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Entries in Energy: biofuels (24)

Thursday
Sep142017

Biofuels in the 2050 calculator

I've been playing about with DECC's 2050 calculator and I wondered if BH readers (if any of you are still popping by) to take a look at something.

I'm interested in how it handles bioenergy. Here's how the relevant help screen describes the process.

In 2007, the UK used 4000 km2 of land to grow energy crops, which is less than 2% of the country. For comparison, 174 000 km2 of land was used for arable crops, livestock, and fallow land. The 2050 Calculator contains two options relating to agricultural biomass and land use: land use management (described here) and livestock management (described on another page).

In his book, Mackay uses a value of 244,000 km2 for the area of the UK, so "less than 2%" is correct.

Click to read more ...

Thursday
Jan192017

A sin of omission

The BBC was worried about primates this morning. Apparently loss of forest habitat means that our hairy cousins are facing the threat of extinction. Professor Jo Setchell is quoted in the piece as the woman with the answer though:

"...don't buy tropical timber, don't eat palm oil"

But burning palm oil to create energy seems to be fine with the good professor (and presumably the BBC's journalist, Victoria Gill) because it doesn't even warrant a mention.

Greens trashing the environment. Again.

Sunday
Jun292014

Renewables just aren't worth it - Josh 281

 

 

Many thanks to Bjorn Lomborg for his help in putting this Infotoon together. There are also a couple of short but excellent videos on Bill Gates blog here - worth retweeting/sharing widely.

Cartoons by Josh

Thursday
May292014

Bacon - is there anything it can't do?

The ability of bacon to cure all known ills has long been recognised, but now, thanks to the global warming movement, its day of reckoning may be near. It seems that the humble bacon butty is causing global warming.

I kid you not.

Researchers have come closer to understanding why fatty acids, emitted in significant quantities by fast food outlets cooking meat, persist for so long in the atmosphere.

Yup, and these particulates cause global warming.

The presence of particulate matter in the atmosphere is a major health concern and may ultimately have significant climate change implications. Reports suggest that around a third of directly emitted aerosols above central London come from cooking...

But as a cloud looms in the shape of an imminent (no doubt) ban on the English breakfast, there is at least a silver lining because it seems that oil-based biofuels are also a major factor in the rise in oil-based particulates. So we might also ask: biofuels - is there anything they can't ruin?

Tuesday
Jul022013

EU considers minor expansion of corrupt biofuels scheme

Having compelled the use of biofuels in transport fuel the European Union is now having to deal with the consequences.

...overall, when land-use effects are taken into account, most varieties of biodiesel turn out to produce more emissions than bioethanol — and often more than fossil fuels.

The effect wipes out more than two-thirds of the carbon emissions that Europe’s renewable-energy policy was supposed to save by 2020, says David Laborde, a researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC, which has produced influential reports for the European Commission.

In response the Commission has decided not to expand the biofuels mandate, but the EU Parliament is still wondering whether to increase it slightly.

Expanding a scheme that damages consumers and does little or nothing for the environment looks a lot like insanity. Much that goes on in the public sector does. But of course, once you understand that the biofuels mandate is driven by corruption, it all makes sense.

Tuesday
May282013

Environmentalism brings you forest clear-cutting

Thanks to the efforts of environmentalists such as Friends of the Earth and WWF, forests in the southern USA are being clearcut in an effort to meet European demand for wood pellets - a demand that has been driven by biomass power generation.

Read the whole thing.

Monday
Apr152013

Chatham House on biofuels

A new report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs has found that biofuels are pretty much a disaster. Author Rob Bailey declares that they are not sustainable, they are hugely expensive, they are not a cost-efficient way of reducing emissions, and that the EU is going to insist that production is ramped up anyway.

Since the biofuels mandate comes from the EU Commission (which was subverted by the farm lobby), it is, of course, impossible for national governments to do much about this appalling situation. Roger Harrabin tweets that governments will not want to do anything about biofuels anyway because they fear that if they do business will not support future government initiatives.

One wants to weep at the corruption of it all.

 

Thursday
Apr042013

Biofuels debate

Earl Attlee recently answered questions on biofuels from members of the House of Lords. The Hansard record is here, and it gives a flavour of the pressure for the government to wave its magic wand and make the industry viable. In other words poor people must subsidise the rich, the wasteful and the inefficient:

Baroness Worthington: ...Will the noble Earl undertake to meet representatives of the industry to discuss a more sensible way forward so that the industry can continue to grow and deliver investment and jobs, which is what we need?

Lord Bradshaw: ...can the Minister please assure the House that the Government really take the biofuels industry seriously?

Lord Kennedy of Southwark: ...what does the noble Earl's department intend to do to support small companies that make biofuels from locally sourced used cooking oil?

Lord Soley: ...The Minister will know-...that not all biofuels require extensive land use, algae being an obvious example... I wonder whether we should be doing much more about it. Does he agree?

But you probably knew that. We also learn that ministers are aware that land-use changes brought on by biofuels may actually increase emissions, but that the biofuels mandate is increasing anyway, and that if you don't use your diesel-powered engine often enough the biofuels in the fuel may rot your engine.

A normal day's work for the political class.

Thursday
Apr042013

Gross loss

Further to yesterday's posting about the Ensus factory I have got hold of a set of the company's accounts.

Rather remarkably, they do not appear to have managed to make a gross profit yet, let alone a net one (although in fairness last year they posted a net profit due to a financial restructuring). It appears that the biofuels business is a bit of a financial black hole.

