Biofuels. What a great name! It just sounds green. Looking around, I see a proliferation of biodiesel stickers everywhere. In my home state of Oregon, all gas stations will be required to add at least 10% ethanol to all gasoline for the next year. Environmentalists are cheering as politicians and the media jump on the biofuel bandwagon. Sounds like a huge win for the environment and society. Think again, in reality, biofuels are much more brown than green.
Here are five reasons why biofuels can be harmful to the environment:
- 1. Biofuels are so profitable that the rainforest, the most efficient absorber of greenhouse gases, is cleared or burned to grow grain and sugarcane 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; stripping key micronutrients from our dwindling topsoil, and nitrogen-rich runoff causing massive algae growth that destroys our streams, rivers, and lakes.
- 3. Because biofuels are more profitable than food crops, large amounts of prime cropland are devoted to biofuel production, leading to grain shortages and increasing the price of grain products, especially in third world countries.
- 4. Although biofuels emit fewer greenhouse gases per gallon than petroleum fuels, they still emit significant amounts. Biofuels are also less fuel efficient. In my vehicle, mileage is substantially reduced when I use a fuel that contains ethanol. Therefore, biofuels generally do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as claimed.
- 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 from consumable fuels to energy sources that do not consume fuel, emit heat or produce pollutants. Right now, electricity is the cleanest energy source available, and companies are beginning to develop and produce powerful electric cars that can go a few hundred miles on a single charge. For these vehicles to be practical, we will need to set up charging stations in every city and along every highway. This requires a massive transition from gas stations to charging stations. The use of biofuels will perpetuate existing service station infrastructure and delay the transition to charging stations. The longer we delay this transition, the more greenhouse gases will be released into our atmosphere.
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At this point, some of you may be wondering why our political leadership and big business are so supportive of biofuels, but don’t even mention electric vehicles. It might be worth watching the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car” which is available on DVD. Click here to go to their website.
For starters, most of the big grain producers are large corporate farms with a strong lobbying presence in Washington and a history of making campaign 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 manufacturing internal combustion engines that burn fuels. Moving to electric motors will require a significant modernization for these companies. Biofuels allow them to avoid making this investment.
The oil industry is perhaps the one that has the most to gain from the implementation of biofuels. They know that the public will eventually demand a move away from oil. All other solutions will take business away from them. However, they will be refining and distributing biofuels just like they do oil, and crude biofuels are cheaper too. 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 been successful in getting many of their supporters and former executives elected and appointed to the highest levels of power in our current administration. It is no surprise 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 production of electricity through solar, geothermal, wind and tidal energy. Even nuclear power could be a viable alternative if the spent fuel can be transported safely 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 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 the Silicon Valley or Middle East of solar energy production. Huge wind farms are being planned for the Plains states. We could be just years away from a massive transition to electric vehicles. For this to succeed, we need big business and our political leadership to focus on this transition. This will take much longer if we allow them to stay focused on biofuels.
When comparing non-consumable energy sources to fuel-based energy production, remember that all fuels must be transported to where they are sold. Transporting fuels burns more fuel, so these transport costs must be calculated into the figures used for greenhouse gas emissions and energy efficiency. The distribution of electricity involves some energy loss, but it is fractional compared to the amount of energy used to transport fuel, and it does not emit greenhouse gases.
Some of you may be wondering why I haven’t mentioned hydrogen fuel cells. There are three reasons why: 1. Combustion of hydrogen still produces heat, 2. Our engineers have not yet figured out how to produce hydrogen without using large amounts of energy to make it, and 3. The other renewable energy sources mentioned above have already been used. they have moved beyond the experimental stage and are in use in the real world.
