http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/opinion/07krugman.html? ...

And meanwhile, land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis. You might put it this way: people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states...

...

We also need a pushback against biofuels, which turn out to have been a terrible mistake.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

the statement:
"Most of the CO2 in the United States comes from liquid fossil fuels."
is incorrect
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/04/06/weekinreview ...
Most of the CO2 comes from burning coal and gas to produce electricity.

Biofuels can't compete with fossil diesel fuel and gasoline extracted from coal or tar sands.

The "Biofuels Take Food From Our Mouths" argument is based on fallacy.  The two most common biofuel feedstocks, corn and soybeans, are grown for animals to feed the industrial meat business producing pork, poultry and beef.  Processing these feedstocks to extract sugars or oils to make biofuels, makes the byproduct 'seed cake' and 'spent mash' more digestible as animal feed.  Thus the animals get more nutrition from the byproduct than the original feedstock, and less is crapped out as waste.  We can get food and fuel from the same crop.

Granted that the feedstock grains and legumes could be exported to feed the starving millions instead of being used to feed meat animals.  But that practice has been going on for decades, is not likely to change, and is totally external to the biofuels issue.

...the statement: "Most of the CO2 in the United States comes from liquid fossil fuels." is incorrect ...Most of the CO2 comes from burning coal and gas.

If you combine natural gas and coal you beat liquid fossil fuels. If you look at each type of fossil fuel alone, coal, natural gas, and oil, you see that oil beats coal.

http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/uscoalvsoil.jpg

The "Biofuels Take Food From Our Mouths" argument is based on fallacy.  The two most common biofuel feedstocks, corn and soybeans, are grown for animals to feed the industrial meat business producing pork, poultry and beef.

Animal protein is a part of most human diets (eggs, or dairy, or meat). If you increase the cost of eggs, you have increased the cost of food (the price of eggs is up 25% over last year).

There are are also hundreds of millions who rely on raw grain for sustenance. Most of their income goes to food. The food price index calculated by the UN increased 40 percent last year. Do the math. That would be like having your mortgage double, except you are trying to feed your children instead of make car payments.

Processing these feedstocks to extract sugars or oils to make biofuels, makes the byproduct 'seed cake' and 'spent mash' more digestible as animal feed.  Thus the animals get more nutrition from the byproduct than the original feedstock, and less is crapped out as waste.  We can get food and fuel from the same crop.

Let's run some more numbers. It takes 56 pounds of corn kernels to produce 2.8 gallons of ethanol, 11.4 pounds of distiller's grain, 3 pounds of Glutan meal, and 1.6 pounds of corn oil. So,  56 - 11.4 -3 -1.6 = 40 pounds of corn lost that cannot feed people (or the cows that people eat). In other words, about 70 percent of a bushel of corn is lost to the food chain when you use it to make sugar for ethanol.

If we can make fuel and food from the same crop, why has the price of corn gone ballistic along with record production? Normally, record production corresponds to lower prices (supply and demand).

Granted that the feedstock grains and legumes could be exported to feed the starving millions instead of being used to feed meat animals.

That might work if you could figure out a way to get everyone on the planet to go vegan. Hominids have been processing food for over a million years with technology like fire and grinding, and later with agriculture and domesticated animals. Livestock is just another (resource intensive) way to process grain into something more palatable (for most).

Wouldn't it be wiser to just make our government stop subsidizing biofuels? They are worse for global warming, they are destroying biodiversity, and they don't increase our energy security (a drought would be as bad as an oil embargo).

But that practice has been going on for decades, is not likely to change, and is totally external to the biofuels issue.

No, as I demonstrated above with the calculations, biofuels are diverting food to gas tanks.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

that my poll is biased. It is possible that most biofuel enthusiasts refuse to take the poll because they are disgusted with the only option I gave them.

It is also possible that had I given a fifth option, like, oh, "Next generation biofuels will fix most problems" that the votes would also be wildly different. All very real possibilities.

However, I repeated my old biased poll because it gives a relative measure of the same (or very similar) demographic group separated in time.

To date, before a biofuel group rallies to the site, we see most people picking the most reasonable slogans, with fewer people on the ends.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

John Galt writes:

Processing these feedstocks to extract sugars or oils to make biofuels, makes the byproduct 'seed cake' and 'spent mash' more digestible as animal feed. Thus the animals get more nutrition from the byproduct than the original feedstock, and less is crapped out as waste.

In the case of dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) -- Mr. Galt's "spent mash" co-product from ethanol production -- the claim that it is "more digestible as animal feed" is debatable. First off, it is certainly LESS digestible for poultry and hogs. Cattle like it, and it may be as good or better for them than straight corn. But let's not forget that cattle have evolved to eat grass, not DDGS.

Moreover, there is growing suspicion that the increased use of DDGS in cattle feed is leading to increased incidence of E. coli 0157:H7 -- a a strain of bacterium that is responsible for sickening 73,000 people in the United States (among whom around 60 die from the infection), every year. As documented in this recent article:

In the past several years, the production of ethanol has increased sharply, as the US looks for ways to become more oil independent. But once grains like corn have been turned into ethanol, producers are left with distiller's grain. This has resulted in a symbiotic relationship between ethanol producers and cattle ranchers. Ethanol plants need a way to dispose of the grain left over from the manufacturing process, and cattle ranchers need an inexpensive  source of feed for their livestock. The arrangement has proved so mutually beneficial to ethanol producers and ranchers that often, ethanol factories are built next to feed lots.

This arrangement, however, could be having unintended consequences. Through three rounds of testing, researches at Kansas State found that  the prevalence of E. coli 0157:H7 was about twice as high in cattle fed distiller's grain compared with those cattle that were on a diet lacking the ethanol byproduct. No one knows why this is so, but what is clear is that as ethanol production has grown, more and more cattle are being fed with distiller's grains. This could account, in part, for last year's record recalls of E. coli tainted meat.

Grist's own Tom Philpott has written extensively on this problem. See here, for example.

These are only my personal opinions.

vegetetable oil shortages in parts of China, India, Africa, South America, Southeast Asia.... Even in the States the high price of soy oil is starving biodiesel producers. Common sense suggests that we shouldn't be fueling our cars with the same oil people need to cook and prepare their meals. The Science showing that it's worse for global warming is almost extraneous.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world