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Biofuels have direct, fuel-cycle GHG emissions that are typically 30-90% lower than those for gasoline or diesel fuels. However, since for some biofuels indirect emissions-including from land use change-can lead to greater total emissions than when using petroleum products, policy support needs to be considered on a case by case basis.
The IPCC has released a finalized draft of its Working Group III report. Sourced from Forbes, their analysis: that ethanol is worse than petroleum. The Working Group itself managed to say... Well, after a quick read-through of chapter 8, it appears they managed to keep any actual meaning occluded by a thick screen of political double-speak. So, I guess they said whatever you would like them to have said since nobody can prove any different.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Monday April 21 2014, @08:54PM
SwitchGrass [uky.edu].
Switchgrass (cellulosic ethanol) delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol.
It grows almost anywhere, and takes far less fuel to harvest and process.
Scientific American had a story about this [scientificamerican.com] as far back as 2008.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday April 22 2014, @01:08AM
Great links. The first one was very informative. I found it interesting that they also looked into who could purchase the switchgrass and for what reason.
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(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 22 2014, @02:50AM
I've seen figures as negative as "5 gallons of diesel to produce 4 gallons of corn ethanol". I don't know how accurate that is, but kinda goes to show we shoulda looked somewhere else. -- Thanks for the article on switchgrass. There was someone in the eastern Antelope Valley growing it a few years ago... tho they let it die off after a couple years. Likely couldn't make it with the high cost to pump water in SoCal.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday April 22 2014, @07:42AM
Ah, yes, I was thinking about switchgrass when I was writing my comment but couldn't remember its name. Switchgrass appears to be a great source of ethanol and quite promising, assuming it goes anywhere. The corn and big oil lobbies in the inner ring of Hell (i.e., Washington) need to be overcome first to drop the subsidies. Hell will freeze over first before that happens.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 22 2014, @06:39PM
The problem with switchgrass (cellulosic) ethanol is that the enzymes needed to break down the cellulose into bacteria-digestible components are expensive. They are included for free in grains (that's what happens when grain is "malted") but this needs to be done synthetically in cellulose bases, unless you can wait many, many years for nature to take its course.
Not unsurmountable, but the cost is still high. When we get to reliably paying $5-6 (in 2014 dollars) a gallon gas in the USA, I believe we will be seeing more switchgrass ethanol.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 22 2014, @10:37PM
Sorry for the dumb question, but why ethanol from corn?
We make ethanol from sugar cane and it's a lot easier. What's the problem with sugar cane? Don't you have places hot enough to cultivate some low-temp tolerating variety?
It may be a dumb question, but people insist in producing ethanol from corn, when it clearly is not an adequate source... why?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday April 22 2014, @10:56PM
I'm not sure myself, other than the temperatures, field conditions, rain fall, and strong winters, may (combined) be more suitable for corn crops than cane crops in the central US.
Corn has the side benefit of being used for other purposes, (cattle/swine feed, beer, corn sugar, etc). Farmers already had the corn planting and harvesting equipment and corn handling infrastructure (silos, elevators, rail car systems, etc) were already in place in most of the US.
Some say the corn lobby was to blame, but I suspect it was climate and sheer industrial inertia. We had perennial surpluses of feed corn prior to the ethanol industry picking up.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 22 2014, @11:45PM
> I'm not sure myself, other than the temperatures, field conditions, rain fall, and strong winters, may (combined) be more suitable for corn crops than cane crops in the central US.
As a kid, I was interested in plants (simple curiosity) and planted beans and corn. We had a sugar cane plant (in my backyard... nothing serious). Corn needs a lot of sun or else it will grow weak with whitish underdeveloped cobs. Sugar cane is no different.
Usually where corn thrives, cane will, too. If not, one can always go back to the lab and artificially select some variety to work its magic faster and avoid the cold months... but I guess the USA South must get plenty of sun throughout the year, as cotton might need a lot of sun, too (I have no knowledge about cotton).
That funny grass mentioned is also an option -- but sugar cane and corn are all grasses, too.
> Corn has the side benefit of being used for other purposes, (cattle/swine feed, beer, corn sugar, etc).
I'm under the impression that being good for a lot of things probably makes something not so good at one specific use...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23 2014, @12:13PM
I searched a little and saw (on Wikipedia) that cane can be planted, under favorable conditions, up to 33ºN. That would be a small area in the USA south (from half Texas to the entire Florida). I don't know if water is enough, maybe corn uses less.
A problem is sugar cane can be harvested up to 10 times (Wikipedia) while corn only once. The roots would never resist being frozen, which I think does not ordinarily happen (but last time it seems it snowed in Florida).
Well, you could always try to import ethanol from Mexico, as it seems they're in better shape to cultivate sugar cane, should they want to do it (I'm not Mexican).