More on biofuels from Monbiot
Further on the new studies published in the journal Science which I wrote about in my previous post.
George Monbiot, who has written extensively on greenhouse emissions, expands further on some of this new scientific evidence in a piece in The Guardian. He also refers to the growing evidence regarding Peak Oil, which of course is also related.
As he points out, all of the ’solutions’ such as biofuels “are designed to avoid a simpler one: reducing the consumption of transport fuel. But that requires the use of a different commodity. Global supplies of political courage appear, unfortunately, to have peaked some time ago.”
“two new papers published in Science magazine calculate the total carbon costs of biofuel production. When land clearance (caused either directly or by the displacement of food crops) is taken into account, all the major biofuels cause a massive increase in emissions. Even the most productive source – sugar cane grown in the scrubby savannahs of central Brazil – creates a carbon debt which takes 17 years to repay. As the major carbon reductions must be made now, the net effect of this crop is to exacerbate climate change. The worst source – palm oil displacing tropical rainforest growing in peat – invokes a carbon debt of some 840 years. Even when you produce ethanol from maize grown on “rested” arable land (which in the EU is called set-aside and in the United States is called conservation reserve), it takes 48 years to repay the carbon debt. The facts have changed. Will the policy follow?
Many people believe there’s a way of avoiding these problems: by making biofuels not from the crops themselves but from crop wastes – if transport fuel can be manufactured from straw or grass or wood chips, there are no implications for land use, and no danger of spreading hunger. Until recently I believed this myself.
Unfortunately most agricultural “waste” is nothing of the kind. It is the organic material that maintains the soil’s structure, nutrients and store of carbon. A paper commissioned by the US government proposes that, to help meet its biofuel targets, 75% of annual crop residues should be harvested. According to a letter published in Science last year, removing crop residues can increase the rate of soil erosion a hundredfold. Our addiction to the car, in other words, could lead to peak soil as well as peak oil.
Removing crop wastes means replacing the nutrients they contain with fertiliser, which causes further greenhouse gas emissions. A recent paper by the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen suggests that emissions of nitrous oxide (a greenhouse gas 296 times more powerful than CO2) from nitrogen fertilisers wipe out all the carbon savings biofuels produce, even before you take the changes in land use into account.
Growing special second-generation crops, such as trees or switchgrass, doesn’t solve the problem either: like other energy crops, they displace both food production and carbon emissions. Growing switchgrass, one of the new papers in Science shows, creates a carbon debt of 52 years. Some people propose making second-generation fuels from grass harvested in natural meadows or from municipal waste, but it’s hard enough to produce them from single feedstocks; far harder to manufacture them from a mixture. Apart from used chip fat, there is no such thing as a sustainable biofuel.
13 Comments, Comment or Ping
philip travers
Personally,I cannot stand the idea,Andrew, of being dependent on anyone from Britain influencing anyone on this matter,because essentially it often seems historically, they are either exploiting or warning against exploiting,when others have already done the work.Bill Mollison had explained all that Monbiot suggests in a much simpler approach,and he is a diehard practice watch you preach type.Any amount of rejigging statistics is just a will she or wont she approach,and as boring as it gets.However, who knows!Recently bought a couple of bags of fully grown carrots off a expert when in his job,fruit fly stuff.A.C.Courtice.He probably wont like being mentioned like this,unless it inhabits a new way of thinking about fermentation processes,ala Bill.Now the number of carrots wasnt that great,but the stuff that emerges above ground is almost a shrub.Seeing carrot tops can regrow what has been cut-off from them,and have nutrient value,and also aspects incl. in bio fuels.I find such simple understandings are often overlooked.I was, before coming here reading about Queensland shale deposits and a Shell approach,and apart from no gravity feed water from some enormous body of water in Colorado,there is a problem with remnant hot rock.I think the real problem in all this research ,is it becomes wasted money too.Because they,the corporates think too big from the start,and thus projects go down the gurgler, the rational of economist re scale of operations.And blundering Governments.Australia could be lucky in what it can do to insure that failures in the market place,where bio-fuels are concerned force new approaches to everything,as long as the interested and concerned get out of their comfort zone further,and not swallow the continuing saga of will she or wont she.On the same day that Iemma the genius and his partner Costa,go again on the sell the generators..will he,the Indian and Russian government are all aglow about Nuke again.No hope in penetrating insights anew.
