Saw my first commercial on the ethanol mandate on tv today. This is a positive start. The more people learn of the ethanol fiasco and destruction of the environment, the sooner we can rid of ourselves of this nightmare. DBCassidy
You should move to DC. We get daily ads from pro- and con- biofuels groups Usually the ads are from Amer Petroleum Inst, or the pro side, the Biofuels lobby group. The only thing that does not have a lobby group to help it compete, is hybrids.
What's up with this? New bill before Congress? I heard a new biofuel lobby commercial today...quite acidic in it's anti-oil-industry accusations...must be something up for consideration. Iowa effect weakening these days?
I'da thought biofuels love the oilies .... after all - how else you gona grow all that gmo corn, w/out petro insecticides & petro fertilizer, & CNG to run the generators for electricity (LOTS of electricity) - to both pump the midwest aquifer dry in order to grow your product & to get it fermented & truck it to market. .
Apparently EPA must decide 2016 biofuels mandates by Nov 30. Ethanol lobby pushing for increases over the 10% "blend wall". Probably most know the past history that gasoline sales are far lower than Congress expected, this has resulted is less ethanol production than the biofuels industry was essentially promised. It was supposed to be ethanol from biomass...but that's "details"...
The destruction of the rainforest in Indonesia is a biofuel consequence. The green meme needs better foresight.
There may be evidence, somewhere, that tropical forest -> palm oil conversion is a green meme. I am unaware of it. Social and environmental impact of palm oil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This thread appears to be about US bioethanol transportation fuels, however.
California is marketing the stuff as utlra green diesel imported from Singapore. The company claims to be using more waste (palm) oils in its process. Palm oil makes a lousy biodiesel due to waxy nature, so it is a better candidate for advanced biofuels processing which converts it straight to high quality diesel. This is the stuff marketed in California. But its hard to believe much % of palm oils goes to advanced biofuels. I don't know if straight waxy palm oil FAME is used a lot in Asia or not. In other words, I do not know how much palm oil actually goes to biodiesel vs. food uses.
I don't find a clear answer about palm oil end use. Less than quarter to biodiesel (rest to food) in the EU. I am not in the ideal location to find out if proposed EPA mandates refer to palm oil derived biodiesel. Perhaps instead they just say 'make it xx% bio derived' and leave it to industry to choose sources.
Casual (if unintentional) confusion of food with transportation fuels got me thinking... How much global energy goes into each? One source said 81.1 quadrillion Btu in 2014 for global transport One source said 2940 kcal per capita per day (which seems high to me) I used 7.3 billion people, and converted both to Joules per year. Someone might want to confirm? Transport = 8.6 x 10^19 Food = 3.3 x 10^19 A ratio of 2.6 in favor of the machines. I expected it to be wider. It is wider in the US, with a very large vehicle/population ratio So, there is the factoid. Write it on your hand in preparation for the next trivia quiz.
Yep, ethanol lobby pushing in increase over the 10% blend wall. Consumers, small engine manufacturers are pushing back. If ethanol is to remain in our fuel - push for lower than 10%. Motorcycles, boats, snowmobiles, jet skies, etc, etc, etc. Ethanol damages have been a problem, increasing to above 10% is a disaster waiting to happen to these engines. the environmental damage, thru plowing under virgin grasslands, increase use of fossil fuels to plant, irrigate, harvest and processing must not be forgotten. DBCassidy
Europe has a Neste advanced biofuels plant for Palm Oil in Europe, and then they built another one in Singapore. Believe Europe uses mostly rapeseed oil (we call it Canola) for biodiesel. but the Palm Oil is particularly good when its converted all the way (by hydrogenation) to paraffinic diesel. USA would not do Palm Oil biodiesel, we favor soy beans as our subsidized mono-crop for biodiesel. But there is a small amount of the Neste Singapore material imported to CA.
Above, human energy impact was based on direct consumption. A famous earlier study (Vitousek et al. 1986, which I'd be sad if you could not find) suggested 4 petagrams (dry) agricultural annual harvest including livestock pasturage. It seems appropriate to consider that, as animals are not highly efficient in producing edible products. Also, not all crops get eaten by us. There are non-harvested residues and rats vermin etc. precluding human consumption. Vitousek et al. in Joules was 7.5 x 10^19. That 1986 number must be higher now (following human population increase). It was then 88% compared to current fuel for transport, and now, I'd reckon about equal. The agricultural 'front end' could be redone with current data. The transport fuel requirement could be improved by including inefficiencies between drilling and your fuel dispenser. With those, we could compare current human/machine energetic domination of this planet. It could hit a very high journal. If I did not have more 'low-level' concerns, it would be a temptation. If I convince somebody to work this through, there'd be a reason to include mojo (by real name ) in acknowledgements. So much stimulation from Prius Chat (I first typed Prius Chant ) No help here for Congress vs. EPA vs. API about current legislation. Other things on my mind.
Palm oil commodity price has fallen about 40% in 5 years (indexmundi). Eventually this may have more effect than Indonesia's happy talk about preserving forests. Future Indonesia forests matter a lot to orangutans, bees, and many other forest species y'all don't give a flip about. It may be a long time until 'tree huggers' thank whacko banks for bringing on 2008(ish) financial troubles. Yet it may come. Besides that palm oil (and rubber) are no longer 'all that' in terms of land u$e, renewable E has a better opportunity to increase in a lower $/kwh world. Elephant harvest saved the narwhals, coal harvest saved the forests, what will be our next 'XXX saved YYY' story?
