On the UK advent of E85 fuel ...

First published : The New Climate Cynicism and
The Eastern Daily Press

The New Climate Cynicism
Andrew Boswell
25 Mar 2006

A few weeks ago President Bush declared that America was “Addicted to Oil”. Was this a new found honesty marking the death of “Climate Scepticism” in post-Katrina America?

Well, “Climate Scepticism” was never viable – it was a mirage cynically created by powerful Oil interests, an attempt to fool the public that there was an alternative scientific view on climate change.

But Bush’s speech does mark a new era : “climate scepticism is dead, long live climate cynicism”. Its message was we are oil addicted BUT we can develop brave, new techno-fixes - promoted by and protecting the same corporate interests. The opportunity to tackle the greater, deeper addiction at the root of Western life was not explored - the addict in denial never wants to explore the underlying causes, and face real change.

It is investigated in the recent documentary film “the End of Suburbia” which shows how car dependency is deeply woven into the fabric of American life. For seventy years, planners have developed vast networks of roads and associated services like shopping malls. America is unable to heal its addiction, because it has been structurally “built in” over many decades.

Instead, Opium dream like, a new mirage is needed to keep “business as usual”.

Enter Bush’s speech, part of a highly orchestrated campaign to promote a global, mega-scale biofuel commodity trade. The dream sweeping the world is that the global growth economy can continue “business as usual” by replacing endemic Oil consumption with massive bioethanol production and consumption.

Just weeks later, a media fanfare accompanied the opening of the first E85 pump in the UK at Morrisons in Norwich last week - E85 being mix of 85% bioethanol and 15% petrol. A Google search shows that Norfolk had 5 seconds of fame as far away as Auckland and Beijing as glowing press reports described how “Harvest BioEthanol E85” is delivered through “environmentally-friendly pumps” featuring a new butterfly logo and a blue filling hose.

However, we won’t be seeing queues at Morrisons for a while, as only specially adapted cars or one new model can actually run on E85 – and this is an image conscious, “turbo” model. Such tokenism allows the better-off to salve their environmental conscience. Drivers really wanting to make a difference are better to dispense with image, and choose a conventional but economic model (ie Vehicle Excise Duty band A or B cars that generate less than 120 gms of C02 per km), and to keep to speed limits.

The hype breaks down further as:

1) the Norwich E85 is imported from Brazil requiring fossil fuels for its transport

2) recent research shows that there is only a 13% reduction in C02 emissions for sugar-based bioethanol compared to petrol (just 11% for E85), and

3) more fossil fuel energy is required to produce it than it generates.

Could the UK develop an E85 economy? No, as we could never produce enough home grown bioethanol. Instead, the mass biofuels route would take us to dependency on imports with significant ethical issues. Yet, across the world, ever-expanding areas of cash crops for vehicle fuels are displacing local food production and decimating the livelihoods of small farmers and local people. Enormous areas of forests (our life-support systems) are being destroyed, with untold loss of wildlife and entire species, and releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gasses.

More at weblinks ...

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What about the new technology that Bush spoke of being able to “deliver” within six years - “cellulosic ethanol”? Heralded because its raw physics is more efficient – greater C02 savings than current sugar based technology and it can deliver more energy output than is put in. Could this deliver a US ethanol economy?

Massive bioethanol burning could have unknown atmospheric effects - studies already show that it would increase atmospheric levels of the carcinogen acetaldehyde, and peroxyacetylnitrate (PAN - which damages genetic material, and an irritant to eyes and lungs). Increased use of ethanol in California has already caused significant increases in atmospheric ozone.

Studies suggest, even given the vast mid-West croplands, that US food production would be impacted, and it is doubtful that the copious supplies of water required for the thirsty fermentation process are available. The biotech processes are in their infancy - the economic viability of mega-scale production and its early delivery are not givens.



In attempting to solve one problem with mass scale biofuels, we may create a host of other problems. The energy climate crisis needs to be tackled at the roots. We must find ways to decouple prosperity from massive scale transport by localising and decentralising economies, and find happiness outside the unprecedented consumption cult and year-on-year economic growth.

I am indebted to independent researcher Sue Pollard for many discussions on Biofuels.

References


The most destructive crop on earth is no solution to the energy crisis - George Monbiot in The Guardian


Ethanol from Cellulose Biomass Not Sustainable nor
Environmentally Benign

Hodge, C, 2002, Ethanol use in US gasoline should be banned, not expanded.
Oil & Gas Journal, September 9, p. 20–30.

Hodge, C, 2003, More evidence mounts for banning, not expanding, use of ethanol in gasoline.
Oil & Gas Journal, October 6, p. 20–25'

“Air Quality Impacts of the Use of Ethanol in Gasoline”
California Air Resource Board, December 1999.

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Google "thermal depolymerization." This process uses heat and high pressure to break down long polymer chains into short chains. Oil is produced as a result of the process. The process is now being used at the Butterball turkey processing plant in Carthage, Missouri. It processes 200 tons of turkey innards a day and produces an undisclosed amount of oil. They are now looking to use it on the untold gazillion gallons of pig feces stored in ponds in North Carolina. BTW, the process is energy positive - it uses less energy to produce the amount of energy that's in the resulting oil.

