper but more efficient, given sugarcane's superiority as a feedstock.
And now U.S. automakers, also with a boost from Washington, are jumping on the ethanol bandwagon. Advertising campaigns like GM's "Live Green, Go Yellow" are plugging flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on gasoline or a mixture of gasoline and ethanol. E85 -- a mix of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline -- can now be pumped at some 650 service stations nationwide, a threefold increase since 2004. And at the same time, the federal government's "dual-fuel loophole" provides automakers a 1.5 mile-per-gallon credit toward meeting fuel-economy standards -- without requiring that flex-fuel vehicles actually run on alternative fuel.
The government estimates that flex-fuel vehicles run on ethanol blends less than 1 percent of the time, hardly surprising since the E85 infrastructure has a long way to go before it catches up to gasoline. As a result, even while 2005 saw more flex-fuel vehicles on the roads than ever before, Americans consumed 80,000 more barrels of oil than in the previous year. Meanwhile, legislative plans are on tap to either increase the credit for selling flex-fuel vehicles or extend it beyond 2014, effectively removing any incentive for carmakers to move toward lighter, more efficient vehicles.
Ethanol's proponents argue that a homegrown fuel could be good for the American farmer. Alas, these tax credits and import tariffs accrue not in the bib pockets of corn farmers, but in the well-lined coffers of companies that blend ethanol with gasoline. Archer Daniels Midland, the largest of the processing firms, controls an estimated 40 percent of the ethanol market, while the top 10 producers together control an estimated 70 percent. To date, farmers own less than half of all ethanol plants on line, according to statistics compiled by the Renewable Fuels Association. So this homegrown dream may be something of an industrial nightmare.
Cellulosic Ethanol
If criticism of corn ethanol grows even as production booms, the opposite problem haunts cellulosic ethanol. Nearly everyone loves the idea of it, yet no one's making it on a commercial scale.
Switchgrass may be our salvation.
Photo: usda.gov
Cellulosic ethanol, a fuel chemically identical to the conventional kind but instead derived from "biomass," a term encompassing everything from waste materials like corn stover and paper pulp to fast-growing plants like switchgrass, willow, and poplar. Roughly two-thirds of this cellulosic matter is complex carbohydrate, which can be broken down into fermentable sugars, and from there, into ethanol. Lignin makes up the remaining dry weight and carries an energy content similar to that of coal. Most models of cellulosic ethanol production, in fact, use lignin combustion to power the process, thereby closing the energy loop.
As end products, cellulosic and conventional ethanol are indistinguishable; gallon-for-gallon, both yield roughly two-thirds the energy of gasoline. But take into account the resources it takes to churn out a gallon of corn ethanol versus a gallon of ethanol from cellulose, and their energy profiles could hardly be more different.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, corn-based ethanol provides 26 percent more energy than is required for its production, while cellulosic provides 80 percent more energy. And while conventional ethanol reduces greenhouse-gas emissions 10 to 20 percent below gasoline levels, the reductions with cellulosic range from 80 percent below gasoline to completely CO2 neutral.
Switchgrass -- a word first heard by many in the notorious "addiction to oil" speech -- holds the key to large-scale and ecologically sound ethanol production, many think. A perennial prairie grass native to North America, switchgrass requires little water or fertilizer to grow and thrives in places unsuitable for most crops, ranging from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Some five to nine feet tall, this gangly weed also yields twice as much ethanol per acre as does corn.
But do we have enough land to support a cellulosic-ethanol industry without also competing with food or destroying the environment? The answer is ... maybe. According to a recent study from the University of Tennessee, as many as 100 million acres of cropland and pasture will need to be devoted to switchgrass to produce enough ethanol to offset 25 percent of petroleum use. Currently, U.S. farmers have about 80 million acres in corn, 15-20 percent of which goes into ethanol production.
Since land scarcity will clearly be an issue, some analysts argue that any biofuel strategy will need to be accompanied by a strong dose of conservation. According to "Growing Energy," a 2004 Natural Resources Defense Council report on biofuels, the U.S. is on track to consume 290 billion gallons of gasoline for transportation in 2050. By boosting fuel efficiencies and reigning in urban sprawl, the report says, we could feasibly cut this figure down to 108 billion gallons.
