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The great biofuel hoax of 2008: energy policy and climate change

Biofuels. What a great name! It just sounds green. Looking around me, I see a proliferation of biodiesel stickers everywhere I look. In my home state of Oregon, all gas stations will need to add at least 10% ethanol to all gasoline by next year. Environmentalists are cheering as politicians and the media jump on the biofuel train. It sounds like a great victory for the environment and society; Think again, biofuels are actually much more brown than green.

Here are five reasons why biofuels can be really bad for the environment:

  • 1. Biofuels are so profitable that the rainforest, the most efficient absorber of greenhouse gases, is cut down or burned to grow grains and sugar cane to produce ethanol or biodiesel.
  • 2. Farmers growing highly profitable biofuel crops seek the fastest growth and highest yields and use large amounts of chemical fertilizers; It removes key micronutrients from our increasingly thin topsoil, and nitrogen-rich runoff causes massive algal growth that destroys our streams, rivers, and lakes.
  • 3. Because biofuels are more profitable than food crops, large amounts of premium farmland are being devoted to biofuel production, creating cereal shortages and increasing the price of cereal products, especially in third world countries.
  • 4. Although biofuels emit less greenhouse gases per gallon than petroleum-based fuels, they still emit significant amounts. Biofuels also consume less fuel. In my vehicle, the mileage decreases substantially when I use a fuel that contains ethanol. Therefore, biofuels in general do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as claimed.
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  • 5. This is perhaps the most important reason. To permanently solve both the energy crisis and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, we will have to move away from consumable fuels towards energy sources that do not consume fuel, emit heat or produce pollutants. Right now, electricity is the cleanest source of energy available and companies are beginning to develop and produce powerful electric cars that can travel a few hundred miles on a charge. For these vehicles to be practical, we will need to establish charging stations in each city and along each highway. This requires a massive transition from filling stations to charging stations. The use of biofuels will perpetuate the existing infrastructure of service stations and delay the transition to charging stations. The longer we delay this transition, the more greenhouse gases will be released into our atmosphere.

At this point, some of you may be wondering why our political leadership and big business are so supportive of biofuels; however, they don’t even mention electric vehicles. It may be worth taking time to watch the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car”, which is available on DVD. Click here to go to their website.

For starters, most of the large grain producers are large corporate farms with a strong lobbying presence in Washington and a history of campaigning contributions to politicians who support their agendas. Biofuels are big business for these companies.

The auto industry is also heavily involved in politics, lobbying efforts, and campaign contributions. These companies have a large investment to continue to manufacture internal combustion engines that burn fuels. Moving to electric motors will require a significant adaptation for these companies. Biofuels allow them to avoid making this investment.

The oil industry is perhaps the one that benefits the most from the implementation of biofuels. They know that the public will eventually demand a move away from oil. All other solutions will take away your business. However, they will be refining and distributing biofuels just like they do oil, and crude biofuels are also cheaper. Therefore, the oil industry can make a lot of money from the distribution of biofuels.

The oil industry makes huge campaign contributions to certain politicians. They have ensured that many of their supporters and former executives have been elected and appointed to the highest levels of power in our current administration. It is not surprising that our political leaders are embracing biofuels.

The solution to both the energy crisis and pollution is the transition to non-consumable fuels. This means electricity production with solar, geothermal, wind and tidal energy. Even nuclear power could be a viable alternative if spent fuel can be safely transported out of Earth’s atmosphere using recently developed low-cost rocket technologies. All these types of energy production are already in use and are becoming cheaper and more efficient every day. We have not yet begun to see the economies of scale and innovation that will make this type of energy production that much cheaper the more it is developed and used.

At this very moment, several companies are planning massive solar energy installations in Arizona, which is beginning to be called Silicon Valley or Middle East of solar energy production. Huge wind farms are being planned for the Plains states. We could be just a few years away from a massive transition to electric vehicles. For this to be successful, we need big business and our political leadership to focus on this transition. This will take much longer if we allow them to focus on biofuels.

When comparing non-consumable energy sources with fuel-based energy production, remember that all fuels must be transported to where they are sold. Fuel transportation consumes more fuel, so these transportation costs should be included in the figures used for greenhouse gas emissions and energy efficiency. Electricity distribution involves some energy loss, but it is fractional compared to the amount of energy used to transport fuel and does not emit greenhouse gases.

Some of you may be wondering why I have not mentioned hydrogen fuel cells. There are three reasons why: 1. Hydrogen combustion still produces heat, 2. Our engineers have not yet figured out how to produce hydrogen without using large amounts of energy to do so, and 3. The other renewal energy sources mentioned above already they have moved beyond the experimental stage and are in use in the real world.

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