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.

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/

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

A good way of keeping a serious thread quiet, casting the shadow of Godwin over it! No one knows quite what might happen next, nor what damage to reputation may ensue if one participates. But be ye not alarmed, O ye of little faith.

It is a well known fact that white ants are found where the wood is, because that is what they eat. Consequently, the key to the control and exploitation of white ants is control of their food supply. That is to say, our wood, which they have been pillaging for centuries, eating many of our forebears out of house and home in the process, adding insult to injury by farting all the while while doing so. No more! Its payback time! With the cost of housing what it is, we can no longer afford this 'lebensraum' for termites.

Today, however, the impost of their freeloading is magnified by the fact that what was previously ground-littering deadfall is now required for bio-fuel. Time to lift the game and pick up the sticks. And white ants need a general gouvernement!

All white ants will have to be made to live in special areas. Their population will thus become, relative to that remaining in the wild, concentrated and more manageable in our service. This rounding up will be achieved by collecting all the wood as it falls or dies standing up, and placing it in these special areas which will be containment structures. The white ants will have to go where the food is.

The containment structures will be enclosed with plastic sheeting, to catch all the methane and stop it from going up into the air. Greenhouse gas credits can then continue to be earned.

The white ants themselves are protein. From time to time batches of them can be collected and fed to yabbies and fish farmed near the containment structures, or Konzentrationslageren. These can themselves be made of wood, and replaced when eventually eaten through. Adds a whole new meaning to "Arbeit Macht Frei", doesn't it.

Einsatzgruppen, qvik march!

Question: If a branch falls in the forest and no-one witnesses the event, does it really fall?

Er, sorry Forrest, I was away baiting punter57 (not to mention actually doing, you know, work) and remained blissfully unaware of your final termite solution in the meantime. Godwin had nothing to do with it, though I suppose I must needs query your confidence that it is we humans, and not the termites, who have property rights over deadfall. Seems to me they've been exploiting this particular resource for much longer than us. Their occupation is well-documented by their ancient temples in the woods, so we have no grounds for a presumption of Terra Nullius. We'd better draw up the Native Title legislation very carefully indeed if we want to dispossess them of it.

Nature may well be assisting with the ethnic cleansing that the tongue-in-cheek 'Termitic Final Solution' implies. Have you noticed the extent of regrowth and colonization of Cypress pine (Callitris glauca, and related species) occurring on road reserves and travelling stock routes in inland NSW, and maybe elsewhere? To my mind there is much, much more of it than there ever used to be 40 to 50 years ago. For those unfamiliar with Cypress pine, one of its characteristics is its unpalatability to termites.

This observation, and its implications, merely highlights a general point that I was trying to make with regard to the carbon sequestration aspect of the use of wood as a bio-fuel substitute for fossil fuels, and very specifically liquid fossil fuels. Whether or not wood collected or harvested in the present is able to be immediately processed into woodgas or liquid derivatives is not critically important: such collection and storage itself is a form of sequestration.

The most important aspect of this sequestration is that it interdicts the conversion of deadfall to methane via the agency of the termite population. If I have understood the greenhouse gas concerns correctly, any such interdiction of methane emissions far outweighs the significance of any CO2 contribution to greenhouse emissions that might otherwise result from combustion of the same wood, wood that is in any event a greenhouse neutral fuel as a component in any alleged global warming emissions scenario.

Australia should be immediately moving to adjust any formula of greenhouse or carbon credits used in assessing its standing as a contributor to any global warming to take account of this easily achieved methane interdiction. It can commence (indeed already has at my place) immediately.

It is also to be noted that, in the Australian setting, land use conversion implications are minimal, as most of this wood presently grows on otherwise unfarmed land. This sequestrate, and potential bio-fuel, does not displace any food or other crop. Properly conducted, this collection and harvesting will operate to improve, not degrade, native woodland.

To the woodpile! Pro Ignio Lignis!