Thoughts and Ideas
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To be clear, we support biofuels. Otherwise we wouldn't be planning an entire trip and lifestyle involving their use. However, they represent a very complex issue with many diverse dimensions. So here we will provide a brief, and very incomplete, perspective into some of the larger aspects facing biofuels, particularily as they pertain directly to our trip. In brief, we support biofuels because we believe that the benefits, even at the current time, outweigh the downsides. Pros: Why is this stuff good? (an inexhaustive discussion)• Waste vegetable oil (WVO) is oil that would have been produced regardless of our fuel needs. That is, fueling a system with WVO does not produce any extra “fuel” than would have been produced anyway. It turns already produced cooking oil into a viable transportation liquid. It is recycling in its natural habitat.• Vegetable oil fuels do not significantly contribute carbon to the atmosphere. A quick science lesson: petroleum oil, like all fossil fuels, is composed primarily of carbon. Fossil fuels form naturally, and are then stored, deep underneath the Earth’s surface. Without human intervention, they (and the carbon they are made of) would remain below the surface and not enter the atmosphere. Upon extraction, however, they are burned and all of their previously isolated carbon is released into the air. Vegetable oil, by contrast, comes from plants that are already a part of the above-surface system. Thus, while burning vegetable oil does inevitably emit carbon, it does not release any additional carbon than would have been released over the natural lifecycle of its source plant (i.e.- in the decomposition process). This fuel thus (regrettably) garners the current über-trendy term of “carbon-neutral.” Cons: Why it's not perfect (an inexhaustive discussion)• Vegetable oil, and particularly WVO, is not a necessarily viable long-term, large-scale fuel.- Production of pure unused vegetable oil for fuel would on a large scale entail many of the debated issues as ethanol (see About). Mainly, on a very macrocosmic scale, humanity is limited in the amount of land viable for agricultural purposes, and nearly all of this land is already in use (again, on a macrocosmic level). We cannot simply increase production of biofuel crops by devoting entire new areas of land to biofuel monoculture, because this land does not exist, at least to an extent that could support an entirely biofuel-driven globe. There is simply not the space to produce a global biofuel system within the bounds of the word's current viable agriculture land. - To resolve the issue of lack of space, people may convert land previously used for other agricultural purposes (namely food) to fuel growing purposes. Unfortunately, if this were to occur (and perhaps to the extent that it already does), the conversion of crops that were once used as a food source into a fuel source would place a burden on the food production system. In such a scenario, crops that would remain for normal consumption (i.e.- were not used for fuel) would then be less in number and therefore more in demand. The larger demand for a smaller amount of food crop would subsequently push up the price of the crop, to a level that it would not have otherwise reached. The above issues do not mean that we could not develop a practical, and truly sustainable, biofuel system with time, but simply that the future of biofuels must keep many complex issues in mind. - WVO could by no means, at all, replace petroleum oil as the primary transportation fuel in the world (or even country). There is simply not enough made and used by restaurants to power all of our oil needs. Therefore, it is viable and free at the current time due to its small scale use, but can only sustain a limited number of consumers. We therefore see WVO more as a stepping stone towards entirely sustainable fuels, rather than as a solution. *This page is still being edited. Information presented as fact is correct to the best of our knowledge; if you find errors or discrepancies, please let us know. References will be added eventually. |
