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[Michaelangelica]

Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series on biofuels. The series will look at problems with the current industry, explore how family farms and local economies might play in a better model, and offer how-to advice for creating and sustaining that model. Part 2 will run mid-August.

June 30, 2004: The biomass fuels industry is exploding in the wake of war in Iraq, a country touting the second largest oil reserve on the planet. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has initiated a slowing of oil production and the Pentagon warns us about the eminent dangers of global warming and greenhouse gasses. Fuel prices continue to rise while fuel consumption steadily increases.

In searching for solutions to these challenges, renewable and cleaner-burning biomass fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are gaining ground with environmentalists, economists, farmers, and the general public. However, it seems good public relations and government support for biofuels are being exploited by the corporate giants now forwarding commercialization of the technology. The current agribusiness model for biofuels’ cycle from the farms to vehicles is more a house of cards—and a profitable one until it collapses—than a logical fuel infrastructure.

Exploiting clean energy for profit

SEE too, the discussion here
View topic - Switchgrass as biofuel - Permaculture discussion forum

Biofuel Denialists?

We had a comment a few days ago from someone taking us to task for letting up on Biofuel. Yet haven’t we been beating the drum the loudest? In our post “Reforesting vs. Biofuel” the reader will see links to just a few among dozens of reports posted here, warning how carbon credits fund rainforest destruction which causes climate change. Here is an excerpt:

“Our concern for what we consider to be a global catastrophe is well documented, in posts such as Deforestation Diesel, Brazilian vs. Californian Ethanol, Biofuel Monocultures, Biofueled Global Warming, Biofuel is NOT Carbon Neutral, Biofueled Deforestation, Ethanol & Water, Biofuel or Biohazard?, When Green is Brown, Is Biofuel Water Positive?, and many others. Check all our posts in the Biofuel category, or the posts in our Global Warming category. We haven’t wavered.

”
EcoWorld - The Global Environmental Community - Nature and Technology in Harmony

What Crop is Best for Manufacturing Biofuel on a Small-Scale?
Jetta Wong

Q: We want to grow, harvest and produce our own crop to manufacture our own biofuel, for our farms. What crop do you recommend? We've been looking at sawgrass. –Joseph from Tempe, Arizona
A:

Whether you want to grow a feedstock, such as sawgrass, for your own 'on-farm' use or for commercial facilities it is important to answer several key questions before embarking on the production of bioenergy feedstocks. Anyone interested in producing bioenergy should take these questions into consideration even if you are in a 'biomass rich' state.

These questions to think about include:

1. What feedstocks do you have available or that could be available? How are these feedstocks currently being used or disposed of?

What Crop is Best for Manufacturing Biofuel on a Small-Scale?

Biofuel Crops : Cultivation and Management (Jatropha, Sweet Sorghum and Sugarbeet)
Author: K. Vairavan et al
Year: 2007
This book can therefore be considered as a book on the application of practical knowledge in energy crops in general, but Jatropha and biodiesel production in particular.

Biofuel Crops : Cultivation and Management (Jatropha, Sweet Sorghum and Sugarbeet)

Economist: Think Small with Biofuels Crops

. . .
. ..
One other hard reality is that Americans consume more than 320 million gallons of gasoline a day, and there’s not a biofuel crop on the planet that will replace the gasoline anytime soon, Goodman says. Yes, corn is a viable ethanol source that has been proven time and time again. But even under the most ideal conditions, it would take an additional 400 million acres of corn to produce the ethanol required to replace the gasoline currently consumed annually — basically, all of the open land currently available in the United States, including pastureland, he says.

"At the margins, we’re going to use this stuff," says Goodman. "It’s going to ease our dependence but it’s not going to be a panacea based on the technologies we have available now.
. . .

Researchers stress that they have every reason to believe that some profitable way will be found to produce biomass ethanol on a large scale. But for now, the search continues.
. . .

One especially appealing factor associated with canola is that it could be grown in winter, much like wheat, so that farmers would be freed up in the summer to raise other crops, he says.
. . .
On the other hand, there are low-quality peanuts, known in the business as seg 2 and 3 peanuts, which have traditionally worked to depress the overall price of peanuts. Why not press them instead — into oil that eventually could be processed into biodiesel? Goodman asks.
. . .
"There is a pile of cottonseed in every gin in Alabama," Goodman says. "So why can’t we have a mill for extracting oil, which would be worth about 40 cents a pound."
. . .

Economist: Think Small with Biofuels Crops | The News is NowPublic.com

Change crops for greener biofuels, scientist says
Last Updated: Friday, January 18, 2008 | 5:56 PM ET
CBC News

Canada should be looking at different crops for biofuels because the original reasons for promoting ethanol have changed, plant physiologist David Layzell said.

