It just goes to show you that sometimes, consensus in science amounts to a “whole lot of nothing” as this story from Robert Mendick in The Sunday Telegraph tells us.
Growing crops to make “green” biofuel harms the environment and drives up food prices, IPCC admits in dramatic U-turn
The United Nations will officially warn that growing crops to make “green” biofuel harms the environment and drives up food prices, The Telegraph can disclose.
A leaked draft of a UN report condemns the widespread use of biofuels made from crops as a replacement for petrol and diesel. It says that biofuels, rather than combating the effects of global warming, could make them worse.
The draft report represents a dramatic about-turn for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Its previous assessment on climate change, in 2007, was widely condemned by environmentalists for giving the green light to large-scale biofuel production. The latest report instead puts pressure on world leaders to scrap policies promoting the use of biofuel for transport.
The summary for policymakers states: “Increasing bioenergy crop cultivation poses risks to ecosystems and biodiversity.”
Full story (subscription required)
Al Gore and Palm Oil is a prime example of one such mess that once looked like a good idea: Al Gore’s palm oil train wreck gets worse
I understand the righteous anger here directed at those who distorted the market with tax payers money to convert arable land use from food production to fuel production but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Not all biofuel is equal!
Joule Unlimited’s biotech that grows ethanol and/or diesel from waste water, waste CO2 and sunshine using non arable land IS the answer for sustainable fossil fuel replacement without disruption to existing infrastructure.
How disappointing then that their major investment has come from Russian & Arab energy companies rather than their western equivalents. When the story of the ‘Climate Crazy’ years is finally told historical perspective will condemn those that chose personal/political agendas over the chance to free the west from eastern energy supply hegemony!
Eliminate the fuel ethanol boondoggle and prices might – just might – not rise as quickly as they do now. But I don’t believe they will go down. The suppliers will just cream off greater profits.
I’ve heard “if they do this, that, the other, prices will go down” over and over again. But I haven’t seen the prices go down.
At 10:15 AM on 24 March, RoHa had demonstrated the effects of comprachico government maleducation by asserting:
Chiefest among the many reasons why currency-denominated prices aren’t perceived to correlate responsively with genuine cost reductions due to improvements in resource extraction, productivity, and other market efficiencies is that governments debauch the currency by way of counterfeiting (the currently popular euphemism is “quantitative easing”) through the practices of fractional reserve banking and the issue of fiat “money.”
When your “prices” yardstick is made out of Silly Putty, just what the hell are you really measuring?
Attributed to an anonymous UN bureaucrat more than half a century ago was the observation that: “Inflation is the one form of taxation that even the weakest government can impose upon its citizens.”
Thus real-world cost savings at every level of production and use are largely thieved away by the politicians and their “campaign contributors,” the latter bunch being the real “constituents” on whose behalf the average citizen is screwed, blue’d and tattooed by the institutionalized pillage which is the true purpose of government-privileged central banking.
Getting some idea of how that works?
To assert that “The suppliers will just cream off greater profits” as if there were anything of a market function in such a practice betrays a failure to appreciate the fact that there are a helluva lot of “suppliers” (both operating and potential) ready to move their resources enthusiastically into any market segment – particularly fungible commodities – in which profits are so gaudily gained by pricing at margins far in excess of production and delivery costs.
Monopolies and oligopolies are not market functions, but occur only when governments impair the voluntary exchange of goods and services to favor politically “connected” vendors or purchasers by sending in armed thugs to threaten the other participants in such activities with deadly force.
Politicians and their goons have tried this kind of crap from time out of memory, and inevitably they fail. Their failures are particularly rapid in the modern era – where the communication of price and cost information is effectively instantaneous and simply cannot be blocked by the government thugs – because their success requires something like the democidal economic paralysis of a Konzentrationlager police state to prevent or even sustainedly pervert the operations of market forces.
That’s obviously where the national and international economies of the world are headed – courtesy of our arrogant, stupid, cunning, imbecilic governing class – but we’re not quite there yet.
For yet another take on this, here’s a pretty good article on the recent profitability of bioethanol. I know the knee-jerk reaction on here is that this industry is all about the global warming fr*ud, but not so much now at all, so who gives a sh!t what the IPCC says about this:
http://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2014/03/recent-trends-in-the-profitability-of-ethanol-production.html
I’ve always referred to bio fuels as the lie about the lie when it comes to global warming/greenhouse gas.
