Growing Biofuels: The Sustainability Opportunity

[jpak]

http://www.renewableaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=50142

The biofuels boom has brought on a backlash, and the biofuels community is beginning to mount a response. This was in evidence at the second annual Business of Biofuels Conference in Gresham, Oregon last month. One of its two days was devoted to sustainability issues, particularly the interaction of food and fuel crops.

Keynoter Jim Kleinschmidt of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) mapped the landscape.

"Today there is no question, biofuels are becoming mainstream, a real part of today's agriculture, energy and forestry agenda. But there are consequences," said the IATP Rural Communities Program director, noting food security concerns are one of the greatest consequences. "The backlash against biofuels is growing. We are now at risk of losing the public support needed for expansion of biofuels markets."

Kleinschmidt said biofuels growth is underscoring and amplifying problems created by existing agricultural policies. That opens the way for biofuels to promote sustainable agricultural policies.

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[poopfuel]

1. a very good story JPak

Thanks for posting.
The sustainable ethanol system starts right here (see link). Growing crops for fuel can increase food supplies, handled properly. The carbon dioxide from the fuel making process can be funneled into greenhouses to speed growth of vegetable crops. It's in the book.

http://www.permaculture.com/site/node/277

[losthills]

2. There is good reason for a public backlash.

When you deconstruct the myth of biofuels, you realize that it's just a boondoggle. You can't grow crops on the scale needed for a meaningful biofuels component to our transportation system without burning tons of fossil fuels to grow and process it. There is not enough land available to grow enough fuel crops to make a meaningful dent in our consumption of petroleum, anyway. Bio-fuels are only a replacement or additive to the fuel tank, and we already know how to make decent electric vehicles.

So, when you analyze it you realize that so-called biofuels are just another way to turn oil into fuel, and they provide cover for keeping the internal combustion engine at the center of our transportation sector. And they create a huge incentive to cut down forests and develop our last wildlands to grow it. It's lose/lose for the environment, and win/win for the oil companies.

And all that hogwash about how many cents worth of corn is in a box of wheaties is pure BS-- if we buy into the myth of Biofuels, it will raise the price of all food crops to match the price of a barrel of oil...

[razzleberry]

3. how do oil companies 'win', when they never touch the stuff?

4.5% of gasoline volume is bio, (in the US)
headed to more than 10%

[poopfuel]

4. Dave Blume author of Alcohol can be a gas on Thom Hartmann today

Third hour of the show.
DU bloggers may want to call in.

[hunter]

5. Biofuels merely postpone the inevitable collapse of our current transportation system...

... and at a huge environmental cost.

If we took that ethanol out of gasoline then the shift to a sustainable transportation system would be accelerated.

Instead we all get to drive our gasoline cars a little further and the oil companies profit.

[losthills]

6. Take the gasoline out of ethanol

and your car will come to a rolling stop.

It's just an additive. An additive made from petroleum...

[razzleberry]

7. ethanol, 90 percent not made from petroleum

that is the point,
cut the middle east,
and oil companies,
out of the deal

[poopfuel]

8. boy do you need to read up on ethanol!

It was the first fuel for cars. Not gasoline. Henry Ford ran all his cars on the stuff and he favored it into the 1930s.
Do a little homework, pal. Stop reading what undereducated people tell you to read.
"additive made from petroleum...." wow....

permaculture.com

[losthills]

9. Ethanol is a scam.

It takes oil to produce ethanol.

We don't have enough land or enough water to make enough ethanol to replace gasoline.

Ethanol benefits farmers and oil companies only, and leads to environmental destruction.

Educate yourself.