How many people support bio diesel as a fossil fuel alternative?

Question

To grow the crops neccessary to make bio diesel feasible, it would require a HUGE amount of land development, destroying wildlife habitat in the process.
Let's not forget that with each crop rotation, the nutrients are being taken from the ground and have to be replaced, which would require fertilizer to be added EVERY year.
What about the pesticides that have to be applied to protect the growing crops every year?
And what about the fact that there are MILLIONS of starving people who could benefit from food crops being planted instead of fuel alternatives.

Any other thoughts? I am just curious as to what others think.

Answer 1

Good question. I neither support nor oppose bio fuels -- I'm waiting to see how it plays out in the market, and I'd like to see and immediate end to any and all of the subsidies, which distort the market's efficiency (especially now that our poor farmers are suddenly raking in the cash from all this).

The starving children angle is a dead argument -- there is no choice of sending this bushel of corn to Africa or else to the ethanol plant. No one is starving because of a lack of agricultural capacity -- if we wanted to feed them all we could, but we don't -- not enough to kill African dictators and take over their governments and spend tens of billions in distribution. Starvation today results strictly from political factors and nothing else.

I also don't care about fertilizer or pesticides, I'm not drinking ethanol, and and I'll trust farmers to know more about their business than I do.

The only issue for me is whether it is economically productive once you factor in the pesticide and fertilizer and cost of nitrogen and use of land and use of diesel to fuel the tractors, etc etc. And that's an incredibly complex issue. It's so complex that I give little credence to any opinion or scholarly research about that -- it's too difficult a problem to fully analyze like that. There's only one supercomputer than can handle the complexities and work out an efficient solution, and that's the free market. I'd like to see it get its chance.

Answer 2

I agree. I am very skeptical. All the rave reviews are hype from lobby groups. (Farm Lobby) Any other reports tend to be negative. As far as I can tell, the real reports say these fuels may use more energy in their production than they give in your tank. And if so, THAT is not Environmentally friendly. Just a big tax grab/scam.

I would hope the evidence was a lot better before they started taking farmland away from producing food that could be feeding the starving.

Answer 3

Bio diesel is not an alternative to fossil fuels. It is an eco friendly way of dealing with waste oils. People who use it almost never use it as their only source of fuel. Every time someone takes the time to make a gallon of bio diesel it is one less gallon that has to be processed by the oil companies.

Answer 4

I think most of the supporters haven't gotten past the stage of "Wow if all that frying fat from McDonalds could power our cars for free wouldn't that save the earth?"

The economics and the implications for the food supply are not yet in their minds and for many never be. It is just like the supporters of corn-based ethanol who won't wake up until a little tub of popcorn is thirty bucks at the movies and beef from cornfed cattle is affordable only by Bill Gates.

Answer 5

I wince at the thought I might have to put anything else than high octance racing fuel in my car. My F40 has a hard time with regular fuel already.