This document discusses biofuels and their potential and limitations for replacing petroleum fuels. It makes three key points: 1) Converting food crops into fuel on a large scale is not sustainable, as it would require devoting many times the amount of land and energy currently used for food production. Crop yields are no longer increasing and most arable land is already in use. 2) Producing biofuels like ethanol actually requires significant fossil fuel energy for activities like growing and harvesting crops, processing them into fuel, and distributing the fuel. For corn ethanol, some studies suggest it takes more energy to produce it than the fuel provides. 3) While algae-based biofuels show more promise

1. Volume 1, Number 11, – November 2006
In a word—no. As world oil
supplies tighten, many think ethanol
and biodiesel can fill the gap
between petroleum supply and liquid
fuel demand. To see how much
food crops can contribute to our fuel
supply, we need a clear idea of the
amount of fuel needed. The US
currently consumes 21 million
barrels of oil a day. If all of the
energy in a day’s oil were converted
to food calories, that food could feed
32 times the US population.
Can we devote 32 times the food
energy we eat—to fuel and
chemicals and the other things we
do with oil? Plainly not—crop yields
are no longer increasing and almost
all of our arable land is already in
use.
But it’s worse than that: Food
crops we produce need oil for tractor
fuel, pesticides and herbicides, and
natural gas for fertilizer. Distilling
ethanol takes energy. Some
scientists say it takes more energy
to make a gallon of corn ethanol
than it yields. If they’re right, ethanol
is replacing no fossil fuel, or is a net
consumer. Even if they’re wrong,
the energy gain in making ethanol
from corn is small at best. Problems
Can’t we just switch to biofuels—and relax? People you should
contact about peak oil:
•Senator Barbara Boxer
http://boxer.senate.gov/cont
act/email/policy.cfm
•Senator Dianne Feinstein
http://www.senate.gov/~fein
stein/email.html
•Congressman Sam Farr
1221 Longworth House
Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-2861
FAX (202) 225-6791
http://www.farr.house.gov/
•Governor Arnold Schw…
http://www.govmail.ca.gov
•President George Bush
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
Thanks to all those who
have contributed help and
funds to SMC
with soybean biodiesel are similar.
Other biofuel sources, such as oil-
bearing algae, appear promising, but
are in early R&D, with unknown
feasibility.
We know conversion of food crops
for fuel is growing. Largely because of
subsidies, 20% of US corn is used for
ethanol. Ethanol production has been
growing at about 30% per year. We
know world grain reserves are
shrinking—from 116 days in 2000 to
57 days later this year. If we continue
diverting food to fuel, we will soon
have fuel producers outbidding people
wishing to eat.
What tradeoff will we make when
that time arrives? A car (22 mpg) can
go about 2 miles on the energy in a
day's human diet. This means that
driving 12,000 miles a year, an
American consumes enough energy to
feed 16 people, plus the energy
needed to make and maintain the car
and the roads. If we continue on our
present course, we will soon see a
sharp rise in the cost of food crops
that are also used for fuel. In the end
we will have to change the way we
transport ourselves, and the way we
eat. We can begin that now, or wait
until after a lot more people have to go
Mission: To ensure an orderly transition through the fossil fuel decline by
cooperatively developing a sustainable economy for Monterey County.
Nov. 8: Brainstorm session, CV, CV
Comm. Chapel, Wednesday, 7-9 pm
Nov. 9: SMC Discussion Group:
Biofuels, Thurs., 6:45-9pm, Mry Youth
Center, 777 Pearl St.
Dec. 7: SMC Discussion Group: “Future
Directions” & Potluck dinner, Thurs.,
6:45-9pm, Monterey Youth Center,
UPCOMING EVENTS
777 Pearl Street
Jan. 11: SMC Discussion Group:
Economy, Thurs., 6:45-9pm, Mry Youth
Center, 777 Pearl St.

2. S U S T A I N A B L E M O N T E R E Y C O U N T Y
Biofuels are touted as renewable
and carbon neutral, and
theoretically could be,
but:
• Burning tropical forests to
make way for palm oil
plantations and sugar
cane releases huge
amounts of carbon into the
atmosphere.
• US agriculture uses so
much fossil fuel to grow
crops, our biofuel
production is
approximately the
conversion of fossil fuels
to biofuel.
• Current US practices
involve unsustainable
depletion of soil and
aquifers.
• Biofuels will probably
never scale to cover our
liquid fuels shortfall.
• Many people are lulled into
IF BIOFUELS
COULD BE SO
GREAT WHY
AREN’T
THEY?
What is biodiesel?
Biodiesel is a liquid motor fuel made by chemically
processing oil or fat of biological origin, i.e.: animal fat,
vegetable oil, used deep-fryer fat, oil from algae, etc. These
biological oils and fats are usually processed with lye, or
another alkali, and an alcohol such as methanol, to yield soap,
glycerol and diesel fuel.
Much has been made of vehicles powered by waste
cooking oil processed in mobile labs—driving around trailing
the aroma of doughnuts or French fries—but there isn’t nearly
enough waste cooking oil to make a dent in our demand for
motor fuel. We shouldn’t throw it in landfills, but it won’t make
us energy independent. Other sources in current or
foreseeable use are listed in the table at the bottom of the
page, along with annual production estimates per acre.
Most oil source crops would require enormous tracts of land
to replace even a significant fraction of current transportation
fuel production. Furthermore, this would be happening when
we should expect scarcity of fertilizer, pesticides and farm fuel
to strain our ability to maintain current crop yields.
The real hope for biodiesel lies with certain types of algae—
some that produce more than half their weight as oil. A
University of New Hampshire (UNH) paper claims that all
current US transportation fuel demands could be met, based
on a National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) study, using just
15,000 square miles in a suitably sunny climate—that’s about
¾ of the area of San Bernardino County, California. The
author of the UNH study said, in a telephone conversation with
me, that he believes these algae can be grown on waste
streams generated in animal production, or human sewage or
agricultural runoff. The NREL study also showed that some
algae could be induced to take up large amounts of carbon
dioxide from power-plant emissions.
The paradox of biofuels is that the great promise—like
renewable algae ponds in the desert--remains unrealized,
while markets blithely and destructively plunge ahead.
Biodiesel source organisms
Source Gallons per acre-
year
Comment
Soybeans 50 Would displace current food crops
Rapeseed 110 Ditto—common European source
Mustard 140
Jatropha 175 Semi-arid climates, marginal land
Palm Oil 650 Tropical forest burning to clear
Algae 10,000-20,000 In early development, may not work out

