..A must read for for every US voter and concerned citizen.. challenges the reader to explore new possibilities and new mindsets that will ultimately be required if the world is truly ready to make a change.. amazon.com US onlyhttp://www.theengineer.co.uk/opinion/comment/bad-business-of-biofuels/1004641.article?cmpid=TE01&cmptype=newsletter&cmpdate=010910
Bad business of biofuels
The hype over biofuels has pretty much died down. While they're acknowledged as being an important part of the shift away from fossil fuels, they are not a solution in and of themselves. However, a report from the Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA) on the use of biofuels in the UK reveals a worrying trend.
The RFA — the independent body that regulates UK biofuels use — has been looking at the blending of biofuels into petrol and diesel by forecourt retailers. Blending has been mandated since 2008, and according to the legislation, the proportion of plant-derived fuel in forecourt fuels is supposed to increase over time, climbing from 2.5 per cent to 5 per cent by 2014. However, according to the report, although the biofuel is from renewable sources — crops are, by definition, renewable — most of them do not conform to environmental standards.
It's an important distinction, because one of the biggest problems with the current generation of biofuels is that they are derived from crops which are grown on arable land, and this land use competes with growing crops for food. This is not a sustainable strategy, the RFA says; it claims that, although sustainable biofuels are available in sufficient quantities to meet the blending target, retailers are choosing not to buy them. Instead, they are opting for imported products, which do not meet environmental standards.
Perhaps this is a problem of legislation running ahead of technology. Second-generation biofuels, which are produced from non-food crops, like fast-growing trees that tolerate poor soils, and from agricultural waste such as straw and rice husks, promise to remove the land competition, but the technologies to produce them are not yet ready for industrial implementation.
The targets for environmental biofuels are voluntary and, naturally, in the cutthroat marketplace of the petrol station forecourt, the retailers are anxious to keep prices down. Imported biofuels are currently cheaper than sustainably-sourced versions, so it's hardly surprising that 'voluntary' has been interpreted as 'let's ignore this'. But the problems caused by land use competition are severe, for food prices and for biodiversity. Perhaps the mandated use of biofuels should have waited until second-generation technology was more widely available, so the shift away from fossil fuels could have avoided putting pressure on arable land.
Did the biofuels hype overtake the reality and lead to bad legislation, written in haste by politicians who didn't understand the issues? This could, in fact, be a very good example of the need for better advice to government. A Chief Engineering Advisor could have better pointed out the pitfalls of the policy and urged more caution.
Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/opinion/comment/bad-business-of-biofuels/1004641.article?cmpid=TE01&cmptype=newsletter&cmpdate=010910#ixzz0yPQs8Web
Readers' comments (14)
Dennis Camilleri | 1 Sep 2010 1:41 pm
The University of Sheffield is developing magnetic sensor technology that can detect fuel components. The technology is low cost and portable which ultimately means it will detect fuel additives at the point-of-test.
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Dr Dorian Hindmarsh | 1 Sep 2010 2:03 pm
We've been working on a clean replacement for diesel for a couple of years now, DME. it can be made from waste streams, or sustainable resources, but still no one is interested! it's lower in Co2, low in NOx, and has not particulates, cheap to make....go figure.... not till we run out of oil will people think seriously about alternatives that are sustainable.
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Steve of Dorking | 1 Sep 2010 2:10 pm
Since when did any government listen to an expert rather than give out "spin" to the voters, to show how "green" they are! Nobody here is that niaive!
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Steve of Dorking | 1 Sep 2010 2:13 pm
Dr Hindmarsh, I expect that there are oil lobby-ists everywhere pointing out how much money the oil companies put into government coffers!
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Anonymous | 1 Sep 2010 2:15 pm
No matter how good the advice may be Politicians will ignore it when they think they know better.
There are enough examples.
When the advice is bad (think Iraq) they are damned if they take it and damned if they didn't!
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HB | 1 Sep 2010 2:27 pm
Dr Hindmarsh,
Could you post links to research papers / theses?
If it produces less CO2, then the energy of the bonds must be significantly higher than the C-H bond found in oils.
What is the flame temperature? NOx formation from pure mineral oil is due to combustion temperature's effects on the N2/O2 mix in the intake air (changing the equilibrium point in the N2/O2/NO/N2O/NO2 equilibrium equation).
Interestingly, certain bio-fuels have higher NOx production than mineral oil since the bio-fuels contain nitrogen in their structure, thus adding to the nitrogen content of the air-fuel mix.
Particle formation is a function of clean burn and flame/cylinder temperature. The large particles are carbon-based - so if your fuel is carbon-based there will be particles. The very small particles are formed on exhaust into ambient air when vapours which in old engines would have precipitated onto the outside of large carbon particles, having no precipitation sites, simply condense in the cold air. It seems unlikely that you would have eliminated these too.
I would be facinated to read about this wonder fuel.
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Malcolm W. | 1 Sep 2010 2:37 pm
This is a very worrying trend. Not only is the biofuel added to vehicle fuel sometimes from unsustainable sources, we also have the problem of companies wanting to build biofuel power stations here and run them on palm oil (or similar) from overseas unsustainable sources.
Biofuel production absolutely must not impact food production or hasten destruction of our precious rainforest.
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patrick | 1 Sep 2010 3:03 pm
Whilst it may be useful to highlight problems with market forces, taring Biofuels with the "Un-environmental" brush only serves to diminish demand and put people off changing their ways. Presumably the crop growers get paid and they will continue to grow bio-fuels at the expense of food crops until this changes, would you rather they grew drugs instead I wonder.
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Clayton Gunter | 1 Sep 2010 4:33 pm
The whole thing here is if you are using corn as a source? That's bad! If we start using saw blade grass instead? That's a good move and doesn't tie up your food source!
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Jatropha Africa | 1 Sep 2010 6:12 pm
It is an oversimplification to say that Biofuels are 'bad'. If people in a developing nation, grow a non-food biofuel crop, on non-food land (never used for food production), then there is no direct impact from non-food biofuel cultivation, and food prices. It comes down to the farming companies which can choose to grow crops like Jatropha ethically, or can choose to grow it in on land well suited to food production. To say that the a fuel from a non-food crop is 'bad' can stifle young markets which would help developing nations make some use of otherwise unused tracts of land where the rainfall is too low and seasonal for commercial food farming to take hold.
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