Comments on Did This Make Slog?

Next you'll be telling us that those commercials telling us how we can be "green" by buying "Eco-shape (TM)" plastic bottles from Arrowhead water are lying to us, too!

why is this a surprise? In all the biodiesel claims, it's never been stated that the production of this fuel is "green". It's the products our cars make that supposedly makes this a better fuel choice. And that is true, but there will be no production of anything that won't create some pollutants, unless all manufacturing is stopped.

The "Green" movement is all corporate greed. They will only move toward anything that will give them money.

Biodiesel is really starting to piss me off. Sure, it helps us rely less on foreign oil, but it really isn't a clean fuel. It is still carbon based. Burning it still contributes to global warming. Demand for it also competes with the food supply which raises food prices and contributes to inflation.

You really want to save the planet and get us off of foreign oil? Here you go...

http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/?from=fcx.honda.com

Way better for the environment than scooters or flexcars and we don't have to dismantle our highways infrastructure, or kid ourselves about the region's growth or how awesome the bus is to save those cute little fucking polar bears.

Sure this is a bit of a scam because we really don't need gas companies to make our hydrogen, but I'll take the incremental gains for now.

Which is why eco-subsidies need to be very carefully thought out. They haven't been. And the most disgusting part of this story is that our tax dollars are going to subsidize this insanity, which is only the third- or fourth-worst thing about biodiesel subsidies.

In other news, I read recently that on a global scale, biodiesel stands a very good chance at becoming the #1 creator of greenhouse gases within just a couple of years, due primarily to the amount of deforestation that's going on for it.

Fnarf - got a link supporting that last comment? Seems a preposterous prediction, given that 1000 new gasoline burning cars come on the streets of Beijing everyday, and we in the US are poised to start making gasoline out of COAL (for twice the lifecycle GHG emissions of petroleum) if we don't find better alternatives.

Dan - the headline, though mangled, is more correct than your restating of it. The byproducts of biodiesel production are not necessarily pollutants - they only end up that way if stupid, careless, greedy businesspeople don't dispose of them properly.

It's astoumding how gullible the American public is. Next thing they'll be trying to tell us that second-hand smoke causes cancer.

WRONG BOYD.. The BIO in biodiesel is carbon based. Putting it into your Jetta and turning the key creates pollutants regardless of the intent of the people making it or how they dispose of the waste.

And gas out of coal? It will never happen. Why would you make gas out of coal when you can make it out of water?

Wrong Clint, and minus 5 for not reading. I said 'biodiesel production', not 'biodiesel combustion'.

Coal-to-liquid is a very real threat:
http://www.futurecoalfuels.org/
Why do it? Because the US has HUGE coal reserves, orders of magnitude greater than liquid oil reserves.

BTW, Clint - where do you think the energy comes from to make Hydrogen fuels? Outside of this particularly wet region - it comes from burning coal.

And where does all that lovely H2 come from, Clint?

Damn it, I hate when Slog eats my comment for having two links in it.

To recap what was lost, boyd main @5, I may well be wrong on the specifics, but deforestation is a massive threat to the carbon cycle, which has been called a "carbon bomb". Forests are the biggest carbon sinks on earth aside from the oceans, and they're being mowed down for cheap lumber -- and biodiesel, made from palm oil.

Michael Specter in the New Yorker has some interesting things to say on the subject: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/25/080225fa_fact_specter

Dan, you realize that "A is called B" is not the same as "B is called A", right?

Yes, it is ironic—apparently biodiesel is only the solution to all of ADM's problems... (And one that kind of sucks for anyone who relies on cheap corn to feed their family.)

that "spill" in MO also rain into AR and I am an aquatic ecologist and am familiar with the area. one of my coworkers was involed in the mussel and fish survey and the death zone was a total of 10 miles of stream. "Biofuel" is fucked up for many reasons and this is just another. most of these are not a net carbon gain over fossil fuels and some are net carbon loss.

That article is depressing. Thanks.

There will always be greedy bastards in every industry. Though I understand what Dan Scott is saying about "growing pains," that doesn't excuse it.

I get the complaints about biofuel. It used to look a lot more appealing before the invasion of our food supply. But no one needs to get down on biodiesel drivers-- especially not Mr. Savage in his frking commercial jet airliner. Here's the wiki facts:

Biodiesel contains fewer aromatic hydrocarbons: benzofluoranthene: 56% reduction; Benzopyrenes: 71% reduction.
Biodiesel can reduce by as much as 20% the direct (tailpipe) emission of particulates, small particles of solid combustion products, on vehicles with particulate filters, compared with low-sulfur ( Biodiesel has a higher cetane rating than petrodiesel, which can improve performance and clean up emissions compared to crude petro-diesel (with cetane lower than 40).

Now if only we could only fine the hell out of these jackasses who run the few plants in this country (out of the 160) that intentionally dump their oil and glycerine. And use waste oil for fuel processing rather than razing forests...

All the pseudo-hippies who want to feel green but not give up their single passenger auto won't be able to feel good about themselves anymore.

You get the hydrogen by applying an electrical charge to water. Burning coal is one way to get that electricity, but not the only way.

But it is, in fact, the way most people get their electricity. We get it here from hydro. Pretending that hydro doesn't have its own environmental costs is shortsighted.

It doesn't have to be that way. Some have had success getting the required electrical charge from their vehicle's alternator.

I will agree that there will be some wrinkles to work out after v1.0 of these hydrogen cars begin rolling out, but I disagree that hydrogen powered vehicles are akin to burning coal.

Clint - I admire your optimism. Perhaps you should apply that optimism to biofuels as well? Just like hydrogen has kinks to work out, so do biofuels. Given a few years, biodiesel will be made from algae which grow on non-arable land, and are fed the smokestack gas from powerplants, and the wastewater from sewage and agriculture. Ethanol will be made from the stalk of the corn plant, leaving the head to go into the food supply.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with biofuels - there are simply problems with current implementations. Those problems are surmountable, and many dollars and hours of R+D are going into solving them.

Using nuclear power for water electrolysis to produce hydrogen is the best option we currently have for fuel cell vehicles. The other is to simply have electric cars that get their power from the power grid supplied by nuclear generation. While nuclear has to be contained, the science of that containment is known and tested compared to carbon sequestration that we keep hearing the candidates talk about. Carbon sequestration is a theory and a small experiment at best right now. Until those guys at CERN figure out fusion, I think our current nuclear power production methods will have to suffice and we should invest heavily in that method since we can ill afford to keep burning coal.

I do realize there still is the issue of mining for the nuclear fuels, etc, but overall the carbon impact is less than coal burning, unless I'm mistaken.