Bullshit Governor Douglas
December 10th, 2007
carbon tax, climate change
Wood, corn, switchgrass ARE NOT CARBON OFFSETS! (from Sunday’s Burlingon Free Press)
If you’ve taken any biology (even 8th grade science should do), you have enough information for the following:
Carbon dioxide + water => + sunlight {Photosynthesis} = hydrocarbons + oxygen
hydrocarbons + oxygen = carbon dioxide + water + heat energy {Combustion}
That’s it! This is all you need to know and understand to reason through the carbon emission / carbon offset debate.
Here’s a short list of “hydrocarbons”:
- crude oil
- coal
- biofuel
- ethanol
- cellulose ethanol
- methanol
- wood
- vegetable oils
- (all vegetation including foods)
- (all animal foodstuffs)
So whether you use a fossil fuel such as gasoline or coal, or use a “renewable” fuel such as ethanol, biodiesel, or wood, you emit the same amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for the same net energy (actually renewables end up emitting more… see below). Once carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, it has no “idea” of its source; long life cycle (fossil fuels) or short life cycle (“renewables”) as a distinction is a chimera! A canard.
IF carbon dioxide is a major climate “forcing” agent in global warming, then the source is irrelevant; the problem is carbon dioxide is being release into the atmosphere faster than the bio/geological cycles can remove it. Choosing the source from which to “emit” carbon dioxide will accomplish nothing at all with respect to carbon emissions. As noted, “renewable” hydrocarbons will increase the rate of carbon dioxide emissions.
The only way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to reduce combustion of hydrocarbons. That means reducing hydrocarbon based energy consumption. To “trade” carbon credits based on the type of hydrocarbon fuel is bullshit. It’s a scam to make some rich and others very poor. Is this the “way” Vermont wishes to lead? It would seem so. If Vermont really wants to reduce its carbon footprint - “grow” a few more nuclear plants and leave the forests and fields doing what they do best – removing carbon from the atmosphere.
Why biofuels result in more carbon dioxide emissions than the same amount of fossil fuel: ERORI.
ENERGY RETURNED ON ENERGY INVESTED
Understanding this takes a bit more effort (do a Google search on EROEI), but can be simplified here. Let’s say you fill your car with ten gallons of gas and use it for driving around. So how much “hydrocarbon” fuel did you actually use? (and thus how much carbon dioxide have you then actually contributed to the atmosphere?)
- discovery
- drill
- pump
- transport
- refine
- store and transport
- pump into your gas take
All of these steps require the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels (some minor exceptions maybe), so in the end, to get and use that 10 gallons of gas, you consume 11 gallons of hydrocarbon fuel (1 extra gallon for all of the steps required to get it into your gas tank,) emitting the corresponding carbon dioxide. The EROEI is 10 (10 gallons out for 11 gallons in to the process) The actual EROEI varies.
For 10 gallons of ethanol (you actually need more ethanol than gas to drive the same distance – but we’ll ignore that) from corn:
- plow
- plant
- fertilize
- harvest
- process
- ferment
- distill
- store and transport
These steps are much more energy intensive so that for each 10 gallons into your tank and used for driving, you actually consumed 15 gallons of hydrocarbon (EROEI= 2, and some studies have found it to be lower than 1) and emitted a proportionately greater amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere;
for gas, 11 gallons consumed ( and carbon emitted) for each 10 gallons
for ethanol, 15 gallons consumed (and carbon emitted ) for each 10 gallons
Thinking that using ethanol or biodiesel will reduce our “carbon footprint” doesn’t add up. It might help reduce our dependency on foreign oil.
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