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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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Geologist leaves oil company, starts biofuels company - What does that tell you about how much fossil oil there is left? (no not running out, 'just' peaking)

I for one love the cleareyed examination of biofuel saviours that has so recently entered public debate, & look forward to Ron providing sufficient data to support his claims. Currently industrial nations are consuming (at the point of the neoliberal gun, WTO regulated 'free trade') the natural income of less-industrialised countries, driving land clearing to ever higher levels. The EUs 5% biodiesel mandate is often blamed, but in fact its the much older braindead economic rationalism of 'free trade' regulation that enables the crime.

Anyway, self-regulation is so yesterday, look how well its worked with loans brokers. I think biofuels production systems need to be subject to close public scrutiny of their energy and material flows before subsidy is murmured by even the most respectable of corporate chisellers.
Posted by Liam, Tuesday, 14 August 2007 6:27:21 PM
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Ron makes the comment, and repeated it on ABC radio last night that the
trees he proposes as suitable will grow on soil not generally suitable
for other crops. However will they give a better yield on better soils?

If so will the cheaper land offset the lower yield ?

If not then the better crop land will be used, and the advantage of
being able to use poorer soils disappears.
Posted by Bazz, Wednesday, 15 August 2007 8:46:46 AM
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An excellent, balanced, and encyclopaedic article, and, perhaps nowhere better targetted than upon an Australian readership. Lord Ron Oxburgh has effectively written upon my secret hobbyhorse, wood as an energy storage system!

I will only comment in relation to an emryonic micro-scale application of this specific bio-fuel in an Australian setting. Two events have been focussing both my thinking and my determination about implementing, sooner rather than later, the use of wood not as a base load energy source for both my household and vehicular needs, but as a gap-filler for intermittency in (primarily) solar and wind energy availability. Those two events have been the significant increase in petroleum fuel prices at the pump, and the demonstration of the fragility of the electricity distribution network in the recent Queen's Birthday weekend storms.

Solar energy powered gasification of bushland deadfall in distributed co-generation of woodgas and liquified derivatives, with grid-interactive electricity as a by-product. I have available on a rural residential block, all the inputs, on a sustainable basis, more than sufficient for my needs. The beauty of it is, all of this is approaching viability at this very small (peasant farming?) scale. I don't plan to need no 'gummint' help to do it, just for them/it to stay out of my way. Roll on the price increases for crude oil! I (and, in a general sense, Australia) will be the winner. And as winner I intend to take all: all that is presently excise, crude oil raw material cost, and oil industry profit margin. So there! Other Australians can do likewise.

The nigger in the woodpile is white ants. Termites. If you allow them to get the deadfall, it ain't CO2 you have to worry about (if you insist that we all live in a planetary greenhouse) but methane: fifty times worse! Billions of the little niggers (er, I mean termites) all farting and stealing OUR bio-fuel!

Other white ants are the control freaks who seek to control 'the right to burn' this greenhouse-neutral under-utilised fuel.
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Wednesday, 15 August 2007 9:50:37 AM
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Biofuels do have a place in contributing to the future. Especially 'seed oil' fuels contributing to the rising cost of foods. Be careful what you wish for as farmers aren't any more moral or ethical human beings than oil men.
Posted by aqvarivs, Wednesday, 15 August 2007 12:00:36 PM
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Forrest, you're an inspirational genius! Can I run with you?

Maybe you'll even find a way to collect and commercialise termite methane :-)

For filling gaps in intermittent electric supply and for transportation fuel, gas and/or liquid fuels are most useful and efficient, and they can indeed be effectively derived from firewood. Business and farmers alike will be lining up to buy your solar-assisted wood gasifier, just as soon as the "right to burn" coal (presently too easy to collect and burn in volume) is severely curtailed.

Your suggestion is actually *exactly* what I had in mind, though I have my doubts about cottage-scale industry on the farm being competitive with "biorefineries" like those being set up today by the likes of Richard Branson.

When/if it is no longer acceptable to burn fossil fuels, firewood will command a high price and burning it to raise steam for electricity as at Tantanoola and Tarpeena will seem like sheer profligacy -- this is all I meant when I said the "right to burn" ought to be more valuable.

Any sensible policy approach will trade in the rights to release *any* form of greenhouse gas, which will alow us to continue to exploit relatively low-carbon fossil fuels like natural gas and petroleum while keeping emissions from land use change to a minimum, using soil and forest management as a sequestration technique. Switching wholesale to nominally "carbon neutral" biofuels is already problematic -- fuel crops including firewood must be adopted judiciously.

Burning wood day and night to produce electricity is insane when the sun, the wind and the waves will make it for you more cheaply for most of those hours. Logging for fuel to supplement coal might *worsen* greenhouse emissions by releasing large quantities of soil-sequestered carbon (much of it as methane) in addition to flue emissions. I know that's not exactly what is happening today in Australia, but the risk is there if biofuels are uncritically adopted worldwide.
Posted by xoddam, Wednesday, 15 August 2007 12:17:45 PM
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xoddam,

Sorry for the delay in responding to your request. Had a very busy day away from the keyboard and screen, but am now back on digital dialysis, and feeling better already.

You most certainly can run with me, if you think it worth the risk to your credibility. For my part, I would welcome the riding tips you could doubtless give me in regard to hobbyhorsing. But its only fair you should know before you do over what terrain the courses are laid.

Some insight into my running style may be obtained from a study of my posts to the topic "Innovative uses for Salt" (see this link: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=134 ), where, in fact I began my first OLO run. I was accompanied for much of that run by Sylvia Else, another regular OLO contributor, of whom, incidentally, I have not seen much recently, but she is still around. Perhaps she is spending a lot of time developing her salt powered desalinator, an idea she had while out on that run.

You will note a reference to solar pondage right at the outset on the "Innovative uses for Salt" thread. I mention this because I can see a cross-fertilization of solar pondage with your industrially-grown algae suggestion contained within your first post on this thread. In this connection, you may also find some benefit in a study of the dialogue with Peter Ravenscroft, an hydrogeologist, on the "What's a Bone Dry City Worth" comments thread (see this link: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5616 ). This thread too has cross-fertilization possibilities with regard to industrial algae production, perhaps even more than the Salt thread.

Anyway, have a look and see what you think. Now, I must check my woodpile. A few things have been niggling me about the termite problem, and I have just remembered something that was developed by a chap called Heinrich Himmler from an invention originally made during the Boer War that might just offer a final solution. Concentration camps! And gas!
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Friday, 17 August 2007 8:43:04 AM
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