Hello and Greetings from Costa Rica!!!!

We recently republished an article from the NY Times:

Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat


At Eco Preservation Society we like to look beyond the headlines and examine these issues in greater depth. We have come to your board to host our discussion of this issue and we are looking forward to a more thoughtful analysis of the issue.

Thank you for your interest in this subject and we look forward to your thoughtful responses with great anticipation.

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Greetings from Costa Rica!

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I would suspect this study has been paid for by oil companies due to the fact that it ignores a number of key points.

The article suggests all biofuels create demand on agriculture, and to do so land needs to be cleared. There is a large ammount of waste oil in this country that is not already used for biofuels. Any use of this feedstock does not add to greenhouse gasses except in transport. The net use of this biofuel use is a reduction in greenhouse gas.

There is a large amount of farmers land in some parts of the world where farmers are paid not to grow food as not to destabilise prices. This is estimated to be able to grow a significant amount of diesel fuel. Growing biofuels creates a net DECREASE in greenhouse gasses.

There is also a large amount of farmers product that is returned to the ground, because it does not meet the "criteria" st by the purchasing companies (wrong size potatoes, apples with "rust" on them) Managing food expectations would alleviate some of this, and reduce the size.

If I was an oil company, I would start and fund organisations with names like "Nature Conservancy", and look at worst case scenarios for biofuels production, treat it like its the normal way of production, then say its bad, get others on board to help with the promotion of it, and hey presto it appears others are fighting my case.

I wonder if the retail industry will fund my "ethical aquasitions" group. We will argue that all stolen goods are sold as seccond hand, therefore to stop this illigal immpral trade, we will ban all sales of second hand goods, cars, electrical goods, etc. If you didnt know better you would say its a good idea and sounds logical.

At the end of the day large parts of the article are not referenced, and google cant find much backing up these claims (hell even googling ailens control earth gets some help)

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cheers
Chris.
1990 landcruiser 80, 1HD-T two tank, copper pipe HE+ 20 plate FPHE, toyota solenoids and filters. 1978 300D, elsbett one tank system.

Good point. We will look into that. I didn't question the source because it was the NY Times. They are usually biased toward the more liberal point of view. The source of the study needs would be valuable to determine.

Your point that there is under an under utilization of agricultural lands in many areas is valid. I am in Costa Rica and this is true here. In particular with land that was used for cattle production which was never profitable here in Costa Rica.

However, Brazil is a different experience. I read today that an Archbishop condemned the Brazilian government for the wide spread deforestation.

I know this occurs. Can you quantify? What is the capacity of these areas? It would be interesting to know.

Actually the ground is not a bad place to sequester carbon if that is your goal. Putting the crop in the ground sequesters a portion of the Carbon, making it into fuel pretty much guarantees that the carbon is going back into the atmosphere..

Personally I don't really have a problem with the findings of the report.

Biodeal is in my opinion 100% carbon neutral fuel source, regardless if the of the increased emmisions. The fact the the emmerisons is greater is irrelivant!!!!! WHY?

Because all of the carbon that is emitted into the atmosphere from biodiesel is carbon that was extracted from the atmosphere. There is no additional carbon put into the atmosphere, you are just returning carbon that was temporarily sequestered by the plant material.

Fossil Fuels may (or may not) emit less carbon than Biodiesel, however measuring emissions alone is not significant. . The key measurement is comparing the amount of carbon that we are extracting from the ground (and adding to the atmosphere) and comparing that to the amount of carbon that was extracted from the atmosphere.

Biodiesel is carbon neutral because 100% of the carbon you are putting into the atmosphere is carbon that came from the atmosphere (not the ground).

The oil that we are pumping out of the ground contains vast amount of carbon has been out of the carbon cycle for millions years.


The thing that we need to eliminate is the extraction of carbon from the ground. Carbon taken from the air is carbon that belongs in the air.

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Sorry, mistake

__________________
Greetings from Costa Rica!

Family Travel Blog
Eco Preservation Blog
Eco Interactive Families
Saving Mono Titi

correct me if i'm wrong but from my knowledge biodiesel only has one emision that is higher than petroleum diesel and it is nitrous oxide (NoX). all other emissions were much less than petroleum diesel.
are you guys in costa rica running 85% blends of ethanol ??
cheers my south american brother.

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Cheers
Nick.

Roidio 2001 Holden Rodeo 4x4 2.8L TD. 2.5" Straight through exhaust sytem, heat exchanger shower system. 2" Body Lift,
And lots of fruit, B100 for 25,000 no problems.

Elsa 1983 Mercedes-Benz W123 300D. The Fastest Merc in Oz, Loving B100 Burgers

Nope, straight petro in Costa Rica I am affraid. Brazil is doing some interesting things as I am sure you probably know.

