-Adding to the knowledge about the sources of warming, the Economist (4-11-09, page 81, article entitled “biofools”) gave a news report on the recent International Council for Science meeting, and notes that N20, which is produced by nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria and indirectly increased by fertilizers, is said to be about 300 times more “warming” than an equivalent mass of CO2. The more biofuels, the more fertilizer we use; the more fertilizer we use, more warming produced by N2O. A scientific group, the International Nitrogen Initiative, is hot on the trail of further warming research on nitrogen, and this might affect the biofuels question. Since the BluFire group seeks to make biofuels from garbage, this seems far more effective than growing crops targeted for fuels.

-So…the question is not how much carbon dioxide we can take out of the air, but how much greenhouse gas we are putting into the air. Complexity is too complicated to be addressed by simplistic solutions (the kind that our simplistic lawyer-based political leaders usually settle for).

Economics is key in developing cost reductions in technology and government support. I don’t have anything against this company at all but the question remains about why we need to waste time and money in something that shows little progress in removing us from using fuels that directly power our vehicles?

As always stories like this excite the biofuels crowd and organic folks as the argument goes fuel is being made out of feedstock not agricultural crops. Again economics if it is cheaper to grow, harvest, and develop feedstock that does not come from recycling garbage or decaying plant material they will! Where does the DOE say that biofuel investments need only to be done by using certain non agricultural feedstocks? As Arnold Klann said they can handle any ethanol form, so economic motives may play a factor in what they use to create the fuel.

I refuse to go to a gas station near my house becasue they use ethanol products which reduces fuel efficiency in my car. One should wonder about all the inputs and energy used in this process and if actually it does decrease CO2 compared to petroleum.

This does not move us any closer to energy independence and puts car makers in a bind if we say all cars need to support E85 which takes away from moving towards developing electric vehicles. Ethanol is not a substitute for petroleum more like an additive. Production by no means can create a 100 percent solution that moves us away from petroleum. By the way, besides a hand full of home brewers of bio diesel and ethanol, the general public will still be complaining about fuel prices and how the big oil companies control the energy markets. We should be devoting our time and energy into electrical ways that one can power a car by means of things like solar or wind that does not depend on day-to-day changes in a fuel market, that is we need to start moving past these fuel for fuel scheme.