In the world of oil and biofuels, it's never a dull day. Recent research confirms what biofuels advocates have been arguing all along: We need to account for the environmental cost of importing oil from the Persian Gulf; oil spills, explosions and fires are also taking a terrible human, financial and environmental toll; and biofuels aren't to blame for roller-coastering food prices. Three recent studies by researchers at the University of Nebraska, by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and by the World Bank, respectively, cast a sharp focus on all three issues.
Earlier this month, Environment magazine published a groundbreaking paper, Securing Foreign Oil: A Case for Including Military Operations in the Climate Change Impact of Fuels, authored by Adam J. Liska and Richard K. Perrin, professors at the University of Nebraska. The major finding of this impressive research: The military activities related to acquiring and protecting oil imports from the Middle East generate significant greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) that have, so far, been unaccounted for in fuel and climate regulations such as EPA's Renewable Fuels Standard and CARB's Low Carbon Fuels Standard. According to the authors, "...military activity to protect international oil trade is a direct production component for importing foreign oil--as necessary for imports as are pipelines and supertankers--and therefore the greenhouse gas emissions from that military activity are relevant to U.S. fuel policies related to climate change." Further, the authors correctly recognize that it is inaccurate and unfair to analyze GHG impacts of biofuels without considering similar impacts for oil. "The analysis presented here," the authors state, "suggests that GHG emissions from military activities should be included in the GHG intensity of gasoline, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency implements emissions requirements for biofuels relative to petroleum fuels."
Further highlighting the disastrous impact of our dependence on oil is a powerful report "Assault on America, A Decade of Petroleum Company Disaster, Pollution and Profit" from the NWF. Pointing to the fact that the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout is but one of many examples, the NWF argues, "Major oil spills are really only a small part of the real story. From 2000 to 2010, the oil and gas industry accounted for hundreds of deaths, explosions, fires, seeps and spills as well as habitat and wildlife destruction in the United States. These disasters demonstrate a pattern of feeding the addiction to oil leaving in their wake sacrifice zones that affect communities, local economies, and our landscapes." For anyone who doubts that our dependence on oil is preferable to expanding our production of biofuels, this report is both a wake-up call and a call to action.
And, in the "told you so" department, the World Bank, which just two years ago, through a leaked report, erroneously blamed biofuels for 75 percent of the increase in grain prices, sponsored a much more thorough study, "Placing the 2006/08 Commodity Price Boom into Perspective," which found that higher oil prices and commodity speculation had a much greater impact on food prices than biofuels. The study found "a stronger link between energy and non‐energy commodity prices is likely to have been the dominant influence on developments in commodity, and especially food, markets. Demand by developing countries is unlikely to have put additional pressure on the prices of food commodities, although it may have created such pressure indirectly through energy prices. We also conclude that the effect of biofuels on food prices has not been as large as originally thought, but that the use of commodities by investment funds may have been partly responsible for the 2007/08 spike."
In reversing course, this World Bank report reaffirms the marginal role biofuels play in world commodity and food prices. It is particularly important to note that ethanol production has continued to increase while corn prices have now returned to normal levels. Volatile oil prices, speculation and adverse weather conditions all played far more significant roles in driving commodity prices to record and near-record prices. This year, for example, drought conditions in Russia, Australia and Argentina and commodity speculation are driving up wheat prices.
The World Bank's report should silence critics in the food processing industry, the livestock industry, among some environmental groups aligned with these interests and others who portray ethanol as the bogeyman. With this phony food and fuel discussion put behind us and the true impacts of our addiction to oil coming to light, perhaps a real conversation about America's energy future can ensue.
Follow Bob Dinneen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ethanolbob
Would you prefer living next to an oil refinery or a whiskey distillery? Or how about living near a sugar cane field versus an oil field?
Biofuels aren't perfect, but their impact on public health is negligible compared to fossil fuels. Once you factor in the economic cost of fossil fuels' impact on public health choosing biofuels isn't just a moral win, but an economic one as well.
---"For example, expectations about the use of corn for biofuels could result in high wheat prices even in the presence of record levels of wheat stocks. Our results also show that agricultural commodity market fundamentals appear, in the short term, to be playing "somewhat less of a role" than in the past"---
Considering that biofuels make up less than 2 percent of global liquid fuel supplies, it is stunning that biofuels continue to be listed as a major cause.
Bob claims corn prices have returned to normal when they actually remain roughly 90% higher than pre-mandate prices.
Note that the National Wildlife Federation hates corn ethanol, almost as much as Bob hates environmentalists:
---"Could it be the unholy alliance between oil interests and environmentalists?"---Bob Dinneen
The world is flat. A nuclear war in the Middle East would be a disaster for all of us. We must continue to seek peace in the Middle East, oil or no oil, corn ethanol or no corn ethanol. Corn ethanol has zero impact on our military budget.
I'm amazed that then Huff Po gives space to corn ethanol lobbyists for their press releases. To be fair, shouldn't they do the same for the coal industry?
What I find ironic is that leftist argue for sustainability due to scarce resources yet those same leftist adhere to them economic solution FDR did. FDR's economic model was Keynesian whose mantra preaches that human ingenuity always defeats scarcity.
It frustrating to those of use putting out this warning...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd7QGbNKxoQ
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUVY2qrEfd8&feature=related
www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2009-1114-3a.mp3
...who get accused by the green bugs of being a shill for the oil companies.