I am not really very knowledgeable about biodiesel. I was had hoped that all of you would have those answers.

Best to you ..... thanks!

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Greetings from Costa Rica!

Family Travel Blog
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There have been studies that have showed a very slight increase in NoX with B100, however, these have been done on a dyno, not under real driving conditions. The places in the dyno test where NoX increased were the driving equivalent to starting a truck up a hill in 3rd gear (that is, it is not going to occur in real driving).

NoX increases are not insignificant though. NoX is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2, so it should not be treated lightly.

I believe that the study Camden Council did showed no increase in NoX under the driving conditions they tested with.

Another consideration is that biodiesel burned in an engine designed and tuned for mineral diesel is not the ideal situation. There are minor differences in the timing that can make emissions less. Also, catalytic converters and particulate filter technologies are designed for mineral diesel. I think that as technology progresses and as vehicle manufacturers slowly accept the use of biodiesel, then it will be possible to obtain far better emissions with technology that is tuned to take better advantage of the properties of biodiesel.

It would be short sighted and silly to say all biofuels are no better than fossil fuels without considering that biofuel technologies are still in their infancy and seconds and 3rd generation biofuels technologies and agriculture will surpass today's technologies that some of these studies are looking at the "worst case" of. It is easy to put down biofuels that are made from food products when people are starving, displace people from their lands, destroy rainforest etc. I agree with those who say that biofuels like this are little better than fossil fuel, but we must be sure to try to see a bigger picture.

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Robert Fyvie
Site Admin
Sydney Biodiesel Users' Group and Australian Biofuel Users


......................................................
2007 Mazda 6 Diesel ..................................2000 Peugeot 306..........................2001 Landrover (retired)
2L Turbo charged (Common Rail) ...................XTdt 1.9L Turbo ............................Freelander TD4 (Common Rail)
on B100.................................................. ...on B100.......................................on B100

Sorry, getting into quotes on quotes does not work well.

Probably the part I have an issue with as "not quoted" are the "a group of 10 of the United States’s most eminent ecologists and environmental biologists" This could easily be 10 people employed by "big oil" they are not suggested to be attached to universities, or be independant.


For the edible food being returned to the land (but not asthetic, so rejeted by retailers) I was using as a point to show we can use less land for food, leaving more land for biofuels. I did have a job (a mind numbing job, the "interview" was seeing if I could do it for a day) throwing apples on the ground from trees. If we didnt do it the retailers would reject the apples because they were too small, and had defects. So we would leave an amount of apples on the tree, enablling the left apples to grow bigger, and remove any with blemishes on them.
Also down here potato farmers return a large percentage of their crop to the ground because of asthetic reasons, If they grow less, they are rejected, so grow more to get more good looking ones.

Boiling the article down to its net message would be..
100% biofuel usage would require land to be cleared .
Land clearing makes greenhouse gas.
Therefore using biofuels creates greenhouse gas.
leaving us with the conclusion of keep using fossil fuels (which is why I am suspicious as to who is in the background behind this!)

The argument the article should make is.

Any fossil fuel use is damaging the environment.
A small amount of biofuel can be made from with a net improvement of the atmosphere (using waste oil)
A larger amount could be made using fallow land.
A huge amount could be made from clearing land (and possibly causing more greenhouse gas than fossil fuel use)

The conclusion therefore is how much should we mandate as the optimum to be used to minimise our CO2 emmisions? (using waste oil, fallow land and clearing where there will be a net decrease in CO2 emmisons)

Also as a footnote. Biodiesel isnt 100% carbon neutral, unless made from ethanol (a renewable) or methanol that has been renewably made. The methanol generaly used is fossil based, but is still a lot better than diesel.

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cheers
Chris.
1990 landcruiser 80, 1HD-T two tank, copper pipe HE+ 20 plate FPHE, toyota solenoids and filters. 1978 300D, elsbett one tank system.

An interesting thought -

Many areas of north Australia get burnt off every year. Most north Australian plants do not live all that long. It could be said that all biomass in these areas will eventually be turned into smoke.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I do appreciate your insights.

In this case I can speak for the Nature Conservancy. (The Nature Conservancy - Protecting Nature, Preserving Life) They are authors of one of the studies. They are one of the most highly respected environmental organizations in the US. I am highly doubtful that they were influenced by big oil, but I guess it is possible.

I will see what I can do about sourcing the other report. Thanks again for your time and trouble in responding.

__________________
Greetings from Costa Rica!

Family Travel Blog
Eco Preservation Blog
Eco Interactive Families
Saving Mono Titi