A new study reaches the same conclusion that I have been harping about for some time:

The first comprehensive analysis of the full life cycles of soybean biodiesel and corn grain ethanol shows that biodiesel has much less of an impact on the environment and a much higher net energy benefit than corn ethanol, but that neither can do much to meet U.S. energy demand.

Ok, the first part was what I was referring to, not the latter part.

With regard to demand, it should be noted that biodiesel can be made from numerous sources including fish oils, nut oils, vegetable oils, as well as waste oil and grease from restaurants, oils from meat and tannery plants, etc. and not just from soybeans. In other words, biodiesel can be a form of recycling products that otherwise would be put into landfill or worse.

Also, demand is often confused by a false dichotomy. We do not have to switch completely to Ethanol or Biodiesel tomorrow. In fact, mixing biodiesel using “splash blend” (e.g. just pouring a few gallons into your tank of petro-diesel) reduces the immediate need for high amounts while still allowing a significant benefit in terms of lubricity (eliminating the need for other more harmful additives like sulfur) as well as safer emissions. You will notice an immediate difference when you put only a few gallons of biodiesel into your tank as the engine gets quieter and the exhaust becomes sweeter smelling and smoke-less.

The fact is a gradual transition from 100% petroleum diesel to 90/10 or 80/20 is perfectly acceptable to the engines available today and yet still hugely beneficial to the environment. Production would thus only need to ramp up gradually rather than be a complete switch-over. Besides, we all know that bio-diesel technology for production and refinement is in the very baby stages of advancement. Remember portable computers of the 1980s? That’s what biodiesel production technology is like today. Ten years from now we should see amazing things by comparison, IF the government is clever enough to allow, or even help, the market to develop.

Back to the news, here is an even more important finding:

The study showed that both corn grain ethanol and soybean biodiesel produce more energy than is needed to grow the crops and convert them into biofuels. This finding refutes other studies claiming that these biofuels require more energy to produce than they provide. The amount of energy each returns differs greatly, however. Soybean biodiesel returns 93 percent more energy than is used to produce it, while corn grain ethanol currently provides only 25 percent more energy.

Still, the researchers caution that neither biofuel can come close to meeting the growing demand for alternatives to petroleum. Dedicating all current U.S. corn and soybean production to biofuels would meet only 12 percent of gasoline demand and 6 percent of diesel demand. Meanwhile, global population growth and increasingly affluent societies will increase demand for corn and soybeans for food.

The authors showed that the environmental impacts of the two biofuels also differ. Soybean biodiesel produces 41 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than diesel fuel whereas corn grain ethanol produces 12 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline. Soybeans have another environmental advantage over corn because they require much less nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides, which get into groundwater, streams, rivers and oceans. These agricultural chemicals pollute drinking water, and nitrogen decreases biodiversity in global ecosystems. Nitrogen fertilizer, mainly from corn, causes the ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico.

41%! That’s huge. The environmental and fuel experts may soon conclude that Ethanol, although a good additive to help reduce dependence on foreign oil in the interim years, is definitely not the right solution long term. However, that being said, many people complained that Microsoft produced poor quality products in the 1980s that were insecure and harmed consumers and yet one of its predecessors (UNIX) has only just finally started to be recognized more widely as a superior architecture. Within the next few years, virtually all computerized personal devices, let alone personal computers, will have some form of UNIX or UNIX-like operating sytem on them.

As a funny aside, I recently heard a story about an older gentleman in a beginning UNIX class who said “hey, these commands are all just like DOS” to which the instructor laughed and said “no, other way around. It’s the other way around”. And so, perhaps someday after billions of consumer money has been unwittingly invested into Ethanol in order to try and get its emissions down and energy up someone might say, “hey, this Biodiesel stuff is just like Ethanol”…