Yesterday's Wall Street Journal reported (link for subscribers) on how the boom in biodiesel and other renewable fuel sources is having unintended environmental consequences around the world. On the island of Borneo, for example, Indonesians are setting forest fires to clear land for palm oil plantations (palm oil can be used to make biodiesel). The result is a "thick haze" that envelopes neighboring communities, contributing to some of the same environmental problems biodiesel is supposed to solve.
The bluish smoke is at times so dense that it leaves the city dark and gloomy even at midday. The haze has sometimes closed Pontianak's airport and prompted local volunteers to distribute face-masks on city streets. From July through mid-October, Indonesian health officials reported 28,762 smog-related cases of respiratory illness across the country.Other nations are clearing forests to make way for energy-producing crops as well, with consequent impacts on water and wildlife.
The biodiesel boom is part of a larger rush of investment into "alternative" energy sources. Many investors believe that the push for stringent measures to address air quality and climate change will signficiantly expand the market for alternative fuels and investing accordingly. Yet these investments are largely driven by expectations of what new environmental policies will require, rather than which energy sources represent a genuine environmental improvement. All energy sources have potentially negative environmental impacts, and not every "alternative" to carbon-based fuels represents an environmental improvement.
A study in Hawaii, reported in the Nov. 24 Pacific Business News, suggested palm oil to biodiesel for 50K acres of eucalyptus forest that is being logged off. The eucalyptus replaced native forest long ago.
However, Stephanie Whalen, head of the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center, is quoted as saying any crop grown for biodiesel needs to yield more than just biodiesel. "A farmer needs to make money and energy crops alone aren't a high-value crop,' she told PBN.
Your posts have a disturbing trend in that you cite only to negative aspects of alternative fuels without ever really discussing possible benefits, or solutions to the problem stated. You're completely free to do so, however it smells of bias. Also, biodiesel and ethanol and just about any fuel other than hydrogen fuel cells are "carbon-based" fuels.
I wish you had to live in the LA of about 20 or 25 years ago and breath NOTHING other than that stink laden smog for the rest of your (now shorter) life.
Most tropical people had diets deficient in fats, and palm oil has improved the health of millions and millions.
At a cost of mowing down more or less intact forests that become more valuable as they become scarcer. That said, the fact that palm oil has been raised as a food crop does not, in itself, negate a statement that additional acreage is being planted because of demand for fuel. Palm oil for food has been in oversupply for decades, so if total acreage is expanding, it might well be because of demand for diesel. (I don't say it is; I don't know, but it could be.)