So here's where the mathematics of biomass come in. NRDC has forecasted that the number of gallons of ethanol produced per ton of dry switchgrass could jump from 50 gallons to 117 gallons by 2050. Crop experts say that current averages of five dry tons of grass per acre could easily double under a standard breeding program. These combined boosts in efficiency mean that enough switchgrass could be grown on a reasonable chunk of land to produce 165 billion gallons of ethanol by 2050. And because one gallon of ethanol contains 66 percent of the energy content of gasoline, 165 billion gallons of ethanol equates to -- you guessed it -- 108 billion gallons of gasoline.
It's an optimistic scenario, to be sure. On the efficiency side, it demands radical cuts in fuel usage. On the ethanol side, it requires an infrastructure of pipelines and pumps specially designed to transport the hygroscopic fluid. (Railcars and barges currently do the job, but this adds to both CO2 emissions and expense.) More tricky is the problem of the ethanol production itself. Cellulosic biomass is bulky and materially complex, unfit for the same methods of ethanol extraction used with corn. In order to even get the stuff into manageable form, processors must soak it in a pre-treatment bath, followed by an acidic or enzymatic digestion that splits it into simple sugars.
Researchers are now trying to engineer a bacterium that can chomp through all of these sugars at once, but for now the multistep digestion procedure is a requirement. The future of ethanol production will rely not only on streamlining that digestion, but on combining all processes -- from pre-treatment through fermentation -- in a single genetically engineered microorganism.
In short, the shining promise of cellulosic is still just that. "The prospects for ethanol from cellulose may be more promising than is the case for corn, but the benefits, assuming they exist, surely lie a decade or more in the future," wrote Harvard environmental studies professor Michael McElroy in a recent article in Harvard Magazine. "The best, immediate option would be to conserve: to use less gasoline."
Biodiesel
Imperatives to use less gas, unfortunately, are not something most Americans swallow easily. Images of drive-in movies, drive-thru restaurants, and the wide open road, after all, speckle our formative history. But some very American icons, ranging from Willie Nelson and Neil Young to Julia Roberts and Morgan Freeman, are hoping to lessen the impacts of our four-wheel love affair by championing biodiesel -- a fuel usually derived from soybean, palm, or oil-seed plants like canola and mustard, but also acquirable from waste animal and vegetable fats, and even, surprisingly, algae.
Biodiesel: not just for hippies anymore.
Photo: fueleconomy.gov
Begun as a grassroots network of brewers that -- without subsidies or government regulations -- maintained a countercultural, anti-establishment aura, the biodiesel industry is rapidly turning mainstream. According to a recent article in the New York Times, about 76 commercial biodiesel plants are in production today, up from 22 in 2004. Even these can barely keep pace. Nationwide consumption of biodiesel tripled from 25 million gallons in 2004 to 75 million in 2005, and was expected to quadruple from that in 2006, reaching 300 million gallons. Accordingly, 50 new larger-scale plants are under construction.
These numbers still pale in comparison to Europe, where compression-ignition (diesel) vehicles are far more common than in the U.S., and where nearly 90 percent of all global biodiesel is produced and consumed. As demand rises, however, many E.U. countries will be hoping to fulfill their Kyoto Protocol requirements with fuel imported from Southeast Asia and Brazil. Japan, too, has expressed interest in obtaining biodiesel, as have India and China.
None of which is surprising, since as a substitute for regular diesel, biodiesel holds great appeal. Over its lifetime, pure biodiesel emits about 78 percent less CO2 than conventional diesel, according to a 1998 Department of Energy study [PDF]. Burning biodiesel also reduces emissions of smog-forming hydrocarbons and particulate matter by about 50 percent, and emissions of sulfur oxides and sulfates by 100 percent.
On the downside, all diesel engines -- whether fueled by conventional diesel or biodiesel -- still spew more toxic soot and smog-forming pollutants than gasoline engines, and this will likely remain true until cleaner "Tier 2" diesel emission standards go into full effect in 2009. So making the switch to biodiesel makes great environmental sense for the current fleet of diesel cars, buses, trucks, and heavy-duty equipment. But for individuals deciding on their next car purchase, a gasoline-powered hybrid (one that will soon be able to utilize cellulosic ethanol) remains the better choice.
