Carbusters #27
Table of contents + -
- Introduction: The Road to Carfreedom
- Fueling the Future, or Feeding Our Obsession
- Read the Label: Warning Stickers for Cars? (online after 15.7.2006)
- Top 10 Myths About the Carfree Movement, Part II (online after 15.7.2006)
- Re-Cycling History: Beijing to Paris by Bike (online after 15.7.2006)
- Special sections
Fueling the Future, or Feeding our Obsession
by Henry Studer
In recent months, the car industry has been canonising itself by
pointing out its efforts for alternative fuels, energy efficiency and
every little gadget that will help reduce some of the pollution which
cars themselves have been causing over the past century. Also, the
European Union has declared that it wants biofuels that come from
renewable resources to make up almost 6% of total fuel for transport.
By the end of 2007, writes Reuters, the EU will
be producing six million tonnes of biofuel, up 50% from current levels.
In 2005, the US Department of Energy produced 3.4 billion gallons of
ethanol, accounting for 14% of all corn produced in the US. However,
this represents less than 1% of total vehicle use.
After opening the auto show in Geneva, the
Swiss minister of transport cold-shouldered the hot sport cars and
powerful off-roaders to inform himself at the booth of the new
ethanol-driven automobile. The conclusion of the news magazine Facts,
and many others, is overly hasty: "There are no reasons left to
demonise the automobile."
On the one hand, the Traffic Club of
Switzerland (VCS) quotes an analysis from the Ministry of Environment
(BUWAL) from 1998, illustrating that, considering all life cycle
processes, biodiesel and ethanol are worse than their fossil
substitutes. This judgement depends on the weighting of the relevant
criteria like energy balance, CO2 savings, agricultural impacts and
emissions such as NOx.
David Pimentel's studies also suggest that more
fossil fuel energy is needed to produce ethanol than is contained in
the ethanol. Further, he says that in comparison with fossil fuels,
"plants and trees do not collect enough solar energy to supply humans
with their needs."
Now energy is literally harvested on
fields, which is a renewable process if fossil fuel inputs are
eliminated. Farmers are starting to see a new potential for their
fallow land. The German Association for Plant Oils calculates that
"only" 3.6 million km2 of oil palm would be required to substitute for
today's global crude oil demand. This would be 12% of Africa or 2.6% of
the earth's land surface. But according to the Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations, there were only about 14 million
km2 available for agricultural purposes in 2005.
Diverting 25% of this land from food to
energy production wouldn't really help improve food security in
developing countries. Furthermore, oil palm plantations often displace
rainforests, as do soybeans, another valuable source of plant oil. And
the yield of most oil crops is around 1,500 litres/hectare, requiring
six times more area for the same oil output than requiring for growing
oil palm (10,000 litres/hectare). In fact already 10% of Germany's
arable land is devoted to energy crops - mainly rapeseed - but this
provides only 1.6% of the fuel consumed in the country.
Although plant oil fuels are suitable for
the quiet conscience of a small group of ecologically sensitised
drivers and are not a solution for mankind's tremendous addiction to
mobility and energy, there are potential biofuels out there that
suggest a viable alternative, at least on a small scale. The Indian
government believes it can produce about 20 million tonnes of biodiesel
on 150,000 km2 of waste land, thereby reducing erosion, providing rural
employment and reducing India's trade deficit caused by its energy
imports. The plan is to grow jatropha, a frugal scrub bearing inedible
nuts with a high oil content, which could even shade an intermediate
food crop on the newly developed farm land.
However, even this impressive potential
will not be able to meet the rising diesel demand, and it would
probably be better used to supply power for remote villages or running
the diesel trains of Indian Railways, which is already involved in
jatropha cultivation, as are local and international companies.
Regarding synthetic biomass fuels,
laborious efforts at processing fuels in order to drive cars only makes
sense after substituting fossil fuels at power plants, which can easily
run on unprocessed biomass such as wood. Despite the trend-setting
attempts for biogas fuel stations in Switzerland, gas-driven cars
mainly have to depend on non-renewable sources.
Finally, the possibility exists that the
technical challenges facing hydrogen fuel cell production might be
solved. Yet hydrogen is only a form of energy storage, and its
proponents will have a rude awakening when the time comes to look for a
clean and affordable energy source for hydrogen generation.
All of this and more will become clearer
in the next few pages. Take a breath of (fresh) air, and get ready to
run through the biofuel meadow.
Henry Studer is an industrial engineer, based in Switzerland, who works with renewable resources. Steven Logan contributed to this article.
Send a letter to the editor: editors@carbusters.org
Also in this issue:
The Road to Carfreedom
The world consumes two barrels of oil for every barrel discovered. The era of easy oil is over. It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil. We'll use the next trillion in 30. ... (more)
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