Biofuels such as biodiesel, ethanol, methanol etc. are great, but only in small doses. Biofuels are all grown with massive fossil fuel inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) and suffer from horribly low, sometimes negative, EROEIs. The production of ethanol, for instance, requires six units of energy to produce just one. That means it consumes more energy than it produces and thus will only serve to compound our energy deficit.
In addition, there is the problem of where to grow the stuff, as we are rapidly running out of arable land on which to grow food, let alone fuel. This is no small problem as the amount of land it takes to grow even a small amount of biofuel is quite staggering. As journalist Lee Dye points out in a July 2004 article entitled "Old Policies Make Shift From Foreign Oil Tough:"
. . . relying on corn for our future energy needs would
devastate the nation's food production. It takes 11 acres to
grow enough corn to fuel one automobile with ethanol for
10,000 miles, or about a year's driving, Pimentel says. That's
the amount of land needed to feed seven persons for the
same period of time.
And if we decided to power all of our automobiles with
ethanol, we would need to cover 97 percent of our land with
corn, he adds.
Biodiesel is considerably better than ethanol, (and probably the best of the biofuels) but with an EROEI of three, it still doesn't compare to oil, which has had an EROEI of about 30.
While any significant attempt to switch to biofuels will work out great for giant agribusiness companies (political campaign contributors) such as Archer Daniels Midland, ConAgra, and Monsanto, it won't do much to solve a permanent energy crisis for you.
The ghoulish reality is that if we wanted to replace even a small part of our oil supply with farm grown biofuels, we would need to turn most of Africa into a giant biofuel farm, an idea that is currently gaining traction in some circles. Obviously many Africans - who are already starving - would not take kindly to us appropriating the land they use to grow their food to grow our fuel. As journalist George Monbiot points out, such an endeavor would be a humanitarian disaster.
Some folks are doing research into alternatives to soybeans such as biodiesel producing pools of algae. As with every other project that promises to "replace all petroleum fuels," this project has yet to produce a single drop of commercially available fuel. This hasn't prevented many of its most vocal proponents from insisting that algae grown biodiesel will solve our energy problems. The same is true for other, equally ambitious plans such as using recycled farm waste, switchgrass, etc. These projects all look great on paper or in the laboratory. Some of them may even end up providing a small amount of commercially available energy at some undetermined point in the future. However, in the context of our colossal demand for petroleum and the small amount of time we have remaining before the peak, these projects can't be expected to be more than a "drop in the bucket."
Tragically, many well-meaing people attempting to develop solutions don't even understand this. As Dr. Ted Trainer explains in a recent article on the thermodynamic limitations of biomass fuels:
This is why I do not believe consumer-capitalist society can
save itself. Not even its "intellectual" classes or green
leadership give any sign that this society has the wit or the
will to even think about the basic situation we are in. As the
above figures make clear, the situation cannot be solved
without huge reduction in the volume of production and
consumption going on.
The current craze surrounding biodiesel is a good example of what Dr. Trainer is talking about. While folks who have converted their personal vehicles to run on vegetable oil should certainly be given credit for their noble attempts at reducing our reliance on petroleum, the long-term viability of their efforts is questionable at best. Once our system of food production collapses due to the effects of Peak Oil, vegetable oil will likely become far too precious/expensive a commodity to be burned as transportation fuel for anybody but the super-rich. As James Kunstler points out in an April 2005 update to his blog "Cluster Fuck Nation", many biodiesel enthusiasts are dangerously clueless as to this reality:
Over in Vermont last week, I ran into a gang of biodiesel
enthusiasts. They were earnest, forward-looking guys who
would like to do some good for their country. But their
expectations struck me as fairly crazy, and in a way typical
of the bad thinking at all levels of our society these days.
For instance, I asked if it had ever occurred to them that
biodiesel crops would have to compete for farmland that
would be needed otherwise to grow feed crops for working
animals. No, it hadn't. (And it seemed like a far-out
suggestion to them.) Their expectation seemed to be that
the future would run a lot like the present, that bio-diesel
was just another ingenious, innovative, high-tech module
that we can "drop into" our existing system in place of the
previous, obsolete module of regular oil.
Kunstler goes on to explain that when policies or living/working arrangements are set up around such unexamined expectations, the result is usually a dangerous deepening of our reliance on cheap energy and "easy motoring."
Biodiesel advocates can get downright nasty when somebody points out any of the above described limitations of their favorite fuel. For instance, in a December 2005 article entitled, "The Most Destructive Crop on Earth No Solution to the Energy Crisis," well known progressive journalist George Monbiot, recounted his experiences attempting to point out the limits of biodiesel:
The last time I drew attention to the hazards of making
diesel fuel from vegetable oils, I received as much abuse as
I have ever been sent for my stance on the Iraq war. The
biodiesel missionaries, I discovered, are as vociferous in
their denial as the executives of Exxon.
If biofuels such as biodiesel and ethanol are such poor substitutes for oil, why then do you hear about them so much? The answer becomes obvious once you follow the money: the vast majority of the biofuels produced in this country are (as mentioned earlier) produced by giant agribusiness conglomerates such as Archer Daneiles Midland. Investigative reporter Mike Ruppert points out:
Archer Daniels Midland laughs all the way to the bank. With a
price to earnings (P/E) ratio of 17:1, every dollar of net
profit thrown into their coffers by politicians or investment
advisors selling the snake oil of alternative fuels generates
$17 in stock value which ADM will happily sell off before all
markets succumb to Peak Oil. That $17 came out of your
pocket whether you invested or not.