Feb 12th, 2008
al loomis
ohdear! and here i thought we were going to save the planet without wrenching porches out of the hands of derivatives traders.
it is possible to imagine a human society that integrates people and nature, but i’m damned if i can think of a way to get there from here.
since every discussion i have met excludes planned austerity and population control, and many depend on relying on the ‘market forces’ which brought us to this ecological crisis, i have long concluded that non-democratic society is incapable of living in harmony with nature. the selfishness which characterizes hierarchical societies and is the core feature of capitalism precludes constructive action.
since society is incapable of effective response to the dilemma of expanding population and finite resources, rational personal strategy is living well and leaving a bare bank account.
Feb 13th, 2008
Robert Merkel
Mind you, it’s probably not that simple. If I recall correctly, sugar cane waste is already burned for electricity generation; turning into biofuels instead shouldn’t have any negative environmental impact.
In any case, biofuels (absent the development of some radical breakthrough like microbial biodiesel) will only represent a piddle in the ocean of energy demand, and one that has very nasty side effects. Why anybody (and this includes your Senate replacements) is treating them as a serious contribution to reducing the impact of climate change is completely beyond me.
Feb 13th, 2008
al loomis
matter of fact, there is some work being done on algae that looks relatively promising.
but it doesn’t mean much if it just postpones crunch time. we’ve got to stop multiplying without limit.
Feb 13th, 2008
Alistair
Eventually they will realise, and tell us, that there is one realistic thing we can do today to cut down more even more GHG than from transport.
Veg 4 Earth (.org)!
Feb 13th, 2008
CORAL
Even the pessimistic prophets of doom seem to think that the world’s population will start to decrease around 2040 to 2050.
That probably coincides with the demise of the last baby boomers (those born prior to 1960).
I think we should leave it to Phil to find a way to get rid of the buildup of greenhouse gases. His ideas make good common sense.
Phil, how can the Vortex Tube be used to reduce emissions? I’m sure you must have a multitude of ideas.
Can we use it to pump greenhouse gases out of the Earth’s atmosphere?
The only way to get cars off the roads is probably to increase the running costs exponentially, and provide better public transport.
At the moment, it is nigh on impossible to get bus stops where they are needed, because no one wants to relinquish their access to on-street parking – even if they have 2 automatically opening garage doors and room for 2 more vehicles on the driveway.
Sometimes too much community consultation is not a good thing, because people only think of themselves.
They only pretend to care about “The Powerful Owl” when they want to kick the elderly and the general public in the guts.
In my area, the school students have a choice of buses that run too early and too late. No amount of representation by P & C Associations and individuals has resulted in a change.
Feb 15th, 2008
philip travers
Thanks Coral,I am not embarassed by my promtion of the vortex tube Headquarters Darwin,and ahost of other technologies,worth looking at,and if you find one use yourself Coral,you could let the company know,thus maybe a sales job.Yep!Against all the bad tidings today,in the S.M.H. ,and the bounty of bad news,the one thing that stands out everywhere I read about this stuff is the dominance of large companies,and when it suits them to claim they will lead us out of this mess.Just throw heaps of money at it,and a few of their products.The same oppurtunist stuff Bob Brown gets up to,today guns,which I agree with but not to sink the boot into Martin Bryant because Brown son of a copper hasnt as yet got much to say,on conversion of Police to not only being safe citizens themselves,but Tasers ,Bob!The problem for me in writing about my solutions,is the various nonsenses of philosophy.I bought three printed articles today..Acres,www.acresaustralia.com.au,www.businessquickfind.com,www.the land.com.And frankly I am bored to tears by the constant loss of seeing the obvious way forward to those who want to look.Acres,is fine,but do they get on my nerve with all the overeducated bastards,claiming altruism,at every step.Then there is now the pro carbon lobby.Simplistic beyond solution..the opposite of the comprehensively complex grow humus you non educated bastards.It seems a whole lot of sodium carbonate is a great problem…because no one is willing to say,in Africa,have we exhausted the potentials for is use!?Challenge the wankers on both sides of the argument to build something useful with it you useless bastards!?What are all your bloody degrees for!?And its easy,really easy,but how much research have these wankers done.Surely as a material in such large volumes,and all sorts of development needed in Africa..it must be seen as an asset that has remained unseen.Crank up your brains please.Artificial fertilisers are damaging our soils,but,I mean,the only reason that happens is
