The Biodiesel Controversy Continues

One of our commenters, Zeno Swijtink, faculty member at Sonoma State University, made the following statement:

...biodiesel is not a good choice for an alternative fuel, apart from the point mentioned by you that under the current cultivation regime fossil fuels are used to run farming equipment, make fertilizers, pesticides, and undergird advertisement campaigns to promote biodiesel, etc.

The burning of biodiesel shortens the time that the carbon would have spend in some solid form in the biosphere: the oxidation makes it quickly available as a infrared energy trapping gas in the atmosphere..

Let's examine Zeno's arguments, because he mentions several common misconceptions about biofuels.

1. Biodiesel not a good choice

The fact is, there are not currently many choices to replace a fossil fuel with a biofuel for mobile applications such as cars, trucks, etc. In fact, there are just two that are readily available (we set aside electricity, compressed biogas and steam power for the moment): biodiesel and ethanol. These can be used as direct replacements for fossil fuels in vehicles currently on the road. (Biogas can be used in vehicles equipped to run on natural gas). However, there are good and not-so-good choices for these fuels, because not all biofuels are created equal.

2. Burning biodiesel shortens time of carbon in biosphere, thus increasing greenhouse warming.

Natural carbon fluxes do not increase the overall level of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is because the carbon contained in the plant material used to make vegetable oil was originally and recently obtained from atmospheric CO2 through photosynthesis. Although longer term sequestration is preferable, this is better accomplished through stopping and reversing deforestation, as opposed to looking to agriculture.

3. Burning biodiesel releases other GHG besides CO2
Biodiesel combustion reduces overall CO2 emissions from the tailpipe by 78% well-to-wheel over fossil diesel. This can be close to 100% depending on how the biodiesel is produced. All other emissions are less than conventional diesel except NOx, which is an "indirect" greenhouse gas. There is new research on additives that can reduce the NOx to equivalent or lower levels than fossil diesel.
http://biomass.ucdavis.edu/pages/forum/2nd/Simeroth.pdf

4. Widespread use of biodiesel would lead to further deforestation and use of land for energy crop.
Biodiesel (and other biofuels) can be produced from waste. Biodiesel can be produced from fatty wastes, including waste vegetable oil. Ethanol can be produced from cellulosic plant waste. This is the only way that biofuels can be carbon neutral. Raising crops for energy is not an advisable practice. It is an unwise use of land for energy production.

5. "Claiming to achieve great personal GHG reductions by using biodiesel suggest[s] that you affected real, even though small, global GHG reductions. Personal success that depends mostly on the use of biofuels gives the illusion [of helping with climate stabilization]but [is]not the real and difficult task..."

Originally, Zeno made the suggestion that reducing GHG emissions by 75% was virtually impossible. I only made the observation to show that it was very simple to reduce my "carbon footprint" from transportation. In this blog, we address solutions that can occur at a local level. Harvesting energy from the waste stream is a key component of reducing overall GHG emissions at the local level.

I do not believe that it is constructive to suggest that any non-fossil energy source is unimportant. We are dealing with an enormous problem that requires comprehensive action, using any non-fossil energy sources that are available. If it is possible to displace a gallon of fossil fuel using a non-fossil alternative, it should be done. On a global scale, this will make a difference. Our objective is to create non-fossil alternatives, and begin the shift, not find "the perfect answer."

Comments

[Zeno Swijtink]

Re 4) I was thinking of a Reuters news item of Oct 14, 2005

"Pouring vegetable oil over your salad or into your car's petrol tank is increasingly becoming a critical choice as Europe's rapidly growing biofuel industry soaks up more and more of available supply."

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-10-13T132824Z_01_YUE348548_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-ENERGY-OILSEEDS-EUROPE-DC.XML

Question is how to create a viable biofuels industry that does not take a grab at farmlands needed for foodproduction.

[Zeno Swijtink]

"Analysts say Europe's fears about a potential squeeze on food production are bolstered by the worldwide spread of the "green" fuels rush." This is from the Reuters news item of Oct 14, 2005 that I referred to earlier.

What I see is happening in biofuels is that an idea that came up in small groups of activists - to tap into batches of discarded vegetable oil for fueling combustion engines - is commercialized. Big ag and big business are getting involved and ag famland traditionally used for food or fodder crops is being converted to growing fuel crops.

Eventually, within not too long from now, that will put pressure on forest areas and these will be converted into ag-for-fuel lands, as we see when forest are cut down to make room for beef cattle for the fast-food industry and the craving for meat in industrialized societies.

The bigger issue, again, is the relative importance of conservation vs efficiency/intensity.

Using biofuels is a form of making energy use less carbon intensive, more carbon efficient (for Climate Protection purposes), but it now seems to have the unintended consequence of converting food ag and forest to fuel ag. An overall loss of carbon sequestration in the biosphere!

[Zeno Swijtink]

My analysis above is reinforced by George Monbiot who writes in today's Guardian (Tuesday December 6, 2005) "By promoting biodiesel as a substitute, we have missed the fact that it is worse than the fossil-fuel burning it replaces."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1658898,00.html

What's the problem?

Monbiot states: "[T]here is [only] enough waste cooking oil in the UK to meet a 380th of our demand for road transport fuel. Beyond that, the trouble begins." To make up for the rest biodiesel companies are turning to other sources, esp. oil from palm trees. To make room for growing these trees, millions of hectares of forest are scheduled for clearance in Malaysia and Indonesia. Mature forest is cleared for palm tree plantations, with the resulting loss of carbon sequestration. "The hard decisions have been avoided, and another portion of the biosphere is going up in smoke," Monbiot concludes.

[Zeno Swijtink]

There is some new research on biofuels reported in this week's journal Science of the AAAS

Science 27 January 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5760, pp. 506 - 508

ABSTRACT: Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals
Alexander E. Farrell,1* Richard J. Plevin,1 Brian T. Turner,1,2 Andrew D. Jones,1 Michael O'Hare,2 Daniel M. Kammen1,2,3

To study the potential effects of increased biofuel use, we evaluated six representative analyses of fuel ethanol. Studies that reported negative net energy incorrectly ignored coproducts and used some obsolete data. All studies indicated that current corn ethanol technologies are much less petroleum-intensive than gasoline but have greenhouse gas emissions similar to those of gasoline. However, many important environmental effects of biofuel production are poorly understood. New metrics that measure specific resource inputs are developed, but further research into environmental metrics is needed. Nonetheless, it is already clear that large-scale use of ethanol for fuel will almost certainly require cellulosic technology.

1 Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720–3050, USA.
2 Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720–3050, USA.
3 Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720–3050, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: aef@berkeley.edu

Full report at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/311/5760/506.pdf (ask me)

Newspaper report "Environmental benefits of ethanol reported hazy" at http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/living/science/13715972.htm

"But they also found ethanol from corn would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by, roughly, only 13 percent. The paper called for new technologies to produce ethanol from other plants, technology that would use bacteria to break down plant cellulose."

[José]

I must say i agree when you say biodiesel has many bad aspects, but the issue that is important here is the comparison between the 2 choices: biofuel or fossiled fuel, because there are no clean fuel choices nowadays.
And if you make a table comparing the negative effects of them, you will see the colossal diferences between them: after all, which of them is the major responsible of global warming? Which one has huge factories with huge machines that implicate huge resources and colossal damages on environment? And i'm not even mentioning the gigantic economical lobby..