The study promotes "planting" bio fuel crops...

then notices

"agricultural yields are about 65% of those from natural plant growth on the same land,"

It sounds like man is getting 35% less productivity than Mother Nature despite using fertilizer and irrigation.

All the farmers I know who have "abandoned agricultural land lying fallow" are letting nature restore the land so it can be productive again.

The plan
Kill our fallow farmland to produce bio fuel for 9% of our energy needs.

Alternate plan
Put up wind turbines on farmland so they retain normal farming practice and also produce energy for up to 100% of our energy needs.

I couldnt agree with John more. Theres also much more under the surface of this that hasnt been shown. Here in the US, lease arrangements, if the land is owned by a non farmer, are needed. This also may bring up easement rights to inaccessable lands. Plus, as John says, there are probably reasons these lands are fallow. How much of these 385-472 hectares are from now unproductive, stripped, former rainforest, now unfertile?

8% of worlds energy needs seems like a small gain, from such a risky venture like farming, to create energy. One only currently has to look at the US midwest, with the flooding problem, to see how hard farming can be. Acres and acres of corn, probably grown for the gasohol plants in the area, are absolutely ruined. This, at the same time as other areas are experiencing drought conditions in their croplands. I still cannot see why we are futsing with our food supply to feed our fueltanks!! Absolutely insane!

or put up windmills and still grow biofuel crops (weeds) in the fallow land.. if you can still restore the land by growing weeds why not take advantage of it?

http://southeastfarmpress.com/grains/ethanol-barley-0620/

Another thing I forgot to add. If biofuel is so wonderful, and the "savior" of us all, why are our fuel costs currently so high, and still rising? Where is gasohols help in easing our $4.05 per gallon gas prices? Perhaps the help is only for corn lobbyists, and corn farmers, for a short time. Must be invisible for the rest of us........

But there are lots of ways to get energy out of plants, and liquid transportation fuel may not be the most efficient one. If you take a ton of biomass and convert it to electricity, you can drive your car farther on that electricity than if you make ethanol.
—Joseph Fargion

Thank the world there is someone out there that understands what biofuel should really be used for, ELECTRICITY!!! It is time for all of the fossil fuel people to retire and for the biofuel people to take over and create an all electric society.

Fossil fuels come primarily from millions year old fossilized algae, the fastest growing plant on the planet. Algae Farms do not need any land that can provide food crops past, present or future.

Let nature take its course and restore abandoned lands back to agricultural lands to continue to produce food and feed, or just let it be.

Use arid lands, never suitable for food crops to produce algae to produce electricity for an all electric carbon neutral world economy. For every ton of algae, you need two tons of CO2, plus waste water and sun to grow it. You use the 50% CO2 the algae emits when burned to make electricity and recycle it back to make more algae while finding another 50% CO2 from other CO2 emitters to feed more algae growth and clean the air.

What could be better? For one it would be a much better world if we could take the blinders off of all of these PHD experts that are clueless to the simplest answer to the crisis the world is facing today.

"Algae"!!!

Fossil fuels come primarily from millions year old fossilized algae, the fastest growing plant on the planet.

For every ton of algae, you need two tons of CO2, plus waste water and sun to grow it. You use the 50% CO2 the algae emits when burned to make electricity and recycle it back to make more algae while finding another 50% CO2 from other CO2 emitters to feed more algae growth and clean the air.

Algae is irresponsible. If we let this algae energy caper go too far, we will soon have a shortage of CO2, waste water (including agricultural land runoff), and sunlight.

Do you want to be the one responsible for depriving your grandchildren and great-grandchildren of these things? I thought not.

I think we should use the unused agricultural land as food-growing land. I don't think we have reached a level of food super-abundance that keeps prices low and the world's hungry on a healthy diet. This is the priority, i believe.
The whole notion of 'growing' our energy or using any other organic way of fuel production, I think is very short-term blind. Let's suffer through a generation of 'necessary' biofuels if we must, but non-organic fuels and energy sources must at sometime prevail and continue as the status quo. Energy sources with the smallest 'nature print' (i.e, not only small carbon, but small land-use print) will be most acceptable to energy users and locals that need to interact with said energy source (that leaves small-print nuclear (mostly-subterranean), geothermal, with only (i hope) small smatterings of ugly windfarms and questionably-efficient solarparks (i like personal-property wind and solar, though).

If you read between the lines it becomes very clear that agro-fuel is NOT an efficient energy source and will never suffice to feed our inefficient 800+ million gas guzzlers.

Why not use agriculture to feed the growing world population and use other sources of energy for all other uses.

The most sustainable sources are barely used. There are more than enough available Sun and Wind energies for at least 4 to 5 times the current world population.

