Would burning biofuels affect global warming?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Sep 12 2007, 04:28 PM) [snapback]511562[/snapback]</div>

There are a couple of gaping holes in your theory.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Sep 12 2007, 04:28 PM) [snapback]511562[/snapback]</div>

There are a couple of gaping holes in your theory.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Sep 12 2007, 04:28 PM) [snapback]511562[/snapback]</div>

No, not so simple. If you are not a scientist, you should be careful about stating such things - the statements are foolish. The vast majority of carbon is and has always been stored in rocks. Where do you think the CO2 originates from when volcanoes erupt ? - not from dinosaur poo, and not from the atmosphere, but from inorganic-never-living rocks that formed when earth cooled after being formed billions of years ago. Fortunately for the stability of the planet, life has evolved fast enough (it took at least a billion years) to the point that it can take the Carbon that weathers from rocks and erupts from volcanoes and put it back into the ground - some of it as back as minerals and some of it as carbon rich deposits (fossil fuels) that will enventually form into inusable minerals . Otherwise, the earth would just had more and more CO2 in the atmosphere and we become more like Venus because only very, very slowly, (on average, much slower than carbon is released by volcanoes) can carbon recrystallize into sediments without life. Fortunately, life forms entered into the picture to help greatly decrease CO2 amounts and stabilize them, though it took a couple billion years. Have you noticed that generally planets and moons with a lot of volcanic activity have atmospheres that are rich in methane and/or carbon dioxide?? It is because those places are releasing a lot of carbon into their atmospheres without any life to compensate. There are problems with humans releasing a lot more carbon into the atmosphere in a short time frame, we are undoing all of the work that previous life was able to do to decrease and keep CO2 levels at livable amounts, and so in essence we are releasing a lot of the 'volcanic' carbon back into the air into the active carbon cycle. But never has all of that carbon that accumulated into fossil fuels plus our present day active carbon been active at the same time. It was all released over long periods of time by volcanoes.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Sep 12 2007, 04:28 PM) [snapback]511562[/snapback]</div>

No, not so simple. If you are not a scientist, you should be careful about stating such things - the statements are foolish. The vast majority of carbon is and has always been stored in rocks. Where do you think the CO2 originates from when volcanoes erupt ? - not from dinosaur poo, and not from the atmosphere, but from inorganic-never-living rocks that formed when earth cooled after being formed billions of years ago. Fortunately for the stability of the planet, life has evolved fast enough (it took at least a billion years) to the point that it can take the Carbon that weathers from rocks and erupts from volcanoes and put it back into the ground - some of it as back as minerals and some of it as carbon rich deposits (fossil fuels) that will enventually form into inusable minerals . Otherwise, the earth would just had more and more CO2 in the atmosphere and we become more like Venus because only very, very slowly, (on average, much slower than carbon is released by volcanoes) can carbon recrystallize into sediments without life. Fortunately, life forms entered into the picture to help greatly decrease CO2 amounts and stabilize them, though it took a couple billion years. Have you noticed that generally planets and moons with a lot of volcanic activity have atmospheres that are rich in methane and/or carbon dioxide?? It is because those places are releasing a lot of carbon into their atmospheres without any life to compensate. There are problems with humans releasing a lot more carbon into the atmosphere in a short time frame, we are undoing all of the work that previous life was able to do to decrease and keep CO2 levels at livable amounts, and so in essence we are releasing a lot of the 'volcanic' carbon back into the air into the active carbon cycle. But never has all of that carbon that accumulated into fossil fuels plus our present day active carbon been active at the same time. It was all released over long periods of time by volcanoes.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Sep 12 2007, 04:28 PM) [snapback]511562[/snapback]</div>

That is what we want to believe, but generally not true. By burning the biomass that has carbon that was recently fixed, we are keeping carbon in the active pools, where otherwise a smaller percentage of that carbon would be permanently attached to minerals or buried into the sediment where it would leave the active carbon cycle. Over the short term (100s of years), if we got all of our energy that way, the increase in CO2 wouldn't be life threatening, but over time, the carbon in the atmosphere would still accumulate. However, obviously, not all plants act the same way, and there are some plants that put a lot of carbon into the sediment through their root system (greater than the average plant and hugely greater than freak'n corn), and by cultivating those plants, we would be increasing the amount of plant life that buries a relatively large amount of carbon and in theory we could get our energy from the tops of those plants indefinately without increasing CO2 levels. Unfortunately, cultivating plants for biofuels would have a lot of other problems (the blah, blah blah you mentioned and so much more).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Sep 12 2007, 04:28 PM) [snapback]511562[/snapback]</div>

