Europe burns 19 million bottles of sunflower and rapeseed oil every day in cars www.greencarcongress.com/2022/06/20220623-te.html
A new analysis by European environmental NGO Transport & Environment finds that Europe burns more than 17,000 tonnes of rapeseed [canola] and sunflower oil every day—the equivalent of 19 million 1-liter bottles. This has contributed to spiralling food price rises as well as empty supermarket shelves in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the organization says. T&E has called on governments to prioritize food over fuel and end the use of crop biofuels now…
Recently, Indonesia temporarily banned exports of palm oil to stabilize local prices. At the same time Europe diverts significant amounts of palm oil (50% of the palm consumed in Europe) and soy oil (32%) to powering its cars and trucks…
The G7 leaders will be meeting in Germany from 26 to 28 June to, among others things, discuss global food security. This will likely pit several European countries in favour of some sort of restrictions on crop biofuels against the US which is pushing hard to increase biofuels production.
The Europeans have been using biodiesel for a number of years as the rental car we had in Spain 15 years ago could use either types of diesel fuel.
50 years ago my alma mater, the University of Rhode Island, used biofuel in its heating system because it reprocessed the cooking oil from the dining halls to blend into the regular heating oil.
The country of Brazil uses fuel derived from sugar cane instead of corn to make ethanol for its cars and trucks.
But unfortunately there are people who still believe the we will have petroleum “to infinity and beyond”.
Some point out the volume of petroleum used is huge compared to fats and vegetable oils. Using waste oils as fuels is better than disposal. But ability to replace petroleum is doubtful.
Much of this growth in area and production is a result of expanding ethanol production, which now accounts for nearly 40 percent of total corn use. While the number of feed grain farms (those that produce corn, sorghum, barley, and/or oats) in the United States has declined in recent years, the acreage per corn farm has risen.
If you have ever traveled through the corn growing states of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and eastern Nebraska, the amount of farmland growing corn is extensive. Most of the rest goes to growing soybeans, which is mainly used in livestock feed.
Forty percent of the corn grown in the US goes to making ethanol.
Back in March, when the media first started nattering about food grain shortages due to the disruption of exports from Ukraine and Russia, I fired off an e-mail to one of my Senators suggesting the fuel ethanol mandate be suspended, so more land could be used to grow grain for food.
Instead, the POTUS shifted policy to increase the use of fuel ethanol. The reply I eventually received from the Senator had absolutely nothing to do with my proposal.
If you have ever traveled through the corn growing states of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and eastern Nebraska, the amount of farmland growing corn is extensive.
I went through the airport in Sioux City, Iowa, some 50 years ago. They had corn growing between the taxiways.
A much-hyped but yet-to-be-completed aviation biofuels refinery in southern Oregon appears to be headed for foreclosure after backers failed to make principal and interest payments on some $300 million in debt.
Red Rock Biofuels launched efforts nearly a decade ago to build the cutting-edge facility in Lakeview but repeatedly ran into obstacles, even as project skeptics questioned its feasibility…
It’s not clear if a buyer would seek to complete the facility, repurpose it or deconstruct the equipment and use it elsewhere.
Plaintiffs say BECCS technology relies on flawed accounting assumptions because it sees the carbon captured from wood burning as negative emissions when the process is at best neutral from a climate perspective.
“The company says that we use mostly waste like branches, treetops and debris to make pellets,” the whistleblower told Mongabay a year ago. “What a joke. We use 100% whole trees in our pellets. We hardly use any waste. Pellet density is critical. You get that from whole trees, not junk.”
But junk wood is cheap, while whole trees are not, and therein lies a part of Enviva’s operational problems…
“Enviva built a business model saying it uses mostly scrap and waste from lumber mills and cut sites to make its pellets,” he said. “If that were true, its feedstock would basically be free. But it has to buy trees, a lot of trees, and it’s competing for them with other companies that want that wood. Loggers sell to the highest bidder, right, and that drives up the price. It’s something Enviva can’t control.”
