The Clean Energy Scam

[architect]

From Time.com -

From his Cessna a mile above the southern Amazon, John Carter looks down on the destruction of the world's greatest ecological jewel. He watches men converting rain forest into cattle pastures and soybean fields with bulldozers and chains. He sees fires wiping out such gigantic swaths of jungle that scientists now debate the "savannization" of the Amazon. Brazil just announced that deforestation is on track to double this year; Carter, a Texas cowboy with all the subtlety of a chainsaw, says it's going to get worse fast. "It gives me goose bumps," says Carter, who founded a nonprofit to promote sustainable ranching on the Amazon frontier. "It's like witnessing a rape."

The Amazon was the chic eco-cause of the 1990s, revered as an incomparable storehouse of biodiversity. It's been overshadowed lately by global warming, but the Amazon rain forest happens also to be an incomparable storehouse of carbon, the very carbon that heats up the planet when it's released into the atmosphere. Brazil now ranks fourth in the world in carbon emissions, and most of its emissions come from deforestation. Carter is not a man who gets easily spooked--he led a reconnaissance unit in Desert Storm, and I watched him grab a small anaconda with his bare hands in Brazil--but he can sound downright panicky about the future of the forest. "You can't protect it. There's too much money to be made tearing it down," he says. "Out here on the frontier, you really see the market at work."

This land rush is being accelerated by an unlikely source: biofuels. An explosion in demand for farm-grown fuels has raised global crop prices to record highs, which is spurring a dramatic expansion of Brazilian agriculture, which is invading the Amazon at an increasingly alarming rate.

Propelled by mounting anxieties over soaring oil costs and climate change, biofuels have become the vanguard of the green-tech revolution, the trendy way for politicians and corporations to show they're serious about finding alternative sources of energy and in the process slowing global warming. The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol--ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter--in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil's filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group. Renewable fuels has become one of those motherhood-and-apple-pie catchphrases, as unobjectionable as the troops or the middle class.

[architect]

continuation...

But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline. Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.'s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn't exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.

Biofuels do slightly reduce dependence on imported oil, and the ethanol boom has created rural jobs while enriching some farmers and agribusinesses. But the basic problem with most biofuels is amazingly simple, given that researchers have ignored it until now: using land to grow fuel leads to the destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands that store enormous amounts of carbon.

Backed by billions in investment capital, this alarming phenomenon is replicating itself around the world. Indonesia has bulldozed and burned so much wilderness to grow palm oil trees for biodiesel that its ranking among the world's top carbon emitters has surged from 21st to third according to a report by Wetlands International. Malaysia is converting forests into palm oil farms so rapidly that it's running out of uncultivated land. But most of the damage created by biofuels will be less direct and less obvious. In Brazil, for instance, only a tiny portion of the Amazon is being torn down to grow the sugarcane that fuels most Brazilian cars. More deforestation results from a chain reaction so vast it's subtle: U.S. farmers are selling one-fifth of their corn to ethanol production, so U.S. soybean farmers are switching to corn, so Brazilian soybean farmers are expanding into cattle pastures, so Brazilian cattlemen are displaced to the Amazon. It's the remorseless economics of commodities markets. "The price of soybeans goes up," laments Sandro Menezes, a biologist with Conservation International in Brazil, "and the forest comes down."

Deforestation accounts for 20% of all current carbon emissions. So unless the world can eliminate emissions from all other sources--cars, power plants, factories, even flatulent cows--it needs to reduce deforestation or risk an environmental catastrophe. That means limiting the expansion of agriculture, a daunting task as the world's population keeps expanding. And saving forests is probably an impossibility so long as vast expanses of cropland are used to grow modest amounts of fuel. The biofuels boom, in short, is one that could haunt the planet for generations--and it's only getting started.

[architect]

Above article is actually a lot longer. You can read the entire article here.

Time has other related articles. Below is another one titled The Trouble with Biofuels.