They rank at the top historically for ruinous policies in the US, especially considering the environment/massive pollution(corn is the biggest polluting crop-ok for food) and wasted natural resources(helping to such the Ogallala Aquifer dry is just one element).
But to sell them based on less greenhouse gas/CO2 emissions is:
1. A lie
2. Increasing CO2 is beneficial
http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/digital/pdf/spring_13/Kiefer_Long_Version.pdf
Crime against humanity, will their be trails of those responsible?
Derrrr……
Did it take a dozen PhDs and ten years of research to discover this?
You really could not make it up!
And regards the Drax fiasco we are paying for this debacle. Some £200 million spent already.
This is not some hospital backup power facility, this is a 4gw monster, running on the felling and flattening of every forest in the USA. I hope Barak Obarmy call-me-Dave CaMoron are proud of their contribution to saving the environment….. !
Ralph
Tom in Florida says: March 24, 2014 at 6:21 am
I have accessed the article without a prescription and emailed it to both of my U S Senators. I didn’t bother to sent it to my Congressman because he is a complete idiot .
____________________________
Wow, you need a doctors certificate to read science papers in the US? I had heard that the US education system was falling apart, but I did not know it was that bad!
ralph
To: R B Brown et al,
“The fusion ship” is nearing port and will be available long BEFORE the Thorium ship can arrive.
No one is developing Thorium reactors, except possibly some third world countries dabbling with it.
Sure, there is a lot of paper studies and propaganda for it, but it will take a minimum of thirty years to license a commercial fission Thorium design, after someone starts in earnest to spend the multi-Billions needed to do so.
Fusion is already at the doorstep and has generated a lot more MW, than all the paper thorium designs ever suggested. ITER is more an Engineering exercise to build a pre-protype commercial Fusion power plant, than it is a Scientific experiment.
Corn is the crop that pollutes the most. It is mostly responsible for the “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of Mexico every growing season.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-06-14/gulf-of-mexico-s-extinction-by-ethanol
It receives more irrigation/water than any other crop. We have an inevitable crisis developing in the Plains because the main water source, the Ogallala Auquifer is being sucked dry. There is total lack of proper planning to conserve this vital source of water…………..in fact, we have 50% of the corn crop in Nebraska being irrigated out of the Ogallala and much of that water is being wasted to make corn for fuel/ethanol.
If you want a catastrophic disaster, no need to look very far. It’s already well on its way for the Plains states. Our government focuses on a theoretic catastrophic global warming crisis, while there is no global warming the past 15 years…………and completely ignores the one that is well on its way and going to create tremendous hardship for millions in the Plains, starting within a decade and will be a major crisis that is being completely overlooked, in just a few decades………with almost absolute certainty.
http://thisisthemodernworld.com/2013/03/07/30-facts-about-the-coming-water-crisis-that-will-change-the-lives-of-every-person-on-the-planet/
And to think, increasing CO2 increases crop yields, which means less need to expand farmland, and less use of natural resources, less pollution. In fact, at higher CO2 levels, especially since agricultural crops root mass responds strongly to increased CO2 levels, growing crops requires LESS water/irrigation.
Yet out government has policies that are exactly the opposite of what the proven science shows would be best.
And in news just in the IPCC now admits doubts about its earlier statements of species extinction.
With all due respect Mike – this is a prefect example of the mass cluelessness about corn ethanol. And many of the comments above are even worse – people writing long posts asserting “facts” that are so wrong it simply isn’t worth responding.
The corn used for ethanol in the US is – for about the 50th time – NOT food corn. The corn used for ethanol in the US is FEED corn. The corn used to make tortillas in Mexico is neither feed or the typical food corn – sweet corn – we see in the US.
Tortillas in Mexico are made from WHITE corn. The US is Mexico’s largest supplier of white corn. From a story on tortilla price increases:
The US has always, and continues to, supply ALL of the white corn Mexico asks for. White corn sells at a $.70-$1.00/ bushel premium to feed corn. Farmers would most certainly grow more white corn if there was unmet demand.
Total white corn production in the US:
2006-2007 – 86 million bushels
2007-2008 – 130 million bushels
2008-2009 – 109 million bushels
2009-2010 – 134 million bushels
2010-2011 – 116 million bushels
2011-2012 – 101 million bushels
Export Demand
2006-2007 – 26 million bushels
2007-2008 – 36 million bushels
2008-2009 – 38 million bushels
2009-2010 – 31 million bushels
2010-2011 – 39 million bushels
2011-2012 – 33 million bushels
Planted Acres
2006-2007 – 596 thousand acres
2007-2008 – 822 thousand acres
2008-2009 – 693 thousand acres
2009-2010 – 743 thousand acres
2010-2011 – 729 thousand acres
2011-2012 – 703 thousand acres
There were 97.2 million acres of corn acres planted – of all types – in 2012. The 703 thousand acres planted in white corn represents just 0.72% of the total US corn crop planted. White corn acres planted directly reflect US and export demand.
