A recent guest op-ed in The New York Times identifies some of the problems with biofuels that make them much less environmentally friendly than their promoters claim.
The most common biofuels in the United States are ethanol and biodiesel, refined primarily from corn and soybeans, respectively. [emphasis, links added]
The article, “The Climate Solution That’s Horrible for the Climate,” written by Michael Grunwald, describes many detrimental effects of using ethanol and biodiesel.
Some examples include that they “accelerate food inflation and global hunger,” because the crops produced and the land used to grow them could otherwise be used to feed humans and animals.
Indeed, a study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison estimated that the impact of the Renewable Fuel Standards program, which mandates the use of increasing amounts of biofuels, was a 30 percent increase in corn prices.
Additionally, Grunwald says:
“[B]ut they’re also a disaster for the climate and the environment. And that’s mainly because they’re inefficient land hogs. It takes about 100 acres worth of biofuels to generate as much energy as a single acre of solar panels; worldwide, a land mass larger than California was used to grow under 4 percent of transportation fuel in 2020.”
Corn-based ethanol in particular is a problem, he says, because it “uses almost as much fossil fuel — from fertilizers made of natural gas to diesel tractors, industrial refineries and other sources — as the ethanol replaces.”
Although Grunwald is wrong when he claims later in his editorial that traditional fuels are “broiling” the planet, he is correct that biofuels do not help the environment, and they contribute to the waste of land that otherwise could go towards producing food.
The New York Times is not the only mainstream media outlet shedding light on biofuels’ deficiencies recently.
Climate Realism reported a few months ago that Time Magazine had soured on corn ethanol. In that post, a Time staff writer said that ethanol blend mandates “are just a way of locking in higher corn prices while actually making the climate situation worse.”
If an individual is concerned about carbon dioxide emissions or actual pollutants, biofuels are not the answer.
Data presented in Energy at a Glance: Ethanol and Biodiesel shows that, in kilograms of CO2 per energy output equivalent, ethanol emits more CO2 than pure gasoline.
It takes 1.5 times more fuel to travel an equivalent distance on ethanol than with gasoline, due to ethanol’s lower energy density.
In terms of pollutants regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an agency study confirmed that “air quality modeling suggests that production and use of ethanol as fuel to displace gasoline is likely to increase such air pollutants as PM2.5, ozone, and SOx in some locations.”
Writing for Climate Realism, “Real Threats to Biodiversity and Humanity,” Paul Driessen says this concerning the environmental impact of biofuels:
Keep-fossil-fuels-in-the-ground lobbyists need to calculate how many acres of soybeans, canola and other biofuel crops would be needed to replace today’s petrochemical feedstocks; how much water, fertilizer, labor, and fuel would be needed to grow harvest, and process them; and how much acreage would have to be taken from food production or converted from bee and wildlife habitat.
Biofuels are neither a practical nor desirable replacement for fossil fuels, even if they needed replacing, which they don’t.
The New York Times and Grunwald are correct that they are land-hungry, polluting, and serve to raise the cost of food.
Despite some of the unsubstantiated climate change claims made in the article, they at least got those facts right.
Read more at Climate Realism
The New York Slimes just found out that Bio Fuels are not Enviromentaly friendly
Almost never mentioned is this astounding fact: If growing and processing ethanol only replaces “fossil fuels” on a one-to-one basis, don’t you see that now you are burning TWICE AS MUCH fuel as you would if you merely just used the original non-contaminated fossil fuel in the first place?
And the energy content of one gallon of ethanol is less than one gallon of gasoline. Not to mention due to water content in ethanol it is not good for engines, especially small engines like lawn mowers and snow blowers.
Besides, ethanol is best used in alcoholic drinks like gin & vodka martinis, Manhattans, and other adult beverages. Just sayin’.
No one wo pushes ethanol ever mentions the amount of clearing that goes on to grow the crops to make it. South America had lost much forest and Asia likewise to grow trees for palm oil. Total stupidity. A bit like the USA cutting trees down to convert to pellets for the UK when Britain is sitting on oil readily obtained by fracking and conventional methods.
Lots of sensible and informed comments here.
The truth about “biofuels” needs to be told – in plain language. It is wood pellets made from cutting trees down. it is that simple.
If that is good for anything, including the air that we breath, then will someone appropriately qualified please tell all of us about that?
They didn’t mention the amount of water needed to grow crops for biofuels. In a lot of places Agriculture uses more water than domestic or industrial users. I imagine that in most of the Mid West farmers rely on irrigation rather than rainfall and are therefore competing with other users for a finite resource. This is fine when growing essential food but people shouldn’t be seeing their water use restricted to produce biofuels.