Ozearth Blog

“Ethanol is a net energy loser” – Michael Ruppert, among many others

[Using ethanol], “you can generate wealth and drive your vehicle while potentially reversing climate change” Tim Auld, paraphrasing David Blume, American ecologist and permaculturist who has specialised in biofuels, ethanol in particular, for some 30 years (read more about his latest book here).

Who is right?  How can such respected sources say such different things?

There seems little doubt that the way biofuels are being done right now by big business is disastrous on a number of levels.  Produced monoculturally, using soil-destructive tilling, on a large scale, with fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilisers, biofuels are, indeed, a net energy loser. They’re also:

• polluting: Paul Crutzen points out that analyses of the impact of biofuels neglect to take into account the nitrous oxide outgassing of nitrogenous fertiliser, and as such, a field of biodiesel rape seed produces up to 1.7 times as much greenhouse gas as plain old diesel.  If you leave land entirely uncultivated, you will save, over 30 years, between twice and nine times the emissions you would save with biofuel growing.

• inequitable: proponents of biofuels say that it isn’t necessary to use food crops as biofuel stocks.  Unfortunately, because of the way the market works, that’s what does, in the real world, end up happening. In this article, George Monbiot says “the superior purchasing power of drivers in the rich world means that they will snatch food from people’s mouths. Run your car on virgin biofuel and other people will starve.”

• dishonest: this is a great example of the co-opting of the word “green” by the world of consumer marketing.  The naive consumer wants to be “green”, and so will happily buy purportedly “green” biofuels, thinking they’re doing the right thing, and blithely believing that the advent of biofuels makes a business-as-usual approach to our energy future realistic.  The naive consumer is wrong on both counts.

Easy to conclude, therefore, that biofuels are bad.  But is that the whole story?

If your feedstock is (for example) non-indigenous weeds that would otherwise be blocking waterways; if you aren’t tilling or using fossil nitrogenous fertiliser or pesticides; if you’re creating ethanol using a small-scale, low-tech, renewables-powered still; if you’re using the resulting mash byproduct for fodder or fertiliser – is ethanol still a “bad” fuel – particularly considering that the end product itself is very cool and clean-burning?

Because let’s face it: energy slaves are important. Even the most energy-conscious of us will admit that energy slaves (that is to say, power sources to save us labour) still have a major role to play in evolving to self-reliance and resilience.  Let’s take a cornerstone of Permaculture as a quick example: anyone care to dig 400 metres of swale by hand?  How about a small dam? And what about the trees that might need cleared to make way for these works?

Here’s another consideration: without some kind of energy slaves, meeting the food needs of the world is pretty near impossible.

So who is right?  Those who condemn ethanol or those who see it as a possible resource?

We think they both are.  Ethanol production for fuel (indeed, technology in general) is neither good nor evil.  It’s all about how you implement and use the technology.  The issue  is that ethanol feedstocks are being raised unsustainably; that food plants are being used for biofuels because that’s what the market demands; and that biofuels are being touted as the answer to the energy crisis, a way to maintain “business as usual” – and we’re pretty sure that there is no genuinely renewable, resilient, non-damaging fuel source which can provide that solution.

Here’s another question – who in the world actually wants business as usual?

Business as usual means: more than a billion hungry people.

Business as usual means: about 1 in 8 people without access to clean water.

Business as usual means: 38% of the world’s land mass desertified or in danger of desertification.

Business as usual means: extinction rates estimated at 27,000 per year, which is 270 times the typical background extinction rate.

Business as usual boils down to exploiting fellow humans, mining the Earth’s resources to depletion, and hoping against all rationality that endless growth is possible.  The status quo is cruel, wasteful and really, really stupid.

By all means, let’s harness technology.  But let’s do it appropriately.  For us, the litmus tests of appropriateness are Earth care, people care, fair share and resilience/balance. It’s a long road, and the answers aren’t black and white; we at OzEarth are still using a lot of inappropriate technologies, and will continue to do so for some time.  But in the battle against analysis paralysis, the litmus tests above are a great help.