Why Use Methane or Biodiesel to help Global Warming?

Question

When methane is 64 times the greenhouse gas of CO2, and biodiesel combustion makes no less CO2 than regular diesel?

Isn't this all just booolsheeet?

Answer 1

Actually, diesel vehicles can create a lot less CO2 that gas powered vehicles just due to the improved fuel economy.  The potential CO2 content of a gallon of diesel fuel and a gallon of gasoline is about identical.  So, if I use half the gallons of fuel driving my 40 MPG Jetta that a 20 MPG anything, I cut CO2 emissions by 50%.

Biodiesel may or may not improve that figure (converting plants into oil consumes some amount of energy).

Answer 2

Excellent point. Both methane and biodiesel emit approximately the same amount of CO2 per mile as any other carbon based fuel.

Theoretically, if we could somehow come up with enough biodiesel and methane we could reduce our dependence on imported oil, but really does not have anything to do with Global Warming.

Answer 3

Biodiesel does produce less emissions than regular diesel.  However you can't just look at the combustion of diesel compared with biodiesel, you have to look at the whole life-cycle.  The difference is where it comes from.  The carbon in diesel comes from deep within the ground, where it has been stored for millions of years, hence relasing 'new' carbon into the atmosphere.  Biodiesel however comes from plants.  Plants get their carbon from the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  So while biodiesel won't cool the earth as it is not reducing the carbon dioxide in any way, it will decrease the rate of global warming.

Answer 4

its much more than that

They have a really hot plan to replace all the indigenous Forrest's in the world ,with mono cultures for the production of Ethanol,

Non sustainable, chemically grown ,heavily irrigated (with water needed for communities)one specie Forrest's,that have only plagues of insects as fauna which are controlled with pesticides.

Killing all bio diversity,in both flora and fauna ,adding to the destruction and extinction of species ,like nothing we have ever seen before.

All in the quest for alternative energy and to save the Environment ,

The irony here is that the growing eagerness to slow climate change by using biofuels and planting millions of trees for carbon credits has resulted in new major causes of deforestation, say activists. And that is making climate change worse because deforestation puts far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire world's fleet of cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships combined.

"Biofuels are rapidly becoming the main cause of deforestation in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil," said Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, an environmental NGO based in Asunción, Paraguay. "We call it 'deforestation diesel'," Lovera told IPS.

Oil from African palm trees is considered to be one of the best and cheapest sources of biodiesel and energy companies are investing billions into acquiring or developing oil-palm plantations in developing countries. Vast tracts of forest in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and many other countries have been cleared to grow oil palms. Oil palm has become the world's number one fruit crop, well ahead of bananas.

Biodiesel offers many environmental benefits over diesel from petroleum, including reductions in air pollutants, but the enormous global thirst means millions more hectares could be converted into monocultures of oil palm. Getting accurate numbers on how much forest is being lost is very difficult.

The FAO's State of the World's Forests 2007 released last week reports that globally, net forest loss is 20,000 hectares per day -- equivalent to an area twice the size of Paris. However, that number includes plantation forests, which masks the actual extent of tropical deforestation, about 40,000 hectares (ha) per day, says Matti Palo, a forest economics expert who is affiliated with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica.

"The half a million ha per year deforestation of Mexico is covered by the increase of forests in the U.S., for example," Palo told IPS.

National governments provide all the statistics, and countries like Canada do not produce anything reliable, he said. Canada has claimed no net change in its forests for 15 years despite being the largest producer of pulp and paper. "Canada has a moral responsibility to tell the rest of the world what kind of changes have taken place there," he said.

Plantation forests are nothing like natural or native forests. More akin to a field of maize, plantation forests are hostile environments to nearly every animal, bird and even insects. Such forests have been shown to have a negative impact on the water cycle because non-native, fast-growing trees use high volumes of water. Pesticides are also commonly used to suppress competing growth from other plants and to prevent disease outbreaks, also impacting water quality.

