<DrumBeat: May 26, 2006 The Oil Drum More on biofuels>

196 comments on Will biofuels always be hopeless?

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Peaknik on May 26, 2006 - 3:34am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Fair enough, Stuart, I am sure there is more we can do with biofuels. My problem with biofuels, other than a low EROEI, it's that they should be used to protect the primary sector (agriculture, perhaps fueling fishing ships also) from international liquids fuel prices, ie: biofuels are for tractors. I don't want to see land being used to fuel cars in the morning traffic jam (I accept this is more an ethical stand than a technical one).

Our problem is that we are going to need more and more fuel, even counting with a reduction in car use in the west and all the mpg efficiency you can throw at it. We just need to stop this stupid car culture, starting from the ones who act as an example for the undeveloped world (that in turn would mean solving our urbanising problem, did you know that in Europe we are sprawling too!!?? at least in Spain)

We can throw and throw solutions, alternative fuels, efficiency, but I have my doubts about our chance to win over the Growth for Growth Sake Culture. Growth seems to keep ahead of us...

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Glenn on May 26, 2006 - 8:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Completely agree that the best first step toward proving a positive EROEI is for the farmer to start using the biodiesel to run all the equipment on the farm. If it doesn't make economic sense for the farmer to use their own production to save money, then I think we can safely say that it is not self sustaining.

The best way to produce any bio based fuel is to start with the immense amounts of waste in all sectors of the economy.

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wkwillis on May 26, 2006 - 9:40am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
As long as he doesn't take his tractor on a public road he can run it on biodiesel, tax free. That's a major savings right there.
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nathanw on May 29, 2006 - 10:42am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Fuels for farm use are already exempt from taxes, under the idea that the taxes are supposed to pay for roads, which the farm use isn't affecting.
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capik on October 17, 2006 - 5:32pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
To destroy weed seeds in your field in a biological way, you can use fungus to 'eat' the weed seeds.   But you need carbon to get the fungus to 'bloom'.   Putting 6 ton of finished compost PER acre (thats alot of compost bob!)

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Seadragon on May 26, 2006 - 8:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I just yesterday sat down and watched Dr. Bartlett's presentation on exponential growth (for about the fifth time) and so your comments are particularly resonating for me this morning.  I doubt our inventiveness (isn't that called technology or something?) will increase faster than our growth at any cost system we've set up, in light of the loss of the most energy dense source we've ever known.  We can choose to control our population and energy use or let Nature  choose for us--my bet's on the latter.
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Freyr on May 26, 2006 - 9:22am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
During the Asian Development Bank conference Friday, it was stated that world food production must double within the next 50 years to feed the Asian population.
However the potential for expanding arable land in Asia is limited and "future expansion in food production must come largely from land already in use," said Norman Borlaug, winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in expanding agricultural production.
With the challenge of feeding the worlds population being discussed, adding soil degragation, and loss of major energy inputs, I agree that nature will soon show us the limits of growth.

In other news, Earlier this week flash floods in northern Thailand destroyed a number of villages, combining both climate change and deforestation as probable factors.

"In less than a week, these provinces got 300 mm of rain,'' Tara Buakamsri, climate campaigner for the South-east Asia office of Greenpeace, the environmental lobby, told IPS. ''There are reports that this is the most rainfall in Uttaradit in 20 years, or even more.
Citing BRT research, he said the flash floods had been partially caused by a drastic change of biodiversity when uninhabited jungles were transformed into plantations and farmland.
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jim burke on May 26, 2006 - 12:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Related to this, I notice that on the above chart for food production, it looks like cereal production peaked in the 1990s, and is slowly dropping.

The "non-grain" food production is still growing healthily.

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capik on October 18, 2006 - 7:34am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
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196 comments on Will biofuels always be hopeless?

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