Biofuels: Still NOT a Good Idea!

I was always kind of vaguely suspicious of biofuels - the argument has essentially been over which politician can lavish more subsidies on their constituents in the name of "green fuels" - and finally we have some better proof that FlexFuel vehicles = bullshit.

From the journal Science:

• Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change

• Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt

New York Times summary of the reports:
Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat

So basically, when you take into account the carbon dioxide emitted when land is cleared for use in biofuel growth (and eventually, because of substitution effects, some land somewhere is going to get cleared), you put yourself in a deep carbon debt that will take a few generations of using biofuels to escape.

Not to mention the fact that the entire life-cycle carbon cost of biofuels is kind of suspicious as it is. I'm supposed to believe that all of the energy it takes to grow the crops, harvest them, transport them to refineries, and refine them into fuel is less than the amount of energy you get out of the fuel? It's not like I'm breaking new ground in this analysis, check out this article from 2005.

So how much longer do you suppose we'll be hearing from politicians about how important it is to expand federal subsidies for biofuels? I wouldn't expect it anytime soon, if it's one thing that both Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it's that we need to transfer massive amounts of wealth to farmers and agri-business ($618 billion dollars, 2008-2017).

Miracles of Science

I just read an incredible article on the most recent research into the origins of the AIDS virus. Sometimes, I really feel like I'm living in the future. Like when I read that they recreated an extinct virus by finding pieces of the virus that are carried over as junk DNA in different primates, then putting in all together in a new shell that can only replicate once. Seriously, wow!