Carbon nutral fuel whats that about?

Question

as i understand it growing trees for fuel is classed as carbon nutral as the co2 produced is equvelant to what was absorbd when the tree was alive. so how come coal is not. coal was once trees which lived and absorbed co2 all be it millions of years ago. whats the differance at what point do you draw the line?

Answer 1

Truth is there is no carbon neutral fuel, the crops need to be tranpsorted to the field, than seeded via machinery running on diesal, than the crop is sprayed with pesticides and fertiliser, which again are manuactured in the factory and needs to be moved to the field, then machinery harvests the crop, then the crop goes through a chemical process that requires lots of energy which comes from coal burning power stations, the result is a "carbon neutral" fuel, the reality is more co2 can be given off in its manufacture than using petrol.

Also when palm oil is used areas of rainforest are cleared to make room for the additional crops, this is currently threatening the Orangutangs and causing massive deforestation which also releases huge amounts of co2. When existing crops are used the cost of food prices rise as agricultural land for food production is lost or the crops diverted to fuel production, this makes food prices rise globally and hits the third world hardest, especially when third world farmers get higher prices from western countries for there crops. So there are also bigger issues at play. I recall at statement which stated that filling a tank of a Hummer with biofuel was equivelent to a years worth of food for someone in the third world.

As you can imagine even the environmentalists are now questioning this technology and distancing themselves from it.

The problem now is there is legilislation forcing fuels to be mixed with biofuels and there is big money involved.

Hopefully the next generation biofuels will help reduce co2 production to less than conventional fuel by using algae, solar for power and genetically engineering gras crops that are easier to process.

But then again why worry about co2, its a natural gass essential for life and there no evidence that made made co2 is effecting the climate, even the IPCC acknowledge this. Unfortunetly its a money spinner, and its leading to poor science as people rush to come up with solutions without considering the downsides to what they are doing.

Coal can form a good power source with carbon scrubbing to clean the smoke generated, but the reserves will not last for ever so we need to find long term sources for energy.

Answer 2

Coal has a lot of sulphur in it which causes acid rain and the CO2 released came from millions of years ago so its not a balanced release as with bio fuel as the absorption and release are happening within a short time frame

In any case, creating bio fuel has potentially catastrophic ecological consequences but the politicians are hoping you wont notice that - its only a few tigers and elephants losing their habitat - whats the harm?

Answer 3

coal is non renewable, well, you wont get it for millions of years.

carbon nuteral means that the trees that were cut down are going the be replaced and reabsorb the same amount of carbon that will be released.