February 13th, 2009 nick
This article on the Swissaid website raises an interesting fact that it takes as much maize to fill a car’s petrol tank as it does to feed one person for a year. Swissaid has launched a campaign to stop agrofuel production. – swissinfo
Whilst in Sheffield the University is investigating the possibility of running cars on coffee! I don’t mean that as you make that first cupper in the morning to get you going you make another and pop it in your tank. Field studies in Nicaragua have shown that waste coffee beans produce an oil which can be turned into a biofuel. So a waste by-product that was of little value could be sold by the farmers. The research is being carried out by PhD student Annabel Townsend.
Localised pockets of biofuel production using waste products can have huge benefits but the global move to agrofuels still marches on.
Tags: Agrofuels, Biofuels
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February 10th, 2009 nick
Part of the reason for having this blog is as a test bed for website and in particular Wordpress blog designs. Hence much of what is here is experimental.
This post for example is using Windows Live Writer to update the site. So far so good – standard Microsoft interface like word – but will the publishing be easy.
Here goes ……………..
Tags: Biofuels
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January 8th, 2009 nick
I found this very interesting article by Wagdy Sawahel today. It comments on a study that shows that there are many methods of producing energy for the future and attempts to rank the various methods on the impact on the environment. Not surprisingly biofuels come bottom. Read what Wagdy has to say and follow the link to the study at the bottom.
Wagdy Sawahel’s article on SciDev.Net…………
An ambitious attempt to rank future energy sources according to myriad repercussions of their use has found biofuels to be the most undesirable option.
Use of ethanol caused the most climate damage, air pollution, damage to land and wildlife, and chemical waste, according to the analysis.
The study, which claims to be “the first comparative evaluation of proposed large-scale energy solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security”, considered the implications of using each of 11 different energy sources to power three types of new-technology vehicles — run either on batteries, hydrogen fuel cells or ethanol fuel.
It weighted their contributions to global warming, air and water pollution and thermal pollution (for example from discharging power station coolants into water). It also considered their effects on water supply, land use, wildlife and resource availability. Indirect effects on energy security, nuclear proliferation, mortality and under-nutrition were also included.
The analysis found that wind power, when used as a source of electricity for battery vehicles, performed best. This combination came first in seven categories, “including the most important — mortality and climate damage reduction,” said Mark Jacobson, director of the Atmosphere/Energy programme at US-based Stanford University and author of the study. Wind for fuel-cell vehicles came close behind.
In the second tier were battery vehicles using electricity from solar photovoltaics or concentrated solar power (which focuses a large patch of sunlight into a high-energy beam), and also from geothermal, tidal and wave sources. The third tier included battery vehicles driven by hydropower, nuclear, and coal from plants using carbon capture and storage.
The two liquid fuel options — ethanol in the form of corn-E85 and cellulosic-E85 —came last.
But Ned Xoubi fuel cycle commissioner at Jordan’s Atomic Energy Commission, said: “Developing countries are in dire need of energy. The best choice for a sustainable, affordable, clean, available form of energy is nuclear”.
“It has been one of the most competitive energy sources all over the world, costing less than wind power and requiring less land than wind.”
And Magdi Tawfik Abdelhamid, biotechnologist at Cairo’s National Research Centre, said: “Including biofuel in the list of the worst energy options is not scientifically justified. Producing biofuel using seaweed in developing countries could be considered as a cheap, environmentally friendly source for energy that doesn’t endanger food security.”
The study was published in Energy and Environmental Science last month (1 December).
Link to full paper in Energy and Environmental Science
Tags: Biofuels
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August 15th, 2007 nick
According to a joint press release by Biofuelwatch, Ecological Internet and Rainforest Rescue biofuel expansion threatens Europe’s wildlife as agricultural set-asides are to be scrapped.
Millions of farm birds could be left without enough food and breeding sites next spring if plans to scrap Europe’s agricultural land set-aside targets for next year go ahead, warn environmental groups. Plans to set a zero set-aside targets from October this year have been announced by the EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Mariann Fischer-Boel, as a response to rising food prices. Those plans are to be ratified by ministers this autumn. Several studies confirm that set-asides have become a vital habitat for many of
Europe’s endangered birds and insects, and that farm birds have declined by nearly 50% on average since 1980. Over 5300 people have written to European politicians this month, asking for the plans to be dropped and supporting a moratorium on biofuel targets.
Glen Barry, Director of Ecological Internet explains: “Dramatic declines in insect, bird and wild flower populations show that many of Europe’s ecosystems are under extreme stress from intensive agriculture and climate change. Our future depends on protecting
healthy ecosystems. We need real cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, with massive cuts in energy use as well as truly sustainable renewable energy, such as wind and solar power. More intensively farmed monocultures cannot be part of the solution.”
Almuth Ernsting from Biofuelwatch adds “There is no doubt that the expansion in biofuels is pushing up food prices. The European Union are committed to stopping biodiversity losses by 2010 but those plans will almost certainly make this impossible. Our birds
and insects must not be sacrificed for biofuel expansion. We need a moratorium on EU biofuel targets and incentives now – and we need to keep our set asides until they can be replaced with better environmental safeguards.”
Few environmental NGOs regard the current set-aside system, as being the ideal instrument for protecting farmland biodiversity, although it provides a safety net for many species. Many NGOs hope that a ‘health check’ of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2008Â will lead to more targeted environmental safeguards. However, there are widespread concerns that sudden scrapping of all set-aside targets without any replacement or reform will devastate bird and insect populations.
According to Reinhard Behrend from Rainforest Rescue, Germany, “biofuel expansion is already causing rainforest destruction and the displacement of large numbers of communities in the global South. At the same time, poor people are hit hardest by rising
food prices whilst Europe burns more and more food in cars. The only logical solution is to suspend biofuel targets, whilst drastically reducing our overall fuel use.”
An email action alert against the planned abolition of set-aside targets for 2008 and for a moratorium on EU biofuel targets has been signed by over 5300 individuals and can be found at Climateark website  and Rainforest Rescue.
A call for a Moratorium on EU biofuel targets and incentives, and on large-scale monocultures for bioenergy in Europe has been signed by 152 organisations from the global North and South. The text and the list of signatories can be found at Econexus
Tags: Biofuels
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