Now if you were the owners of a £100m biofuels plant that was haemorrhaging money and had the prospect of a long shutdown ahead of it, what would you do?

That's right, lobby the government for "support". I wonder how many meetings Ensus and its owners have had at DECC. And I wonder what effect the House of Commons recent look at the subject will have.

Tuesday
Apr022013

The economics of biofuels

Ensus, a manufacturer of bioethanol from wheat, has decided to suspend production at its plant in the North-east due to the poor harvest last year. How long this situation will continue for is anyone's guess but, somewhat remarkably, all of the plant's 100 workers are going to continue on full pay until the situation is resolved. Given that the winter wheat crop looks as though it may be in trouble too, that may be some time.

Interestingly, the Ensus plant seems to have been through this situation before.

The plant started operations in February 2010 but shut for 15 months from May 2011 until August 2012, also due to adverse market conditions.

So if I understand correctly, the plant has only actually operated for about 60% of the time since it was commissioned. The rest of the time it has been sitting idle and, since it re-emerged at the other end of the last shutdown, its staff may well have been retained then as well.

Reading between the lines then, the actual manufacture of biofuels seems to be somewhat peripheral to profits and losses of the Ensus factory. I'm left thinking that the biofuels industry must have some pretty interesting economics. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Wednesday
Mar062013

To hell with the environment - give us biofuels

The House of Commons Delegated Legislation Committee is going to consider proposals for new biofuels subsidies today. The proposals are contained in the draft Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order 2013, a Byzantine document that demonstrates conclusively that government involvement in the energy market will lead inevitably to disaster. Read this section for example.

Roger Harrabin has an article covering the hearings here. It gives interesting background for the uninitiated, but has some lacunae which need filling. Harrabin says on Twitter that he is unaware of whether this is EU legislation, but says that Germany and Holland have stopped subsidies. Some clarity over these questions would be useful, particularly as we know that an earlier EU biofuels directive was corrupt and was the result of subversion of the legislative process by vested interests.

Details of the committee members and of their discussions earlier in the week are here. The hearing will be streamed here at 2:30pm.

 [Update - it definitely is EU legislation. Parliament are rubber stamping EU corruption]

 

Saturday
Jan262013

Biofuels bust

The New Times reports that a judge has decided that the US Environmental Protection Agency is a bad joke. The EPA's biofuels mandate has been officially ruled to be absurd, because of its requirement that fuel companies incorporate cellulosic ethanol in their products whether it was possible to buy such ethanol or not.

A federal appeals court threw out a federal rule on renewable fuels on Friday, saying that a quota set by the Environmental Protection Agency for incorporating liquids made from woody crops and wastes into car and truck fuels was based on wishful thinking rather than realistic estimates of what could be achieved.

Heads will not roll, however. This is the government we are talking about.

Wednesday
Jan232013

Biofuels driving hunger

The If Campaign, a new campaign by a bunch of NGOs, has been launched to tackle world hunger, although closer examination of their aims suggests other agendas too:

The group is calling for more aid to be targeted towards those most at risk of hunger and curbs on “tax dodging” by companies operating in the developing world.

Other targets include the rise of biofuels, which it argues lies behind a series of legal “land grabs” which have swept poor farmers, many of them women, aside.

In its first report, published today, the group claims that crops burned as biofuels in the UK alone would be enough to feed 10 million people a year.

I'm not quite sure what taxes have to do with hunger, but the focus on biofuels is of course very welcome. Strangely our friend Bob Ward seems to disagree. When I pointed out that greens' campaigns against GM crops and for biofuels were a major factor in world hunger, he responded:

your hatred of environmentalists is plain, but it is ridiculous to claim they are the main cause of hunger.

Leaving aside the normal Wardian misquoting ("major" for "main"), this seems like remarkably weak ground on which to take a stand. That greens have overwhelmingly opposed GM seems indisputable. That many have in the past argued for the use of biofuels is also plainly true (see post earlier today). That's all there is to it.

Tuesday
Jan222013

Volte face

Friends of the Earth 2004:

The Government should introduce a Biofuels Obligation, to stimulate a UK biofuels industry as a lower carbon alternative to conventional transport fuels. The obligation would require that a proportion of all road transport fuels in the UK should be sourced from accredited renewable sources. Fuel suppliers would either supply the target percentage of biofuel, or choose to pay a penalty. The revenues raised would be proportionately distributed to those who supplied complying fuels, encouraging growth in supply up to the Obligation target. The cost to the consumer is negligible, and it would benefit the economy and environment.

News report 2013:

 

Friends of the Earth Scotland said there were concerns government proposals for renewable electricity subsidies encourage “large, polluting and inefficient” biomass power stations.

Andrew Llanwarne, of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “We are astonished that the Scottish Government would fund these climate-wrecking projects.”

 

Thursday
Jan032013

On food and fearless advisers

Sir John Beddington was back in the news a couple of weeks ago, warning that food prices are going to get higher and higher:

During a radio discussion about food prices, he said much of world’s agriculture was dependent on stable weather patterns, which have undergone “major changes” in recent years.

This, he warned, meant that food supplies were “extremely fragile” and that reserves were subjected to extremes in conditions caused by climate change.

Ah, it's climate change. No mention of the insane policies on biofuels. If you haven't read it already, take a look at Matt Ridley's article about peak farmland, in which he reports new findings that suggest that the world's demand will soon be falling and, even more remarkably:

Click to read more ...