EU Should Phase Out Support for Land-Based Biofuels, Lobbies Say

algae is still an R&D project, so it is premature to draw definitive conclusions about future energy and climate benefits. regarding cliff-claven's cited studies about algae here is a critique of assumptions in "Environmental Life Cycle Comparison of Algae to Other Bioenergy Feedstocks": http://algalbiofuels.pbworks.com/f/Comment+on+Clarens+et+al+2010.pdf

There is more than one side to this argument.

THIRD GENERATION BIOFUELS FROM ALGAE
Croatian Center of Renewable Energy Sources (CCRES) have a new technology with major potential to contribute to the fight against climate change.As with all new technologies, careful consideration of potential impacts on the environment and human health is important.
The international community has acknowledges that global warming needs to be kept below 2?C (3,6?F) compared with the pre industrial temperature in order to prevent dangerous climate change.This will require significant reductions in the world´s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHG) over the coming decades.CCRES have one of the technologies that can help to achieve this.
The EU, which is responsible for around 11% of global GHG emissions today, has put in place binding legislation to reduce its emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by 2020.Europe is also offering to scale up this reduction to 30% if other major economies in the developed and developing world´s agree to undertake their fair share of a global reduction effort.

Alison,

"Cliff Claven,

Among interesting points, you raise one that is very interesting, and that is the energy balance for algal biofuels. I suspect that you are correct and that the energy used in 'farming' the ponds - stirrers & mined nutrients, transport and labour etc..."

As long as you're making stuff up, I would be most interested in how you calculate the energy cost of labor expenditures.

Biofuels are used to power farm machinery, I am told, in some isolated instances in Asian countries in production of biofuels but I have not found any link for facts and figures.

An interesting multinational Malaysian agricultural conglomerate, QL Resources, has big plans for converting empty fruit bunches from which oil palm fruits have been removed and various debris from the plantations into fuel. Much of the palm oil is diverted for fuel use now.

Plans are to interest other plantations in converting their waste to fuel as well.

One does not have to be happy with conversion of tropical rainforest to palm oil plantations to appreciate use of the waste rather than dumping it.

The notion that wind turbines do not have continuing costs for maintenance and have deleterious effects on the environment are ludicrous.

I can tell you one turbine repairman was not remotely like the lonely Maygtag repairman of yore. Can you imagine what it takes to repair one of those turkeys? My wife got word from his wife so I can only tell you fourth-hand but he did find other work.

How much wildlife will you sacrifice to wind and solar? How much land do you wish to remove from wild things particularly for solar? Do they count for nothing?

The Aztecs used to dump their - umm - effusions in lakes and ponds and eat the algae that ate the stuff. My son, the engineer, suggested skipping the algae. Engineers! Always thinking of better ways.

Best, Terry

Plenty of data on algae is already out there.

This study by UVA found a 1.06:1 EROI if the product algae is just dried and shoveled into a furnace for heat without any attempt to convert it into a liquid fuel, and 100% of the higher heating value is miraculously extracted (Clarens, Andres F., Eleazer P. Resurreccion, Mark A. White, and Lisa M. Colosi. "Environmental Life Cycle Comparison of Algae to Other Bioenergy Feedstocks." Environmental Science & Technology 44, no. 5 (March 2010): 1813–1819. doi:10.1021/es902838n.)

This study found that any attempt to convert algae to liquid fuel (i.e., biodiesel) resulted in an output energy only 1/7 of that needed to stir the water in the ponds, a 1:7 EROI (hugely negative energy balance) (Murphy, Cynthia Folsom, and David T. Allen. "Energy-Water Nexus for Mass Cultivation of Algae." Environmental Science & Technology 45, no. 13 (July 2011): 5861–5868. doi:10.1021/es200109z. )

This study by the National Research Council found that the agricultural and energy resources needed to farm algae and the huge negative environmental impacts make the whole process unsustainable (National Research Council - Committee on the Sustainable Development of Algal Biofuels. Sustainable Development of Algal Biofuels in the United States. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, October 2012. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13437 ).

There are plenty more reputable studies published in peer-reviewed journals out there documenting the folly of algae and other biofuels, but you won't find them on the biofuel advocacy websites or in the entrepreneurial investment brochures.

Couldn't agree more

In my opinion



We need to replace the fossil fuel power plants, the primary source of GHG. Now!

At a scale required to accomplish this task :

Ethanol starves people : not a viable option.

Fracking releases methane : not a viable option.

Cellulose Bio Fuel Uses Food Land : not a viable option

Solar uses food land : Not a viable option

Wind is Intermittent : Not a viable option



All Human and Agricultural Organic Waste can be converted to hydrogen, through exposure intense radiation!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/DennisearlBaker/2012-a-breakthrough-for-r_b_1263543_135881292.html

The Radioactive Materials exist now, and the Organic waste is renewable daily.