Future water-air (home unit) fuel cells may be another sustainable energy source.

Up-to-date nuclear could also play a short and mid-term role for the next 50 years.

Massive electrification of most of our transportation vehicles, factories, commercial and public facilities, home HVAC etc is a worthwhile neccessary step that we should that without further delay.

My perspective. . . I live in a rural area of central Texas, and there are vast expanses of land out here that are only used for grazing cattle, because that's the cheapest and easiest way to get a bit of productivity out of it. This land is mostly long-abandoned cotton fields or scrubland that has never been cleared for cultivation. It's not a wasteland, it's perfectly capable of supporting tall stands of johnson grass, switchgrass, etc. If you took the cows off it, much of this land would soon be neck-high in grass without any cultivation effort whatsoever (just as it was when the settlers found it). Much of it has also been taken over by mesquite trees, which are potentially another fast-growing source of biomass.

HarveyD is exactly right when he says agro-fuel is not an efficient energy source and can't replace all the petroleum fuel we are using today. However. . . How do you define efficiency? If the land is out here, we might as well use it, and growing biomass is a lot *cheaper* than covering it with solar farms. Likewise, biofuels don't need to replace all petroleum in order to have a valuable role to play. I can easily imagine most cars being electric, but many trucks, trains, aircraft and military vehicles using biofuel just because of its huge advantage in energy density.

Stupidity at its finest.

North America is the carbon sink for the entire planet, actually removing more CO2 than all of the other continents combined. And that includes the mighty South American Amazonian rainforest.

And by the way removing more CO2 than NA creates. (see GCCs search)

The abandoned farmland, is much more than fallow land under crop rotation. It is land that has gone back to forest and is a principal reason, for that carbon absorption.

The NA Carbon sink is scientifically measured and reported, even on these GCC pages. But since it is unreported to the bureaucrat clerks who tally mankind's reported carbon emission pluses, and sequestering minuses, it just doesn't officially count, nor exist, on their 'official' rolls of our AGW carbon contributions. So we haven't officially met the Kyoto targets, on the one hand, even while NA removes our CO2, and part of the rest of the worlds too, on the other.

As is so much of this nonsense, the stats are weighted to get 'bad results' both ways.

That too has been reported on these pages.

But it doesn't officially count, since there is not an Algore claiming a carbon credit for planting a tree, shrub or bush...

Left alone those unaccounted trees will go their merry way, sequestering Carbon, producing Oxygen, building soil, preventing erosion, giving a habitat for other flora and fauna. Can't have that can we?

This research will never be read, or if so, it will never be acted upon. It has done its intended purpose, consume money and publish dreck...

Jer,

The United States has the most stable cereals (maize, soy, wheat, barley, etc.) production in the world. The USDA can estimate how many bushels will be produced in a given growing year. We are ALWAYS a net exporter of food.

All,
Paying an extra 20 cents for a loaf of bread is of small consequence compared with the collective agricultural boom that farmers are experiencing. 11 billion bushels of corn.. $2.50/bushel in 2004 to $7/bushel in 2008. You can do the math. 5 billion bushels of soy beans.. $7/bushel in 2004 to $13/bushel in 2008.. again. Farmers are buying new equipment, investing in ethanol and wind, and fueling new research from Cargill and Pioneer for new hybrid seeds that are more productive an efficient users of the sun. People, think about the overall net effect of 'high' food prices on our economy. Wouldn't you rather spend 20 cents on a loaf of bread when the proceeds go to the domestic economy?

Stan: If you care about North America as a carbon sink, then you must realize that CO2 is a problem ... a real break-through.

@Bryan:

"... We are ALWAYS a net exporter of food.." -> so what? give more. do better.

"... when the proceeds go to the domestic economy..." -> I couldn't care a whit where the proceeds go. I am not American. I am more interested in increasing the net food basket for the world - not the miniscule savings on a G8 country grocery food bill.

I do not doubt your prices and ideas. But I believe the Bigger issue is increasing the world's food production (and improving diet) (mainly for the purposes of feeding people rather than substantially lowering their food costs (though both are likely inter-twined)) which includes research into more intensive productivity practices and using marginal/fallow land for production. Unfortunately, I am not 'up' on american food/farm subsidies so i am not sure what the economic implications are for that sector if they were to dramatically increase production. The other Bigger issue is to wean ourselves off oil and get ourselves 'through' (in as little time as possible) use of biofuels and by extension, any 'organic' fuel source.
Of course, there is always 'transitional' growing pains and other issues (fuel security and economic stability). But I am merely pointing towards a bigger picture in a near-future.

