Xianyue Wang
Sustainability Debates
February 5th, 2014
Are Biofuels Sustainable?
When we talk about biofuels, it appears to us like it is a fairly new subject, and we have
only start looking into it because we are running out of non-renewable resource, however the
concept of biofuels is surprisingly old. Rudolf Diesel, who is a German inventor and mechanical
engineering, famous for his invention of the diesel engine actually starts in the late 1800s. In
1900, at the World Exhibition in Paris, France, Diesel demonstrated his engine by running it on
peanut oil. Although it wasn’t common practice at the time, but vegetable oils were also used
for diesel fuel during the 1930s and 1940s. However, it was not until the 1970s the idea of using
biofuels was revisited in the United States. One of the most important events occurred in 1970
with the passage of the Clean Air Act by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This
allowed the EPA to more closely regulate emissions standards for pollutants like sulfur dioxides,
carbon monoxide, ozone and nitrogen oxides. This set the stage for developing cleaner-burning
fuels. This also set standards for fuel additives. In the topic of “Are Biofuels Sustainable? “ There
are a fair amount of stakeholders on this topic. On the supportive side, there would be factories,
workers, farmers, land holders, environmental activist, environmental friendly organizations
and also scientist that believe in renewable fuels. On the other hand, people who would oppose
this idea are coal miners, natural gas driller and gas companies. There are a group of people
that are in between two arguments, which are the US government and basically everyone who
lives in the United States, because we are all uses a lot of energy everyday, and most, if not a
part of these energy comes from non-renewable energy and we have to admit, there will be
one day that these resources will ran out. Therefore seeking for other types of energy is
everyone’s job, and of course biofuels is a big part of it. Since Biofuels is such an hot topic,
there are of course lots of sub-issues that we have to take into considerations. First of all, just
like our topic said, how long could biofuel support us? Does biofuel efficient enough to take
over other non-renewable energy, such as coal or natural gas? How much will the cost of fuel
increase when we totally switch to biofuels? What are the negative effects to the environment
when we use biofuels? Is it really worth it to change to biofuels when there are other types of
renewable energy we can use? What kind of changes we have to do to our cars to adopt
biofuels? If people don’t have enough money to switch to a biofuel capable car, what can they
do? Last but not least, what kind of biofuel is the best and will not harm our environment?
Obviously, there are a lot to concern about when we are dealing with biofuels. However, since
it is a renewable energy, it’s still worth a try.
The reason why biofuel is brought up is because there are some key advantages that
biofuel can give us. First, Biofuel is environmentally friendly; Secondly, since our country
depends on foreign oil, using biofuels will help reduce that dependency. Third, biofuel itself
helps to lubricate the engine, therefore decrease the engine wear. Next, it can be used in
almost any diesel with little or no engine modification, which is very important because it just
addressed one of our sub-issues. Being able to switch to biofuels with little or no impact to the
society is definitely a very important aspect. And last but not lease, biofuel is overall speaking
safer than conventional diesel. One of the major selling points of biofuel is that it is
environmentally friendly. One of the major products of biofuels, biodiesel has fewer emissions
than standard diesel, is biodegradable, and is a renewable source of energy. Biodiesel does
reduce hazardous emissions. Of the current biofuels, biodiesel is the only one to have
successfully completed emissions testing in accordance with the Clean Air Act. Biofuels can also
reduce carbon-dioxide greenhouse emissions that may contribute to global warming, as well as
other harmful emissions including sulfur oxides and possibly nitrogen oxides. One of the other
biggest selling points is that while oil is a limited resource that comes from specific materials,
biofuels can be manufactured from a wide range of materials including crop waste, manure and
other byproducts, which also make a significant step in helping, recycle the used products.
Biofuel is a renewable resource unlike oil, it takes a long time for fossil fuels to be produced,
and instead biofuel can be extracted from all different kind of crops in our daily life. These are
the mainly reason why biofuel is far more sustainable than the currently non-renewable energy
that we are relaying on.
Of course, there will always be some down side of every proposal, and biofuel is
obviously not the perfect solution either. Before, we are talking about how biofuel is renewable
and how easy it could be extracted from our surroundings. However, it is actually much harder
than it sounds. First of all, biofuel is easy to use but not always easy to find. What that means is
that there are doubts about us having the necessary amount of crops for us to switch to
biofuels. For example, replacing only five percent of the nation’s diesel consumption with
biofuels would require diverting approximately 60 percent of today’s soy crops to biofuel
production. From this statement, we can see that it requires a lot more crops that we though to
provide enough energy for daily use. And before switching to biofuels, perhaps we should ask
ourselves, are we ready to devote all our existing crops to biofuel production and therefore
instead of relying on foreign oil, we will be relying on foreign food. Or, if not, are we ready to
expand our number of crops and use all the land we have to devote to biofuel production?