That said, researchers at the University of Minnesota and St. Olaf College recently found that biodiesel production is highly efficient, generating 93 percent more energy than is required to make it. They also found that biodiesel reduces greenhouse-gas emissions by 41 percent compared with fossil fuels -- strikingly less than the 1998 DOE study's 78 percent, but still significant. When Tier 2 emissions standards bring biodiesel up to par with gasoline and ethanol for air pollutants, biodiesel seems like it should be a no-brainer for green energy.
And the Winner Is ...
With the Middle East embroiled in conflict and evidence of climate change mounting, finding a viable source of renewable energy has never been so critical ... or so in vogue. It is tempting, almost instinctive, to jump toward the most visible and abundant source for that energy -- in this case, corn. Some say that corn ethanol could be a "stepping stone" to cleaner fuels like cellulosic ethanol. Perhaps. The danger is that the stepping stone becomes the destination -- a substitute for meaningful change, squandering precious time and public faith when it doesn't pan out.
When it comes to biodiesel, limitations on the scale of production may be the greatest weakness. According to the Minnesota research teams, if the entire American corn and soybean crop were diverted to biodiesel, that fuel would still satisfy only about 6 percent of diesel demand. To put that into perspective, in even the most optimistic 2006 production estimates, biodiesel will replace less than half of one percent of all diesel consumed. Ramping up worldwide cultivation of biodiesel crops is a possibility, but that will mean deforestation and the concomitant loss of biodiversity. If Brazil razes more of its jungle and Malaysia and Thailand theirs, little will be left of rainforests anywhere in the world.
Experts say that cellulosic ethanol stands a real chance to displace significant amounts of oil. But they also say this won't happen without great financial support from both the public and private sectors. It won't happen unless our political leadership implements greater efficiency standards and other incentives for companies to "go green." It won't happen unless we as individuals are willing to cut back on how much energy we consume, bottom line. And most important, it won't happen unless we call for a change. Which, of course, is why it's so important to understand why some changes are better than others.
Climate Citizen: Michael Pollan on agriculture and health care
Tweet for the bees
Soda lobby gets its game on
Comments
View as Flat
Orfintain Posted 7:52 am
04 Dec 2006
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5702888891289509...
(Long video I don't remember where)
Thinks it is a much better option than Switchgrass I think
Just wanted to mention Miscanthus
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JerryPBO Posted 12:21 am
05 Dec 2006
If you use switchgrass, or anthing else growing to create fuel, especially if you use the residual lignin for combustion, you are depleting the soil at an incredible rate. Yields will shortly fall dramatically unless tremendous energy inputs are used to maintain soil fertility.....so you're back to square 1 or zero.
Second, when she talks of 93% more energy out than in, thats and energy return of less than 2:1. Petroleum yields 20:1, even now on the cusp of peak oil. If we restructured society to use perhaps 5% of the fuel we do now for vehicles, and none for heating or industrial processes, biofuel sources might make sense.
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cjporter Posted 12:56 am
05 Dec 2006
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yeaperson Posted 1:14 am
05 Dec 2006
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Delay And Deny Posted 1:36 am
05 Dec 2006
Yet, no one seems to get the point. It's not about trying to keep a constant source of oil. It's about making sure that the physicist driving his car to the anti-matter reactor at CERN, has enough gas to get to a meeting, so he can have an insight in 2035 about a whole new generation of energy.
If that doesn't happen, then we may have 1000 years left, or 100, but we won't have 100,000 and beyond.
You Read It Here First
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jimbeyer Posted 1:53 am
05 Dec 2006
That said, you didn't even mention the most efficiently produced biofuel: renewable methane. With a given amount of biomass, one can produce about twice the fuel (from the standpoint of energy content) in the form of methane than one can in producing ethanol. And the leftover byproduct is valuable fertilizer, as much of the nitrogen is retained in it. This is compared with ethanol, every drop of which much be essentially boiled from water to purify it adequately for use.
PHEVs (pluggable hybrid electric vehicles) are needed to fill in the large the gap for our country to become independent of oil. PHEVs make efficient use of electric energy to much of our transportation energy needs. PHEVs, plus some biofuel, plus some synthesized fuel (solar/wind electric to hydrogen to methane) can take us to the 100% replacement that is desired and will eventually be required.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:33 am
05 Dec 2006
Making biodiesel from algae is analogous to making ethanol from cellulose. Both technologies hold great promise but neither has been proven economically feasible.