The use of food crops like corn to make ethanol is pushing up food prices and consuming a product that can sustain people.

Switchgrass has potential as a biofuel that doesn't reduce food supplies, David Layzell said.Switchgrass has potential as a biofuel that doesn't reduce food supplies, David Layzell said.
(CBC)

Instead, Layzell told CBC.ca on Friday, Canada should be looking at crops like poplar, willow, switchgrass or hemp as fuel sources.

"All you want is the energy," he said.

Crops that produce "more kilometres per hectare," don't reduce food supplies and don't take valuable nutrients out of the soil are what are needed.

Wheat can power 5,000 vehicle-kilometres per hectare per year, biodiesel 10,000, cellulose about 15,000 and biomass-to-liquid systems (whereby organic material is converted into a "synfuel") 25,000, he said.
Continue Article

Biofuel Review - international biofuel news updated daily - Search

4 Common Myths About Biodiesel and Food

There are many articles in the news these days about biodiesel and other biofuels. The myths and misconceptions about biodiesel have propagated largely due to lack of understanding about the various forms of biofuels. Ethanol, for instance, is a biofuel that has many drawbacks, most importantly a low net energy gain. Our blog focuses on biodiesel because that is our area of expertise. With that in mind, this discussion will focus solely on the common biodiesel myths.

The bulk of this article was used by kind permission from:
ColumbiaFuels.com, Canada's BioHeat source

Myth 1:
Biofuels use valuable arable land that should be used for growing food.

Fact:
The two main crops used in North America to produce biodiesel are soybeans (US) and canola (Canada). The oil is extracted from the soybean and canola seed, which is then processed into biodiesel. Soybeans are actually grown for their protein, and the lesser value oil co-product only makes up 18% of the output. Of the total soy oil production, only 5% of it is currently used for non food production such as biodiesel. The increased demand for biodiesel made from

4 Common Myths About Biodiesel and Food - Laurelhurst Oil

Science forums
Crops for biofuel? - Home Discussion Forums

Biodiesel From Algae

Manufacturing biodiesel from algae - The way forward?
biomass | transport
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Biodiesel has usually been made from the oil pressed from agricultural crops such as corn, soya, and rapeseed. However there is not enough arable land on the earth's surface to grow sufficient corn to replace the amount of fossil fuel oil we use today, let alone tomorrow. There are alternatives such as Jatropha, an amazing plant which grows on the worst soils and has seeds with an oil content of well over 30%, but again enormous swathes of the planet's land would have to be dedicated to growing this crop.

Biodiesel From Algae - Biomass

Factory Farmed Biofuel

GROWING BIOFUEL IN A BIOREACTOR
USING LIGHT, ALGAE, AND CO2

by Ramesh Suri

Algae colors green the waters of this Tennessee catfish
farm. The best way to extract fuel from algae, however,
may be through using a totally enclosed "bioreactor."
(Photo: USDA)

Editor's Note: With every new technology there is a lot of hype, especially when it is green technology. Biofuel is no exception. In the realm of new green energy technologies not only is the holy grail of abundant energy held forth by entrepreneurs to investors as an irresistable temptation, there is also the claim that we will save the planet. Heady stuff.
Algae are microscopic, single-celled plants, growing in an aqueous environment.

Biodiesel From Algae - Biomass

In defence of the humble coconut

By Sarina Locke

Tuesday, 29/01/2008

From massage oil, to driving an engine, cooking your food and lighting the lamps, the coconut is a "source of life," particularly in tropical Asia and the South Pacific. The milk and the "meat" are also highly nutritious, and studies have shown the oil has anti bacterial and anti viral properties.

But Dr Dan Etherington says multinational business who have a vested interest in promoting other, hydrogenated vegetable oils, like margarines, have convinced western medicine that coconut oil is bad for you, because it's a saturated fat.

Dr Etherington says in fact there is considerable evidence to show diets rich in coconuts are healthy, and it's only once people adopt a western diet full of lard and dairy food, that they become obese.

For 25 years Dr Dan Etherington was an agricultural economist in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University, an overseas aid advocate and for the last 16 years he's developed and manufactured a coconut press with his company Kokonut Pacific, so villagers on South Pacific Islands can make their own oil.

He's been recognised for that work with a Member of the Order of Australia this year.

Dr Etherington says coconut oil is used for the fat in milk for premature babies, because it is rapidly metabolised and elite athletes use it for quickly recovering energy.

"But for some reason, the Heart Foundation continues to say that for normal people it's terrible and it'll do great damage."
. . .
With a ratchet action, the piston of the press squeezes out the coconut oil. Dried coconut contains 66 per cent oil, and two kilograms of dried coconut will give you one litre of oil.

In defence of the humble coconut. 29 Jan 2008. Rural Online. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)