Unintended Consequences

[Johnny]

I just received the following from a friend that is in the business of testing and designing additives for biofuels. Found it interesting.


Unintended Consequences

Biofuel Crops Actually Increase Carbon Dioxide Emissions according to two studies conducted by the University of Minnesota (a state that mandates using B2) and Princeton University

Converting existing farmland from food to biofuel increases greenhouse gases as food production is shifted to other parts of the world OR worse that rain forests are cleared to produce biofuels

A US cornfield devoted to producing ethanol would have to be farmed for 167 years to achieve a net reduction in emissions

Cutting down a tropical rainforest in Brazil to grow soybeans increases emissions for 319 years

Clearing an Indonesian peat land rainforest to make way for a biofuels plantation releases so much carbon that a net reduction in emissions would not begin for 423 years

 

[Steve S]

Think about the people who push these ideas? Then the sheeple who follow them.

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: Steve S
Think about the people who push these ideas? Then the sheeple who follow them.


Another inconvenient truth?

 

[Shannow]

Look at lobby groups for your answer.


You can get 10 times as much oil per acre if you are using an oilcrop that's not also used for tofu and baby food.

 

[IndyFan]

On a similar note, I remember in the early 80's reading a report in either Time or Newsweek that said that if the (then) current rate of clearing were sustained, there would be no rain forest left in South America by 2010.

We must be down to just a few thousand acres of Amazon by now, right?

 

[oilyriser]

Wear polyester clothes. Land used for growing cotton can be converted to fuel crops, and the petroleum saved can be used to make polyester. The syn clothing lasts 10x as long as cotton. To completely replace cotton, someone has to find a way to coat the plastic fibres so they wick away sweat as well as cotton, for summer clothes.

 

[TiredTrucker]

Unintended consequences? More than most even have any realization of.

Increased wasting of taxes to promote biofuels and to run the buearocracies that put out all the regulations regarding its use.

Let's see... we (according to many sources including Farm Bureau) are for the first time going to have to import wheat due to the number of acres being turned over to corn and soybean production.

Alfalfa production acres are down dramatically so that a typical small bale that used to be about $2 just a few years ago now goes for $4.50-$5 a bale. Alfalfa is now way over $200 a ton in many areas.


It is clear that biofuels are costing all of us far more than we would like to consider. It would not be too far out of line to guess that biofuels are costing us nearly twice as much as what we see the price at the pump.

I bought into the biofuels idea early on and saw it as something that had potential. That was if left to purely market driven forces. But, of course, the government had to step in and make a mess of it. Now we are all paying for it, whether we use it or not.