Ending the practice of dumping sewage into our water sources.

Air, Water, Food and Energy issues, receive significant positive impacts .

Reducing illness / health care costs as well !



Dennis Baker
Penticton BC V2A1P9
cell phone 250-462-3796
Phone / Fax 778-476-2633

Cliff Claven,

Among interesting points, you raise one that is very interesting, and that is the energy balance for algal biofuels. I suspect that you are correct and that the energy used in 'farming' the ponds - stirrers & mined nutrients, transport and labour etc. - outstrips the energy yield from the oil that is finally harvested and purified. Energy use for this, and all biofuels so far, is continuous; unlike the variety of wind and water turbines, and solar panels. In these, the energy used in production is paid back within the first years of use, and the installations continue to produce energy from the natural resources of wind and sun, until eventually they are broken down by our weather etc.! Of course the moving bearings and gears will suffer wear and tear, with the result that they will have to be replaced; but the initial energy used in production will not need to be "reused" on an annual or weekly basis.

I wonder if there is anyone involved in the biofuels industry, who would be interested in supplying us all with the precise energy requirement for the running of say: 1 ha of algal ponds for 1 year and the number of litres of oil produced and purified in that time (including its energy equivalent - kWe or barrels of fossil oil. Such figures might be more positive than we presume; and it is only with this data, that members of the wider renewable energy supply industry, and indeed members of the public, can make rational decisions as to what technologies should be invested in,in different parts of the world. We should also be given some idea of the set-up costs, energy involved and the anticipated payback (monetary and energy) time. This would of couse be never, in the case of energy, if as Cliff thinks, the ponds use more energy to run than they return in saleable oil. Perhaps the ponds could be so designed that "thermal churning" did away with the need for stirrers; the operators might have to accept lower profits - just an idea.

Cliff Claven,

"This is just the latest nail in the coffin of the walking dead zombie of biofuels."

Hyperbole is the best one can say for such a claim.

Solid waste may be most effectively used for even transportation in dry powder form rather than the lauded liquid conversion but either way waste is better utilized for energy than poisoning air, land and water.

"modern, high-yield agriculture depends upon huge amounts of fossil fuel energy that is added in the form of ammonia fertilizer and pesticides and herbicides..."

Very modern, very high-yield agriculture can even extract ammonia and its stench from pig emanations.

http://agrotech.dk/en/projects/pig-city-zero-emission-and-odour-free-pig-production

The vast destruction of land, water and and atmosphere - along with use of chemicals - by organic farming methods could be greatly reduced and even eliminated entirely with modern technology that could turn city dwellers into a new breed of farmers.

Could even pretty up cities greatly if this kind of thing works out:

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/02/13/worlds-1st-plantagon-greenhouse-for-urban-farming-under-construction-in-sweden/

I am skeptical of the utility of this particular project but it sure presents a purty pitcher.

Others have even far more advanced and perhaps more realistic plans but all must fight the deniers who wrongly pretend to cleanliness.

Best, Terry

This is just the latest nail in the coffin of the walking dead zombie of biofuels. This group's action is in sync with the negative report on biofuels of the German National Academy of Science that came out last year, the study by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (nine major European environmental organizations) that also came out last year, two studies by the US National Academy of Sciences and two studies by the RAND Corporation that all have found biofuels to be unsustainable and to promote rather decrease emissions of greenhouse gases when the full life-cycle is considered. German consumers across the country recently refused to buy E10 gasoline because they now understand the truth of food competition and environmental damage from biofuel agriculture. A tipping point is approaching and this folly will soon be fully exposed. BTW, algae is no solution. It is hugely consumptive of fresh water (even for saline algae), still competes directly with food for the world's supply of potash and phosphate and nitrogen fertilizers, and requires more energy to stir the ponds than is in the resulting biodiesel. It is impossible to support a modern energy-intensive civilization with agrarian based energy. In fact, modern, high-yield agriculture depends upon huge amounts of fossil fuel energy that is added in the form of ammonia fertilizer and pesticides and herbicides and farm equipment fuel and processing plant energy and transportation energy. Petroleum is even the feedstock for all the modern organic compounds that end up as the designer enzymes used in the more esoteric biofuel processes. The snake is eating its own tail. This is a big perpetual motion scheme, and it is being exposed.

"Given the right conditions, algae can double its volume overnight. Microalgae are the earth's most productive plants –– 10 to 15 times more prolific in biomass than the fastest growing land plant exploited for biofuel production. While soy produces some 50 gallons of oil per acre per year; canola, 150 gallons; and palm, 650 gallons, algae can produce up to 15,000 gallons per acre per year. In addition, up to 50 percent (or more) of algae biomass (dry weight) is comprised of oil, whereas oil-palm trees—currently the most efficient large-scale source of feedstock oil to make biofuels—yield approximately 20 percent of their weight in oil," says Zeljko Serdar, President of CCRES