Forget Biofuels?

[Crumb]

It sounds counterintuitive, but burning oil and planting forests to compensate is more environmentally friendly than burning biofuel.

Forget biofuels - burn oil and plant forests instead - earth - 16 August 2007 - New Scientist Environment (http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12496-forget-biofuels--burn-oil-and-plant-forests-instead.html)

[Angakuk]

Stuff that enviromentally friendly crap. Biofuels are making the farmers happy. When the farmers are happy my job gets easier, and potentially more lucrative (though I would never allow considerations of filthy lucre to taint my objectivity).

[Ensign Steve]

Seriously. Maybe if we can make the cars run on corn, they'll stop putting corn syrup in all our foods.

[godfry n. glad]

It's one thing to say that we should burn fossil fuels instead of biofuels and quite another to find sufficient fossil fuels to continue to fill the demand.

I agree that in the short term, it would be better to do so, but there comes a tipping point at which it becomes both more economic and more efficient to switch to a non-fossil fuel alternative.

I still think that the biomass folks would get on the whole cannabis source thing, because the mass per seeding is considerably higher than most other annual sources of biomass. Plus, it would produce fiber as well as fuel, which could go to replacing cotton, which is an excessively intensive crop with massive environmental damage (see the Aral Sea). Fossil fuels are not the only shortages we are facing...clean, potable water is yet another, worldwide, at least. In the western US, water issues could become crisis proportion before insufficient fossil fuels. (Incidently, the water issue is another one which augurs for fossil fuel use over biomass.)

[biochemgirl]

So we should just give up on the process without changing it? Yes, there needs to be some great strides made in biofuel manufacturing to make it a much more efficient process. But we need to give it time to develop, not to assume it isn't happening and move on.

I just watched a show on a completely closed loop ethanol plant (I can't remember if it was here in Iowa or Nebraska). They take the cow manure from the adjoining feed lot, process it and use it to heat the boilers used in making the ethanol, and then of course the distiller's grain goes back to feed the cows. It is incredibly more efficient than the production at a typical ethanol plant. They are working on refining the process and promoting more efficent ways, especially with things like switchgrass gaining more popularity.

And yes, I support it because it supports the farmers. My grandpa always used to say farming is the only business where you buy retail, sell wholesale, and pay the freight both ways so to be able to see corn able to reach 4 dollars a bushel is a nice change of pace (not to mention being able to dramatically decrease farm subsidies).

[Clutch Munny]

So we should just give up on the process without changing it? Yes, there needs to be some great strides made in biofuel manufacturing to make it a much more efficient process. But we need to give it time to develop, not to assume it isn't happening and move on.

I just watched a show on a completely closed loop ethanol plant (I can't remember if it was here in Iowa or Nebraska). They take the cow manure from the adjoining feed lot, process it and use it to heat the boilers used in making the ethanol, and then of course the distiller's grain goes back to feed the cows. It is incredibly more efficient than the production at a typical ethanol plant. They are working on refining the process and promoting more efficent ways, especially with things like switchgrass gaining more popularity.

If that works out to an overall efficiency, then I'll be very happy. But how much fossil fuel was burned to raise the cattle and transport them to the feed lot, and to run the feed lot itself? That may very well turn out to be only a one-time local efficiency. The most optimistic treatments I've seen show corn-based ethanol to be only slightly in the black, energy-investment-wise. Some respectable analysts are quite convinced that it's in the red; you'll never get as much fuel out of it as you have to put in to make the stuff. And that's quite apart from the environmental damage that industrial corn production itself causes.

And yes, I support it because it supports the farmers. My grandpa always used to say farming is the only business where you buy retail, sell wholesale, and pay the freight both ways...

That's how it seems when you're doing it, all right. On the other hand, farming is also the only business where you lose money for 40 years straight, then retire to a big house in a fancy suburb. ;)

[biochemgirl]

So we should just give up on the process without changing it? Yes, there needs to be some great strides made in biofuel manufacturing to make it a much more efficient process. But we need to give it time to develop, not to assume it isn't happening and move on.

I just watched a show on a completely closed loop ethanol plant (I can't remember if it was here in Iowa or Nebraska). They take the cow manure from the adjoining feed lot, process it and use it to heat the boilers used in making the ethanol, and then of course the distiller's grain goes back to feed the cows. It is incredibly more efficient than the production at a typical ethanol plant. They are working on refining the process and promoting more efficent ways, especially with things like switchgrass gaining more popularity.

If that works out to an overall efficiency, then I'll be very happy. But how much fossil fuel was burned to raise the cattle and transport them to the feed lot, and to run the feed lot itself? That may very well turn out to be only a one-time local efficiency. The most optimistic treatments I've seen show corn-based ethanol to be only slightly in the black, energy-investment-wise. Some respectable analysts are quite convinced that it's in the red; you'll never get as much fuel out of it as you have to put in to make the stuff. And that's quite apart from the environmental damage that industrial corn production itself causes.



Well first off, the cattle are serving a dual purpose as they are still going to market. It's just taking a feedlot that would have been elsewhere and putting it directly next to the ethanol plant. So of course there are fuel costs and such, but those fuel costs also would have exsisted anyway. And using the manure is decreasing the fuel costs of powering the boiler to make the ethanol. Anyway, I don't disagree with you at all. And for the record I do not think that corn ethanol is the best answer.


And yes, I support it because it supports the farmers. My grandpa always used to say farming is the only business where you buy retail, sell wholesale, and pay the freight both ways...

That's how it seems when you're doing it, all right. On the other hand, farming is also the only business where you lose money for 40 years straight, then retire to a big house in a fancy suburb. ;)

What the hell? Well then your experiences with farming must be far different than mine. No one in my family ever "retired" let alone to a big house in a fancy suburb, scraping to make ends meet till their dying day is more like it and that's the case more often then not with all the farmers I know. Yes there are a few "big time" farming operations out there, that mostly know how to work the subsidies, but they are a small minority and sure as hell don't represent your family farmer.

[Clutch Munny]

I think we agree about ethanol.

Nobody in my family ever got rich out of farming either; in fact, we ended up as poor as you can get.

But the guys who got rich complained just the same as the people who didn't; they lost money every fall, but just got nicer and nicer snowmobiles every winter. Was the point of the joke. (And plenty of "family farmers" did very well in the farm country where I grew up; but they were big families with lots of land. The issue was big vs small, not family vs non-family operations.)

[biochemgirl]

Ahhhhh! Joke was lost in translation. My bad. :blush:

[Ari]

I say we burn politicians, they are carbon neutral.

IMO we need to work on curbing use and/or making it more efficient along with new methods. If use continues to grow any alternative will just face an uphill battle attempting to catch up to the waste of society.

[godfry n. glad]

I say we burn politicians, they are carbon neutral.

I'm sorry, Ari, although carbon neutral, burning politicians releases toxic fumes in the process. I'm afraid you can't do that. I hear there's a place out west where they planned on burying toxic waste; I think you should consider that option.