Why subidizing biofuels is a disastrous mistake
by George SeldesApril 14th, 2007 at 00:27:31
The estimable George Monbiot (author of “Heat,” a plan for a response to climate change that actually addresses the scale of the problem) publishes this excellent summary of the problem when calling for a five-year moratorium on biofuels.
I’m willing to stop short of that, if we can agree that we should only subsidize the NET GAIN in energy from biofuels (meaning that you would have to subtract the fossil fuel energy inputs from the gross energy output of your biofuels plants, and only receive subsidies on the difference).
If that subsidy is too small to encourage anyone to risk building a plant, then the plant being considered is too inefficient to merit any subsidy.
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Addendum:
Peak Soil: Why cellulosic ethanol, biofuels are unsustainable and a threat to America
by Alice Friedemann“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” – President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Contents
Part 1. The Dirt on Dirt.
Part 2. The Poop on Ethanol: Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI)
Part 3. Biofuel is a Grim Reaper.
Part 4. Biodiesel: Can we eat enough French Fries?
Part 5. If we can’t drink and drive, then burn baby burn. – Energy Crop Combustion
Part 6. The problems with Cellulosic Ethanol could drive you to drink.
Part 7. Where do we go from here?
Appendix. Department of Energy’s Biofuel Roadmap Barriers
References
April 14th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Oil, coal and natural gas are already receiving huge subsidies, both direct for R&D, exploration, etc. and indirectly by the billions annually in military to to assure our “national interest”.
Any fair “net” calculation needs to give biofuels credit for that until such subsidies are eliminated from petroleum products.
April 14th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
No question that fossil fuels are already subsidized greatly–which is why it is even more imperative that we do everything possible REDUCE demand for fossil fuels rather than INCREASE demand by subsidizing any part of biofuels that represents only the conversion of fossil fuel energy from one form to another.
Moreover, the bulk of our subsidies for fossil fuels are federal, not state. The Oregon biofuels proposals are state. The solution to bad subsidies for fossil fuels at the federal level isn’t for Oregon, already stretched tight as a drum financially, to start subsidizing anything or everything else we can think of. If there’s a renewable energy process that makes a solid gain over the fossil energy input to it, let’s subsidize that.
But granting a subsidy on the entire gross output (without deducting for the fossil fuels input) merely makes Oregonians subsidize that same fossil fuel energy TWICE, once at the federal level and then again here at home.