Maybe it was simply too good to be true. For proponents, biofuels — petroleum substitutes made from plant matter like corn or sugar cane — seemed to promise everything. Using biofuels rather than oil would reduce the greenhouse gases that accelerate global warming, because plants absorb carbon dioxide when they grow, balancing out the carbon released when burned in cars or trucks. Using homegrown biofuels would help the U.S. reduce its utter dependence on foreign oil, and provide needed income for rural farmers around the world. And unlike cars powered purely by electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells — two alternate technologies that have yet to pan out — biofuels could be used right now.

But according to a pair of studies published in the journal Science recently, biofuels may not fulfill that promise — and in fact, may be worse for the climate than the fossil fuels they're meant to supplement. According to researchers at Princeton University and the Nature Conservancy, almost all the biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels, if the full environmental cost of producing them is factored in. As virgin land is converted for growing biofuels, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere; at the same time, biofuel crops themselves are much less effective at absorbing carbon than the natural forests or grasslands they may be replacing. "When land is converted from natural ecosystems it releases carbon," says Joseph Fargione, a lead author of one of the papers and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. "Any climate change policy that doesn't take this fact into account doesn't work."

Many environmentalists have been making the case against biofuels for some time, arguing that biofuel production takes valuable agricultural land away from food, driving up the price of staple crops like corn. But the Science papers make a more sweeping argument. In their paper, Fargione's team calculated the "carbon debt" created by raising biofuel crops — the amount of carbon released in the process of converting natural landscapes into cropland. They found that corn ethanol produced in the U.S. had a carbon debt of 93 years, meaning it would take nearly a century for ethanol, which does produce fewer greenhouse gases when burned than fossil fuels, to make up for the carbon released in that initial landscape conversion. Palm tree biodiesel in Indonesia and Malaysia — one of the most controversial biofuels currently in use, because of its connection to tropical deforestation in those countries — has a carbon debt of 86 years. Soybean biodiesel in the Amazonian rainforest has a debt of 320 years. "People don't realize there is three times as much carbon in plants and soil than there is in the air," says Fargione. "Cut down forests, burn them, churn the soil, and you release all the carbon that's been stored."

[architect]

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Worse, as demand for biofuels go up — the European Union alone targets 5.75% of all its transport fuel to come from biofuel by the end of the year — the price of crops rises. That in turn encourages farmers to clear virgin land and plant more crops, releasing even more carbon in a vicious cycle. For instance, as the U.S. uses more biodiesel, much of which is made from soybeans or palm oil, farmers in Brazil or Indonesia will clear more land to raise soybeans to replace those used for fuel. "When we ask the world's farmers to feed 6 billion people and ask them to produce fuel, that requires them to use additional land," says Fargione. "That land has to come from somewhere."

Industry groups like the Renewable Fuels Association criticized the studies for being too simplistic, and failing to put biofuels in context. And it's true that the switch to biofuels can have benefits that go beyond climate change. Biofuels tend to produce less local pollution than fossil fuels, one reason why Brazil — which gets 30% of its automobile fuel from sugar-cane ethanol — has managed to reduce once stifling air pollution. In the U.S., switching to domestically produced biofuels helps cut dependence on foreign oil, and boosts income for farmers. But in all of these cases, the benefits now seem to pale next to the climate change deficits. Fargione points out that if the U.S. managed to use 15 billion gallons of ethanol by 2015 — as is mandated in last year's energy bill — it would still only offset 7% of projected energy demand. That won't put Venezuela or Iran out of business.

This is all depressing news, especially if you're a corn farmer. Biofuels are one of the few alternative fuels that are actually available right now, but the evidence suggests we be better off not relying on them. But even Fargione doesn't argue that we should ditch biofuels altogether. Biofuels using waste matter — like wood chips, or the leftover sections of corn stalks — or from perennial plants like switchgrass, effectively amount to free fuel, because they don't require clearing additional land. "There's no carbon debt," notes Fargione. Unfortunately, the technology for yielding fuel from those sources — like cellulosic biofuels — is still in its infancy, though it is improving fast. In the end, the right kind of biofuel won't be a silver bullet, but just one more tool in the growing arsenal against climate change.

