Part 2 - Biofuels: Really? Don’t Fuel Yourself

Part 2 - Biofuels:  Really?  Don’t Fuel Yourself

By Stuart McCafferty and Eamonn McCormick

This is Part 2 of a 2-part series on the oil and gas industry, their part in the current global climate crisis, and a conversation on biofuels and their efficacy within a sustainable energy economy.

Part 1 and all GridIntellect articles are available here.

Changing the Public’s Perception of the Oil and Gas Industry Without Changing Themselves

Figure 3:  Website Home Pages for ExxonMobil, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell November 30, 2020

Oil and gas companies are in “reputation-mending” mode.  If you navigate to Exxon, Shell, and BP’s home pages, all are filled with propaganda about their efforts to address emission reductions, clean energy, and net zero fuels.  They are doing their best to convince the world that they truly care about climate change, and that they are doing their part to save the earth and humanity from the impending doom that the use of their products largely created.  The cornerstone of much of the oil and gas industry’s carbon neutral fairy tale is around the development of biofuels.

Oil companies such as BP, Shell, and Exxon Mobil have been peppering the public with tv commercials, digital marketing, and “sciencey” collateral on all they are doing to help with climate change and environmentally-friendly oil and gas products.  Shell even went so far in 2019 as to state with great fanfare and derision towards the electric power industry that it would become the world’s largest electricity company – mostly by trading electricity generated by others.  Really?  Anyway, a big piece of this marketing effort to win the hearts and minds of the public is around the use of biofuels that are somehow much better than the stuff they drill for.  

Figure 4:  Reimagining Hydrocarbon Fuels – Make it Look Like Good Science and a Friend of the Environment

All of these oil and gas companies are desperately trying to make a pivot towards more environmentally conscious energy producing products.  But, they cannot get out of their own way.  They immediately gravitated to the idea of burning man-made hydrocarbon fuels to generate power and are actively spinning the story to try to generate better public opinion even though they really haven’t changed all that much.  Instead of drilling for hydrocarbon petroleum products, they are manufacturing them instead.  It's crazy! 

That said, there are some wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) R&D projects being funded, but that research is not nearly as visible and “public facing” as the tv commercials and digital advertising spotlighting laboratories, scientists, beakers, petri dishes, and measuring devices for their emerging biofuel businesses.  SCIENCE!  It’s the last desperate hail Mary pass that will end as a dropped pass 20 yards short of the end zone for the entire industry.  The oil and gas industry is dying.  And, good riddance to them.

Just Because Something is Better than Something Else Does Not Make It Good

Biofuels, sometimes referred to as biomass, are fuels created from plants through fermentation or transesterification (yes, that’s a real word).  By the way, transesterification of biodiesel is the process of using a strong acid or base catalyst on vegetable oils to form fatty acid esters and alcohol.  It’s a process that creates a diesel fuel source and a lipid byproduct that is water insoluble.  Does that sound environmentally friendly?

The supposed appeal of biofuels is the idea that the carbon dioxide that’s emitted when they are burned are equivalent (carbon neutral) to what they had absorbed from the atmosphere when the crops were growing.

If you’re like me and someone asked you, “Would you rather smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes a day or just a pack?”, you might ask, “Is there another choice?”.  Certainly, if those were the only two choices, you would likely select the 1 pack over 1 ½ packs.  But, the fact is that there are other choices.  You really don’t have to smoke any cigarettes because either way, both choices are bad for you!  Yet, that is where we are with biofuels.

No matter how you slice it, biofuels are still carbon-emitting fuel sources.  They are no different from fossil fuels except in how they are marketed as carbon neutral.  You could argue that fossil fuels were at one time carbon neutral as well, since they were organic materials (such as zooplankton and algae) that at some point in history were also absorbing carbon.  But diesel fuel created from plants burns just like diesel fuel removed from underground, albeit with slightly less carbon emissions in some cases.

Some benefits of biofuels include:

1. Biofuels can be made from animal fats, garbage, recycled restaurant grease, and other organic waste byproducts of other industries that need useful purposes to fulfill.
2. Biofuels typically produce less toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases than fossil fuels.
3. Biofuels can be produced domestically, in-country, and reduce the dependence on foreign country oil stock.
4. Biofuels are one-to-one replacements for fossil fuels in engines with little to no modification requirements.