That is what we want to believe, but generally not true. By burning the biomass that has carbon that was recently fixed, we are keeping carbon in the active pools, where otherwise a smaller percentage of that carbon would be permanently attached to minerals or buried into the sediment where it would leave the active carbon cycle. Over the short term (100s of years), if we got all of our energy that way, the increase in CO2 wouldn't be life threatening, but over time, the carbon in the atmosphere would still accumulate. However, obviously, not all plants act the same way, and there are some plants that put a lot of carbon into the sediment through their root system (greater than the average plant and hugely greater than freak'n corn), and by cultivating those plants, we would be increasing the amount of plant life that buries a relatively large amount of carbon and in theory we could get our energy from the tops of those plants indefinately without increasing CO2 levels. Unfortunately, cultivating plants for biofuels would have a lot of other problems (the blah, blah blah you mentioned and so much more).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Danny Hamilton @ Sep 12 2007, 11:48 PM) [snapback]511572[/snapback]</div>

I am intrigued. Can you name a few?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Danny Hamilton @ Sep 12 2007, 11:48 PM) [snapback]511572[/snapback]</div>

I am intrigued. Can you name a few?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Thomas Eyde @ Sep 12 2007, 05:22 PM) [snapback]511584[/snapback]</div>

Yes he should have put up a couple of points, but MarkMN just drove a couple of scientific hummers through those holes...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Thomas Eyde @ Sep 12 2007, 05:22 PM) [snapback]511584[/snapback]</div>

Yes he should have put up a couple of points, but MarkMN just drove a couple of scientific hummers through those holes...

 

Pyrolysis of biomass is supposedly carbon neutral as one of it's by-products in charcoal. That can be put back into the soil or we could just bury it. Of course, then we'd have to refine the bio oil into other substances and that would likely have a carbon positive foot print, but overall the processes could still be negative. The problem with pyrolysis and Fischer-Tropsche facilities is that they have a high capitalization. In the long run, though, seems a good way to go. We're gonna need petrochemicals and plastics and you can't get those from ethanol or butanol as easily as you can from oil.

 

Pyrolysis of biomass is supposedly carbon neutral as one of it's by-products in charcoal. That can be put back into the soil or we could just bury it. Of course, then we'd have to refine the bio oil into other substances and that would likely have a carbon positive foot print, but overall the processes could still be negative. The problem with pyrolysis and Fischer-Tropsche facilities is that they have a high capitalization. In the long run, though, seems a good way to go. We're gonna need petrochemicals and plastics and you can't get those from ethanol or butanol as easily as you can from oil.

 

Yeah, one problem with bio based fuels is that it will never be as plentiful (anywhere remotely close) or cheap as fossil fuels. In my opinion, renewable electricity from wind and solar is our only long term feasible solution to solving global warming and dwindling fossil fuel supplies. There is a lot of technology in both areas that is making them cheaper and more efficient, but there is also enough present day technology available that we shouldn't even be considering new coal or natural gas power plants (if anything, we should be looking at retiring some of the dinosaur coal plants that are usually the most polluting and inefficient). And between the two, it appears to me that wind power is the most promising at delivering the most power with the least physical footprint (though, solar is nice in that it can easily be added to roofs without taking up additional land). Hydrogen technologies are thermodynamically limited to energy storage (which I think could be important at addressing the need to provide 'base' power supplies and/or transporting energy from wind-wealthy regions to wind-poor regions such as from North Dakota to Alabama). So development of electric cars is important (hydrogen cars seem to have way too many problems that need solved and even then could never be as cheap as electrical cars). Okay, so that was a bit tangential, but why are biofuels our savior from oil when they could never provide a tenth of the energy that oil currently provides us and still emit large amounts of pollution from thier combustion when we are much closer and more capable at replacing gas based cars with clean electrical cars (given the energy is from renewable sources)???

 

Yeah, one problem with bio based fuels is that it will never be as plentiful (anywhere remotely close) or cheap as fossil fuels. In my opinion, renewable electricity from wind and solar is our only long term feasible solution to solving global warming and dwindling fossil fuel supplies. There is a lot of technology in both areas that is making them cheaper and more efficient, but there is also enough present day technology available that we shouldn't even be considering new coal or natural gas power plants (if anything, we should be looking at retiring some of the dinosaur coal plants that are usually the most polluting and inefficient). And between the two, it appears to me that wind power is the most promising at delivering the most power with the least physical footprint (though, solar is nice in that it can easily be added to roofs without taking up additional land). Hydrogen technologies are thermodynamically limited to energy storage (which I think could be important at addressing the need to provide 'base' power supplies and/or transporting energy from wind-wealthy regions to wind-poor regions such as from North Dakota to Alabama). So development of electric cars is important (hydrogen cars seem to have way too many problems that need solved and even then could never be as cheap as electrical cars). Okay, so that was a bit tangential, but why are biofuels our savior from oil when they could never provide a tenth of the energy that oil currently provides us and still emit large amounts of pollution from thier combustion when we are much closer and more capable at replacing gas based cars with clean electrical cars (given the energy is from renewable sources)???

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Sep 12 2007, 05:28 PM) [snapback]511562[/snapback]</div>

I want the "fittest" to be the smart humans that avoid self destruction. We all get to make this darwinian choice. So it is.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Sep 12 2007, 05:28 PM) [snapback]511562[/snapback]</div>

I want the "fittest" to be the smart humans that avoid self destruction. We all get to make this darwinian choice. So it is.