Plantation forests also offer very few employment opportunities, resulting in a net loss of jobs. "Plantation forests are a tremendous disaster for biodiversity and local people," Lovera said. Even if farmland or savanna are only used for oil palm or other plantations, it often forces the local people off the land and into nearby forests, including national parks, which they clear to grow crops, pasture animals and collect firewood. That has been the pattern with pulp and timber plantation forests in much of the world, says Lovera.

Ethanol is other major biofuel, which is made from maize, sugar cane or other crops. As prices for biofuels climb, more land is cleared to grow the crops. U.S. farmers are switching from soy to maize to meet the ethanol demand. That is having a knock on effect of pushing up soy prices, which is driving the conversion of the Amazon rainforest into soy, she says. Meanwhile rich countries are starting to plant trees to offset their emissions of carbon dioxide, called carbon sequestration. Most of this planting is taking place in the South in the form of plantations, which are just the latest threat to existing forests. "Europe's carbon credit market could be disastrous," Lovera said.

The multi-billion-euro European carbon market does not permit the use of reforestation projects for carbon credits. But there has been a tremendous surge in private companies offering such credits for tree planting projects. Very little of this money goes to small land holders, she says. Plantation forests also contain much less carbon, notes Palo, citing a recent study that showed carbon content of plantation forests in some Asian tropical countries was only 45 percent of that in the respective natural forests. Nor has the world community been able to properly account for the value of the enormous volumes of carbon stored in existing forests.

One recent estimate found that the northern Boreal forest provided 250 billion dollars a year in ecosystem services such as absorbing carbon emissions from the atmosphere and cleaning water. The good news is that deforestation, even in remote areas, is easily stopped. All it takes is access to some low-cost satellite imagery and governments that actually want to slow or halt deforestation. Costa Rica has nearly eliminated deforestation by making it illegal to convert forest into farmland, says Lovera.

Paraguay enacted similar laws in 2004, and then regularly checked satellite images of its forests, sending forestry officials and police to enforce the law where it was being violated. "Deforestation has been reduced by 85 percent in less than two years in the eastern part of the country," Lovera noted. The other part of the solution is to give control over forests to the local people. This community or model forest concept has proved to be sustainable in many parts of the world. India recently passed a bill returning the bulk of its forests back to local communities for management, she said.

However, economic interests pushing deforestation in countries like Brazil and Indonesia are so powerful, there may eventually be little natural forest left. "Governments are beginning to realize that their natural forests have enormous value left standing," Lovera said. "A moratorium or ban on deforestation is the only way to stop this."

This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists.

© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service

Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/...

Answer 5

neither help with global warming, that is a big myth. in fact both processes and fuels make global warming much worse. they are less efficient than gasoline and by the time you refine and process such fuels you will be releasing as much if not more pollution into the air as gasoline powered vehicles. hydrogen is the future, there will be massive research and development underway in the coming years i would say 4-5 that will make hydrogen a viable fuel source and will encourage development of hydrogen automobiles and infrastructure.

Answer 6

Biodiesel is a  fuel that is made from raw or recycled vegetable oils and animal fats. Biodiesel contains almost no sulfur and using a gallon of biodiesel instead of a gallon of diesel reduces greenhouse gas emissions which contribute to global warming by 78%.

Answer 7

its methanol or ethanol not methane thats used be careful not to get the to mixed up.

a simple form of bio fuel are trees for wood fires for heating.

As a tree grows it sucks CO2 out of the air, it the gets cut down and used for fire wood releasing the CO2 back into the air, but then another tree grows in its place and sucks the CO2 out of the air, Its cyclic and the idea is to keep CO2 down as much as possible.

wheras CO2 from coal and oil does not get sucked back into the hole from which it came

also with bio diesel and ethanol it still produces CO2 but unlike coal and oil it dosnt pollute with other toxins like sulfur, arsnic....ect