I apologize

This post has nothing to do with environmental or conservation issues. I just wanted to share. The last sentence spoken in this video is priceless.



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Biofuel Myths

Biofuel myth posts are a dime a dozen. I thought it was time to do one of my own. Bookmark this post to use the next time you encounter a biofuel missionary or a member of the congregation in a comment field. This will be a work in progress. I'll be adding myths as I encounter them. Feel free to let me know of any you see or if you would like me to try to debunk one.

The only way out of our liquid fuel dilemma is for the public to start embracing the rapidly emerging new technologies that radically improve gas mileage 100% or more above our national average and radically improved mass transit for those who want to use it. Converting food into fuel is a financially and environmentally futile waste of money and resources. Educate your politicians. Send them an irate email.

I call these items myths but they might more accurately be described as Big Biofuel talking points. Every myth can be traced back to one of the dozens of websites that promote crop-based biofuels in the name of profit.

The people you find parroting these "facts" on Internet comment fields in defense of crop-based biofuels fall into two basic groups. People who make a living from crop-based biofuels and those who have been duped by same who might think they came up with these talking points on their own, but the "fact" that they all say the same things strongly suggests otherwise. We are all susceptible to being duped by things like car ads and this is no exception. Car ads are one thing, propaganda is another but they are both effective on the unwary and uncritical. Click here to continue.

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(photo credit Mike Licht via the Flickr Creative Commons license).

Hybrid electric bike …with afterburners

In honor of national Bike to Work Week, I shot some helmet cam footage of my hybrid bike in action. Hills and cars are the bane of bikers everywhere. One problem at a time I always say.

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Electric cars get 81% better miles per gallon acre

(photo credit rsgranne and davipt via the Flickr Creative Commons license).

[Update: This article is crossposted on Grist.]

From a study published in this week's Science Express ($ub Req'd):

Bioelectricity produces an average 81% more transportation kilometers and 108% more emissions offsets per unit area cropland than cellulosic ethanol…

Given the limited area of land that is available to grow biofuels crops without causing direct or indirect land use impacts, bioenergy applications should maximize the efficiency with which a given land area is used to meet transportation and climate change goals.

Bioelectricity is the act of making electric power by burning biomass for boilers or turbines instead of fossil fuels like coal.

In a nutshell the study says that an electric car using electricity generated by burning biomass will get 81% more miles per acre than a car using cellulosic ethanol. That is equivalent to improving the purported American average of 24 mpg to 44 mpg, which coincidentally is also the improvement achieved by the Prius and Insight.

I touched on this subject in an article titled Misplaced Priorities over on Grist in last year. Imagine replacing the coal in the above photo with corn or wood or hay. Something has to give.

Corn ethanol was also part of the study and as you might have guessed, faired much worse than cellulosic. Not studied by this paper are environmental impacts and costs:

Specifically, the competitiveness of biomass ethanol depends on the cost of petroleum, whereas the competitiveness of biomass electricity depends on the cost of coal, wind, hydro, solar, and nuclear.

Which of the above energy sources will be increasing in cost and which will be decreasing?

The study looked at pure internal combustion cars and pure battery powered electric cars. It did not look at plug-in hybrids, which would eliminate range constraints imposed by today's battery technology.

The paper also said:

Two leading technology developments, cellulosic ethanol and electric vehicle batteries, provide alternative pathways for bioenergy-based transportation. Biomass can be converted into ethanol to power internal combustion vehicles (ICVs) or converted into electricity to power battery electric vehicles (BEVs). It is uncertain which pathway could reach technical and economic maturity first. The cellulosic ethanol pathway benefits from commercially available flex-fuel vehicles but requires significant investments in infrastructure as well as technology advancements to reduce costs for energy conversion. The bioelectricity pathway shows promise in existing distribution infrastructure and emerging commercial offerings of battery electric vehicles that meet technology challenges of range, cost, and charging time. Electricity produced from biomass is a near-term renewable energy source that can be implemented with biomass boilers, Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plants, or co-combustion with coal.

What we have here is a battle forming up between increasingly electrified transport (hybrid--plug-in hybrid--fully electric) and corn ethanol powered internal combustion engines (cellulosic is and will probably always be just five years from economic viability). One side is championed by consumer demand being met by market forces and the other side is championed by our politicians who force us to pay to turn our own food into fuel and then pour it down our throats. These are the same politicians who subsidize oil with one hand and its competitor, biofuels with the other. If it hasn't dawned on you yet that our politicians are not capable of solving complex problems like this, maybe its time it did. Take matters into your own hands. Make your next car purchase a hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or full electric when they arrive (on dealer lots next year).

The Renewable Fuels Association is going to have its hands full debunking all of this peer-reviewed rubbish being published in rags like Science (see here and here).

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Time for a new ride?

(photo credit Wen-YanKing via the Flickr Creative Commons license).

The Cash for Clunkers Agreement is a short-term attempt to stimulate consumer spending on new cars, nothing more, nothing less. It's a no-brainier from a political perspective because voters will support any program that will give them thousands of dollars to trade in a junker for a new car.

It is also another example of why you should not be waiting for politicians to fix global warming. The global warming impact of making a new car nullifies any savings from the marginally better gas mileage required to qualify (click to enlarge):



As with corn ethanol policy, they are about to make things worse again by taking two steps back for every step forward.

There are a lot of questions as to how it will work. Here are just a few:

1. Can I just buy a junk car for a few hundred dollars and turn it in?
2. If I turn in my SUV do I have to buy another SUV instead of something like a Prius?
3. Can I turn in the car I keep parked in the alley for hauling junk twice a year?
4. Will all cars turned in be scrapped, including cars that get much better mileage than others being turned in?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions but I don't think they matter. The government is just trying to get you to go buy a new car to clear the inventory on dealer lots. Dealers sure won't care about what you turn in. You could probably get $4000 for your grandma. But if the answer to question 2 is yes, then this piece of legislation has taken your usual inept government bungling to a whole new level.

For more on the topic:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/10/car-scrappage-payments

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/are-cash-for-clunkers-programs-green/

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/congress-close-on-cash-for-clunkers/

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