Save the Rainforests - President Bill Clinton’s Call to Action at Ethanol Summit
This week Sao Paulo, Brazil is hosting one of the world’s largest gatherings of the international biofuels industry. The Ethanol Summit 2009 was kicked off in part by President Bill Clinton who noted that Brazil is known for producing the most energy efficient and cost competitive ethanol in the world using sugarcane. The downside, though, says Clinton, is that the country’s increase in ethanol production is a precursor to the continued destruction of the rainforests.
The issue of rainforest destruction (which many experts say is NOT a primary result of increased biofuels production) segues in to the debate of “good biofuels versus bad biofuels”. A bad biofuel may be one that uses food crops, excessive land and too much water. A better biofuel uses biomass, or waste, little water and little to no land.
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Recently there has been a spat of companies announcing new technologies to convert biomass to sugar without enzymes. Eliminating this step speeds up the conversion process, lowers costs and improves net energy. In recent months, purse strings have been soldered shut, but Superman may have opened the purse a crack. Today, Khosla Ventures (Sun Microsystems claim to fame) and Burrill & Company announced their joint investment in HCL CleanTech, a start-up that has developed a process using concentrated hydrochloric acid to efficiently convert lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugars.
Greg Young, Director at Burrill & Company summed up the problem, “Accessing cheap sugar locked in biomass is one of the greatest challenges now faced by those pursuing renewable fuels and chemicals.” And his company is banking on having found the answer.
My real point is that we need more alternative vehicles on the road, such as flex-fuel vehicles (or hybrid FFVs) with engines that are tweaked to be most effective using higher blends of biofuels, not gasoline. FFVs are one of the best options we have today of weening ourself from fossil fuels. But if we don’t get these vehicles to market now (there are people who hope that now that GM has filed for bankruptcy and the gov’t is taking over some operations, this may actually happen) and develop the infrastructure, there is no point in developing advanced biofuels as there will be no consumer market. It’s high time that our country stop taking the easy way out and really, truly commit to developing and bringing to market not only advanced biofuels but advanced auto technologies.
The best alternative would be to focus on public transport rather than pvt vehicles. That is, regardless of fuel used.
What Jay said make complete scense, trains for transportation is the cheapest and safest way of doing it.
But all bio fuels are very bad for the long term prognosis of world climate, burning one fuel to make another is ludicrous.
Palm plantations and the swamp areas which were drained to grow them are 20 times more polluting than conventional fossile fuel, the methane that is being released prior to and after the drainage has taken place has added another 20 percent to our greenhouse effect.
Cutting down the rain forest id like cutting down the lungs of the planet, trees are our natural carbon sync take these out of the equasion and where is the Co2 that we have released going to go to.
If you take the historical fact of Easter Island into consideration you have an answer to what could happen.
If we are to make any real diference we need to stop talking about things and do something, today, no good bolting the stable door after the horse has run out.
Once we lose our ability to control our emidiate enviornment, we are then open season to nature, that controlling factor will be lost via not having the food to feed the world as it happens.
If we lower the population for when it start to happen we might have a chance and save countless of millions of hurt around the world, ask the Africans who are today in constant outstretched arms and you have your answer.
As you have mentioned in your article, sugar-cane ethanol is really far more efficient and cheaper than the corn based fuel.
Regarding the excessive use of water to make it, I am from Brazil, a country blessed by huge reserves of potable water http://www.oas.org/dsd/Events/english/Documents/OSDE_7Guarani.pdf
and a vast arable land area outside the Amazon basin. I think we could supply the world with ethanol without touching the rain forest. There is a protectionism saying about when God was creating this planet. He took away all earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamies, tornadoes, ice and snow storms from Brazil and gave them a blessed weather and lots of land that could be harvested twice a year plus a huge reserve of oil under its continental platform.
Let’s cheer for our sixth FIFA’s Word Cup next year.
Roberto DePaschoal
info@ev-motion.com