Blue Crab Boulevard

Biofoolishness

Many thanks to Quilly Mammoth over at Just Barking Mad for pointing out this article from Smithsonian Magazine. (Heck, I get that and had not read the piece.) Titled Who's Fueling Whom? it is written by Richard Coniff and it positively destroys the myths of biofuel. It is a devastating article. This one is a must read. He hits many of the same things I have pointed out over and over: food prices are skyrocketing, the economics simply do not work and wildlife is already suffering - and will suffer even more. But he also points out the simple fact that there is not enough land to produce enough fuel. Period.

But don't biofuel subsidies buy us energy independence? President Bush, a former oil executive, declared last year that we are "addicted to oil." In this year's State of the Union speech, he set a national goal of producing 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels by 2017. The next morning, C. Ford Runge, who studies food and agriculture policy at the University of Minnesota, calculated that this would require 108 percent of the current crop if it all came from corn. Switching to corn ethanol also risks making us dependent on a crop that's vulnerable to drought and disease. When the weather turned dry in the Southeast this summer, for instance, some farmers lost up to 80 percent of their corn.

In a recent Foreign Affairs article, "How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor," Runge and co-author Benjamin Senauer noted that growing corn requires large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides and fuel. It contributes to massive soil erosion, and it is the main source, via runoff in the Mississippi River, of a vast "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. (This year the dead zone, expanding with the corn crop, was the third-largest on record.) The article made the switch to corn ethanol sound about as smart as switching from heroin to cystal meth……

…..So let's flash forward five years. Twice a month you swing by the biofuels station to fill the 25-gallon tank in your sporty flex-fuel econo-car. (Pretend you've kissed the SUV goodbye.) Even this modest level of energy consumption will require a ten-acre farm to keep you on the highway for a year.

That might not sound too bad. But there are more than 200 million cars and light trucks on American roads, meaning they would require two billion acres' worth of corn a year (if they actually used only 50 gallons a month). The country has only about 800 million acres of potential farmland.

There is much more. This really is a must read. I have been gathering stories like this for some time trying to point out how crazy the logic of the wishful thinkers is. If you can call it logic. Frankly, there is big money in play here as well, as Coniff points out. Agricultural conglomerates are raking in windfalls of government subsidies and they know - full well - that the biofuel craze is a dead end. They are just getting all they can before the house of cards collapses.

There may be a role for biofuels, but it is not this mad rush to turn all of our food into fuel. The ecological damage of all this is unprecedented. Rainforests incinerated, wildlife slaughtered, biodiversity eliminated. It has never been easier to rape the planet. Say you are producing biofuel to fight global warming and you have a license to kill. Quite literally.

Please read the whole thing. You'll be glad you did.

Bad Ideas, Energy, Environment, Junk Science | Gaius Saturday, 8 December , 2007

By feeblemind, Saturday, 8 December , 2007 @ 3:01 pm

What politician would dare make an issue of this? What presidential contender would dare tell Iowans of the need to shut down ethanol? Politicians have no one to blame as dems and repubs have both fallen all over each other to get the biofuels juggernaught rolling. Will voters make an issue of high food prices next year? Don’t even see it registering on the political radar yet.
By rufus, Saturday, 8 December , 2007 @ 9:38 pm

So let’s flash forward five years. Twice a month you swing by the biofuels station to fill the 25-gallon tank in your sporty flex-fuel econo-car. (Pretend you’ve kissed the SUV goodbye.) Even this modest level of energy consumption will require a ten-acre farm to keep you on the highway for a year.

1/3 of the corn processed for ethanol is returned in the form of distillers grains, a high-protein livestock feed (that’s what field corn is) that is a bit superior to corn in adding weight to cattle. So:

150 bu/acre (average yield) x 3 gal/bu = 450 gal/acre x 1.5 (distillers grains, remember?) = 675 gallons of ethanol per acre. Ergo:

One Acre would more than supply a vehicle using 600 gallons/yr.

This article is rife with mistakes like this.

btw way, according to the USDA, NO acres came out of the conservation reserve this year, and the government paid out NO price support subsidies for Corn - Saving the taxpayers $11 Billion in 07.
By dick, Saturday, 8 December , 2007 @ 10:33 pm

Every time I see anything about the alternative fuels I remember a series of postings by Steven den Beste a few years ago when he destroyed the arguments of the enviros in their call for alternatives to peroleum based energy sources. I remember them but I did not save them so I can’t link but they were fantastic. His arguments were based on the scale of what would be required to replace our current sources and whether the prescribed sources would be able to meet the standards. fascinating stuff and I wish I could find it again. The man was devastating in his arguments.
By Gaius, Saturday, 8 December , 2007 @ 11:23 pm

rufus,

Adding a tax credit as a multiplier to actual energy yield produces gallons of ethanol how?

