[Sustain] [Transpo] Excellent Short Audio On The Biofuels Myth

[John-Marc Chandonia]

On Tue, Apr 03, 2007 at 02:01:58AM -0700, Eric Brooks wrote:
> We can't get around conservation of energy here. The algae has to be fed 
> with something. The carbon has to come from somewhere. There is no free 
> lunch. Hence anything that will give us massive amounts of burnable 
> fuels, will have massive amounts of impact on the planetary ecosystem.

The energy is solar, and the carbon comes from carbon dioxide.

The cellulosic ethanol by itself won't be sufficient to replace our
current oil needs, but every little bit might make the difference
between a gradual "powerdown" in a peak oil scenario and total
collapse.  Cellulose (stalks) is essentially a free byproduct of
growing food crops, and the energy we put into growing them already
(for the food) is currently wasted.  It's like the difference between
letting the sunlight heat up your roof or putting on some solar panels
to take advantage of it.

> And as my previous post noted, the players that are getting into this 
> biofuels game are some of the most evil people on the planet.

In a total collapse of civilization, even evil folks wouldn't be able
to enjoy their current lifestyle.

> They mentioned algae. They dovetailed it and all of the other crops with 
> genetic engineering. This stuff is all bad news that must be stopped 
> before it distracts us from taking real action to end the climate 
> crisis, while we instead wait a precious, deadly, decade or two for some 
> magic bullet that will allow us all to drive cars.

This is a false dichotomy; there's no reason we can't both build
mass transit and also develop biofuels.  The amount of money necessary
for either project is tiny compared to the cost of the war.  Biofuels
aren't a "distraction" from building mass transit when the public
barely knows about them.  I think in a poll, the public would prefer
mass transit.

> Why are we talking about convoluted esoteric ways to get liquid carbon 
> fuels out of algae, when we could meet our energy and transportation 
> needs with solar, wind, tidal, wave, etc. and electrified mass transit? 

Liquid carbon fuels are convenient, and more technologically practical
to develop than other high density fuel storage options such as
hydrogen or high density batteries.  Almost all our existing
infrastructure is built on them, so the transition would be much
cheaper.

> These are off the shelf, affordable technologies, that can be employed 
> now; not speculative scientific processes which seek some sleight of 
> hand with which to defy the basic laws of physics.

Which basic laws of physics are you referring to?  Biofuels don't
violate any of them any more than other energy sources that are
ultimately solar powered.

JMC
-- 
John-Marc Chandonia (jmc at sfgreens.org)
http://sfgreens.org/