Let’s do a preliminary systems engineering analysis of Biofuel as a mobile fuel candidate and compare its pluses and minuses to see if it has a future as a transportation fuel. The criteria used here reflect characteristics of other storage technologies, but are not listed due to my on going education here at GCC. Your comments and criticisms will help me perfect my analysis.

Biofuel

Advantages

• It has no up front cost.
• This fuel is compatible with the existing fossil fuel infrastructure.
• It is carbon neutral. No impact on global warming.
• It is a highly condensed energy form which provides extended vehicle range comparable to fossil fuel.
• It does not degrade or degrade the vehicle over time.
• It is not subject to deterioration through use.
• It’s relatively affordable to the average user.

Disadvantage

• It is limited by the amount of biomass that can be diverted to Biofuel production and therefore cannot support future exponential transportation needs.
• Its production is relatively inefficient in terms of energy storage.
• Its production is subject to weather fluctuations and disease and is therefore unreliable.
• Its production degrades the land over time and may not be sustainable.

Conclusions

• Use Biofuel as a short term measure or a fossil fuel supplement to buy time until a more capable energy storage device is developed.
• Electricity is the long term solution to transportation fuel; however, the technology for an electric storage device comparable to fossil fuel is not yet perfected.

The US is a net CO2 sink.

Is this true? How come this flies in the face of everything I have ever been told, read, led to believe and therefore think?

If we let this algae energy caper go too far, we will soon have a shortage of CO2, waste water (including agricultural land runoff), and sunlight.

Is this true?

If it is, I want to know why we're not charging the rest of the planet to dispose of their emissions.

Algae can also be grown in closed bioreactors in desert areas:
http://www.variconaqua.com/bioreactors.htm
http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/chemtech/97/jul/ind.html
And there's not a shortage of desert.

Algae oil has a high energy density. However, algae cannot compete with the efficiency and area use of a wind turbine, wave generator, geothermal plant, solar thermal plant or photovoltaics.

Is Stan and Alice in Wonderland the same person?

Biofuels do not have to come from food. There seems to be an overwhelming misunderstanding that land cannot be used for both food and fuel production. The simple collection of corn cobs, for example, represents an enormous untapped resource for energy. Additionally, 50% of the stover can easily be collected and used for energy without any harmful effects to the soil. Cover crops can of course be planted immediately following the harvest to protect the soil and then be harvested for energy in the spring.

Biomass of all types is easily gasified into syngas which can then be synthesized into Fischer Tropsch liquids, methanol, ethanol, higher alcohols, DME or shifted into hydrogen (among other things).

@ibo

And there's not a shortage of desert.

Algae need water and by definition desert is a place without water.

However, algae cannot compete with the efficiency and area use of a wind turbine, wave generator, geothermal plant, solar thermal plant or photovoltaics.

Many people mix motor fuel with electric production: mixing apples and oranges in the context of this tread.

The best use for desert under current technology is solar thermal plants, but without a good electric storage device, solar thermal is not applicable to transportation.

@Paul

How do you answer the critics in that biomass is limited and unreliable?

Is Stan and Alice in Wonderland the same person?

For all intents and purposes Stan is not a person in search of truth, but is fixated in producing a rise in the general GCC contributor base through green baiting.

One hopeful sign is that Stan is signing his posts in recent days and this should be encouraged.

I suspect any unsigned post comes from Stan; including this one; but that is just me.

Stored electricity is a viable option for personal transport but is not one for industrial use, like agriculture or construction, aircraft use or long-distance cargo transport by truck and ship. (Linear rail transport can use un-stored mains electricity delivered by wires.) Stored electrical energy, per unit weight and volume, is miniscule compared to the energy in portable liquid fuels.

As the noted energy expert Vaclav Smil has emphasized, diesel is the most important portable liquid fuel used by humans. The world's cargo moves by diesel. Without diesel, world trade shuts down. So the most important use for biofuel will be to replace diesel, not gasoline.

The largest terrestrial carbon sink on the planet is boreal forest soils, mostly in Siberia and Canada. Not trees, but soils. Perennial grass biomass plants also sequester carbon long-term in the soil. Trees only sequester carbon as long as they're alive. When they die and rot, they release carbon.

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, trials with Miscanthus giganteus biomass crops show an annual 15 ton per acre biomass yield combined with a 4 ton per acre yearly carbon sequestration, all without any fertilizer application.

Perennial grasses are low fertility, low moisture demanding crops. Viable perennial grass biomass crops can be grown on land that won't support food crops. Perennial plants build soil and drastically reduce soil erosion. In addition, since these crops would be harvested after full senescence, when the plant has gone dormant, wildlife can make use of the vegetation prior to harvest.