Reading through my usual news feeds (mostly related to science), I found that there were three stories - all through the PhysOrg.com newsfeed - about how fuel ethanol was becoming less favored around the world. This is not a surprise for me, since I have been - for over a year - skeptical about the claims of how wonderful this new technology is for people and the environment.
The spinners failed (ha!) to show how much energy is required to move energy feed stocks from farms to energy plants. They failed to show how much energy is required to make the ethanol. They also failed to show how much energy is required to transport the ethanol to market. And this is only looking at the direct energy inputs to the system.
Indirect energy inputs to this whole system comes from the energy needed to pump and spray groundwater; create and transport fertilizers and pesticides; clear and plow the fields; and remove the byproducts of stalks and stems to name a few. Then there are non-energy costs to a system of ethanol production which include nitrogen loading in rivers; increased sediment runoff into lakes, ponds, and streams; loss of wetlands; increased use of GMO crops (and we still don't know if there are negative impacts of GMOs in the wild); eutrophication; and burning former conservation lands to name only a few that come to mind.
Stack on top of that rising costs of food around the world (mostly blamed on a hungry India and China); a declining value of the US dollar (causing international oil prices - set to the USD - to rise); a skyrocketing national debt figure; and lowered environmental regulations, you start to get a picture of how bad things might actually be.
And all this I knew before even reading the articles. (I still haven't read through them at the time of this writing.)
The first article - Fueling ethanol production while protecting water quality - talks about the need to minimize the amounts of N and P entering into water systems. Increased levels of N and P have been linked directly to anoxia in the Gulf of Mexico and inland water systems, respectively. The article reviews the benefits of different types of ethanol production - some of which are still experimental - and doesn't really make the point that once a major investment takes place in one form of infrastructure, there is little desire to chance that infrastructure, especially if there are more costs to be incurred. (People want returns-on-investment, not more costs.)
The second article - World cooling on biofuel solution to climate change - touches on some international perspectives of the different needs of food producers and energy producers. It seems to be rather a basic overview of different points-of-view.
The third article - Study finds concern with biofuels - is a summary of an academic essay - Biofuels and Biodiversity: Principles for Creating Better Policies for Biofuel Production- from Conservation Biology. The essay has a nifty table showing that corn has roughly 81-85 kg CO2 emission/MJ energy - one of the highest of all the energy conversion options reviewed. Within the "grass -> ethanol" category, "native prairie grasses" had the lowest GHG emissions potential, with -88 kg CO2 emission/MJ energy (that's right: negative). However, the overall winner (since I presented corn as the overall loser) across categories is using microalgae to make biodesiel, with a whopping -183 CO2 emission/MJ energy!
Speaking of microalgae to biodesiel, there was a story in EcoGeek recently about this. However, I'll not go into it in more detail here. And wouldn't you know it? Just as I went to check on this story, PhysOrg's newsfeed gave me:
Algae could one day be major hydrogen fuel source. Serendipity?
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