Another milepost along the Highway Of I Told You So: European Biofuel Bubble Bursts
Ten years of debate in the European Union over the detrimental effects of the demand for biofuels for transport on food prices, hunger, forest destruction, land consumption and climate change have come to an end.
The European Parliament finally agreed new E.U. laws on Apr. 28 to limit the use of crop-based biofuels, setting a limit on the quantity of biofuels that can be used to meet E.U. energy targets.
With Europe the world’s biggest user and importer of biodiesel – from crops such as palm oil, soy and rapeseed – the vote is expected to have a major impact around the world, notably in the European Union’s main international supplier countries Indonesia, Malaysia and Argentina. It is likely to signal the end to the expanding use of food crops for transport fuel.
“Let no-one be in doubt,” said Robbie Blake, Friends of the Earth Europe’s biofuels campaigner, “the biofuels bubble has burst. These fuels do more harm than good for people, the environment and the climate. The EU’s long-awaited move to put the brakes on biofuels is a clear signal to the rest of the world that this is a false solution to the climate crisis. This must spark the end of burning food for fuel.”
h/t KevinB
They could always sing “We are STARVING the WORLD!”
Biodiesel a fuel that thins the population the world over…
Not that they needed a weight loss program, just sayin.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group ‘True North’
We should celebrate this triumph of reason over dogma.
For many years, maybe 10 or 20, I have read stories stating that bio-fuels consumed more energy than they produced. I guess the Eurocrats finally figured it out.
Biofuel has never made sense unless it’s derived from waste products. From a economic point of view it’s never made sense, period.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/01/04/the-real-costs-of-alternative-energy/
Note that the ironically-named “Friends of the Earth” spokesbleater is still convinced that “Climate Change” is a crisis, and that it is caused by CO2. They haven’t really gotten smarter, just finally come to the conclusion that biofuels “make things worse”.
You can be sure, that if they were convinced that biofuels were “helping to fix the greenhouse gas problem”, that the little brown people would be thrown under the veggie bus.
I do hope this signals the end on ethanol in our gasoline,the damned stuff reduces H/P and efficiency by about 10%.
The effect of this wrong headed rush to biofuel in the past has hurt the population least able to afford diversion of food stock to fuel. The price of corn in Mexico, Central and South America, long a staple of their diet has skyrocketed over the years.
As Don Morris states fuel efficiency and horse power drops off as well.
Old New, did you fall asleep and do a faceplant on the keyboard, two more submissions of totally unintelligible nonsense, both have nothing to do with the topic. Spell check is your friend, use it.
“…said Robbie Blake, Friends of the Earth Europe’s biofuels campaigner, … a false solution to the climate crisis.”
Seems like an appropriate kind of solution for a false crisis.
Noel, old news needs a LOT more help than just spellchecker! Unfortunately, coherence checker is not an option yet.
weeellll Daaaa
What we need right now are some real reporters to look into who made money turning corn into car fuel.
Don’t expect the same in the States. Even the GOPe won’t risk upsetting the corn etc. farmers on this.
It’s a good start, sure but when you read the article it is really just window dressing. They are setting an upper limit which is much higher than they used last year.
Nay, nay, nay! That’s just not so!
I mean, all Ontario’s farm organizations – OFA, CFFO, NFU – are pushing for more, more, more!
Why, even the recently departed Tim Hudak (Conservative)had a plan on his books for diesel fuel to have a mandatory bio component.
The previous limit was 8.7%, it is lowered to 7.0% while current usage is only 4.7% and declining. Victory Hillary Clinton style.
I so wish I had a “told you so, time machine”
So turning food into fuel is a bad idea – especially if we have lots of fuel … who would hava thunk.
Noel – ignore Mitra. She’s nuts.
Bio-fuel is not new.
Mohawk Oil first started using it back in the 80’s. Their slogan was ‘Mother Nature’s service station” or something similar. They were bought out by Husky about 20 years ago. They still promote ethanol blends.
A drawback from using ethanol was a quicker deterioration of the rubber (bladder?) in fuel pumps. I used their fuel pretty well exclusively and did have to replace my fuel pump. I wasn’t the only one. It was kept quiet, and may still be. Anyone that said the fuel was responsible were told to prove it. Fuel pumps break down for many reasons.
You may ask why I was using their fuel exclusively? Fair question.
Because I worked for them and had a $125 monthly gas allowance which I expensed under ‘service car’.
Back then, that was more than enough.
Exactly. Even many farmers agree that this has been wrong all along.
However as andycanuck and Jamie say, the farm organizations in the US and Canada will fight this as many have invested a lot of money into bio-fuel producing plants.
Two of our local restruants have thse big cotainers for the cookin grease
And those of us who called, “BS” on this nonesense years ago are still labelled “anti-science, deniers” etc. etc. It’s the great thing about being an enviro-loon: always wrong but never in doubt.
Ethanol in gasoline was never a good idea in the first place, but there was a push by the EPA to go to 15% or higher. Not sure if the objective is still in place but there’s a lot of evidence that it would be very destructive.
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/01/automakers-continue-to-quietly-void-warranties-if-you-use-e-15-gas/
Wallyj said: “A drawback from using ethanol was a quicker deterioration of the rubber (bladder?) in fuel pumps. I used their fuel pretty well exclusively and did have to replace my fuel pump. I wasn’t the only one. It was kept quiet, and may still be. Anyone that said the fuel was responsible were told to prove it. Fuel pumps break down for many reasons.”
Alcohol is corrosive, and extremely destructive to pretty much any car made before electronic fuel injection. It will corrode aluminum parts, fuel lines, intake manifold gaskets, any piece of pre-1980’s rubber it touches, and all the seals in old carburetors.
If you want to use E10 pump gas in a pre-80’s car, you will be replacing the fuel pump, lines, gas tank, carb, gaskets and so forth. Either before they fail, or after.
I use Shell ethanol-free premium in my ’64. I need the octane because high compression, and I don’t need to replace every freakin’ thing in there. Its supposed to be original, not three new handles and two new heads like your grandfather’s hammer. Even at that I still have an Edlebrock carb in there, the original Q-jet gave up the ghost back in the 1980s. Because alcohol, probably.
Additional note, removing ethanol from North American fuel will -improve- the environment and it will also reduce fuel prices substantially.
Ethanol fuel was a scam cooked up by American politicians to keep Agricultural mega-corps happy, close cousin to global warming.
Alcohol is dandy when used in post-boost alcohol/water injection on a turbocharged/supercharged performance engine, particularly diesels. As a main fuel its rubbish.
http://www.baytoday.ca/content/news/details.asp?c=78729
Nip U axes biomass center – 6 yrs, it’s done, put a fork in it…
Must say was impressed that there wasn’t a “Harper or Conservative gov” at fault for this in the article.