The following two sentences sound contradictory:
Over its lifetime, pure biodiesel emits about 78 percent less CO2 than conventional diesel ... They also found that biodiesel reduces greenhouse-gas emissions by 41 percent compared with fossil fuels.
Also note that this is for soy biodiesel. Palm oil biodiesel is far more CO2 neutral but about 100% more destructive of biodiversity, which makes it worse from a global warming perspective because further production of palm oil will require destroying remaining carbon sinks (the destruction of which presently accounts for about 20% of all global warming).
When Tier 2 emissions standards bring biodiesel up to par with gasoline and ethanol for air pollutants, biodiesel seems like it should be a no-brainer for green energy.
Note also that these standards will bring cars that burn regular diesel up to par with gasoline cars. In other words, one of the biggest reasons to use biodiesel (less pollution) will be mooted. That will leave energy independence and reduced CO2 as the remaining arguments. But, since we can only replace half of a percent of our diesel (as you point out) the energy independence argument is a farce and should be tossed. That leaves one argument for its use. It produces less CO2. But, is that 78% less or 41%? But again, because we can replace less than half of a percent of our diesel use, we can only reduce our CO2 production by half of that, making CO2 reduction about a quarter of one percent. These numbers make the CO2 argument rather farcical as well since we will leave 99.75% of our CO2 production from diesel untouched by using soy biodiesel.
Government mandate of soy biodiesel use is just another way to subsidize soybeans.
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hewman1 Posted 3:51 am
05 Dec 2006
Hundreds of people still drive practical EVs such as the Toyota RAV4 EV, one of the few survivors of the great major-automaker EV crushfest a few years back. Tesla is making sports EVs now; Commuter Cars sells its fast Tango EV and another practical highway EV debuts next week in Santa Monica.
Almost half of the RAV4 EV drivers charge them from home solar installations for truly zero-emission driving. All the noise about ethanol (replacing the now-debunked hydrogen hype)serves to distract Americans from the promise of EVs that can be built right now.
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howardgw Posted 5:45 am
05 Dec 2006
the focus is entirely on fuel, but the fuel is supposed to run something, like cars and trucks. They do not come out of thin air, but use other nonrenewable materials that, like oil, are on depletion curves. Manufacturing the vehicles also takes lots of energy.
we cannot hope to replace significant amounts of fossil fuels with biofuels, NRDC notwithstanding. NRDC's scheme calls for a lot of rich folks who can afford 50+mpg cars and "smart growth" has to supplant many thousands of acres of dumb growth already on the land.
Corn ethanol is, as noted in your pieces, a nonstarter for serious inroads on oil. The entire 2005 U.S. corn crop devoted to ethanol would replace only 3% of our current gas consumption.
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henryjoe Posted 3:25 am
06 Dec 2006
We cold get that amount of ol from the use of less than a thousand acres in the Artic reserve. Which is mnore earth friendly. 250 acres in switchgrass production with all of its fertilizer use, need for water,emissions from equipment and bio generation palnts and destruction off open grassing lands or 1,000 acres out of a 100,000 acre in Alaska.
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Orfintain Posted 7:29 am
06 Dec 2006
Human Fat ==> Biodiesel
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1559489.ec...
(liposuction wastes)
I think alot more of our coming energy sources well come as wastes from other areas
Leaves other yard clippings waste into cellulosic ethanol for example
**************
To Jimbuyer and
Hewman1 on
PHEVs/EV
When you plug something into the wall you're getting grid energy which is mostly coal these days. Which may be good economically, and puts of the limited resources problem off for a few hundred years. But Coal now produces nearly the same CO2 as Oil. Which means you're not anything above a typical hybrid for global warming. This also doesn't consider atrocities of coal barons both to the mining environment, downsteam of it and anyone who lives in that area or works as a miner.
http://www.mountainjusticesummer.org/facts/steps.php
^More on coal mining^
The hybrid parts these cars do wonders for efficiency. Are there FFV that are Hybrid? Seams like it would be a great idea.
****************
To Henry Joe (ethanol confusion)
Don't confuse conventional ethanol (Corn (us) Sugarcane (Brazil)) With cellulosic ethanol
(from any biomass often Switchgrass and Miscanthus)
The difference is modern Corn farming is heavy fertilizer dependent, while switch and miscanthus are not.