Even with the drought, and low corn production, in 2012 the US still produced 10.8 billion bushels of corn. White corn produced for food, was just 101 million bushels of that. White corn is just 0.93% of the total US corn production.
There was a surplus at the end of the year for each of those years between 4.4 and 16 million bushels, which directly confirms the US met ALL export demand.
Clearly feed corn grown for ethanol has no impact on white corn grown for food – particularly corn grown for Mexican tortillas. If more white corn was necessary the US would grow it, and how much feed corn we use for ethanol has zero effect on white corn grown for food, and thus no effect on tortilla prices in Mexico.
I’m sure these facts will not make any difference to the ethanol hating torch bearers though …
https://brokers.intlfcstone.com/Research/Document/DocumentViewPublic/b0c5627c-d091-434e-a936-f79fceb0b9df
@A. Scott – there are only so many acres to grow corn. White, sweet, or feed. More for one means less for another. Seems the one using obfuscation and lies is you.
Foodprices now rated more important than the climate maybe sometimes in the future!
World starting to get the priorities right I say. I’m waiting for more of this in the next IPCC reports but I’m not expecting any excuses to the ones who had to bed hungry (or worse) thanks to this charade.
Another example of the nonsensical thinking when it comes to ethanol. The mantra is stop growing corn for fuel, that we should be growing it for food. Which means the corn would STILL be grown. With all the related issues.
Corn is corn – it doesn’t know what its going to be used for. Growing it is the same regardless of its intended end use. And even considering ethanol’s use of appx 40% of the corn crop, that still leaves 60% of the corn crop used for NON-ethanol purposes. Yet it is ethanol that is killing the gulf and creating all these other problems.
Sorry – but that claim is just plain ignorant … no other polite way to say it.
And growing corn for ethanol uses no more or less water than growing corn for any other purpose. Corn is corn. And again, the demand we stop growing corn for ethanol when we should be growing corn for food, because its using up all the water, is simply ignorant. If you grown corn – regardless of if for food or fuel – you use the same exact amounts of water for irrigation.
@A. Scott
“The mantra is stop growing corn for fuel, that we should be growing it for food.”
No, the mantra is to stop growing corn for fuel and using that land to grow crops for food.
Could be for corn or could be for something else.
Col Mosby says:
March 24, 2014 at 7:58 am
The killer calculation is to show how the money spent for all these BS “solutions” from solar to wind to biofuels to whatever, could have been used to construct nuclear plants.
====================
Jeeeze, man, didn’t Saul Alinski teach you anything? DO NOT mention nuclear plants!
How many Head Start programs could have been paid for ?!?!
FIle under “Well, duh”
A. Scott says:
March 24, 2014 at 1:50 pm
But using feed corn for ethanol has led to higher white corn prices as well:
http://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2013/10/ethanol-prices-drive-corn-prices.html
I’m sure we’ll hear the inevitable, but corn for ethanol is taking away production land that could be used for growing food. And the other specious claim that we’re farming all these extra acres – that we’re taking all this poor and unproductive land out of conservation and pounding more corn into it.
Which invariably they cannot support or prove with actual data or facts. For the simply reason these claims are not supported by facts.
Total acres planted in the US – all field crops – millions of acres:
1996 333.68
1997 332.07
1998 329.97
1999 329.26
2000 328.69
2001 324.58
2002 327.28
2003 325.69
2004 322.32
2005 317.64
2006 315.65
2007 320.37
2008 325.00
2009 319.25
2010 316.70
2011* 315.14
2012* 326.32
2013* 325.60
Ooops … massive fail …. 333 million total acres planted 1996 vs. 325.6 million acres planted in 2013.
And when we look at the conservation land data, which I’ve shown in detail here in the past, while we DO see large areas removed from CRP year to year, a closer look shows an almost equal number enrolled, with little net change year to year.
The USDA Crop Production Annual Reports show the crop production data. And acres planted data is illustrative. Linked below are the 2011 report (covering 2008-2010) and the 2014 report (covering 2011-2013). This gives data on total acres planted, harvested, yields etc for all field crop types.
