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Biofuels
Biofuels are often believed to be a
sustainable alternative to oil. To put things in
perspective, I did the following calculations: A healthy adult typically
eats 2200 kilocalories per day ie about 9000 kilojoules. Divide this figure
by 24 hours and then by 3600 seconds and you get the average power
consumption of an adult human body: 106 watts. About the same as a standard
light bulb… French population is about 60 millions. Means that in terms of
energy all the food eaten by the French is equivalent 6 billion watts = 6 Gigawatts. Interestingly this is
the typical maximum power output of a large nuclear plant. France is self
sufficient in terms of agricultural products (imports of foodstuff more or
less equal to exports). This means that if the French stopped eating (which
is very unlikely as it is one of their favorite activities lol), the biofuel
that could be produced by the entire existing French farmland would be more
or less equivalent to the output of just one nuclear plant.
Maybe by using so called second and third generation biofuels, you could
boost the yields of biofuel crops and France could achieve a total energy
output equivalent to 2 or 3 nuclear plants. Even in this over optimistic
scenario, biofuel production would still only represent a small fraction of the
French needs. The French farmland is among the most fertile in the world,
France has a relatively low population density compared to neighboring
European countries and yet you can’t expect French agriculture to meet more
than a few percent of the French energy needs…
Now here is another mindboggling calculation I did: France could easily
produce all the fuel it needs to power all its cars. How? Quite simply by
applying the Brazilian solution: kill the entire rain forest of French
Guyana (a 90,000 sq km piece of French territory in South America) and
replace it with sugar cane. I am not sure the so-called ecologists would
agree that “brilliant” idea.
Even if we find a way to boost the yields of energy crop like corn, sugar
beet or sugar cane, this type of biofuel will always remain very marginal as
a source of energy. In its present state, biofuel is clearly a hype that
acts as a distraction that keeps mankind away from looking for a really truly
effective solution. In fact, in the light of the 2008 food crisis, it seems to me
that biofuel derived from corn, beet or sugar cane is much worse than hype.
It is potentially one the most criminal ideas that went through a human mind
since the Nazi era. Starving out impoverished populations to allow the
wealthiest to drive their car… This is simply obscene and disgusting.
4th generation biofuels
Does it mean that biofuels have no future? Not sure. Several companies
around the world are doing fascinating research aiming at producing 4th
generation biofuel using algae or bacteria. The energy yield per square
kilometer would be several orders of magnitude higher than what is achieved
with corn, sugar beet or sugar cane. What is more, production could take
place in desert areas instead of encroaching on fertile cropland. This way
biofuel could be massively produced without starving the population.
One of the leaders in this field is Craig Venter, the geneticist that
sequenced the human genome in 2001. Craig Venter seeks to genetically modify bacteria so
that they can massively transform CO2 into biofuel. You can read more on the
subject on Newsweek
Other companies like Valcent Products are presently conducting
fascinating research aiming at using algae to produce biofuel. The yield per
acre could be of the order of 100,000 of gallons of fuel per year compared
to 30 gallon for corn based ethanol. You’ll find the details on
CNN. You can
also view these 2 videos on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hioZ7C6HLs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnOSnJJSP5c&feature=related
Extracting the CO2 from the atmosphere
Whether you use bacteria or algae to produce biofuel, you need CO2 as raw
material. Initially, biofuel producing plants could be located close to coal
plants and industrial zone and thus recycle CO2. However if we want to go
one step further, we would ultimately have to extract CO2 from the
atmosphere.
At first sight, this seems unfeasible. CO2 concentration in the
atmosphere is extremely low: around 0.0385%. That’s less than half a gram of
CO2 per cubic meter of air. This means you would need to process thousands
of cubic meters of air to extract enough CO2 to produce just one liter of
biofuel…
As surprising as it may seem, promising research is being done in this
field and it appears that extracting CO2 from the atmosphere on a large
scale could be technically and economically feasible. The U.S. Department of
Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory is looking into the possibility of
using quicklime to capture CO2. What is really amazing is that the cost of
capturing the CO2 produced by burning one gallon of fuel would be only 20 US
cents… Virtually nothing compared to the price you have to pay nowadays for
one gallon of fuel… You will find more details the
Los Alamos National
Laboratory web site.
Further readings:
Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage
Using Rock Dust Helps To Control Atmospheric CO2 Buildup and the
Greenhouse Effect
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