Bioelectricity Promises More 'Miles Per Acre' Than Ethanol

ScienceDaily (2009-05-08) -- Biofuels such as ethanol offer an alternative to petroleum for powering our cars, but growing energy crops to produce them can compete with food crops for farmland, and clearing forests to expand farmland will aggravate the climate change problem. How can we maximize our "miles per acre" from biomass? Researchers writing in Science say the best bet is to convert the biomass to electricity, rather than ethanol.

How Britons fuel destruction of the rainforest

"British consumers are fuelling the rising demand for palm oil, speeding up the destruction of rainforests and killing off orangutans."

A thought provoking article by Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent of The Independent begins "A cooking oil that is driving the destruction of the rainforests, displacing native people and threatening the survival of the orangutan is present in dozens of Britain's leading grocery brands, an investigation by The Independent has found".

The article concludes with a list of manufacturers and their products that are fueling the genocide of the environment and animals. I like millions of consumers would not realize the damage we cause when purchasing our comfort foods.

I remember the old advertising campaign for Mars bars, 'a Mars a day helps you work rest and play' (not used now) but now I look at it with the view that a Mars a day destroys the world in its way.

Is Biofuel Policy Harming European Biodiversity?

Following on from my previous postings on the discussions about the validity of the benefit of Biofuels ( Biofuels Could Hasten Climate Change and Greener fuels will add to cost of motoring, oil co... ). the following article is from the European Forest Institute, the
leading forest research network in Europe, website.

Current estimates state that transport is responsible for about 25% of the energy-related greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. While biofuels are seen as a possible means to reduce these emissions, they are under heavy discussion in terms of economic cost benefits and their environmental and social impacts.

The EU promotes the production of biofuels and has set a target of 5.75% share of biofuels in the transport section for all EU Member States by 2010, and a target of 10% to be reached by 2020. Currently, the biofuel crops consist mainly of commonly known arable crops, such as cereals, maize or rape seed. Increasing the share of these crops could lead to the expansion of cultivated areas, and in turn, to an increasing pressure on the environment, habitat loss and biodiversity decrease, especially if forest, grassland, peatland and wetlands are converted into monoculture plantations for biofuels crops.

The so-called second generation biofuel crops, produced from nonfood, ligno-cellulosic materials such as wood, energy grass or any other cellulosic biomass, which are being developed, offer an alternative. The effects of their production on biodiversity are estimated to be less drastic than that of regular arable crops.

A recent paper by Eggers et al. presents a new method of assessing biodiversity impacts resulting from changing land use due to the production of biofuel crops in Europe, distinguishing between arable (first generation) and woody (second-generation) crop types. In particular, Eggers et al. focus on two questions: (1) what might happen if we doubled the current EU biofuel target of 5.75%, and (2) what might happen if we abolished the current biofuel target. While biodiversity as such includes all forms of life, their impact assessment was restricted to a set of 313 species pertaining to four taxonomical groups.

The results indicate that more species might suffer from habitat losses rather than benefit from a doubled biofuel target, while abolishing the biofuel target would mainly have positive effects. However, the possible impacts vary spatially and depend on the choice of biofuel crop, with woody crops being less detrimental than arable crops. The results give an indication for policy and decision makers of what might happen to biodiversity under a changed biofuel policy in the European Union. The presented approach is considered to be innovative as to date no comparable policy impact assessment has been applied to such a large set of key species at the European scale.

It certainly makes you think! There are already well documented problems because of the destruction of tropical rain forests throughout the world to provide land to grow biofuel destined crops.

Greener fuels will add to cost of motoring, oil companies say

The cost of motoring will rise under a European Union plan to force oil companies to add more biofuel to petrol and diesel, the industry has claimed.

An analysis by the UK Petroleum Industry Association said that drivers of cars built before 2000 would be worst hit because they may have to buy a more expensive type of fuel to avoid damaging their engines.

All drivers will have to fill up more often because biofuels produce fewer miles per gallon.

The Government is also removing the fuel duty discount for biofuel from next year and this is expected to add about 2p a litre to pump prices.

Oil companies have had to spend more than £100 million in the past year on adapting refineries and storage facilities to cope with biofuels. The costs of complying with the EU directive will increase sharply over the next five years and most of the cost will be passed on to drivers.

Biofuel made from crops such as soya, oilseed rape and palm will, in theory, reduce greenhouse gas emissions because the plants absorb carbon as they grow. However, a Friends of the Earth report this week said that biofuels could increase emissions because forests were being cut down to clear land for crops.

Read the full article in the Times.

Biofuels Could Hasten Climate Change

ScienceDaily (2009-04-15) -- A new study finds that it will take more than 75 years for the carbon emissions saved through the use of biofuels to compensate for the carbon lost when biofuel plantations are established on forestlands. If the original habitat was peatland, carbon balance would take more than 600 years.

Conversion of forest to oil palm results in significant impoverishment of both plant and animal communities. Other tropical crops suitable for biofuel use, like soybean, sugar cane and jatropha, are all likely to have similar impacts on climate and biodiversity.

“Biofuels are a bad deal for forests, wildlife and the climate if they replace tropical rain forests,” says research scientist Finn Danielsen, lead author of the study. “In fact, they hasten climate change by removing one of the world’s most efficient carbon storage tools, intact tropical rain forests.”

“The EU and the US should only import and subsidize bio-fuel from guaranteed sustainable productions and only from countries which can demonstrate that their forests are sustainably managed,” says Danielsen.

Click on link above to read full article.