Some Envir. Sci. Tech. Commentaries on Invasive Species: Weeds for Biofuel and more.

[NNadir]

Occassionally we have people from the car culture running around here talking about magic plants that will talismanically save their cars from death.

We hear all the time from the corn lobby and its sympathizers, and when that's not going on, we hear all about switch grass, and when that's not enough, other magic plants are evoked like Jajoba, and giant reeds and lately sorghum.

The biofuels meme has been extraordinarily popular going back to the days of Jimmy Carter, but there this is, of course, because it has primarily been a meme.

In various ways here I state in different subtle ways "NNadir's law." Let me state it explicitly:

"All theoretical forms of energy, renewable and otherwise, lack drawbacks as long as they are theoretical. However it is only possible to know the true external costs of forms of energy when a serious attempt has been made to scale them."

I read the environmental primary scientific literature regularly, particularly the ACS journal Environmental Science and Technology, but many other journals as well.

A few years ago, you could be very popular - as well as be able to get lots of votes in Iowa - by saying "I love biofuels." Now that biofuels have become an integral part of many "renewable standard portfolios" around the world - because of poorly thought out political popularity - all of a sudden scientific and popular questions have arisen. Biofuels is only the first of the grand renewable standards to be undergoing a "NNadir's law" test, I claim.

Besides the issues of eutrophication, soil depletion, the destruction of habitat, and all of the other issues that have cropped up, a new one appears in the news section of the current issue of Environmental Science and Technology. To wit:

Fast-growing plants might meet the high demand for crops for biofuels, but a new report proposes that governments should assess the risks of nonnative species before planting them.
Many countries are turning to biofuels—fuel derived from organic matter, mostly plants—to fuel cars and trucks as part of their plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As researchers and regulators around the globe eye a host of fast-growing, weedy plants as a future fuel source, ecologists are warning of unexpected outcomes. In a report released on May 20 at the ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-9), the governing body of the Convention on Biological Diversity, in Bonn (Germany), the authors warn that these biofuel crops may turn into invasive species. The researchers call on governments to assess the plants thoroughly before approving them for widespread use...

...The report, coauthored by the environmental advocacy group the Nature Conservancy and the intergovernmental agency the Global Invasive Species Programme, finds that 31 of the 43 proposed second-generation biofuel crops are already known to be invasive in some parts of the world. For example, countries in West Africa are considering extracting biofuel from the giant reed (Arundo donax), which is already an invasive species in North and Central America. Because the plant is highly flammable, it increases the likelihood of fires in places like California...

The article, which is a news item, and not a scientific paper can be found here:

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2008/jun/policy/rc_biofuels.html

One may be able to follow the links in the article to find the Nature Conservancy report on this issue.

Of course, fires in California owing to the car culture are nothing new. Witness the abandonment of natural forests in the recent fires as crews worked frantically to save yuppie homes built in former wilderness...

Of course, car culture fundies will not be swayed by any such arguments. Look for lots of invasive species like the ones in the Carolinas to be spread in hopes of serving our gas tank gods.

The most pressing need is not to try every damn thing to save our cars. The most pressing is to return to that form of centralized energy use and human transport, the railroad, which was destroyed by distributed energy advocates in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Other remarks in this issue on invasive species can be found here:

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2008/jun/science/rc_lantana.html

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2008/jun/science/rc_invasives.html

The last one, "Pardises Invaded" is particularly sobering.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Has anyone tried making fuel from kudzu yet? ;^)

It's already invaded every nook and cranny it can get into, might as well try to squeeze something out of it. Like many of the worst invasive species, it was originally introduced to NA for commercial purposes (preventing erosion around plowed fields, mostly cotton). Anyone looking for biomass to exploit should look at species that are ALREADY widespread weeds. No need to introduce anything new. (I'd actually be more interested in biomass as an alternative source of feedstocks for manufacturing chemistry -- split that off from petrochemistry, and never see it held hostage to politics the same way again.)

I'm sure there's some other introduced plant that's run wild, despite expensive efforts to eradicate it ... I just can't recall, it's like something's damaged my memory or something ...

[NNadir]

2. Well in theory, as you know, one can make carbon based fuel from any form of biomass.

I suppose one could put Kudzu in a reformer.

The real question is how much machinery is required to collect it and get it to the reformer.

If one has low paid semi-slaves, one can collect it by hand. I am always amused when "renewables will save us" types tell us how their pet renewable scheme will create a brazillion jobs.

With their penchant for selective attention and misleading cherry picking they almost never discuss how much these "jobs" will pay.

A nuclear engineer fresh out of college can make $50,000 plus, from what I hear, and with in 5 years, a five figure salary. I don't think this situation would apply for Kudzu harvesters.

[jpak]

3. Here's the corollary to "the Law"

Horse shit increases exponentially as the cube of the straw man...

:rofl:

[NNadir]

4. It is almost always the case that fundamentalists hold the contents of the scientific literature in.

contempt.

The entire anti-nuke fundie cult on this website has been in full fundie form lately, calling Glenn Seaborg "a fool" and now declaring that there is no huge amount of concern among educated environmentalists about the biofuels disaster.

I hold the illiterate giggling of the fundie cults in complete and total contempt, and I note that we haven't even started - since solar energy remains a trivial and insignificant form of energy - of addressing the inevitable point source electronic waste problem that our fundies will inevitably ignore.

I hope you're enjoying 400 ppm, fundie. Heckuva job. Heckuva job.