Becuase Everything Else Sucks

Biofuel is Still a Stupid Idea

By Manila Ryce
Published Monday, May 12th, 2008, 3:02 pm
Filed under: Videos: Political, Videos: Other, Science and Technology, Environment, Videos, World Issues, US Politics

It’s fairly common knowledge by now that ethanol increases global warming, is worse to your health than gasoline, and inflates food prices, but what about second generation ethanol that uses cellulose rather than the edible portion of food crops?

WPvideo 1.10

On the surface, it may seem resourceful to convert that corn cob into energy, but our hunger for fuel goes far beyond what inedible food scraps can provide. In fact, second generation ethanol is perhaps even more dangerous than first generation ethanol under the simple understanding that if all plant matter is a potential fuel then all forests are potential gold mines for the fuel industry.

US incentives for ethanol production have already contributed to massive deforestation in places like Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Amazon, where rainforests are being cleared to grow biofuel crops. Cellulose ethanol would further promote this destruction by using the forest itself for fuel.

Americans love the idea that they won’t need to sacrifice. There is no incentive to curb your consumption if science will save you by replacing that fuel in your inefficient internal combustion engine with another. Turning CO2-absorbing trees into gasoline is not progress. It’s just as insane as burning food to run a car. The only clean energies have always been wind, solar, and water. Eyes back on the prize folks. The goal should be to get off of all fuels entirely.

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3 Responses to “Biofuel is Still a Stupid Idea”

  1. Thanks for the slightly different perspective. I understood the danger (and idiocy) of biofuels and the implications of its growth trends, but I had not truly appreciated the danger cellulosic ethanol, derived from food scraps, may induce. I guess cellulosic ethanol may be useful if we only resorted to use food scraps and fast growing plants such as algea, but the large agrobusinesses would just use whatever is available, without discrimination.

    I totaly concur with your assessment that Americans need to step up and face the source of the problem — our excessive consumption — rather than have delusions that science will save us.

    FreeThinker
    05/12/08 at 8:58 pm

  2. Well, obviously consumption has to be reduced. I think the necessary steps to doing this are pretty clear; stop the cultural glorification of gas-guzzling hummers and trucks, start using public transportation more often instead of driving on one’s own, not using lights when they are not needed, and so on. And these don’t have to be individual choices either, they can be policy.

    But I think that one should not dismiss out of hand the importance of switching the energy grid to a less destructive form of energy consumption. Humans are still going to consume things, even if it is at a reduced level. Most people probably agree with most of this, it’s really more a matter of organizing and institutionalizing under-expressed popular opinion, i.e. democratization.

    Bernie
    05/13/08 at 11:31 pm

  3. I’ve said it many times before. The amount of agricultural WASTE produced in this country alone (500 million tons annually) could just about meet our automobile energy demands. We don’t need to dedicate additional lands and crops to biofuels. We can literally harvest the garbage.

    Of course, there’s no money in that, and there’s the problem.

    That, plus the troubling news that ethanol emissions are hardly better than petrol.

    Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that I must withdraw my support for ethanol.

    I’m sure I’ll find solace in the fact that there are many other DECADE OLD technologies that could serve as alternatives to oil. (Hey, how about an Electric Car powered by MAGMA! No I’m not joking…)

    Let’s just hope the money baggers don’t fuck those up too.

    PapaFigue
    05/16/08 at 11:27 pm

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