There are several advantages of using biofuels, but biofuels aren't completely cost-free.
A plant-based fuel can be thought as a renewable source, while fossil fuels will run out in one
day. But a number of factors play into any fuel's cost, both in economic and environmental
terms. We need to consider various other factors in different aspects. There are abundant of
reasons can support that biofuel doesn't always the most sustainable option. For example,
biofuel often results a heavy price and can’t be wide used around the world. Many common
crops like corns could produce biofuel in certain parts of the world. But in other regions, the
same plants would be impossible or extremely costly to grow and harvest. As you know, the
water supply, temperature and sunlight will decide the region is only hospitable for certain
types of plants. There will always be some regions that simply can't support large-scale
production of biofuel-rich crops. Maybe in the northeastern part of USA, it will likely have
trouble growing a plant that requires the long growing season and high heat. And although
certain crops can grow in almost all the place, they will grow better in certain regions. If
consumers living in a low-producing region would need to have crops sent to them or biofuel
piped to them. It will definitely increase both cost and the amount of emissions produced in
production and transport. Biofuel production using food crops, it may cause food security of
some region. This situation will force some region to drain and burn some forests to prepare
farmland. It caused the vast majority of deforestation all over the world. In the production
process of biofuel, we may also face the problem of fertilizer use and fuel use. It could put
unsustainable pressure if not managed wisely. Many types of crops are used to make biofuels,
so we may face the variation in biofuel quality. To avoid this problem, some scientist will
suggest growing one heavily concentrated crop, rather than the rotation of various crops over
time. This solution looks right, but it may cause a worse result. Monoculture offers an
irresistible target for pests and pest populations can explode out of control in such environment.
Genetic engineering of biofuel crops it can increasing the production of biofuels, but we should
be aware of averting the negative influence to human.
The arguments, facts and reasoning above seem persuasive, but I also identified some
holes and some evidences are mishandled. First, we need to consider the fuel use during the
process of producing biofuels, but at least we will use less fossil fuel and reduce green gases.
Global warming is reshaping the planet so we must try our best to stop this phenomenon.
There is no doubt that using biofuels is a good action. Using food crops may cause the food
security, but we also need to think about that fossil fuel price is higher and higher. So we can
use the money saving from the fossil fuel to buy some food from other regions. This problem is
not very tough to solve. And in some region, where with high percentage of the labor force is
farmers, grow crops and making biofuels will help reduce poverty. In such regions, no matter
growing which crops they will use huge amount of water and land. This change will help the
economic development. So we also need to admit there also are some advantages.
According to the Cornell Chronicle, and Cornell ecologist’s study finds that producing
ethanol and biodiesel from corn and other crops is not worth the energy. In other word, we are
using more energy to produce energy then the energy that we are producing. David Pimentel,
professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University said that “There is just no energy
benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel”, “These strategies are not sustainable.” Here is
some data to support his argument, soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than
the fuel produced, and sunflower plants requires 188 percent more fossil energy than the fuel
produced. From these data, we call clearly tell that it is not worth it to use our non-renewable
energy on such low efficient and high energy consuming “renewable energy”.
In my opinion, I think that the cons outweighed the pros when it comes down to
biofuels. First of all, I think none of us is going to be fine with our using more energy to produce
energy, and that is definitely not and sustainable way of producing energy. Second of all, the
United States currently have not enough crops to produce enough energy, if we are to use
biofuels, we have to develop more farms and use all the lands we can to produce crops for
biofuels. But what we didn’t notice is that there is also the need of food! By the time when our
energy and food is both base on crops, and there aren’t enough, we are facing a huge problem.
I don’t think any of us is ready of that kind of situation, therefore I don’t think we biofuel is
sustainable enough for us to switch to.
Citations
Hess, Scott M. "How Biodiesel Works." HowStuffWorks. 03 Feb. 2014
<http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/biodiesel2.htm>.
Lang, Susan S. "Cornell ecologist's study finds that producing ethanol and biodiesel from corn and other
crops is not worth the energy." Cornell ecologist's study finds that producing ethanol and biodiesel from
corn and other crops is not worth the energy | Cornell Chronicle. 05 July 2005. Cornell Chronicle. 06 Feb.
2014
<http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/07/ethanol-biodiesel-corn-and-other-crops-not-worthenergy>
"10 Disadvantages of Biofuels." HowStuffWorks. 04 Feb. 2014
<http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/biofuels/10-disadvantages-of-biofuels.htm#page=10>
"The Pros and Cons of Biofuels." About.com Environmental Issues. 04 Feb. 2014
<http://environment.about.com/od/fossilfuels/a/biofuels.htm>.