I think of conventional ethanol as good way to start getting the infrastructure built for cellulosic ethanol which should in a different category once digester enzymes are sorted out. It also should be able to adjust to alot of other biological wastes greatly increasing it's usefulness as waste management and fuel production in one step.
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GregH Posted 12:17 pm
07 Dec 2006
According to the New York Times (April 10, 2006), sugar cane ethanol provides 8.3 times (yes, that's 830 percent) more energy than is required for its production.
Assuming these numbers are even half accurate, it is obvious that sugar cane would be a lot better use of the world's land, fertilizers, and petrochemical inputs. Corn can only compete because of the huge subsidies it gets from the U.S. government.
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Maywa Montenegro Posted 1:23 pm
07 Dec 2006
I would like to know, however, where you got the information to back the following statement: "Also it takes at best 75% of that amount of fuel to produce the end resule meaning there is at best 1.3 net barrels of biofuel produced..." According to my own research (cited in the article), cellulosic ethanol provides roughly 80% more energy than is required for its production. Your 75% figure is closer to true for corn-based ethanol---which is generally reported at 66-75% production efficiency (in other words, corn based ethanol provides 26% more energy than is required for its production).
In the next statement, your estimates are actually more generous than the sources I found. You say, "at a 70% energy production of oil," while all the reports I came across said two-thirds or 66%.
So, .80 X .66 X 4.9 = 2.6 million barrels of oil replaced per day. The estimated acreage of land then comes to 114 million acres, which is high, but still "reasonable" since contrary to your statements, cellulosic ethanol does NOT require intensive fertilization or watering. Switchgrass is a perennial dry grass---very little maintenance required (of course, fertilization does increase the switchgrass yields, but a recent study shows equal gains can be had with by planting diverse mixtures of native prairie grasses.)
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Maywa Montenegro Posted 3:16 am
08 Dec 2006
Also, about the discrepancy in CO2 emissions...I have gone back and reread all the statistics I cited for the article. I also read a good chunk of the Delucchi articles another reader with your same concerns kindly referred me to. The latter are outstanding and very detailed---unfortunately it is difficult to compare his life cycle analysis to those used in other studies without a complex analytical review of our own.
The main factor which Delucchi seems to include---and which earlier studies have omitted---are the N2O emissions from soy fields and the carbon emissions due to changes in land use (chopping down carbon sequestering trees to plant soybeans). Combined, these factors send the greenhouse gas savings other studies report into the red in Delucchi's analysis. He reports a net increase in GHG emissions with the use of biodiesel.
As for the inconsistency in my own biodiesel piece, I have two thoughts. The 78% figure came from the National Biodiesel Board website which states "A 1998 biodiesel lifecycle study, jointly sponsored by the US Department of Energy and the US Department of Agriculture, concluded biodiesel reduces net CO² emissions by 78 percent compared to petroleum diesel." This is in rough agreement with information on the Union of Concerned Scientists website, which says, "Plant-based B100 resulted in over 75% less carbon dioxide emissions that conventional diesel in a full life cycle assessement." Their reference, oddly enough, appears to the same study reference by the Biodiesel board: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, An Overview of Biodiesel and Petroleum Diesel Life Cycles, May 1998 (Since NREL is affiliated with the DOE, I'm almost sure this is the same study...which of course, raises the question why the Biodiesel Board quotes 78% instead of 75%. The number on the NREL website is 75%, so I think that this is a safer statistic).
The 41% figure arrived at by the Minnesota researchers was a complete life cycle analysis, although it did not take into account (as Delucchi, I'm sure, would dispute) land use changes that would occur with large-scale implementation.
Still, this does not answer the question of the broad discrepancy between the 1998 and 2006 figures. I don't have access to the full text of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper (only the abstract is free online), where the Minnesota researcher may address deficiencies in the earlier studies. It must be that the earlier DOE study used different assumptions for inputs/outputs somewhere along the life cycle chain, but exactly where, I don't know.
Another possibility is that we are talking apples and oranges. The 78/75% number is a comparison between biodiesel and regular diesel, while the 41% number is a more nebulous comparison to "fossil fuels"---which could be regular diesel, but might also be gasoline (if they assume that biodiesel-powered vehicles would replace gas-powered ones).