This process will "digest" anything having carbon and hydrogen - plastics, tires, wood, etc. Neat!

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I have been reading with some interest about sonoluminescence which is the emission of light by bubbles in a liquid excited by sound. In recent years a number of researchers have sought to understand this phenomenon in more detail.
Gaitan et al were able to produce single bubble sonoluminescence, in which a single bubble, trapped in a standing acoustic wave, emits light with each propulsion.
Knowing there are any number of researchers working to solve the mystery of how a low energy-density sound wave can concentrate enough energy in a small enough volume to cause the emission of light leaves me with the thought that within a few years we will be cranking up the volume on our ipods to create the neccesary volume to excite the bubbles in liquid to create light then using this to generate power. I can envisage all the rev heads cranking up the music and then having to face court because of the noise polution. Our teenagers and lovers of music could become self sufficient. Well at least we wont be needing masks, or have the worry of our crops going to generate fuel instead of feeding the hungry. not to mention green house gases.

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The movement toward biofuels as an environmentally friendly alternative
to fossil fuels is a greenscam with potentially disastrous consequences.

The Bush brothers, a cabal of giant agro businesses, their paid
consultants and political cronies are behind a series of initiatives that
involve massive taxpayer funded subsidies to large environmentally
destructive corporations. Sadly, they're aided by a number of well
meaning but misguided groups and individuals.

Biofuels derived from corn, palm, soybeans, and other crops are not only
environmentally destructive, they can't be produced profitably without
massive subsidies - subsidies that should be used for environmentally
viable solutions such as conservation/efficiency initiatives and wind
and solar energy.

Biofuels are an economic, environmental and humanitarian disaster:

* The production of biofuel from crops consumes more energy than it produces.

* The production of biofuels from crops will lead to more air
pollution, irreversible soil depletion, water depletion and pollution,
erosion, forest destruction, higher use of fossil fuels, pesticides,
fertilizers and harm to animals.

* Crops to produce oils to meet the demand for biofuel are directly
destroying tens of thousands of square miles of rain forest now.

* Fertilizer for biofuel production will lead to a massive increase in
phosphate strip mining, destroyed wetlands, poisoned water and disturbed
river systems.

* Conversion of U.S. farmland from food production to fuel crop
production will lead to dependence on foreign nations for our food supply.

The subsidies required to make biofuel production "viable" are more
corporate welfare to the same giant agro companies damaging the
environment now. They divert funds from real solutions such as
conservation/efficiency initiatives, public transportation systems,
increased use of solar and wind energy, and sustainable small scale food
farming vs. massive monoculture fuel crop production.

Government mandates of biofuels for transport will further hasten
environmental destruction.

We can't grow our way out of the impending energy crisis with more
destructive practices that fuel more cars for more people to drive on
more roads to more parking lots to buy more junk.

The hard decisions can no longer be avoided. There must be a massive
shift in our thinking, behavior and consumption.

The biofuels scam must be stopped in its' tracks. If it proceeds, we'll
plunge further into debt, destroy irreplaceable natural resources and
send another portion of the biosphere up in smoke.

For more information on biofuels, see the Energy Justice Network FACT SHEET
(http://www.energyjustice.net/ethanol/factsheet.html)

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Big Oil is worried most about one thing: slackening demand for their climate-destructive, environmentally-polluting, war-generating product. Their fear is that as biofuels become more popular, they will take away their market, and with it, their profit margins.

Of course, biofuels can be just as environmentally destructive as any other agribusiness venture. One particularly ridiculous turn of events is the growth of coal-fired ethanol plants in the Midwestern US. Corn in the Midwest is only profitable because it is also used for animal feed (the protein component); the sugar component is fed into ethanol production. Current corn ethanol production is at the bottom end of good practices in biofuel production; the claim that coal-fired plants are 'more economical' is a morally bankrupt posture. See the New York Times article on the Brazilian method for a better idea of how to do biofuels.

The vast propaganda attack on biofuels on the Internet and in the corporate media is largely fueled by the oil industry. The attempts to suppress ethanol as a fuel and to cut farmers out of the transportation fuel market reach back to the days of Prohibition, when John D. Rockefeller provided major funding to the Woman's Temperance Society. One effect of Prohibition was to put an end to the development of ethanol as a fuel, allowing Rockefellers Standard Oil to corner the market. Oil companies currently spend hundreds of millions of dollars on PR -where do you think that money goes?

Historically, the oil industry has always faced a glut in supply, from the days of East Texas oilfield discoveries to the Middle East discoveries. Their business has always relied on the control of supplies (choking them off) and the control of markets (stimulation through railroad destruction, suburbia promotion, SUV gas guzzler promotion, etc.)

Biofuels are a powerful way of supporting US fuel independence - but it has to be done in an environmentally friendly manner. This means basing biofuel production on sustainable farming practices (organic farming, essentially) and clean technology-based production facilities (wind or solar powered facilities, in other words). The technology exists to do this - it is just being squelched by a powerful conglomerate of fossil fuel, energy and financial interests who wish to retain their chokehold on energy markets.

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