Some of the key concerns of biofuels include:

1. Biofuels are not cheap.  In fact, much of the industry is propped up through government subsidies paid for by the taxpayer.  Biodiesel is as much as 1.5 times more expensive than petroleum diesel.  However, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) makes claims that ethanol is the lowest cost, highest octane automobile fuel available.  That claim has not been substantiated by other independent organizations.
2. Is this really the best use of the land or water?  Could it be used for feeding the hungry instead?  And, if planting crops for biofuel production is more profitable than feeding people and livestock, won’t that inevitably lead to inflated food and feed stock prices?  In other words, is it better for society as a whole to eat crops or burn it in our cars?  Perhaps most importantly, with the scarcity of water, does the value of biofuel crop production balance with the societal dependence on limited water supplies?
3. The increased use of fertilizers necessary to grow the crops for biofuels has other environmental issues that poison soil and waterways.  It can also result in soil erosion.
4. The process of creating biofuels is time consuming and requires machinery and applications that consume energy.  How much energy is actually used to create biofuels?  That information is either not being collected or not being reported, but some scientists argue that it takes several gallons of petroleum fuel to create one gallon of biofuel.  If that’s true, biofuels make absolutely no sense.
5. Variations in quality of biofuels is an issue.  The resulting fuel from the chemical processes used result in varying abilities to produce power.  In other words, all biofuels are not the same and can yield differing, unexpected results.
6. Engine durability is an issue with biofuels.  Most, if not all, engines were designed for specific fuel octane levels that are met by commercial petroleum fuel products.  Biofuels may burn at higher or lower temperatures than the engine was designed for and can reduce the life expectancy of the machinery.
7. Biofuels such as biodiesel are temperature dependent.  Biodiesel will actually become gelatinous in cold weather depending on the type of oil or fat that was used to make it.
8. Biodiesel has 10% higher Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emissions than petroleum diesel, which form smog and can cause acid rain.

Conclusion

For the time being, there is no doubt we need hydrocarbon fuels to meet the energy needs of society.  Our existing power and transportation infrastructure were built for fossil fuel usage, in part, due to the dominant fossil fuel industry’s “political machine” and influence.  It will take time to transition to a fully sustainable energy economy where renewables and other environmentally clean technologies dominate how we generate power and how people and goods move around.  In reality, there may always be a place for hydrocarbon fuels, but it will be less and less – and with that lack of need, the value of liquid fuels will continue to decline as well.

Part of that transitional need for hydrocarbon fuels could and should be met by so-called biofuels.  But, make no mistake, it is not for the benefit of the atmosphere.  Perhaps you can make the argument that turning organic waste into biofuel has a societal benefit due to reduction in land waste and for making use of garbage and other organic byproducts that are naturally generated by humans.  But, to spend a lot of time, money, and effort to deliberately plant crops to manufacture biofuels on land or water that could have be used for other beneficial societal purposes, burn them like you would fossil fuels, and spin it as environmentally friendly?  Really?

Biofuel is the “clean coal” of the petroleum industry.  It is a deliberate marketing strategy to veil the truth and extend the life of burning hydrocarbon fuels to energize the world.  It’s bad for the earth and it’s bad for all its living creatures.

Imagine where we might be today with renewables and battery technologies if the oil and gas industry in the 1980’s had said, “The burning of fossil fuels is making our planet sick and the fate of all mankind could be in jeopardy if we don’t do something about it.  Our industry will lead the way to clean technologies to transition us away from the use of carbon-emitting fuels for energy generation.”  Well, that obviously didn’t happen, but if it had, we might be 20-25 years ahead of where we are today and may have completely avoided the dire situation we are in.  And the oil and gas companies also would have remained respected, relevant, and profitable instead of destined to their self-imposed lack of trust and extinction. 

To the oil and gas industry – fool us once, shame on us. . .  We won’t be fooled again.

Sources

Exxon: The Road Not Taken, https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken, 2015

Shell:  The Greenhouse Effect, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4411090-Document3.html#document/p4/a415539, May 1988