The Biofuel Boom

A couple years ago, investing in biofuels was the shit. Incentivizing biofuel production was thought to be good for business and good for the environment, a win-win. It's that rare cause that could bring together Al Gore, President Bush, and Willie Nelson.

Oops. It turns out now that we've had a few years to study things, and worldwide investment in biofuels has risen from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005, everybody's wrong, and we're all fucked. The biofuel boom is actually accelerating global warming. Time has an excellent cover story this week, The Clean Energy Scam, with all the details, but the basic problem is simple: "using land to grow fuel leads to the destruction of forests, wetlands, and grasslands that store huge amounts of carbon." Yes, switchgrass, sugarcane ethanol, even corn ethanol are all cleaner energy sources than oil-based gasoline, but those crops replace vegetation and soils that suck up even more carbon. So it's a big net loss. In order to get these biofuels, we're devastating huge swaths of land - a Rhode Island-size chunk of the Amazon rain forest was deforested just in the second half of 2007. And the demands to kill more carbon-absorbing land are only growing: the energy bill signed last year mandates producing 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022 (we do 7 billion now). It's not just the farmers in Iowa getting rich off this, agribusiness has plants going up in several other states. The beast is loose: "biofuels increase demand for crops, which boosts prices, which drives agricultural expansion, which eats forests."

Scientists have been on the biofuel bandwagon - how did they get it so wrong? As Time puts it, "It was as if the science world assumed biofuels would be grown in parking lots. The deforestation in Indonesia shows that's not the case. It turns out the carbon lost when wilderness is razed overwhelms the gains from cleaner-burning fuels."

Just as bad, apparently some people in the world still use land to grow real food, and the 800 million people in the world with cars are taking food from the 800 million people in the world who are hungry and putting it in our gas tanks. I, for one, think that's rude. Going up to a poor Brazilian boy, snatching the hot dog out of his hand and shoving it in the nozzle of your Prius, that's wrong. But this is happening: four years ago, two University of Minnesota researchers predicted hunger would drop to 625 million but last year they revised that estimate to 1.2 billion, a significant gain, because of biofuels.

What do we do? I don't know. If global warming really is a planetary emergency, we need socialized medicine for our environment. As long as the profit motive is what it is, deforestation will continue to be a problem. Railing against it has to become hip again, like it was in the early 90s. But what do we do for fuel, now that even switchgrass isn't even that good? Filling our cars with Chinese people is looking better and better everyday.

Comments

[Collielady]

Bill says in his above essay: "What do we do? I don't know."

After laying out the fuel dilemma and possible solutions, which just end up creating more problems, it seems that the only way to close the circle is the same answer to all the world's problems: too many people. It just may be that there are NO good solutions, with the current population. Everything is out of balance and there is much suffering. The sooner we come to accept that reality the better off we'll be to limiting our reproductive behavior. It is NOT logical to continue expanding our numbers.

We need to quit duplicating ourselves. That's what we do, Bill.

BTW, "Time" magazine has a conservative slant. I would carefully weigh their words.

[Aput]

There are a few truths and untruths here. First and foremost, yes, a lot of land is being cleared to make way for planting crops which produce ethanol for cars instead of food for people.

In late last year, Italy faced a shortage of pasta because most of the wheat was used for biofuel, so you can actually imagine just how bad it can get.

The thing is, when we talk about biofuel we as an alternative, we need to do so without giving up the need for food. Even if it is between the environment and people, we all know that people come first.

However, there are now greater leaps in biofuel technology. We are now looking into using algae as a biofuel source, which is definitely a better alternative compared to corn and oil palm or even soy.

But some comments have pointed out that we had the electrical car for a long time beforehand. Where is it now? Why was there no follow up on that technological breakthrough?

Was the car not fast enough or something?

It's a good point to consider, really.

[biowheels]

Hi Bill

Long time reader, first time poster. Please revisit this issue. Biofuels are not perfect; they are a transition fuel. The issue is feedstock....no of course not corn or palm oil...what about choke cherries, hemp, used McD's oil, fish oil? What about algae that can line smoke stacks and then be pressed into fuel? Lets not throw a useful green fuel idea (baby) out, with the piss poor execution (bathwater) to date, one that must improve.

