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The Forum > Article Comments > Biofuels and the future > Comments

Biofuels and the future : Comments

By Ron Oxburgh, published 13/8/2007

In a world in which climate change will make life more difficult, biofuels have a real contribution to make.

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I think that critics of biofuels overlook the possibility that problems can be solved with sufficient political will eg phasing out the US ethanol subsidy or deforestation in Indonesia to make way for oil palms. Since biofuels can never fully replace petroleum based liquids I think they have to fill a minor role. Electrification of transport could help enormously; fast rail could partly supplant some road highways, plug-in hybrid cars charged from the electrical grid need only use small amounts of liquid fuel. If personal mobility is a God given right it may also become clear when oil runs out that the world has too many people.
Posted by Taswegian, Monday, 13 August 2007 9:13:59 AM
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I think the key question is whether or not biofuels are being produced reponsibly. At the moment it seems that they are not and are, in fact, contributing to loss of rainforest and are driving up the cost of basic grains.

See (amongst dozens of other articles):

Energy Bulletin articles on biofuels at:

http://www.energybulletin.net/news.php?cat=71

"The Coming Biofuel disaster" by Joe Brewer at
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062807H.shtml

Biofuels - facts and fiction by Mark Anslow
http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=755

Biofuels, on a smaller scale, may be part of an interim solution as humankind adapts to the exhaustion of our bounty of fossil fuels, which took tens of millions of years of biological and geological processes to create, but most of which has been stupidly wasted in less than 200 years, but the only longer term solutions are:

1. Reduction in our consumption of energy, whether 'renewable' or not, and other natural resources, and

2. Stability of our global human population. (see http://population.org.au) It was stupid for world political leaders to allow world population to increase to its curent levels on the basis of the non-renewable fossil fuel dependent "Green Revolution" and it Iis insane for them now to contemplate an increase from the current 6.5 billion to over 9 billion.

I also recommend that propleinterested in questions of fossil fuels and alternatives join the mailing lists "Runnining on Empty Oz" at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/roeoz (Austrtalia-focussed) and "Energy Resources" at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/
Posted by daggett, Monday, 13 August 2007 10:13:26 AM
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Jatropha may be a non-food crop that grows well in poor soils, but it probably does compete with food and forests if the Burmese government is putting 2000 square kilometres under it. If jatropha oil can be harvested profitably today, then our economy already values it more highly than virgin rainforest or staple foods. As oil prices increase this situation can only get worse.

The biofuel crop the article fails to mention, promising enormous potential yields, is algae:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_Species_Program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algaculture#Biodiesel_production

Optionally fertilised with sewage and/or carbon-dioxide-bearing industrial flue gases, industrially-grown algae for fuel offer no competition with crops or wild forests -- they can grow in brackish water in built ponds.

The article mentions waste streams as a great energy resource, but doesn't elaborate on technology already exploiting them for the production of liquid fuels. They can't yet compete on price with petroleum, sugarcane ethanol or oil palm, but they'd beat unsubsidised corn ethanol by a long way.

Cellulolysis is applicable only to plant products such as agricultural and forestry tailings and waste paper -- the article implies that they can use urban wastes and sewage generally, but toxins and microbial contamination can easily foul the process.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol

More generally applicable is gasification, the same technology used for coal-to-liquid fuel synthesis. It is usable with almost any combustible, carbon-bearing waste stream. There is no reason why it need rely on coal -- biomass gasification is a proven, if expensive, technology.

http://www.choren.com/en/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas

I'm pleased to that the author acknowledges the limited applicability of biofuels to stationary energy. A sustainable low-carbon energy strategy should use biofuels for stationary energy only to utilise waste streams in cogeneration facilities like that at Visy Paper's Tumut plant and in stoves. Fuel is vital to most transportation, but not required for stationary energy.

Stationary energy is already mostly provided by electricity, and the potential for large-scale intermittent renewable electricity generation is usually grossly underestimated. Some biofuel advocates seem to think we should throw trees into furnaces for "base load" power -- a frightening proposition, as the articles dagget links to above demonstrate.
Posted by xoddam, Monday, 13 August 2007 11:57:06 AM
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Ron mentions that his company has generated employment for 200,000 people.
His company may have the statistics to show how many people would be
employed to produce say, 100,000 barrels a day of ethanol.

Working back from that figure he should be able to tell us how many
hectares would be needed, how many needed to maintain the plantation
and how many needed for harvesting and for how long.

Then for processing and transport how many people would be required
in that part of the operation. As ethanol cannot be piped, how many
tankers and drivers to transport the fuel around the country.

From where I sit it seems very people heavy and therefore costly.

All this to produce 60% of the energy in 100,000 barrels of petrol.
Perhaps a study of the olive oil business may give a pointer as it
seems to be mechanically at least very similar.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 13 August 2007 1:12:31 PM
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Xoddam. I would suggest that, properly managed, there is considerable scope for producing energy from trees. Each summer, vast tracts of forest are burnt in uncontrolled bush fires. During the autumn, more fuel is consumed in controlled burns in a generally futile attempt to stop the bush fires.

All this fuel could be used to produce power in a sustainable cycle if the timber, particularly from old growth forests, was utilised to produce useful energy, instead of leaving it to rot or burn.

We are already using waste from plantation timber for this purpose, for example, the power station at Millicent in S.E. South Australia.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Monday, 13 August 2007 2:41:58 PM
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Uncontrolled burning of excess fuel in forests does reduce the carbon-fixing benefit that the healthy forest might otherwise provide. Sure, if it would be burned in any case, better to generate electricity from it than waste it -- but I don't see these furnaces as part of a long-term low-emission energy economy.

I think the quantities of wood involved there fall into the "forestry waste" category. In a fossil-fuel-free economy this wood might be in high demand as valuable feedstock for liquid fuels, but burning it would still be neither necessary nor sufficient to meet electric demand.

It's telling that when I went searching on Google to find the details of this plant, I kept turning up windmills. That 30MW wood-fired steam plant is surrounded by dozens of 2MW wind turbines! These probably cost less to run and sell power at the same premium as the wood-fueled plant.

The difference between burning wood and coal to raise steam is like that between drinking fair-trade coffee and the regular stuff: the effect of consumption is identical, right down to the carbon emissions. The fact that the carbon released was fixed (or 'sequestered') from the atmosphere a few decades ago and not a hundred million years back doesn't make much difference right now.

No-one would seriously consider burning wood for "base load" stationary energy at a rate comparable to that in which we presently burn coal in power stations. Steam technology is too wasteful, forest land insufficiently productive, and "the right to burn" ought to be more valuable than that.
Posted by xoddam, Monday, 13 August 2007 5:50:08 PM
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