Twenty-First Century Snake Oil: Why the United States Should Reject Biofuels as Part of a Rational National Security Energy Strategy (pdf)
Current military and national energy policy and strategy need to be informed by a better understanding of the physical limitations and negative consequences of large-scale biofuels cultivation and consumption that are only now starting to receive due attention. This paper presents a physical evaluation of key characteristics of liquid transportation fuels and highlights the deficiencies that preclude biomass from becoming a primary energy source and biofuels from replacing petroleum as a national-scale transportation fuel. These factors include petroleum-dependence, energy return on investment (EROI), energy density, power density, water footprint, food competition, environmental damage, land confiscation, and lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper argues that biofuels do more to harm the causes of national and global security than to help them.
It’s an 86 page report, so grab a coffee.
h/t Ron
Meh, 86 pages of facts and figures.
Where is the discussion on how it makes environmentalist’s feel?
Racists.
A few years ago, a guy drives into our town driving a mid-90’s Dodge diesel one ton. He pulls into a local greasy spoon asking if can obtain used oil from the deep fryer, canola oil that looks like road oil when they chuck it.
Do keep in mind that it was minus 20C, and that in order to use this stuff, he had to mix it with a host of other chemicals. So I asked, “Why don’t you just drive to the Fas Gas station and fuel up with the good stuff.” I could see the warped thinking unfold. “I’m trying to do my share to save the environment” said the follower of Elizabeth May. We chatted for a while. He was actually an interesting character, although misinformed.
The next day I was driving to the city. On the side of the road was a stalled Dodge diesel being hooked up to an F-450 wrecker from Moose Jaw. I pulled over to ask what had taken place. “Fuel problems” explained the tow truck driver. I thought of the phrase, “saving the environment.” How do save the environment when you send another diesel engine 45 miles to rescue the other diesel engine with gelled fuel?
Needless to say, my F-150 runs on regular pump gasoline. The kind that burns all winter.
A meaty and interesting read. The author appears to have swallowed the AGW meme, but I’m not sure if he really believes it, or is just paying lip service because it supports his thesis that biofuels are bad policy. If you believe that CO2 emissions are a “bad thing” then supporting biofuels is irrational, because their production and use leads to the emission of much more CO2 than the production and use of fossil fuels to do the same work.
I’m sure the usual suspects will level a litany of ad hominem attacks against the author, because he is a member of the military, and because he references sources that the green mafia have declared to be “unsound” (mainly because they disagree with the green mafia).
Key word . . Rationale.
Politics drives the decisions so it doesn’t have a hope of being accepted.
If the greenies were rationale and truly worried about CO2, they would be insisting on new nuke designs to supply energy.
But rationale and Eco Greenie fruitcake nutter treehugger just don’t mix.
It is immoral, if not criminal, for governments to advocate and promote policies that increase the price of food and fire, mainstays of human development.
Under pressure from my supplier, I used biofuel in my furnace for one winter – the result was an 18% increase in fuel consumption for the same heat as “normal” fuel. I gritted my teeth and paid the stupid BC carbon tax on regular furnace oil and came out ahead, albeit depriving the environment of much-needed CO2.
86 pages and untold financial costs to state what common sense dictates. If we keep listening to the likes of Al Gore, David Suzuki and Elizabeth May then we truly deserve to send mankind back into the cave!!!
Sugar Beets are not just for sugar anymore.
Federal government spends $600,000 on sugar beet biofuel, bio-glycol study
Hey, if they ask me, I can tell them the answer – bifuel, NO. Other uses, maybe – if economically justifiable.
Sugar beets take an enormous amount of energy input to grow – field preparation, weed control, fertilization, irrigation, harvesting. I doubt
Sugar Beets
/just an old beet farmer from way back
Or ask any chemical engineer why beet sugar is incompatible with the production of fuels.
I was stupid enough to ask that question recently as was treated to a lecture on the structure of different sugar molecules. Didn’t understand squat but the guy was convincing.
Get ready for more of the same…the projected corn acreage to be planted in the U.S. for 2013 is 99.3 million acres and 78.8 million acres of soybeans.
I’m sure that nonsense will end as soon as Harper gets his majority.
The American study referenced has very little applicability to the Canadian situation. Canada is a net exporter of petroleum products so there is no need to use bio-fuels to displace petroleum as in the American case as net importers of petroleum.
In Canada small amounts of bio-fuels are used as additives with gasoline and diesel fuel to significantly reduce toxic pollution from vehicle exhaust. Biodiesel is made from substandard\waste canola seed and added to diesel fuel to significantly reduce particulate pollution, especially with older engines not having modern computerized fuel system controls. It’s putting an otherwise waste product to good use.
Farmers got it so easy, all they have to do is grow their own ‘bio-fuels’ like ethanol and they never have to visit a gas station.
Needless to say, my F-150 runs on regular pump gasoline. The kind that burns all winter.Posted by: Plainzdrifter
Needless to say, my LandCruiser runs on pump diesel mixed with biodiesel I make from used fryer oil. The kind that burns all winter. It costs less than $1 per liter for my fuel mix, a 30% savings off the pump price. However, don’t try to make biodiesel, most people won’t understand how do it right, and end up ruining their engine like the idiot described by Plainzdrifter.
He, heeee, heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee……….. ;