With access to the assumptions used in both studies I'm sure we could track down the culprit. Meanwhile, I think it is probably safe to assume that if science progressed rather regressed, the 2006 numbers are closer to the mark. More current research tends to find and fill in gaps in earlier methodologies. That is my hope, at least.
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wmoro4eva Posted 1:26 pm
11 Dec 2006
When the government mandates 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol to be used by 2012, what "happens" if that number isn't reached?
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EcoRuma Posted 2:45 am
13 Dec 2006
I'd love to see more on this useful product.
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Feiner Posted 4:53 am
06 Feb 2007
Though the crux of David Morris' well-intentioned piece "By The People, For The People," is to celebrate the viability of an autonomous biofuel industry free from the serfdom of corporate globalization, as he points out, you may in fact be able to get there from here, but where exactly do you think you are going, and is there anyway to come back home?
An initiative based on government subsidies will get us nowhere fast. Off the top of my head, keep it much more local at the start if that is where you want to end up. State initiatives that fund locally owned production and distribution facilities from coffers filled by conservation and reduction efforts across the state cutting financial inputs into the energy grid as it operates currently. Citizens that want to see the potential benefit of a local, directly democratic biofuel 'industry,' will have to rise to the occasion, cutting need and overall use thus generating excess state and local funds to then 'subsidize' state and local alternative energy projects.
The last thing we need is the feds pulling more money out of health care and such for research and development into biotechfuels and deforestation, padding the same dirty lobbyist and industry accounts already getting rich in the agribusiness, biotech and energy sectors.
Please read my recent article, "Shattering the 'Royal Decption,' online at http://www.gefreemaine.org/article.php?story=200609261613 ... ... or in print in the January 2007 issue of Acres USA magazine, for more well-intentioned debate.
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Earth Shaman Posted 5:06 am
20 Mar 2007
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loanapili Posted 4:26 pm
26 Apr 2007
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kgpc Posted 1:58 am
20 May 2007
http://www.ethanol-news.de
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kgpc Posted 12:31 pm
21 May 2007
http://www.ethanol-news.de
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FuriaFubar Posted 6:01 am
18 Aug 2007
or go to http://www.xanga.com/furia_fubar
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Hodbrid Posted 11:37 am
10 Sep 2007
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Hodbrid Posted 11:44 am
10 Sep 2007
Your vehicle's catalytic converter plays an essential role in reducing harmful emissions. When your catalytic converter is working properly it successfully changes auto emissions into harmless water vapor. When your catalytic converter is malfunctioning, the pollutants leaving your vehicle can exacerbate local pollution levels.There are four ways for you to determine whether your catalytic converter needs replacing or not:1.Busted or rusted out converter body or end tubes.2.Small pieces of substrate in other areas of the exhaust system.3.No rattle in a pellitized converter (If the converter does not rattle, the pellets may have melted together or fallen out).4.A rattle in a monolithic converter (A rattle in this kind of converter indicates the substrate has separated.)If you are unable to determine failure your state, provincial, or local vehicle inspection program will reveal that to you the next time your car comes up for inspection. If your car fails its inspection, you will have to replace your catalytic converter before you car can be passed.Replacement of your catalytic converter is a procedure that can be done by professionals such as through your dealer's service department, through a muffler shop, or by a local garage. If you are handy, you can do the work yourself and save money on parts as well as on labor costs.Only purchase a catalytic converter that meets or exceeds your vehicle.I have here my catalytic converter and Dodge exhaust manifolds, and I am well satisfied with it...Again, driving without a catalytic converter is illegal and the potential harm you create to the atmosphere simply isn't worth it
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chemrat Posted 6:21 pm
11 Oct 2007
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rickraszewski Posted 12:49 am
26 Nov 2007
Organic Chip Company's Expansion
Declining oil reserves, global warming, national security, clean air, and reducing your carbon footprint are issues that concern anyone who pays attention to current events.
Whale Tails Tortilla Chips, a local organic California Tortilla Chip Company, which was innovative in the design of their chip, the unique flavor of their chip, and also in their giving back to ocean conservation is now setting the trend in distributing their product by using "Veggie Fuel" to deliver Whale Tails Tortilla Chips across our Golden State. Signing new distribution deals with Sunridge Farms / Falcon Trading in Parajo California and West Coast Distribution in Berkeley California, Whale Tails Tortilla Chips will now reach all Californians in Earth Friendly vehicles.