Lets the keep our eye on the ball here. There are positives and negatives but don't forget:

1. By promoting and increasing local solutions to our energy demands, biofuels limits our dependence on foreign sources of oil.

2. Biodiesel can be used as heating fuel in any oil burning furnace. Yes we still burn fuel to heat homes.

3. Increasing biofuels would create opportunities for regional investment in the fuel sector, create new markets for farmers and increase interest in more efficient biodiesel production and new forms of production.

4. Diesel engines are used in school buses, public transport, boats and ships, as back up generators and in passenger cars. Biodiesel can be used in all of these vehicles at no extra cost and with important environmental benefits.

[sd4peace]

It shouldn't take a genius to know that burning FOOD for fuel, was a bad idea.

[Guitarsandmore]

Rain forests have been disappearing at an alarming rate for decades. Time Magazine is falsely blaming bio fuel for all of the world"s problems all of a sudden. Guitars made out of Brazilian Rosewood started being priced through the roof in the 1970s.

The real solution is to have solar, wind, geo thermal, and wave technology, generate electricity and then use plug in hybrids for cars.

None of these technologies require that we cut down any trees or that we burn anything ever.

Factories that create solar panels can be run by solar powered electricity and thus you have solar energy being used to create solar products. Same for wind, geo thermal, and wave. Alternative energy can be used to create alternative energy products. Nothing is burned.

Bio fuel is burned and that creates more CO2 (big negative) but bio fuel does make us more energy independent from terrorist nations that hate us. It may also lower the price of crude if we can flood the market with bio fuel.

By the way you can still get a pretty good deal on guitars made out of Indian Rosewood.

[Viper]

Sorry Bill your science is wrong in many ways! First, yes corn is the wrong choice.That is pushed for political reason, but it does at least get us on our way from an infrastructure need.

Switch grass and etc give a six times better return as does hemp ( that should make you happy... Oops may be a competative usage will drive up the cost of your good times...lol)). To smoke or Drive and that is the question...

Secondly biofuels are a partial solution, not a whole solution.

Thirdly the land converted to agriculture is a reality w/o bio fuel usage, so it needs to be taken out of the equation. Its true irrespective of the crop. Humans and cattles also create CO2 when they brun the same crop.


The loss of rain foreest and wilderness is an ongoing result of over population as is our energy usage.

That land will be turned into economic gain with or without biofuels in 3rd world countries who need the income just as has been done in our country..

Remove the 10% assist of ethanol in our gas now and given tight petro supplies you would be looking at $150 per barrel oil in all likliood. Its small contribution helps even now.

Other Technologies will convert garbage, waste wood products and any celouse product to fuel which would decay and give CO2 off in the process anyway.

Regards.

[BarryChamplain]

And that is what is so great about the internet. It enables pompous blowhards to connect with other pompous blowhards, in a vast circle-jerk of pomposity.




-- Bill Maher 4.4.08

[Norpag]

The reason for the biofuels fiasco was the usual one - congress pandering to the corn belt and taking payoffs from Archer Daniel Midland Corp during an election year.The press also pandered to the IPCC - Al Gore AGW paradigm and abandoned its duty to be objective just like it did with Bush's WMD.
The same thing is about to happen again with the lunatic Carbon Cap or Trade proposals favoured by the three Presidential candidates and also in particular the Democratic congressional leadership. The latest data show that thru the first two months of 2008 the year was cooler than any year since 1993. During this time CO2 levels rose by 7% .The AGW paradigm is a scientific joke. The earth is cooling quite rapidly and solar studies suggest the possibility of a 40 year cooling spell during which we would need more anthropogenic CO2. This would make no measurable difference to temperature but might help maintain the 20% rise in production caused by the last 100ppm increase in CO2 .

[cambridgedude]

So what's the big deal? Many of us in the energy industry, those of us who figure out things like energy efficiencies for a living, have long realized that biofuels was never much more than a welfare program for agricultural states and their corporate masters. Many posts here go into the details, how low the energy density of ethanol is, how inefficient is the production of ethanol, all the way from planting, harvesting through end product distribution. So the dirty litle facts finally made it to the mainstream media. Maybe we can now go ahead and reform the corrupt political system that promotes such stupidity. Maybe actual science and engineering can be allowed to determine the best compromises, because any energy selection is a combination of compromises.

