Monday, February 25, 2008
Less Money for Evaluating Biofuels
Producing ethanol might increase greenhouse emissions, but the funding to find out is being cut.
By Kevin Bullis
The EPA is slated to get less money than in previous years to analyze the effects of biofuels use. The proposed cut comes at a time when that money may be needed more than ever.
Energy Washington Week reports that President Bush's proposed 2009 budget for an EPA program related to analyzing biofuels would cut funds by almost 10 percent compared with this year. If anything, the funding should be going up. Congress recently passed, and President Bush signed into law, legislation that would dramatically increase the amount of biofuels used in the United States. At the same time, researchers have published work in the journal Science suggesting that producing biofuels could increase rather than decrease greenhouse-gas emissions. Biofuels, in other words, could make worse the very problem that they are supposed to help solve.
The results are not definitive, and much depends on how the biofuels are produced. (See this Science article.) But before biofuels production ramps up too much, it would be good to know whether they are making things better or worse.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
So the research has already been done. Now they need to cut funding to subsidies.
bj
02/26/2008
Posts:37
Using biofuels to run car and aeroplane engines just demostrates how wasteful the internal combustion engine is , and what a waste of valuable biofuel it is to use it for these purposes . We would do better use all the biomass in combined heat and power stations and move to more of an electric driven economy .
DJTal
02/27/2008
Posts:129
That is the reason for NSF and Lawrence Berkely Labs to decry that biofuel pollutes more than fossil fuels. You guys are full of horse manure! Who says you should take food off the table to make bio fuels. Who subsidizes it. You do! Now you want to tell us that all of the farmers you talked and bribed into doing this are harming our country and that fossil fuels are a much better solution.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that 18 gallons per acre of corn taken off of the table using agricultural land, is better than, 33,000 gallons per acre of biodiesel algae, produced on arid land, using recycled carbon, lots of sunlight and a little water to directly generate electricity, recycling the carbon to grow more algae, to make more electricity, to power all of our transportation without the ICE (internal combustion engine), and power all of our homes and industry, with zero pollution. Along with wind, solar, waves, geothermal, hydro, and recycling our agricultural, forest and human waste into biofuels, we eliminate old fossils, coal mines, nuclear and ICE human generated global warming and climate change. Try, "Prunes", that may help your elimination and provide some calories that might have been destined for biofuel.
solar nano
03/01/2008
Posts:9
Your perspective on the old standards of energy is myopic. Technology can revive these old reliable standards of energy. And New revelations about climate change mechanisms show that CO2 is hardly a fart in the wind. It should have been realized from past climate data.
http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm
Researcher: Basic Greenhouse Equations "Totally Wrong"
Michael Asher (Blog) - March 6, 2008 11:02 AM
New derivation of equations governing the greenhouse effect reveals "runaway warming" impossible
Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was. That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA's Langley Research Center........... Go to website for more.
What I see from these new energy sources is more chicken counting then chickens. When I was growing up it was nuclear was the all saving future energy source. It's possibilities are more viable now then back then but there is more urban hysteria to overcome and proper utilization to be implemented. It's still not the do all that it was once touted to be but it can be the backbone of the energy grid. The rest will be a mix.
I don't know how someone can advocate being in balance with the earth when 98% of all species have come and gone without man's influence and the Earth is always coming up with ways to rid it's inhabitants like fleas. Gaia is no compassionate mother. The best humans can do is compromise to some sort of balance with their environment and standard of living.
Scottar
03/10/2008
Posts:15
But I have high hopes all these corn ethanol refineries can be converted to cellulose ethanol production eventually.
Then we may have a winner.
Of course at that point corn will go down in price again and they will require more subsidies:)
DennisBuller
03/03/2008
Posts:39