BIOFUEL WON’T DO IT
Sugar cane’s efficiency
in producing ethanol is 800 percent compared with 130 percent for
corn, as others have mentioned (HCN,
2/4/08). Currently, our sugar cane lands in Hawaii are
fallow or growing eucalyptus trees. But even if we replanted cane
to all these lands and also to suitable lands in our sunny Southern
states (now growing soybean crops, some of which are used to make
biodiesel), we wouldn’t make much of a dent in our fuel needs.
Switchgrass efficiency ranges from about 200 percent to 1,000
percent depending on the process. Switchgrass outshines most other
sources for being environmentally friendly (good for wildlife, very
little erosion and stream sedimentation – unlike corn – requires no
fertilization, and produces less greenhouse gas). But, as mentioned
by others, there is the problem of land availability.
Richard Conniff, writing for Smithsonian,
estimates that to produce biofuels from agricultural crops,
whatever they are, would take more than two times the total area of
arable land currently in existence. And with global warming, the
area of arable land is decreasing. Ethanol is also being made from
food-processing waste, algae, wood debris, and other forms of
biomass, which may be a good thing in terms of waste management,
and might reduce our total fuels needs by a percent or two. But the
ultimate solution has to be a combination of various
fuel-manufacturing processes, various energy-capturing sources
(wind, water, solar, gravity-film heat exchange, chemical
reaction), improved combustion and energy-utilization efficiency –
and, dare I say it, reduced fuel consumption.
Chuck
Bolsinger
Boring, Oregon
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Biofuel won’t do it.