Maybe, maybe, ............ oh what the hell, it ain't gonna happen any time soon, as long as the bulk of the American public, and its elected representatives, are functionally illerate as regards science, technology and engineering, the same old thing just keeps on happening.

[Hoelder]

Why are you avoiding the word: immoral. Because that's what it is. The Prius is not the problem because obviously those people have some common sense. But the Hummer H3 on flex fuel borders on murder. We do not need to grow more food for duel if people would not come up with insane excuses and buy the gas guzzler. My grandmother never threw food in the trash and so did we. She starved through two World Wars, oppression and persecution, lost her sister to TB because there was no fuel in 1947. This is the summary of her live. When will it be a crime to buy a pickup truck for driving to your office. Americans are so hyper sensitive if a child is molested, but killing a kid remotely for fueling your luxury car is fine. I have said that before, the so called free market has transformed humanity to greed and arrogance. It is more important to waste than feed. Giving to charity does not absolve your Hummer. There is no room for these sick people. But Americans have become pussies, they do not strike in enough numbers to change this country to a caring nation. Collateral damage is the name of the game. Those starving people did not pray to mammon, the God of Money. A people allowing this, is a people dying.

[jozap]

look up alge as a bio fuel. it can be grown in tanks, takes up less space etc.

and why don't we have billions of solor collectors in the southwest, or wind turbines in areas that would merit that?

there is no ONE SOLUTION at this time.

[starboymikey]

Going up to a poor Brazilian boy, snatching the hot dog out of his hand and shoving it in the nozzle of your Prius, that's wrong.
_____________________________________________________________________

Why is it wrong? My Prius can get 63 miles on one Dodger Dog, including the bun. The Brazillian kid can have the mustard and relish, but I'm an American and I need the rest so I can get to work.

[Woggles]

But Bill,

The main reason most biofuel technology doesn't make any economic sense is...plants are terrible converters of radiant energy into chemical energy. That's the 800 pound gorilla in the room, nobody wants to talk about. It's just not politically correct.

Think about this: If it was a real good idea, we would have been doing it for the past 100 years, no?

[Decipherer]

Actually "Woggles," we HAVE BEEN DOING IT, except that Big Oil and their minions in our government over that period of time have stifled, suppressed, and discouraged anything other than that which is black, comes out of the ground, and stinks, NO?

We're talking dinosaur wine, AKA crude oil, here.

And where have you been?

Tell you what. Why don't you read all (or even most) of the over 300 posts on this blog and then come back with something a bit more intelligent, OK? Either a question or an answer will do nicely.

As a matter of fact, I recommend that to everyone snooping around here, including you, Bill.

All y'all might just learn something.

[guajiro]

"The beast is loose: "biofuels increase demand for crops, which boosts prices, which drives agricultural expansion, which eats forests." "

Sorry to inform you Bill, but it isn't biofuels that eat forests. It's the corporations. It is the Fortune 500 corporations and their grotesquely wealthy majority shareholders who own our politicians and who make them jump through a rope. Case in point: Mark Penn and Hillary. Mark was point man to Colombia and Hillary the corporate whore to the agri-business that wants the forests and prime lands of Colombia. Trouble is, those lands are occupied by peasants and indiginous tribes. So what to do. Why bring in the 'School of the Americas" graduates to soften the resistance. The peasants there farm small plots and cater to specific customers in Europe who pay high prices for premium coffee beans and such. Big agra on the other hands plants millions of acres, destroying all remnants of forests.

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200412--.htm

http://pangaea.org/street_children/latin/soa.htm

http://www.25x25.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=402&Itemid=57

[verhaftik]

Americans - let's do basic science:

All *natural* things on earth that can be burned for fuel are basically made of hydrocarbons.
That means: plants, people, petroleum, ethanol, etc (see Wikipedia) are all hydrocarbons.
And when any hydrocarbon is burned, they release CO2.
The very same CO2 in greenhouse gases from burning oil.

Thus, if you burn oil hydrocarbons in your car engine, CO2 is made.
Burn ethanol hydrocarbons, CO2 is made.
Burn plants, people, cows, wheat, or any other damn thing on earth made of
hydrogen and carbon (hence "hydrocarbon"), CO2 is made.