Huff blogger Chris Nelder complained about:
http://www.financialsensenewshour.com/broadcast/fsn2010-0605-2.mp3
Just as Nelder referred to, I also see so many green buggers arguing for going green who have no clue to logistic and physics involved. They seem to believe we can do most everything we're doing now economically but do so using bios and solar.
Oil isn't just fuel. Oil makes most consumer goods. So your aren't simply trying to replace petroleum with bios as a fuels source. There's also goods like those in this partial list: http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm Note the list includes items you normally would never think of as petrochemicals, such as toothpaste, shampoo, and even aspirin.
How bout asphalt? What good is biofuels for autos if your roads are deteriorating?
Not counting city streets and parking lots, the US has 4 million miles of paved highway (http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3127/2006-3127.pdf) yet asphalt/tar only makes up about 1.7% of a barrel of oil http://www.ghettoplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/20080313-barrel_of_oil.jpg
What's going to replace that asphalt?
In the World Energy Outlook 2008 report the IEA had calculated global oil decline rates of 6.7% rising to 8.6% by 2030. What that means is that just to keep global oil production at this current capacity (to make up for decline field productions) the oil industry must put online the equivalent of a new Saudi Arabia every 5 years. Not only that but to also meet increasing demand from developing countries out to 2030 we need a new Saudi Arabia every 3.8 years (2030-2007) / 6 = 3.8.
Nat Geo said offsetting decline is the equivalent of putting online a new Kuwait every year: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2009/03/energy-challenge/mckibben-text
Now you have the United States Joint Forces Command's U.S. JOINT OPERATING ENVIRONMENT REPORT 2010
http://oildepletiondebate.blogspot.com/2010/04/united-states-joint-forces-command-us.html
“By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day,”
Recall the Ed Wallace article: a 10 M/bbl per day shortfall to the US is like having every US highway going vacant. That JOE 2010 report went on to say this: “A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production...One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest.”
We Won’t Get Fooled Again… unless we believe in "energy independence"
"What If We Outlawed Driving?
http://oildepletiondebate.blogspot.com/2008/09/we-wont-get-fooled-again.html
As Chris Martenson points out in his well researched power-point, on-line lecture the energy equivalent of US daily oil imports is equal to the daily energy out put of 750 nuclear power plants
See chapters 17a, 17b, 17c http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
That's the situation we are in. What are we facing? next point
If the world consumes 86.4M bbl/day (1000 bbl/sec) that volume would fill 2,044,000 Olympic pools of oil each year. At 5m long, 164 feet, laying those pools end to end you'd encircle the earth 2 1/2 times per year, 63,488 miles long.
Using the same approach with 55-gallon steel drums at the today's 85M bbl/day:
http://oildepletiondebate.blogspot.com/2009/07/steel-drum-pipeline-of-oil-encircling.html
You could encircle the earth with steel drums 1 1/2 times every day or 540 time each year.
I want you to explain to me how the planet can replace those volumes with biomass oil and still feed the planet and not destroy whole ecosystems.
Consider the volumes of what it'd take just to process corn ethanol for gasoline.
Bill Reinert, Toyota’s alternative fuel manger on ethanol's water and plug-ins
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2201199802681775303
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2558276641904882805
For example, ethanol from cellulose or sugar/starch can be dehydrated to ethylene and polymerized to polyethylene or polybutadiene (synthetic rubber). This conversion from alcohol to olefin creates a lipid-type material from a carbohydrate-type feedstock. These lipid-type materials decompose to liquid alkanes (gasoline, kerosene, and diesel) via thermal depolymerization.
For example: it's true you can not only make carpet from corn oil but you can buy it right now ( http://corncarpet.carpetcourt.net/) but, as a replacement to petroleum, just try making enough to meet consumer demands.
To show you how clueless people can be, true story: I was sitting in a restaurant and this person was talking about how fry oil can be used for bio diesel. So far so good. But then this person asked: "Why can't we use spent fry oil for all US transportation needs?"
Point 1. Climate Change: If as climatologist say CO2 has a lifetime of 50-200 years transitioning from fossil fuel to biofuel will have no affect on CO2. You are still burning similar amounts of carbon and it'll still take 50-200 years for that burned carbon to get back into plant based carbon sinks. It's true that technically you are carbon neutral with bios but so the heck what, so is a scoured earth.
Your article completely ignores the vast volume of oil the world consumes. To illustrate that point I'll have to create another post due to word space...
http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2010/01/corn-ethanol-sprawl-evicts-wildlife-from-the-midwest/
http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2010/06/huge-taxpayer-investment-in-ethanol-yields-paltry-payoff/
Between 2005 and 2009, U.S. taxpayers spent a whopping $17 billion to subsidize corn-ethanol blends in gasoline. What did they get in return? A reduction in overall oil consumption equal to an unimpressive 1.1 mile-per-gallon increase in fleet-wide fuel economy. Worse, ethanol’s much ballyhooed contribution to reducing America’s dependence on imported oil looks even smaller – the equivalent to a measly six-tenths of a mile per gallon fleet-wide.
Sadly, the degree of energy independence yielded by American taxpayers’ massive investment in corn ethanol could have been accomplished for free with simple, sensible practices such as proper tire inflation, using the right grade of motor oil, driving sensibly and better enforcement of speed limits.
Secondly, $17 billion in subsidies over a 5 year period is a drop in the bucket compared to the subsidies given to the oil industry over the same period which were on the order of $500 billion! http://www.evworld.com/syndicated/evworld_article_1018.cfm