Feb 15th, 2008
philip travers
because,the interested,for all the talk of being creative,are not facing the fact,that the artificial fertilisers over the longer term burn the shit out of the soil.Tricky as this may seem to be,the research is mainly negative about artificials,but are these people dinkum?Yes!And then they fail themselves as scientists completely.For all this holistic approach,the idea of wrapping artificial fertilisers ,in something that is compatible with them but only allow the usefulness of artificial fertilisers to boost plant production and assist with biological buildup.I bet you can do it in the lab,as it possibly has already been seen out in the paddocks,but to get biodynamic people together with artificial users and biological farmers is..hopeless.These artificials were produced in all the materials of the earth without one UFO creatures involved,it isnt a error of philosophy it is an era in working and applying rigorous thought from wherever improvement by analysis beyond contempt can be done.If artificial fertilisers burn up the organic soil organic matter..a material if you like.Then it has proven it can burn up organic material..so what is the problem when dealing with all sorts of natural waste..that can be worked back into the soil,like say newspapers etc!?.Perhaps the Clarence Valley needs to be an example of applying a multiple approach..I will even claim with certainty,that artificial fertilisers have shown they can get the oxygen back into flooded lands!?How!?What is involved in a chemical reaction that produces oxygen,then add the influence of the multiple settings of rapid temperature change?.Coral!They can claim virtue about their various methods,but they will not claim altruism if we are facing choices where they as combatants of cause and effects,when they are simply not doing enough but wanting followers.Humanity needs industry,it needs highly nutritive food that passes without residues or chemical imbalances in the minerals etc.The highest standards please
Feb 15th, 2008
CORAL
Phil:
Then some of the answers might include:
1. Leaving the carbon under the ground – not taking much out in the form of fossil fuels (coal, oil).
2. Putting the carbon back into the ground (dead human and animal bodies, trees, newspapers, vegetable waste).
3. Pumping the greenhouse gases out of the Earth’s atmosphere.
4. Using solar and wind power instead of coal and oil – maybe also substituting a bit of natural gas.
5. Combining artificial fertilisers with organic waste (?)
We need to get moving on Number 3, which would provide the best short term solution. Any suggestions?
Do you want to use the Vortex Tube on Number 2 items? What would be the advantages, if any?
Would cremation/incineration be a plus or a minus?
BTW you can now return mobile phones to Telstra, Optus etc and they will be made into fence posts and jewellery.
Feb 16th, 2008
CORAL
I think I would rather feed corn to the cows than any number of cars. Surely beasts and dinner come before unproductive pollution.
Feb 16th, 2008
Donna
You could feed corn (and chickpeas) to yourself, and ride a bicycle, or a moped (becoming quite common in Brisvegas).
Feb 17th, 2008
Jimmy
If Monbiot’s point is we can’t swap biofuel for crude oil and continue business as usual then he is right. But its not clever to extrapolate this entirely obvious idea to suggest biofuels have no place.
Liquid biofuels are highly desirable simply because they have fabulous hard to replicate properties (transportable, high energy density, etc). However we do not need to replace all today’s crude oil use with biofuels. We only need a fraction of that.
Much of today’s crude oil use can be met with alternate forms of energy. And we should certainly stop burning crude oil for amusement since it is not consequence free fun.
Biofuels should only be applied where no good alternative exists.
About 7% of our CO2 emissions are from transport. Perhaps 70% of those transport emissions use can be eliminated by substitution of either activity or energy source. That leaves the biofuel related emissions at around 2% of total emissions.
Squabbling about the life cycle efficiency of biofuel misses the point entirely.
Feb 18th, 2008