Top Article, Millenium Topic, Energy Biofuel and Food Dilema!

"Transportation bio-fuels such as synfuel hydrocarbons or cellulosic ethanol, if produced from low-input biomass grown on agriculturally marginal land or from waste biomass, could provide much greater supplies and environmental benefits than food-based bio-fuels. "

Neither Bio-diesel nor Ethanol, bio-fuel can replace much petroleum without impacting food supplies.

Even dedicating all U.S. corn and soybean production to bio-fuels would meet only 12% of gasoline demand and 6% of diesel demand.

To be a viable alternative to current transportation fuel, a bio-fuel should provide:
- a net energy gain,
-have environmental benefits,
-be economically competitive, and
-be producible in large quantities without reducing food supplies.

These criteria were used in life-cycle accounting, by the research team from the University of Minnesota to evaluate, ethanol from corn grain and bio-diesel from soybeans.

They conclude that:

Transportation bio-fuels such as synfuel hydrocarbons or cellulosic ethanol, if produced from low-input biomass grown on agriculturally marginal land or from waste biomass, could provide much greater supplies and environmental benefits than food-based bio-fuels.

Bio-diesel provides sufficient environmental advantages to merit subsidy. (debatable)

Some Life Cycle Accountancy results:
Energy Efficiency
-Ethanol yields 25% more energy than the energy invested in its production, whereas
-Bio-diesel yields 93% more.
Green House Gases (GHG) and Pollutants:
Bio-diesel better than Ethanol :
-Bio-diesel releases just 1.0%, 8.3%, and 13% of the agricultural nitrogen, phosphorus, and pesticide pollutants, respectively, per net energy gain compared with ethanol.
Bio-diesel better than Ethanol better than Fossil Fuels:
-Relative to the fossil fuels they displace, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced 12% by the production and combustion of ethanol and 41% by bio-diesel.
-Bio-diesel also releases less air pollutants per net energy gain than ethanol.

These advantages of bio-diesel over ethanol come from lower agricultural inputs and more efficient conversion of feedstocks to fuel.


Negative environmental consequences of fossil fuels and concerns about petroleum supplies have spurred the search for renewable transportation bio-fuels. Until recent increases in petroleum prices, high production costs made bio-fuels unprofitable without subsidies.

My Comment:
That bio-diesel provides sufficient environmental advantages to merit subsidy requires careful reading of the research paper and important effort in communication globally especially with special consideration given to possible negative signals given on food stress.

Source:
PNAS Dec 2008

Contributed by David Tilman, June 2, 2006Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of bio-diesel and ethanol biofuels Jason Hill*,†,‡,§, Erik Nelson†, David Tilman*,§, Stephen Polasky*,†, and Douglas Tiffany† +Author Affiliations Departments of *Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior and †Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108; and ‡Department of Biology, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN 55057

NAP- Science and Decision -Advancing Risk Assessment - Pre-Publication by National Academies Publications -USA

I was hoping to do a long awaited introduction to USA's National Academies Published reports -NAP publications, which I have been portraying on several of my blogs, freely and shamelessly, without comment - especially materials science and innovation related publication according to relevance to my blog approaches and focus - unforgivable!

The US Nation Academies include: The Academy of Sciences, The Academy of Engineering, The Institute of Medicine and The Research Council.

NAP are in the process of redesigning their online presentation using a rather neat Widget, proposing attractive report cover images and buttons for easy access to free online reading short summaries (pdf), executive summaries (pdf) and RSS feed printing individual pages and of course a paid print edition. Although outwardly similar in form, my own humble first "SpringWidget ®" for feed presentation and sharing-distribution, is pale in comparison.

Here, I have chosen to comment on a very recent publication (2008) "Science and Decision: Advancing Risk Analysis" which I found via their RSS widget button while up-dating previous widgets on Materials Science and Engineering [my blog].

Great I thought, it fits my "This-Above-All_BOOKS_JOURNALS _TOOLS" blog focus - "It's all in the name " so to speak. [NB notice the previous link takes you to a new page where the NAP reports are housed, complicated?]

All three apply: Books, Journals and Tools-Widgets. Scroll or mouse-over my leader banner above. "Conversation" for the focus I am trying to give to the "This-Above-All series (3 blogs)

I first consulted the short summary (pdf) which I found most interesting - bringing focus to the complex subject of Risk Assessment. From this summary I had a "first impressions feeling" as very much an outsider, albeit of english mother tongue, that one had to, sort of, read between the line. Not surprisingly carefully worded concern appeared to be expressed on the " difficult challenges" facing the informative friendly US Environmental Protection Agency-EPA.

I have on several occasions found well presented basic information on the EPA website which has been useful in my Innocentive® Challenge proposed solution submissions. [Too friendly not enough Clout?] Also strangely, an example on trichloroethylene given in the introduction dated from 1980's on, when my own experience in practice - my first company training as a student "Trichlo" could only be used in industrial baths equipped with aspiration (1970's?)

Prudence led me to examine the full report. Unfortunately, I found I could not read the very small print. It turned out that I had chosen to blog my first and only pre-publication version! Or was I fortunate? There is a strict warning not to reproduce nor alter the official summary-So I heartily suggest you consult the links on my blog or search NAP's Site for your favourite subjects. As yet I have not found the contact address to address my small contribution to what appears to be an interesting contribution to Advance Risk Assessment and so mitigate worst consequences. I can't wait to get a quick read at the full version. In fact my mishap as often on Internet lead me to find fully readable NAP reports related to and precursors to the above.

Source

Science and Decision -Advancing Risk Assessment-summary and
Recommended Related title: Models in Environmental Regulatory Decision
Link to both NAP-Widget presentation my LHS-Left-Hand-Side menu
My Blog This-Above-All_Books_Journals_Tools

Full NAP Catalogue.