You also conveniently completely neglect to account for energy used to produce the corn - both fuel and fertilizer.

And your yield figures are inflated on top of that. By half again as much.

http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/extension/pubs/crop_guide_02.pdf

Wishful thinking is not a good choice to base policy on.
By rufus, Saturday, 8 December , 2007 @ 11:40 pm

G, the average yield for field corn this year is about 153 bu/acre. The modern ethanol refineries are averaging right at 3 gallons/bu., in addition to 18 lbs of distillers grains. Nebraska cattle feeders have found that a diet with 30% distillers grains yields a ten percent above corn weight gain.

btw, Verasun will soon be extracting about a pound and a half of corn oil from the distillers grains.

Your pdf is small and hard to read (for me,) but it is from 2002. Corn yields increase about 3%/yr.

Where exactly am I off by half?
By rufus, Saturday, 8 December , 2007 @ 11:57 pm

It takes about eight gallons of diesel/biodiesel to produce that 675 gallons of ethanol. Remember, we’ve been raising the corn for cattle feed all along. The only difference is: Now, the customers, and not the American Taxpayers, are paying the bill.
By rufus, Sunday, 9 December , 2007 @ 12:13 am

As for fertilizer: You, probably, have about $0.10 worth of natural gas in the fertilizer required to produce a gallon of ethanol, and $0.20/gal. in the refining (this number is rapidly falling as more, and more refineries opt for burning the thin stillage (see corn-plus - Winnebago, Mn.) for their energy.

Guys, I’m not saying that Corn-based Ethanol is the be-all, end-all; but, we should, at least, try to understand the “True” costs (and, benefits.”

We replaced about 5% of our gasoline with ethanol this year, and used about 10% of our corn for this purpose (we exported about twice that much - mostly to Asia for livestock feed.) Oh, one thing: China (the world’s Second largest corn producer) had a “Disastrous” harvest this year, losing, perhaps, almost half of their crop. Argentina, and Australia were, also, plagued by drought.

Probably, 10% from corn is the max we’ll do. After that we go on to other feedstocks.
By Gaius, Sunday, 9 December , 2007 @ 12:43 am

Not one source, just you spouting figures with no backing. Either back it or go elsewhere. This is not an echo chamber for true believers.

Heres the article that points out the humanitarian disaster.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html

Those would be people with credentials in a public article, not someone trying to throw anonymous figures in order to silence critics. What I link to is sourced.

Perhaps you’d rather argue with the United Nations:

http://bluecrabboulevard.com/2007/10/27/biofuel-crime-against-humanity/

Fuel or food.
By Gaius, Sunday, 9 December , 2007 @ 9:01 am

Sorry rufus. Providing links from activists and lobbying groups who have a huge financial stake in ethanol is not proving anything. That is why I cited the Purdue study.
By rufus, Sunday, 9 December , 2007 @ 9:14 am

Official production figures from the USDA are propaganda from an “Activist” Group?

Production numbers from Commercial U.S. enterprises don’t count?

Information that American investors are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the construction of Cellulosic Ethanol Facilities as we speak is Not Important?

Exactly what kind of links were you asking for?
By NortonPete, Sunday, 9 December , 2007 @ 3:31 pm

This was a good article but it blurred the CO2 emissions and the alternative or biofuel issue. Biofuels produce as much or more CO2 as oil. We have 100 years of technology in efficiently burning oil.
Demonizing oil and embracing ethanol puzzles me. Anyone who has distilled wine or beer understands that sugar turns into alcohol and gives off CO2, and then when it’s burned even more CO2 is released. The biofuel move has little or no science as a component, it’s entirely political. If we don’t want foreign oil then we should look for it domestically or use oil shale, or nuclear power.
Biofuels produce as much or more CO2 as “fossil fuel” which I don’t think is a factor in climate change but it seems to be driving the ethanol move.
Why use our precious land to produce fuel when “mother earth”already has provided for us? If this is only going to be argued on the “save the planet” level, then we should be using oil efficiently. No living plant or creature wants or needs oil but us humans and “mother earth” wonderfully stored energy in oil for millions of years.