A review shows almost every crop saw similar planted acres from 2008 thru 2013, with a few variations from year to year. For example Sorghum acres dropped from 8.2 to 5.5 million acres from 2008 to 2010, but rebounded to 8 million acres planted in 2013 – almost zero net change.
There is no indication in the hard acres planted data that any significant food crop is adversely impacted by growing corn, regardless of the use.
All the data is in those reports – I challenge anyone to show what food crops are suffering any significant adverse effect due to corn used for ethanol production.
TOTAL PLANTED ACRES Data:
http://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/E6CAD14B-6756-3824-ACCC-703FCC1344AF?pivot=short_desc
USDA Annual Crop Production Reports:
http://usda01.library.cornell.edu/usda/nass/CropProdSu/2010s/2011/CropProdSu-01-12-2011_new_format.pdf
http://usda01.library.cornell.edu/usda/current/CropProdSu/CropProdSu-01-10-2014.pdf
The fermentation process to turn ANY kind of “corn” into ethanol using yeast does create vast amounts of CO2, when the ethanol is made, and so burning ethanol although it may create only H2O when burnt, is not a “Carbon Free Fuel” as they say. It is a type of shell game, a confidence trick. Much energy is lost in the overall process, and so it isn’t even economic. It would make more sense to just burn the “corn”, yet that doesn’t seem to make any kind of sense at all.
The overall chemical formula for alcoholic fermentation is:
C6H12O6 + Zymase → 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2
That’s 2 molecules of CO2 for every 2 molecules of ethanol.
AT THE PRODUCTION STAGE !!!
Zymase is the yeast enzyme.
Oh yes and there is still CO2 produced from the “Ethane” part of the Ethanol when burnt, so these people are just kidding themselves, or else this is just a sinister scam to con the Public.
I see nothing in that link that in any way ties feed corn to white corn prices. And their claim that they can link ethanol to increases in corn prices is not proven. Correlation is not causation.
If as they allege ethanol demand drove the increase in corn prices, then how do you explain the fact that other commodities have almost exactly matched corn price changes.
Wheat vs Corn:
http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/5601/realcornwheat1784.png
Or perhaps you can explain why all these other commodities marched in lockstep with corn … were they all affected by ethanol as well?
Jim Crack Corn says:
March 24, 2014 at 3:00 pm
======================
Not quite right Jim. The glycolytic pathway is 10, 11 or more steps (depending on how you count some enzyme reactions) to get to ethanol from glucose:
http://www.biocarta.com/pathfiles/h_glycolysisPathway.gif
(Pyruvate then goes to ethanol via ADH1 and other pathways). The amylase enzyme(s) just makes the corn starch fermentable.
The CO2 from the the ethane part of the molecule came out of the sky and is going back into the sky. Quite funny actually that we utilize the industrial excreta of China and India to make money.
Since blending credits were removed, gas prices obviously went up, so instead of rich people paying more via taxation, poor people pay more at the pump. I suppose it depends on your politics as to whether or not you like that.
There are now tax credits for using non-food crops such as sweet sorghum. Someone please let me know when any of the corn crop saved by this actually gets into a starving African’s mouth.
Please provide legitimate, fact based evidence that the acreage planted for corn used for ethanol is needed for “food.” I provided links to the USDA Crop Production Reports for last 6 years… you can go thru them and see the acres planted for every field crop. They are available back to 1964.
You, or anyone else, can go to them and find the exact data on planted acres. IF as you claim the acres used for ethanol are displacing food crops you will find that data in the Crop Production reports.
Of you can find the data in “live” Excel format in the Field Grain Yearbook, I posted table 26 from it above.
America has been the worlds corn supplier for most of the last century, We have supplied as much as 60% of the worlds corn exports. Despite increased exports in recent years by other corn producing countries, we still export more corn than all of them combined. We provide 100% of the export demand and still have surplus every year to add to the corn reserves.
In 2012 with the drought and reduced corn production America still met all domestic and export demands and needs. The shortfall was made up by the ethanol industry, who reduced use of US corn to offset almost the entire reduced production due to the drought. In effect ethanol amounts to a nearly 5 billion bushel strategic reserve – protecting us in case of a real problem.
Everyone wants to make claims – an attack – but few will back that up with data.
http://ethanolproducer.com/articles/10872/valero-purchases-mount-vernon-ind-ethanol-plant-from-aventine
….. and, Valero buys another bioethanol plant