SunRidge Farms' parent company, Falcon Trading Company ,in July 2006, converted its fleet of 17 delivery trucks to this practical and available alternative fuel. "Making the switch to cleaner-burning veggie fuel is in keeping with our commitment to conservation and sustainable solutions. The conversion will lead to a significant change in our trucks' emissions. Clearly, it was the right thing to do," states company spokesperson Mary Quillin. SunRidge Farms began growing its business locally in 1977 and now will provide Whale Tails Tortilla Chips along with other bulk and packaged organic and natural snack mixes, nuts and seeds, dried fruits, grains, and confectioneries to retail stores across California. The SunRidge product line can be found in most grocery and natural food stores.
West Coast Distribution in Berkeley California is also excited to add Whale Tails Tortilla Chips to their Bay Area distribution. Lucas Moen, owner West Coast Distribution, said "Whale Tails Tortilla Chips are the corn chips with a conscience and I am glad to be distributing their product. I remember how excited Ric was when I told him I was using veggie fuel to make my deliveries." West Coast Distribution, a small owner-operated natural organic foods distributor based in Berkeley , CA , sells and distributes, in addition to Whale Tails Tortilla Chips, Claravale Farm raw milk products, Shalhoob Meat Company Beef Jerky and Guarabee Tonics. West Coast Distribution's mission is to serve as a reliable, conscientious distributor of responsibly produced goods.
Ric Kraszewski, Co Founder Whale Tails Tortilla Chips, said, "The positive impact of delivering our chips this way will be pretty substantial. Sunridge Farms and West Coast Distribution trucks are not exactly Honda Accords, they consume a lot of fuel,"" Ric added "We had such a demand for our organic, kosher, non gmo, and no trans fat tortilla chips that it would have been easy to just settle for traditional distribution methods. However the old established way is not always the best way." Terry Kraszewski, Ric's wife and business partner, said "We did not compromise on our packaging or our ingredients so I told Ric let's not compromise on the delivery of our chips." Rick Grant VP of Marketing Whale Tails Tortilla Chips agreed in saying that "what most excites us about veggie fuel is that it simultaneously reduces air pollution and our dependence on fossil fuels. We wanted to address air quality in the neighborhoods we deliver to. It also could change the entire playing field in American energy policy by reducing the need to develop oil and gas fields in Alaska or in other environmentally sensitive areas around the world. We hope other snack food distribution companies will also consider making the change."
Research has shown that veggie fuel eliminates particulates and aromatic (smells). Additionally veggie fuel can be produced locally to consume the thousands of gallons of grease used daily by local restaurants and food processors. Veggie fuel is a form of diesel fuel made from vegetable oil. It is both a very old and a relatively new solution When Rudolph Diesel unveiled his "diesel" engine at the 1900 World Exposition in Paris he fueled it with peanut oil. Diesel engines were designed for the express purpose of burning vegetable oil not petroleum fuels! Filtered veggie oil is still the most earth friendly and cost effective fuel source.
For Whale Tails Tortilla Chips using veggie fuel means more than just an alternative to traditional methods of distribution. It's part of their business lifestyle, as a socially responsible company. Ric concluded "Our goal to reduce our carbon footprint, by using a natural resource like veggie fuel to deliver our gourmet tortilla chips, will help reduce pollution in our environment, minimize our effect on global warming and help pass a clean, healthy earth on to the next generation We want to thank Sunridge Farms / Falcon Trading and West Coast Distribution for the courage and commitment to make the switch and hope that more will follow in their foot steps."
For more information on Whale Tails Tortilla Chips visit: http://www.whaletailschips.com
For more information on Sunridge Farms / Facon Trading visit :www.sunridgefarms.com
For more information on West Coast Distribution visit :www.freshorganicgourmet.com
To learn more about veggie fuels contact the National Biodiesel Board at http://www.biodiesel.org or call (800) 841-5849
Anyone interested in supporting the move toward biodiesel fuel options is encouraged to contact the Biodiesel Alliance http://www.biodiesel.org/aboutnbb/alliance/
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jice Posted 5:52 pm
10 Sep 2008
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jenanne Posted 3:40 pm
14 Nov 2008
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