News RE: The Morning News — Biofuels
posted by on May 10 at 16:40 PM
Posted by Sage Van Wing
The recent UN Energy report warning about the dangers of pushing too strongly for biofuels is a much needed counterbalance to the growing ethanol frenzy. One thing the report mentions that hasn’t been picked up much in the press is that current biofuel fad is being driven mainly by large agricultural corporations and the biotech industry.
The only efficient way to make ethanol is from the cellulose in crop waste. The only way to do that is with genetically engineered microbes. Last month, thousands of corporate executives and scientists from all over the world gathered in Orlando, Fla. for an industry trade show specifically aimed at touting biotechnology’s so-called third wave: ethanol. Government agencies led by the the Department of Energy have awarded up to $385 million over four years to six biotechnology companies to develop ethanol.
And yet biotechnology is far from an agreed-upon science. Europe and Japan won’t import crops from the US that have been genetically modified. Consumers have consistently said they don’t want to buy GM foods. Of course genetically modified microbes are a whole different matter. Aren’t they?
On another note, the UN report wasn’t all negative about Biofuels.
Buried deep in the document was this lovely quote:
"Women who have access to modern fuels face a lighter cooking burden, which frees up more time to pursue educational, social and economic opportunities," according to the UN. "They are also more likely to have the chance to partake in wider networks...through enhanced access to radio, television, and other communications technologies."
And there we have it: biofuels can make our cooking tasks lighter, ladies, letting us spend more time watching the tube.
It has always seemed to me that - as cars are a threat to our dwidling oil supply, agriculture is to our (arguably more important) dwindling water supply. From a purely "the-human-fucking-race-is-going-to-destroy-itself-and-here's-how" standpoint, I don't see ANY advantage to biofuels. (and we're obviously not talking about restaurant waste oil here, hippies, so settle down.)
there are so many other species that would work better to produce ethanol than crop waste! soybeans and corn can only do so much. why don't we use these other species - these quick-growing, compact, pleasant grasses - to make our ethanol instead? then we might not need to genetically modify the bacteria at all.
@1 - don't throw out the baby with the bathwater - grow algae in it instead. Industrial scale algal culturing has the potential to clean up tertiary wastewater and scrub industrial carbon dioxide, all the while producing high energy liquid fuels. Such an approach will not compete directly for food (like corn/soy/canola), nor necessarily even indirectly for the land that crops grow on. I have seen the future and it involves a lot of algae powering a lot of transport.
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