Part 3. Biofuel is a Grim Reaper.

The energy to remediate environmental damage is left out of EROEI calculations.

Global Warming

Soils contain twice the amount of carbon found in the atmosphere, and three times more carbon than is stored in all the Earth’s vegetation (Jones 2006).

Climate change could increase soil loss by 33% to 274%, depending on the region (O'Neal 2005).

Intensive agriculture has already removed 20 to 50% of the original soil carbon, and some areas have lost 70%. To maintain soil C levels, no crop residues at all could be harvested under many tillage systems or on highly erodible lands, and none to a small percent on no-till, depending on crop production levels (Johnson 2006).

Deforestation of temperate hardwood forests, and conversion of range and wetlands to grow energy and food crops increases global warming. An average of 2.6 million acres of crop land were paved over or developed every year between 1982 and 2002 in the USA (NCRS 2004). The only new crop land is forest, range, or wetland.

Rainforest destruction is increasing global warming. Energy farming is playing a huge role in deforestion, reducing biodiversity, water and water quality, and increasing soil erosion. Fires to clear land for palm oil plantations are destroying one of the last great remaining rainforests in Borneo, spewing so much carbon that Indonesia is third behind the United States and China in releasing greenhouse gases. Orangutans, rhinos, tigers and thousands of other species may be driven extinct (Monbiot 2005). Borneo palm oil plantation lands have grown 2,500% since 1984 (Barta 2006). Soybeans cause even more erosion than corn and suffer from all the same sustainability issues. The Amazon is being destroyed by farmers growing soybeans for food (National Geographic Jan 2007).and fuel (Olmstead 2006).

Biofuel from coal-burning biomass factories increases global warming (Farrell 2006). Driving a mile on ethanol from a coal-using biorefinery releases more CO2 than a mile on gasoline (Ward 2007). Coal in ethanol production is seen as a way to displace petroleum (Farrell 2006, Yacobucci 2006) and it’s already happening (Clayton 2006).

Current and future quantities of biofuels are too minisucle to affect global warming (ScienceDaily 2007).

Surface Albedo. “How much the sun warms our climate depends on how much sunlight the land reflects (cooling us), versus how much it absorbs (heating us). A plausible 2% increase in the absorbed sunlight on a switch grass plantation could negate the climatic cooling benefit of the ethanol produced on it. We need to figure out now, not later, the full range of climatic consequences of growing cellulose crops” (Harte 2007).

Eutrophication.

Farm runoff of nitrogen fertilizers has contributed to the hypoxia (low oxygen) of rivers and lakes across the country and the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Yet the cost of the lost shrimp and fisheries and increased cost of water treatment are not subtracted from the EROEI of ethanol.

Soil Erosion

Corn and soybeans have higher than average erosion rates. Eroded soil pollutes air, fills up reservoirs, and shortens the time dams can store water and generate electricity. Yet the energy of the hydropower lost to siltation, energy to remediate flood damage, energy to dredge dams, agricultural drainage ditches, harbors, and navigation channels, aren’t considered in EROEI calculations.

The majority of the best soil in the nation is rented and has the highest erosion rates. More than half the best farmland in the United States is rented: 65% in Iowa, 74% in Minnesota, 84% in Illinois, and 86% in Indiana. Owners seeking short-term profits have far less incentive than farmers who work their land to preserve soil and water. As you can see in the map below, the dark areas, which represent the highest erosion rates, are the same areas with the highest percentage of rented farmland.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/ConservationAndEnvironment/Gallery/sediment.htm

Water Pollution

Soil erosion is a serious source of water pollution, since it causes runoff of sediments, nutrients, salts, eutrophication, and chemicals that have had no chance to decompose into streams. This increases water treatment costs, increases health costs, kills fish with insecticides that work their way up the food chain (Troeh 2005).

Ethanol plants pollute water. They generate 13 liters of wastewater for every liter of ethanol produced (Pimentel March 2005)

Water depletion

Biofuel factories use a huge amount of water – four gallons for every gallon of ethanol produced. Despite 30 inches of rain per year in Iowa, there may not be enough water for corn ethanol factories as well as people and industry. Drought years will make matters worse (Cruse 2006).

Fifty percent of Americans rely on groundwater (Glennon 2002), and in many states, this groundwater is being depleted by agriculture faster than it is being recharged. This is already threatening current food supplies (Giampetro 1997). In some western irrigated corn acreage, groundwater is being mined at a rate 25% faster than the natural recharge of its aquifer (Pimentel 2003).

Biodiversity

Every acre of forest and wetland converted to crop land decreases soil biota, insect, bird, reptile, and mammal biodiversity.