The biodiesel fallacy
leona...@gmail.com
The biodiesel sold in Europe is as much as
eight times worse than petroleum-based fuels
when it comes to net greenhouse gas emissions.
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The biodiesel fallacy
By Armond Cohen
November 26, 2007
CONTRARY to recent pronouncements on Beacon
Hill, the biodiesel mandate proposed by Governor
Deval Patrick and State House leaders will not help
efforts to slow global warming. Instead, their bill -
which contains a pair of measures that would require
automotive diesel and some home heating oil to
contain a minimum percentage of biodiesel by 2010
- is likely to make things worse.
Massachusetts' leaders are not the only ones who
have been misled into believing that the biodiesel
being produced today can help reduce the amount of
greenhouse gas emitted from our cars, homes, and
businesses. Politicians around the country, especially
those running for president, are repeating the
dangerously oversimplified story they've been told by
biofuel promoters. Biodiesel is usually made by
processing oils extracted from virgin crops like
soybeans and palm fruit, so proponents like to point
out that the carbon dioxide emitted when biodiesel is
burned in an engine or a furnace is the same carbon
dioxide that was absorbed by the plants that were
used to make the fuel. As such, the story goes,
biofuels are "carbon-neutral."
The reality of the situation is quite different,
unfortunately. At the bill's rollout, US Representative
William Delahunt pointed out that Massachusetts has
500,000 acres of farmland and, in what was probably
meant to be a rhetorical question, asked, "Why not
grow energy crops there?" The reason, in the simplest
terms, is that we can't eat biodiesel.
Whenever an acre of farmland is converted from food
production to fuel production, we can either forgo the
food that used to be produced there (leading to higher
food prices and food shortages) or we can make up
the difference by cultivating previously unfarmed land
somewhere else. The choice is clear, but all too often
the new farmland is carved from forests, wetlands,
and grasslands that are doing much more in their
natural state to reduce greenhouse gas levels than
policies like the Massachusetts biodiesel mandate
could hope to achieve.
The unavoidable lesson from places currently
promoting biodiesel is that replacing forests and
wetlands with energy crop farms is bad for our
climate. Soybeans grown to produce biodiesel in
Brazil are displacing conventional food crops from the
most arable regions of the country. The food farmers,
in turn, are displacing ranchers, who are creating new
grazing lands by slashing-and-burning large sections
of the Amazon. The enormous climate benefit that the
forest provided by absorbing and storing atmospheric
carbon is forfeited.
Likewise, the demand for bio-oils created by the
European Union's biofuel policy (a mandate that
resembles the governor's bill) is contributing to the
wholesale conversion of Indonesian and Malaysian
forests into palm oil plantations. So much carbon
dioxide is released into the atmosphere when these
forests are cleared that Indonesia recently jumped
from 21st to third on the list of countries with the
highest national greenhouse gas emissions. Because
the destruction of Indonesian forests and the resulting
emissions are due in part to Europe's biofuel policy,
analysts have calculated that the biodiesel sold in
Europe is as much as eight times worse than
petroleum-based fuels when it comes to net
greenhouse gas emissions.
Language in the governor's bill that requires the
biodiesel to be produced "sustainably" is of little help,
even if it's interpreted broadly enough to account for
emissions from land conversion. Researchers are
developing models that can project how food and
energy markets will react to biodiesel mandates, but
these tools will not be ready for some time. By
proceeding without that knowledge, Massachusetts
is repeating the mistake Europe made. The result is
likely to be the same, as well: food production will be
outsourced at the expense of forests, wetlands, and,
ultimately, our climate.
State officials learned of these risks earlier this year,
but decided to plunge ahead anyway. It's not too late
to change course, though. If Massachusetts wants to
enact a biofuels policy that won't increase greenhouse
gas emissions, we can take several concrete steps.
First, we can ask academic institutions to help develop
the necessary analytic tools for assessing the true
climate impact of policies that expand biofuel usage.
Second, we can support research into biofuels made
from municipal waste, algae, and other feedstocks that
won't compete with food crops for farmland. And finally,
we can - and must - abandon the proposed biodiesel
mandate.
Armond Cohen is executive director of the
Boston-based Clean Air Task Force.
(c) Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
POSTED by PERMISSION
R Kym Horsell
> X-NO ARCHIVE: YES
>
> The biodiesel sold in Europe is as much as
> eight times worse than petroleum-based fuels
> when it comes to net greenhouse gas emissions.
> ---===0===---
>
> The biodiesel fallacy
> By Armond Cohen
> November 26, 2007
>
> CONTRARY to recent pronouncements on Beacon
> Hill, the biodiesel mandate proposed by Governor
> Deval Patrick and State House leaders will not help
> efforts to slow global warming. Instead, their bill -
> which contains a pair of measures that would require
> automotive diesel and some home heating oil to
> contain a minimum percentage of biodiesel by 2010
> - is likely to make things worse.
Do cigarette makers own shares in quit smoking programs?
Sure they do. They work just that well.
--
ExxonMobil expands interest in biofuels, acquires stake in Biojet AS
corporate.exxonmobil.com, 11 Jan 2022
Biojet AS plans to develop up to five facilities to produce the biofuels
and biofuel components. The company anticipates commercial production ...
56d.1153
but an environmental DISASTER spawned by pinhead
greenies. VAST VAST areas of rainforest are being
plowed down for oil-palm plantations now.
Over some news story recently, I was Earthing the
deep jungle area of the DR Congo when I came across
an irregular-looking patch - thousands of acres.
Zooming in I could tell it was an Oil Palm plantation.
It's even worse in asia.
If the US/EU/GreenPeace want to Save The Environment
then they should ban diesel engines for anything that
isn't "heavy equipment" or vehicles so large you need
a special license/training to drive.
In a decade or two there won't BE any "rain-forest",
just vast oil-palm plantations. Oh, and the countries
WITH rain-forests ... they do not answser to US/EU law,
you'll have to RUIN THEIR MARKET instead. It will cause
revolutions in some places, seas of blood and guts ....
Oh, and lithium/batteries are NOT AT ALL a good
substitute for hydrocarbon fuels .... likely won't
be for 25+ years at least judging by research reports.