Only wind or solar energy are the truly clean fuels. Meaning, they
are the only energy source known so far that generates zero CO2 emissions.

For those interested, here's the little formula:

CH + O2 + --> (produces) CO2 + H20

hydrocarbon(CH) + oxygen(O2) ----> (produces) CO2 + water(H20)

All science people know it. They didn't get it wrong.
The powerful Farming Lobby did -- looking for a way to
cash in on the biofuel (ethanol) boom.
They are the ones who pushed for biofuel/ethanol
as the savior for the oil crisis. Not scientists with a conscience.

Biofuels are like changing deck chairs on the Titanic.
They are useless to reducing global warming
because in the end, CO2 is *always* produced.

So, blame your Farm Lobby for the "biofuel miracle movement."
Better yet, blame Bush, since they are practically one in the same.

[23000Days]

Dead on, Verhaftik!
But there's hope.

Here's some food for thought:

� The U.S. Department of Energy has stated that wind could provide 5,800 quads of energy each year. That's about 15 times the current global energy demand.

� Researchers at M.I.T. have stated that there are over 100 million quads of accessible geothermal energy worldwide. The world consumes only 400 quads.

� The Electric Power Research Institute has estimated wave energy along the U.S. coastline at 2,100 TWh per year. That's half the total U.S. consumption of electricity.

� According to the Department of Energy's office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, enough electric power for the entire U.S. could be generated by covering about 9 percent of Nevada with solar parabolic trough systems--a plot of land about 100 miles on a side.

� The Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory released a report in 2006 which stated that "off-peak" electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84 percent of the country's 220 million vehicles if they were Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles.
Green Chip Review

The availability of renewables is mind-boggling! Why are there so many who don't get it??

[verhaftik]

Thank you much for these details, 23000Days.
I wasn't aware of how much energy these clean resources
could generate. Extremely encouraging. And, wave energy too, by God.
Keep up the excellent work & message.

[guajiro]

"Thus, if you burn oil hydrocarbons in your car engine, CO2 is made.
Burn ethanol hydrocarbons, CO2 is made."

Except for one major detail: the carbon from oil remains is locked in it and is released when pumped out of the ground, processed at the refinery, and burned by your car. In other words, it is ADDED to our atmosphere. Ethanol CO2 on the other hand is different. Plants take carbon OUT OF THE ATMOSPHERE for their own use and when we convert it to ethanol and use it in our cars it is then that the CO2 is released back into the atmosphere where it came from. Using petroleum RELEASES NEW CARBON into our atmosphere. That's the difference.

[23000Days]

A very good argument, but you're overlooking the grander scale; we're trying to REDUCE carbon emissions, while at best ethanol is trading emissions. But since it takes a large amount of energy to render plants into ethanol, that energy is is polluting. It's not exactly a win-win situation, is it?

[mouselion]

Interesting point: renewable plant sources recycle free CO2 from the atmosphere, whereas, non-renewable (petroleum) unlocks sequestered CO2 from the earth.

[mouselion]

Problem with your assertion:

Ethanol is only one type of biofuel, there are different types of biofuel with different CO2 emmisions --

"Studies show that biodiesel outperforms gasoline, ethanol, and conventional diesel in reducing climate-altering carbon dioxide emissions and in overall fuel-efficiency...

"Using 100-percent biodiesel (B100) eliminates all of the sulfur emissions associated with conventional diesel, cuts emissions of carbon monoxide and smog-producing particulate matter almost in half, and reduces hydrocarbon emissions by between 75 and 90 percent. Perhaps most significantly, using B100 reduces the emissions of carbon dioxide"the main greenhouse gas causing global warming"by more than 75 percent. Even using a blended biodiesel fuel like B20 (a 20-percent biodiesel/80-percent petrodiesel blend offered at most biodiesel fueling stations) still reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 15 percent, according to the Department of Energy..." -- "The Benefits of Biodiesel"

Not all "biofuels" are created equal. But, still, there are better alternatives -- probably a mix will be necessary for transportation: biodiesel for distribution and construction, and, air pressure for personal transport. This, of course, does not treat the subject of building and home heating. . .

[mouselion]

Link to article, Benefits of Biodiesel:

http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/biodiesel.cfm