[vindiesel]

sa Time magazine ko to nabasa. well it is true na sa brazil yong rainforest ay nasisira na talaga dahil sa demand ng plantation ng corn at soybeans. para sa akin mas malaki ang destruction na naidudulot nito sa mundo. bottom line nito pera pera pa rin at mas benepisyo ang mga industrialized countries. ang nag-susuffer nito mga agricultural and developing countries like brazil and let say philippines dahil sisirain natin mga existing forest natin para lang matugunan ang demand ng mga european countries sa biodiesel at ethanol.

[vito corleone]

salamat for sharing, bro. . .

[uls]

But the more immediate effect is rising food prices.

There is intense global inflationary pressure right now caused by rising cost of major food crops (wheat, corn, soy, rice).

Bought some food lately? Feel the inflation?

When the masses can no longer afford to buy food, there will be chaos in the streets. There will be riots. There will be anarchy.

That's more my concern now.

The environmental impact will be felt later.

If people start killing each other for food, climate change won't be your concern.

Your concern will be survival.

[tidus1203]

These guys are idiots. Sacrificing food security for energy...

[uls]

Political yan e.

Bush is pushing biofuels to reduce dependency on oil from countries that are hostile to the US.

(Many oil producers hate the US, but the US made them rich hehe)

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Sa ibang bansa meron na rioting sa streets coz people can't buy food.

Pwede mangyari dito sa Pinas yan.

[ringostarr]

I have downloaded Global Warming What you need to know by Tom Brokaw

you know what they're saying there global warming is inevitable. we cant do it anything about but we can slow it down ... daw. but this is also debateable.

of course, it may true that we humans are partly responsible for the extra carbons in the air. but kahit bali-baligtadin mo pa, we will all end up doomed.

our main concern are the freak corrections of nature to address the problem of too much carbon in one area of the world into a random area of the world. like for example, Katrina or flash floods, heat waves, droughts/famine and other freak occurences in nature. These are the killers and it will hit us anyday, anytime, anywhere even if you believe you're on the safest place on earth.

the biofuel race as alternative to fossil fuel, I think, is just man's vanity to prove that he is doing something to battle or to explain an unknown/understandable force. ika nga mas maganda na may gawin kaysa hintayin or maging dedma.

but they all seem to miss the message, the Discovery Channel crew, the scientist both pro and against, the govts both pro and against the Kyoto agreement. the problem is us!

the only way for nature to spare us, STOP TAKING TOO MUCH! STOP EATING TOO MUCH, STOP COLLECTING, STOP OWNING EVERYTHING. Nature however is not telling us to take the vow of poverty. it simply telling us if you have a want then satisfy it, then let it go. dont always think that it will pleasure you forever that's why you keep it for a rainy day.

kaya kung tao lang si nature at nabubuhay sya at sinabi nya kung ano mga mali mo, kahit anong katwiran mo, all nature needs to do is to point the contents/bodega of your house na karamihan eh hindi mo nagagamit. all of which were produced by manufacturing plants and all of which contributed to additional carbons in the air during the time it was produced/manufactured.

simply learn the rules of nature, and nature may spare you. like for example, at times of hurricane/tornadoes, not all houses get devasted during the onslaught. why is that?

why is that kung sino pa yun masyado nagbibilang ng makukuha at nakikipagunahan sa pila, parati na lang feeling nya may kulang sya and he is always feeling shortchanged, shortchanged by his company, by his govt. or his entire life in general . pero yun taong balanced ang pagiisip at katawan, kahit na umupo lang siya buong araw dindapuan ng swerte and blessings. BEC NATURE knows.