Are Ethanol and Biodiesel Really Green?
Ethanol and biodiesel have been talked up quite a bit in the last few months, governments are enforcing it into their fleet cars, petrol stations are providing it more at the bowsers and there is a major emphasis on it being green. But is it really?
First up what is the difference between ethanol and biodiesel?
Ethanol is a gasoline replacement distilled mainly from corn while biodiesle is a diesel replacement extracted from vegetable oil and fat.
If you consider the full impact of Ethanol on our environment, I doubt you will be that enthusiastic to fill your tank with the proclaimed "organic and sustainable bio-fuel".
The concept is right, it's a cleaner burning fuel that releases less CO2 into the atmosphere, it's sustainable, we can grow as much of it as we like so we don't need to worry about the diminishing oil supplies (as much) and it's accessible all over the world. It's the execution that is wrong... if you're not familiar with the term "Cash Crop" they are basically non-digestible crops, just like tobacco or coffee. Corn or palm oil are the new cash crops making bags of money for landowners, and robbing farmers of a source of food. Worse still, we are clearing precious, irreplaceable rain forest to plant these cash crops.
Brazil is the world's biggest supplier of ethanol, their fuel has a minimum of 25% ethanol and some cars are able to run on 100%. The rich fertile land of the Amazon Rain Forest provide the perfect conditions for growing such a profitable crop. So while you're driving around in your brand new Hummer H3 feeling proud that you're doing your bit for the environment, you can rest in the fact that the corn used to fill your tank could have fed a fully grown adult for a whole year and the land cleared to produce it was oxygen producing rain forest.
Some sources even claim that it takes just about as much petroleum to make ethanol as the amount you end up with (http://www.sedona.biz/ethanol-vs-biodiesel0108.htm).
The numbers for biodiesel are equally damning:
"Within 15 years 98% of the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia will be gone, little more than a footnote in history. With them will disappear some of the world's most important wildlife species, victims of the rapacious destruction of their habitat in what conservationists see as a lost cause.
Yet this gloomy script was supposed to have included a small but significant glimmer of hope. Oil palm for biofuel was to have been one of the best solutions in saving the planet from greenhouse gases and global warming. Instead the forests are being torn down in the headlong rush to boost palm oil production." (Source: "Palm oil: the biofuel of the future driving an ecological disaster now: Click here for full article)
By Marc Greenstock
User comments
The solution is quite simple - use energy more efficiently - thanks for your great home checklist by the way - it has helped me save loads of energy.
Good luck
Trevor
Shouldn't we just pay countries like Brazil a fee for every hectare of rainforest that is kept intact - after all rainforests are the lungs of our Earth and should be treated like a resource that we can no longer afford to waste - it would be quite easy to monitor with google earth, wouldn't it?
Take Brazil for example - according to scientists the biofuel boom could "mean bust for the Amazon rain forest and a vast savanna ecosystem known as the Cerrado".
source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol.html
Tom - I am not sure you put the correct ratio of ethanol in your car. You cant just pour it in the tank! A 10% mix will not be noticed at all - just ask first where they source the ethanol and what it is manufactured from.
I put ethanol in my car once, i got about a 10 - 20% deduction in performance and my car stank for a month. Never again!
I think ethanol is only a solution if native forests are not cut down to produce the crop source. The world's rainforests produce 25% of our oxygen yet we are losing 5% per annum to agriculture - mainly cattle and soy crops.
