Biofuels flunk their own stress test

Time notes that corn-based ethanol, etc., were getting their own stress tests at the same time as banks. And, doing just as badly, if not worse.

Big Ag now has government handwriting on the wall that ethanol, in particular, is carbon-negative compared to gasoline, and biodiesel isn’t very much carbon-positive compared to petroleum diesel.

And, this doesn’t count land-use issues.

Dick Cheney famously, or infamously, disparaged conservation.

The Obama Administration hasn’t done that, but it has yet to issue an explicit statement in favor of energy conservation. Solar and wind for electricity are good, as are alt-fuels if carbon positive, but they can’t do all the lifting. Americans need to do more to use less electricity and less fuel. It’s that simple.

Science news – lungless frog, Kenyan wildlife, cautious Green Brown, storm flags up, green Filipinos

Lungless frog in Borneo

A lungless frog is an evolutionary throwback, apparently breathing through its skin. Researchers said small body sizes, slow metabolisms and living in fast-flowing cold water where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged quickly appear to allow this.

Kenyan parks in peril

The current government instability in Kenya is killing tourism. And, the loss of tourists is threatening a compensation scheme for Maasai farmers living next to the famed Maasai Mara. The tribespeople are killed when predators like lions kill their livestock, but now the government can’t afford it. It also can’t afford to pay anti-poaching patrols inside the reserve.

Gordon Brown wants biofuels addressed

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants biofuels’ effects on world food prices addressed at the next G8 summit. Brown notes it’s threatening to roll back developed-world work in increasing growth in the developing world.

Batten down the Gulf hatches

Your first Atlantic hurricane forecast: Fifteen named tropical storms, with eight becoming hurricanes, four of them major – Category 3 or higher. That’s above the historical average of 9.6 tropical storms, 5.9 and 2.3 major ones.

“Based on our latest forecast, the probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the US coastline is 69 percent compared with the last-century average of 52 percent,” said Phil Klotzbach, a scientist at the University of Colorado. “We are calling for a very active hurricane season this year, but not as active as the 2004 and 2005 seasons.”

Is an election-year Katrina possible?

Philippines smarter than Shrub

Or more conscientious. Filipino schoolchildren will now learn about global warming. It’s going to be part of the national school curriculum, something that our Preznit will never add to No Child Left Behind (in the rising seas).

Biofuels destroying economies of poorer peoples

We know that biofuels are becoming more environmentally destructive, with planting of monocrop biofuels “plantations” such as oil palms farms. But, they continue to hurt people in the developing countries they’re supposed to protect.

For instance, in Indonesia, a liter of cooking oil is now $1.31. Maybe that sounds like a bargain compared to $3 here in America, but this is Indonesia. That price is more than 1 percent of the minimum wage.

Imagine paying $15 a liter for your bottle of Crisco or whatever, here in America, and you get the idea.

Meanwhile, it’s not actually that “green.”

A study published in the journal Science in February found it would take around 86 years for biodiesel made from palm oil grown on cleared tropical lowland forest to repay the “carbon debt” generated from clearing the land.

For biodiesel from cleared peatlands, the study found, the debt would take more than 840 years to repay.

But Indonesia appears intent on running up that debt. Already at least 10 million of its 22.5 million hectares (55.6 million acres) of peatland have been cleared, according to the Centre for International Forestry Research, and the clearing shows no sign of slowing.

Meanwhile, the U.S. push for more corn-based ethanol is driving up the price of meat, milk, eggs and other animal-related products. A family in Indonesia making twice the minimum wage now eats meat just twice a month.

Nestlé – biofuels cutting into greed margin

International food conglomerate Nestlé, under the guise of concern for world food supplies, is worried that the drive for biofuels will ultimately cut into its profits.

Of course, the solution will be simple. Nestlé will get into biofuels itself and rape the developing world even more.

Palm oil prices continue to soar, along with other food oils

The fallout is affecting developing world food costs, biodiesel ideas and much more.

And, here in the U.S., the push for corn-based ethanol has put a smaller, but similar, crimp in soybean oil prices.

This shows why government stats that exclude food from “core inflation” are also idiotic.

Climate change could exacerbate rich-poor issues

Biofuels are the main reason why rich and poor countries are making strange bedfellows.

A tequila shortage is perhaps one of the least-expected results of planting lucrative, “climate-friendly” biofuels — as Mexican farmers set ablaze their fields of cactus-like agave to make way for corn, a feedstock for ethanol. Biofuels are also blamed for raising food prices and destroying forests.

The result of misguided climate policies could be to undermine public support for action and discourage businesses from buying in.

“Definitely there’ll be tradeoffs between climate change and the local environment, and with energy security,” said Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises rich countries.

“We are not in the luxury of being able to choose from hundreds of energy types.”

Urgency has been spurred by a series of U.N. climate reports this year confirming threats like desertification, droughts and rising seas and calling for action now to cut the long-term cost.

But evidence is emerging of the repercussions. British charity Christian Aid says Colombian rebel groups are forcing poor people off their land to grow lucrative palm oil for biodiesel, likening it to diamonds financing African wars.

Oops. As if Indonesia’s deforestation for palm oil weren’t bad enough.

Corn NOT the future of biofuels

And, no, that’s not just me saying that. Fortunately, our Deputy Secretary of Energy recognizes the same fact.

I will add my two cents that I don’t think cellulose products are going to fill as much of the need as Clay Sell and others think, though.

The answer? Well, more of the answer needs to come from conservation.