Bio fuel, is it green?

Question

How on earth is biofuel any better than fossil fuels when it comes to climate change? when burned biofuel still produces CO2 which is the biggest hype at the moment, so how is it any "greener" just because its renewable or am i missing something?

Answer 1

Diverting crop land to biofuel production reduces the world food supply. Considering the constant shortage of food, this starves people. If killing people is "green" then biofuel is green. I consider it to be genocide.

Answer 2

Biofuels and other forms of renewable energy aim to be carbon neutral or even carbon negative. Carbon neutral means that the carbon released during the use of the fuel, e.g. through burning to power transport or generate electricity, is reabsorbed and balanced by the carbon absorbed by new plant growth. These plants are then harvested to make the next batch of fuel. Carbon neutral fuels lead to no net increases in human contributions to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, reducing the human contributions to global warming. A carbon negative aim is achieved when a portion of the biomass is used for carbon sequestration.

In practice, biofuels are neither carbon neutral or carbon negative. This is because energy is required to grow crops and process them into fuel. Examples of energy use during the production of biofuels include: fertilizer manufacture, fuel used to power machinery, and fuel used to transport crops and fuels to and from biofuel processing plants. The amount of fuel used during biofuel production has a large impact on the overall greenhouse gas emissions savings achieved by biofuels.

A 2007 study by scientists from Britain, U.S., Germany, Switzerland and including Professor Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on ozone, have reported that measurements of emissions from the burning of biofuels derived from rapeseed and corn have been found to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than they save.The advantages of reduced carbon dioxide emissions are more than offset by increased nitrous oxide emissions. Nitrous oxide is both a potent greenhouse gas and a destroyer of atmospheric ozone.

The claim that biofuels result in emissions savings has also been critiqued on the grounds that it overlooks the 'displacement' effects of large-scale biofuel production, in terms of its direct and indirect role in promoting land use changes and soil carbon losses.

The carbon emissions (Carbon footprint) produced by biofuels are calculated using a technique called Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). This uses a "cradle to grave" or "well to wheels" approach to calculate the total amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted during biofuel production, from putting seed in the ground to using the fuel in cars and trucks. Many different LCAs have been done for different biofuels, with widely differing results. The majority of LCA studies show that biofuels provide significant greenhouse gas emissions savings when compared to fossil fuels such as petroleum and diesel.[citation needed] Therefore, using biofuels to replace a proportion of the fossil fuels that are burned for transportation can reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions.

This does assume however that the land used for growing the crops would alternatively be desert or paved area.[citation needed] If the land was previously a (tropical rain-) forest, the carbon absorption of this forest should be deducted from the greenhouse gas savings. This implies that the net effect of burning bio-fuels is an increase in greenhouse gasses.[citation needed] This effect should be incorporated in the LCA, to get a proper overview of the total net effect.[citation needed] Using waste material from plantation forests on previous agricultural land could be carbon positive, due to the carbon stored below ground in the root systems.[citation needed]

The well-to-wheel analysis for biofuels has shown that first generation biofuels can save up to 60% carbon emission and second generation biofuels can save up to 80% as opposed to using fossil fuels. However these studies do not take into account emissions from nitrogen fixation, deforestation, land use, or any indirect emissions.

In 2006, a UK Government study showed that carbon emissions were reduced between 50% and 60%[citation needed] when biofuels were used in conjunction with other fuels such as petrol and diesel.

Answer 3

the emissions from bio fuels are far less than that of fossil fuels.  there are two ways to make bio diesel.  One is with new oil like rapeseed etc etc the other is by using "dirty oil" which is oil from restaurants and chip shops etc.  Although on a commercial basis is is not financially viable due to cost as the oil companies can get fossil fuels easier and cheaper.  I can tell you from first hand knowledge that if you make the bio diesel yourself with FREE dirty oil, its very cheap.  It also makes your car smell so much better when its running.... lol its like driving a mobile chip shop.  there are many ways to make it, but you will need to add ethanol and soda crystals to the final filtered oil.  Look on the web to find out.

Answer 4

It is green , but simply not cost efficient..

How many acres corn , sunflower , linseed  would you need for your car alone..

Recycling used oils as fuel is ok.. but only for oils that can't be reused as animal food tho imo.. so that doesn't leave us much..

edit:

By green i mean "green in concept" we don't use fossil fuels.. we recreate the energy that was stored by plants. we don't add by releasing energy stockpiles (oil).

Answer 5

The ideal of biofuel is that the only CO2 it puts into the air is CO2 that it just took out of the air a short time before.  This is better than digging up stuff that's been buried for millions of years.

In practice, some biofuels are pretty bad.  Palm oil is a particularly bad example.  The clearing of tropical rainforests and peat bogs to plant oil palms emits more CO2 than it displaces, not to mention the loss of biodiversity.

At the other end of the scale are some perennial grasses, like switchgrass and Miscanthus giganteus.  These grasses require little in the way of fertilizers and store large amounts of carbon below ground.

Answer 6

I bought a book on bio fuels from the CAT centre in Machynlleth, Wales about 10 years ago.  Basically growing biofuels isnt any better,and we dont have enough land in this country to meet the demands of this countrys use of fuel, plus monocrops are not ecofriendly.

The only biofuel that could make some difference is recycling cooking fat - because its being reused and because its less damaging to the environment than diesel.

Answer 7

I'm running on Biodiesel right now.  Fuel made from old fryer grease.  Normally this is just thrown away, instead its been filtered and used to propel my vehicle around.  It burns somewhere around 85% cleaner than regular diesel.  A lot less particle matter put in the air.  And yes it's a renewable fuel.  It's also selling at $3.30/gallon in my home town, where traditional diesel is selling around $3.70/gallon.  Yes, CO2 is still released but it's cleaner.

I'm not too familiar with ethanol and if it burns cleaner.

Check out the website below for facts.

On a side note, starving people are not starving because a lack of food in the world.  They're starving because a lack of money in their economy to buy the food.  If they had more money they could afford to have the food shipped in.  So Biofuels are not going to contribute to starvation.  There are some silly speculators out there.

Hopefully this answers your question.

Answer 8

It is not as green as they are making out. They need to destroy the Amazon forest to re-plant to make Bio fuel. This will finish the planet off completely.

Answer 9

it's not....   and good for you for using your head!  don't stop speakin your mind!!!  thank you....

Answer 10

Fossil fuel releases CO2 which has been buried underground for millions of years and is involved with very long term cycling of carbon through earth's tectonic systems.  When we burn these fuels the total CO2 concentration in the atmosphere increases, year on year as shown by the "keeling curve" measurements.

When growing, biofuels absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere which is released in the next couple of years. So the overall change in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is zero. For this reason it is considered carbon neutral - i.e. no net gain in atmospheric CO2 due to human influences.

There may be much "hype" and scaremongering, but the physical properties of CO2 to be able to absorb heat have been known since the 1820s. These physical laws make the concept of how increased CO2 will lead to an increase in global temperature a simple one to understand.

There are also valid reasonswhy it is not green - increased N2O emissions from fertaliser usage, pressures on agricultural land to grow cash crops rather than food etc.

Answer 11

What the fck? What is he raving about? The greenness of bio-fuel is very debatable. It is said that, because of the better price that can be got, poorer countries are cutting down huge areas of trees to clear land for growing these crops. The cars economy is not as good so that you need more of this fuel to cover the same distance. There are strong arguments that diesel is better for the environment in the long run.