who could have seen this coming ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/busine…
Just a few years ago, politicians and environmental groups in the Netherlands were thrilled by the early and rapid adoption of “sustainable energy” achieved in part by coaxing electrical plants to use biofuel – in particular, palm oil from Southeast Asia.
Spurred by government subsidies, energy companies…designed generators that ran exclusively on the oil…
But…rising demand for palm oil in Europe brought about the clearing of huge tracts of Southeast Asian rainforest and the overuse of chemical fertilizer there…pace for the expanding palm plantations was often created by draining and burning peatland, which sent huge amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
…Indonesia had quickly become the world’s third-leading producer of carbon emissions…
Gee, if only some libertarians and conservatives had mentioned 10 or 20 years ago that biofuels are a bit of a stupid idea.
Well, OK, fine, we did. And we pushed for nuclear power instead.
But what good is rationality compared to caring and concern ?
“It was shocking and totally smashed all the good reasons we initially went into palm oil,” said Alex Kaat, a spokesman for Wetlands, a conservation group.
Jackass.
January 31st, 2007 at 10:50 am
‘spretty stunning. Well, you know you have my support on the whole nuke plant thing.
Atoms for Peace!
January 31st, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Well, OK, fine, we did. And we pushed for nuclear power instead.
Are you sure you have thought that through? Nuclear power has a few glaring problems: plants are quite expensive, and one cannot (currently) adjust to increased demand without building another expensive plant. With coal (or biofuel/wind/solar) power, one can adjust to demand by burning more or less coal or buying or selling more windmills or solar panels. I guess one could develop mobile nuclear power plants, but these would almost HAVE to be managed by the federal government, because it would have to deal with the hassles of transportation, changing regional electricity infrastructure, etc.
The more likely solution, however, is that the federal government would place quotae on the number of people that could live in a certain area (or the number of houses/offices/etc. that can be built). If you are a libertarian, that scenario is not likely to appeal to you.
January 31st, 2007 at 2:48 pm
plants are quite expensive,
I’m reasonably certain part of the cost is imposed by the Fed – required paperwork and so on. The figure in my head from working at CP&L in the early 90s was 5,000 people. Per site. If you inflate requirements for staff that much (c’mon it’s PLUMBING for God’s sake – steam heat with a long-lived source for the heat. It’s not rocket science) your costs will scream into the stratosphere.
Not to mention downtime required (by the rules not the technology) the somewhat absurd costs imposed by storage because the Fed can’t ram through a solution for storing the used fuel somewhere ….
With coal (or biofuel/wind/solar) power, one can adjust to demand by burning more or less coal or buying or selling more windmills or solar panels
I don’t get that. We’ve got a (I admit patchy) continent sized distribution network setup. If you can’t use the atom-produced electricity in North Carolina, put it on the market and sell it to California.
January 31st, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Brian, how much economically viable nuclear material do we have? From what I have heard, we only have a 50-year supply. I do not know very much about nuclear engineering, though.
January 31st, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Brian, how much economically viable nuclear material do we have?
Offhand – I don’t know.
Say it’s 50 years. That’s 50 years where we don’t have to strip-mine Wyoming, dynamite hills in West Virgina, pollute our environment with carbon, X thousands of cancer deaths thanks to radiation release from burning coal, etc. Fifty years to boot up a civilization that can extract energy from the sun via SPS and kick off a a truly nifty solar system-wide civilization that thinks there are better solutions to energy extraction than digging up the ONE place that mankind can stand and breath air.
You know – a civilization that can treat our entire planet like the national park it should be.
January 31st, 2007 at 9:26 pm
[...] Biofuel Stupidity (via Coyote Blog and TJIC). [...]
February 1st, 2007 at 4:35 pm
How long could we burn uranium in reactors? Minimum of hundreds of years, more if we use breeder reactors.
Dr. John McCarthy has done a bunch of research on the sustainability of human progress and some the of the results with regard to nuclear power are here:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html
February 1st, 2007 at 9:45 pm
I read quite a bit of interesting stuff about palm oil and biodesel in http://www.palmoiltruthfoundation.com. Maybe you guys would like to take a look at the articles that argue the case for palm oil?
January 25th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
[...] January 25, 2009 Bet you didn’t see that coming Sherlock–the law of unintended consequences. Posted by Offa Rex under Energy, Environment, Europe, Social Responsibility Biofuel Stupidity (via Coyote Blog and TJIC). [...]
May 4th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
I found your blog and read a few of the posts. Keep up the good work. I am looking forward to checking out more from you in the future.