3. S U S T A I N A B L E M O N T E R E Y C O U N T Y
C2H5OH
H H
| |
H-C-C-O-H
| |
H H
It’s the same stuff that’s in your
wine, beer or whiskey, but you can
be sure it will be made to taste
nasty when you find it in fuel, at
least in the US. Government
doesn’t want you drinking fuel
ethanol. It’s soluble in all mixture
ratios with water, and the pure form
will take on water whenever it’s
exposed to air.
What’s the debate about?
Depending on whom you believe, ethanol might yield about
70% as much energy as it takes to make it, or it might yield
160%, but it’s likely to be somewhere between those two
numbers. Why is it controversial? There are a lot of inputs to
the production of growing corn, breaking down the starch,
fermenting the resulting sugar, separating ethanol from
water, etc. How much energy goes into the production of a
tractor, and how soon does it need to be replaced? How
much of the corn crop is irrigated, and how much energy
does it take to do the irrigation? How much energy does it
take to make and transport fertilizer, and how much does
each corn farmer use? How do you credit the byproducts of
ethanol production (distillers grains), and how should that
change if the feed market for them becomes saturated?
However, in the best case, it isn’t a silver bullet.
ETHANOL
We have to get over the urge to grasp at a single simple
energy solution. We will eventually have to do
everything we can think of, and then some.
Further Reading
Costs of Ethanol Production with Corn by David Pimentel http://hubbert.mines.edu/news/Pimentel_98-2.pdf
One rebuttal to Pimentel http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_rooster.html
Energy Bulletin http://www.energybulletin.net/
Oil Addiction: The World in Peril, Pierre Chomat
Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, Lester R. Brown
Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage, Kenneth Deffeyes
The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, Richard Heinberg
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4. Steering Committee Members
Deborah Lindsay, Director
deb@sustainablemontereycounty.org
Ruth Smith, 831-620-1303
Committee Chair and Budget Chair
Virginia Chomat,
Secretary and Co-treasurer
Pierre Chomat,
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Newsletter Editor,
folsomman@redshift.net
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831-372-0659
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831-643-0707
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Director’s Note
There are two goals SMC is interested in fulfilling. One: to create
energy independent communities to manage the fossil fuel
decline with the minimum of crises. This has been our goal since
inception. Two: to lower carbon emissions and head off global
climate disruptions. This is not one of our stated objectives, but it
has become increasingly a concern of many, and is of course a
huge predicament in of itself. More importantly, to become a
sustainable Monterey County, we must look at both problems.
The two issues combine like salad dressing, they blend, they are
of the same stuff, and they pour onto the conversation easily. One
deals with what goes in the tank, the other deals with what comes
out.
Many of our newsletter topics have addressed both ends of the
tank and as you can see this month’s issue on Biofuels is the
same. Can they replace fossil fuels, will they meet the needs of
our current fleet of vehicles, and how much CO2 do they
produce? All these questions have caused SMC to stop in our
tracks and get clear on our position.
This newsletter is our position; we cannot support Biofuels as
the solution to either problem. In fact, they cause more problems;
topsoil depletion, rain forest deforestation, habitat erosion,
starvation, and so on. The only real solution is to lower our
consumption to match the expected depletion rate of 3% per year;
at least that helps the Peak Oil issue. As for climate change, we
have to respond much much faster. Humanity is at risk. We need
to go at both issues with unwavering commitment and attention,
very little else matters.
Tonight, rather then calculating your daily calories, your
investment status, or when a TV show will be on next…calculate
your carbon emissions, or your carbon “footprint”: go to
www.stopglobalwarming.org. In the end, what goes in your tank,
on your salad, up in smoke, under your foot, out your exhaust …
is all that really matters. It’s time to be stewards of the Earth, time
to be sustainable, Monterey County. --Deborah
Late every summer, large areas of central Borneo become invisible.
There’s no magic involved—most of the densely forested island simply
gets covered with a pall of thick smoke. Huge areas of forest burn, while
beneath the ground peat many metres thick smoulders on for months.
These trees are burning for a good cause, however. They are burning to
help save the world from global warming.
Here is how the logic goes. As the natural forest is cleared, land opens
up for lucrative palm-oil plantations. Palm oil is a feedstock for biodiesel,
the “carbon-neutral” fuel that the European Union is trying to encourage by
converting its vehicle fleet. By reducing use of fossil fuels for its cars and
trucks, the EU believes it can reduce its carbon emissions and thereby
help mitigate global warming. Everyone is happy. (Except the orang-utan.
It gets to go extinct.)
--Mark Lynas, Frankenstein Fuels, The New Statesman (London) August
7, 2006