How does biofuel help agriculture and reduce air pollution?

Question

How does biofuel help agriculture and reduce air pollution?

Answer 1

Shouldnt you be asking how it decreases the farmers profit on his crop?  Or how your vehicle does not run as efficient when using it?  Or how horrible the plant smells when in operation.....god its horrible!

Answer 2

Well it may reduce air pollution of your car, but it actually produces more CO2 in order to make it, so it takes more energy to make then you actually get out of it. Biofuel is not a reasonable solution to decreasing CO2 emissions... And even if all of our cars converted to using biofuel, then all of our crops in the U.S. would have to double in size. That is the size of the entire state of Texas!

Answer 3

Biofuel may not help agriculture or reduce air pollution.

The reasons behind this are economic and thermodynamic.

First the thermodynamic question; extracting a fuel, whether from oil or plants like sugar cane or corn requires us to expend energy running the machines that harvest and refine these materials into fuel.

But oil has a greater power output in ratio to the power required to extract it than biofuels do, so to refine biofuels more energy will be expended than will come from the fuels that result.

Some countries are able to do better by using biofuels than the USA, because they have a climate where they can grow more sugar cane than the US. Sugar cane has a much higher energy output than corn.

To grow and process the corn will require harvesting and processing machines that will most likely be powered and lubricated by oil products that pollute more in proportion to the energy that will be gained than the machines used to drill, pump, transport and refine oil.

Since corn for biofuel represents a bad investment, farmers and agricultrual businesses that devote their resources to growing corn are investing in a product that may not be economically viable in itself. Thus they are essentially the recipients of a government subsidy and thus become dependents upon government. If the subsidy should ever be withdrawn they will have a crop that is not worth as much as they expected it to be and they could face financial hardships.

In the meantime the wasteful use of corn for biofuel drives up the price of corn for food, causing other customers and businesses to invest in alternatives that may themselves be more wasteful, or hurt their standard of living. This will place the greatest burden on the poor. It will also make it possible for an economic recession to occur if the government should ever remove the subsidy that is causing the distorted prices and the distorted pattern of investing that they lead to.

Answer 4

It helps them by requiring that they plant vastly more of their fields to corn if you call that helping them.  It does increase the demand and that causes the price to go up for everybody but it helps the farmers.  

It doesn't necessarily help air pollution either.

Link to article: alternative-ethanol-fuel-wont-improve-fu...

http://www.highlighthealth.com/eco-frien...

"E85 vehicles reduced atmospheric levels of two carcinogens, benzene and butadiene, but increased two others, acetaldehyde and formaldehyde. As a result, cancer rates for E85 are likely to be similar to those for gasoline. In some parts of the country (Los Angeles and the Northeast), E85 use was projected in increase ozone levels. The oxidant ozone is a well-known air pollutant."

Answer 5

I'm glad someone asked about this. Did you know that with current methods, biofuel production yields 1.3 US gallons of fuel to 1 US gallon of fuel used to produce them. So, you only get a positive energy yield of 0.3 US gallons overall in production. Another downside is fuel economy is greatly decreased in vehicles using the blend, so you use more fuel.

On a positive side note, there are researches (whom I know personally) working on utilizing corn stovers, which are the leftover leaves, stem, and stalks from the corn to produce ethanol rather than the corn kernels. They are much cheaper to obtain since they are a waste product and will allow food prices to stay low because the kernel would no longer be utilized for ethanol production. I know they are close to having the process worked out, as it is a bit different, but it would increase the fuel use to fuel gain ratio as well and make biofuels more worthwhile.

Hope that helps with your question!

Answer 6

Sir, There is no need, it seems, to spend taxpayers’ money fighting the problem of obesity. We are all going to starve to death while heating our homes with biofuels.

If we are dead we won't consume pollute/chop down/buil up/knock down & etc.

That aught to reduce pollution a bit!

Answer 7

The "pro's" of bio fuel as it relates to agriculture are that it provides a farmer with another alternative, another crop choice to plant for a specific market, one that is not a food crop (with all the implications, i.e. food quality, marketing, competition), a crop always in demand, and a local source of fuel in an economy dependent on fuel imports as most countries do even when they are also producers in their own rights. In regards to air pollution, it is the bio fuels that have reduced toxic emissions when we burn them in all the ways we have found to liberate and use the almighty BTU. The industry also likes to tout that it is a renewable source and uses that line of thinking to help us in our fear/ guilt of day to day dependence on energy and we are patted on the back for our willingness to accept it and save our non-renewable resources (at least in the short term as all are renewable in the course of time with some moderation). But why begrudge our lot in life? The "cons" are that land that grows bio fuel products frequently was a local source of food products. That land that was, last season, producing grain corn for, lets say, tortillas, now sells that grain to make ethanol. If the farmer cared about the quality of the food and care for food producing land, that same farmer may only have to get the product without care what pesticides or fertilizer or physical practice is used; it is no longer a product to eat (at least by people). That corn will always have a ready and eager market as long as we need the BTU's that they will produce. On the subject of that ethanol, it being added so very frequently to gasoline (especially here in my country, the US) is inferior in that the energy value is much lower than gasoline, so a mix reduces the gasoline's value in energy at the MPG level; less miles per you gallon per your dollar. Yes the pollution and byproducts are somewhat reduced even in consideration of the high amounts of CO2 generated in the fermentation process, whose figures and statistics I feel are being manipulated by those who would have us believe (there is no tooth fairy and gasohol will free your soul).

Ethanol is far from the only product though, and oil crops that are used as a fuel may surely have put some poor land and equally as poor a farmer (and family) on the road to life with a future not based with one foot in poverty and one in the grave. All coins have two sides, and that coin is better than no coin at all. Salvation is the voluntary limiting, directly, of fuel (waste) and indirectly by shunning excesses in life on all levels. Personally, I feel land is more for the people and their direct needs and air is not for the smoke of the indirect excesses (yes I drive a car and yes I heat a home and yes I always attempt to do something about it at the expense of comfort of body in exchange for increased comfort of mind and soul; my spirit).

Answer 8

For one thing Biofuel is made frome crops like soybeans so it makes money for farmers and it doesn't give off harmful gasses that deplete the ozone layer which blocks UV rays that can cause skin cancer

Answer 9

If farmers grow fuels on "set aside" land - that would normally get a subsidy; then it is a viable crop.

As it is a biofuel, more carbon is absorbed by the plant - than released again, so reduces CO2 emissions.

Falling crop prices? - grain is at an all time high? - or is this disinformation too?