Unfortunately bio-fuels is not a solution to anything sustainable. The emission reductions will be marginal compared to high quality fossil fuels at most 10% and could be worse in another test cycle. There can be large green house gas reductions like the mentioned 80%. However, we need 100% and we need not to use the entire land surface of the planet to farm bio fuels and food. Just a few thousands years ago (a fraction of time in the history of our 4,500,000,000 years old planet) nearly 100% of our planet's land surface was covered in forest. Now humans have destroyed most of that forest and its habitants and instead created agricultural fields, deserts, roads and cities. We need a combination of renewable energy (like wind towers in the middle of large forests), BEVs, industrial bio-reactors and multi-floor green houses for food production, aviation and commercial shipping running on liquid hydrogen in order to bring these enormous forests back. Humans should limit itself to less than 1% of the surface of the planet and leave the rest for others. We can do that and it could be a beautiful planet to pass on to the next generation of humans and other life.

"Just a few thousands years ago (a fraction of time in the history of our 4,500,000,000 years old planet) nearly 100% of our planet's land surface was covered in forest."

Actually, no. Mankind has enlarged *some* deserts but deserts have been feature of earth from the beginning. In fact any planet with Hadley cell atmospheric circulation zones is going to have deserts.

Seen from space, the majority of the Earth’s surface is covered by oceans – that makes up 71% of the surface of the Earth, with the remaining 29% for land. But what percentage of the Earth’s land surface is desert? Deserts actually make up 33%, or 1/3rd of the land’s surface area.
That might sound like a surprisingly large amount, but that’s based on the official definition of a desert. Desert are any region on Earth that can have a moisture deficit over the course of a year. In other words, they can have less rainfall in a year than they give up through evaporation.

You would think that deserts are hot, but there are cold deserts too. In fact, the largest cold desert in the world is the continent of Antarctica. There are barren rock fields in Antarctica that never receive snow, even though they’re incredibly cold. The largest hot desert is the Sahara, in northern Africa, covering 9 million square kilometers.

The Sahara (not the Sahara desert because "Sahara" means "desert"), the world’s largest hot desert and one of the harshest environments on the planet, is actually the third largest desert overall after Antarctica and the Arctic, which are cold deserts.

Grasslands for most of the history of man have averaged another 20% but ever since we've discovered agriculture they have been growing.

The problem is not with low bio-fuel production but with liquid fuel over usage. It is time to phase out our inefficient (20% or so) gasser and replace them with BEVs and FCEVs.

The 20% fertile land mass and available fresh water will be required to feed (soon to be) 10+ billion people, not our 1+ billion (soon to be 2+ B) ICEVs.

Point well taken. It is not nearly 100%. I know most of Europe and USA was forest before the agricultural revolution. Sahara is not entirely man made buy it is "only 2.5 million years old" and has at times been much smaller and fertile as recently as 5000 years ago. My point is that humans are using most of the fertile parts of the planet today and we should really not do that as we are not the only inhabitants here. We are the strongest and most survivable of the known species but IMO it cannot justify us taking nearly all of this planet's inhabitable areas. We could leave 99% for other species with the right technology and with some sort of birth control. We are just one out of hundreds of thousands of other species so 1% should be enough for us.

You can also put it this way. If another far more intelligent species than homo sapiens appeared (say sentient AIs, or a lab made gen2 homo sapiens) we would like that they left some space for us to live on instead of eliminating us just because they could and because we would have had no defences against their superior war technology. Even if we got a visit from a superior species not interested in our planet. If they saw what we do to this planet and the other species here they might simple decide to end us because they thought we deserved it and was an abomination on the evolutionary path. I think we can and should do a lot better than we actually do. That kind of humanity might even save us one day. Don't worry I eat all kinds of meat and feel good about it but there should be limits as to how much we rule this planet.

Henrik,

1% is an arbitrary number. If we are one of hundreds of thousands (actually more like millions)then why are we "justified" in taking 1% and not 1/100,000%? How do you determine humanity's portion fairly?

You don't need a label or a hard set border, you need forward thinking. Humans definitely rely on animals and nature (more than we give credit usually). We need to maintain a balanced sustainable planet which has enough preserved land to provide the maximum quality of life for however many humans and other animals live on the planet. We might be able to sustain 7 billion people and a sufficient ecosystem, but maybe we can't. Time and Technology will tell. We just need to keep reducing impacts while improving efficiency.

Tscook10
True it is arbitrary. Could be 5% or maybe 0.5%. I clearly imagine those suggested 1% will be spread on millions of places all over the planet not just one mega city, industrial complex. I don't think we need animals or nature as we know it in order to survive in the future. We can make all the nutrition we need in bio-reactors and green houses.

My reason for wanting to limit mankind to only a fraction of the planet is that I believe it is the decent thing to do versus all the other comparatively defenceless species. For instance, imagine that another and far more intelligent species than us appears one day, say, aliens from space, genetic modifications of homo sapiens or sentient AI robots. Now, we would like that they left us some space to live on instead of taking it all just because they could and we would be comparatively defenceless. I think we can and should do much better than we actually do. That kind of humanity might even save us one day because others that can end us consequently will find us worthy and let us live on. Don't worry I eat all kinds of meat and feel good about it but there should be limits as to how much of this planet that we rule and how we rule it.

test

Reform bio methanol on the car for 40% efficiency.

Yesterday I tried posting repeatedly mostly in wain. Today most of it came trough with duplicated writings. Sorry for the mess.

Sure I did that without my spell checker and then it is always full of errors. I work a lot sometimes I do things too fast. Also I wrote 600 feet wind towers above. It is actually 450 feet or 150 meters.

I meant pollution not solution.