Energy | Nature

Germany cancels plans to add ethanol to petrol

Posted : Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:21:03 GMT
By : DPA
Category : Energy (Environment)
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Berlin - Amid growing fears that biofuel farming is harming the environment and driving up world food prices, Germany cancelled on Friday plans to mix more ethanol made from plants with petrol. Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the decision was taken because 10 per cent ethanol in petrol would rot the hoses and gaskets of millions of auto engines. But he said an order for diesel fuel to contain 7 per cent ethanol remained in place.

Gabriel rejected accusations of blundering and cast blame on car manufacturers for not telling him in time that 3 million engines were vulnerable if the current ethanol supplements were increased.

He said he refused to force millions of German motorists to buy a more expensive, ethanol-free grade of petrol.

At a news conference, he acknowledged the wider criticism of ethanol, saying, "It's now being asked if producing ethanol actually causes more damage to the climate than the fuel it is meant to replace."

The change of mind over petrol means Germany must reduce its overall 2009 target for biofuel addition to motor spirits from 6.25 per cent to 5 per cent, as measured by by energy yield, Gabriel said.

But he insisted a European Union target of 10 per cent overall by 2020 remained achievable. The conversion to ethanol had been hailed as an indirect way of reducing Europe's carbon-dioxide emissions.

There has been a storm of criticism of Gabriel, a Social Democrat, since he foreshadowed the climbdown on Wednesday. Opponents said he ought to have known much sooner about the ethanol problems.

Biofuel plans are under attack round the world because of forest clearances and because of the recent run-up in world grain prices. India banned rice exports Monday in response to the shortage.

Economists say the diversion of land to fuel growing is reducing the world's potential to grow food at a time when grain demand in Asia is soaring.

Copyright DPA

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Brazilian gaskets and hoses better than German?
By: Bill Dennison , Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:59:38 GMT

Seems the Brazilians don't have that problem. Neither do the Americans or the Swedes. They all run E100 (100% ethanol)and E85 (85% ethanol blended with 15% petrol). Maybe the Germans should consider buying their gaskets and hoses from the Brazilians, the Americans or the Swedes.

The Germans are pioneers in the field of biodiesel by the way. Their plant of preference is Raps (rape or rapeseed plant in English, commonly called canola -- Brassica napus L. and Brassica rapa L. = Brassica campestris L.)

Raps is a food plant. I wonder why Herr Gabriel is not concerned about growing Raps for biodiesel conversion in Germany and how that negatively affects Germany's domestic food production. On the other hand non-edible biomass for cellulosic ethanol conversion can be grown on marginal land that will not support food crops.


Global Warming?
By: Ken Hall , Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:34:39 GMT

World grain, corn and rice prices at an all time high, mass starvation imminent, huge areas of ancient natural forests erradicated forever, with the Urangutang on the verge of extinction, all to make room for fuel crops. bio-fuel has been found to be more harmful to the environment and have a greater carbon footprint than regular fuel.

This shows what happens when there is a knee-jerk reaction to dogmatic misunderstanding of complex systems. We run the risk of wrecking the global economy, implementing damaging environmental policies that would cause greater environmental harm and starving the third world in order to avert "global warming" at a time when temperatures ARE currently dropping precipitously.

How dare the global warming alarmists tell us that there is consensus on global warming when they do not even know how clouds at different levels of altitude, and how rainfall is created and how it effects global climate? They don't know how the sun effects the climate, they don't know a heck of a lot about how the climate works and many of these important sub climate systems are performing incorrectly in their computer models or they are omitted entirely.

Yet Al Gore "claims" that there is NO DOUBT????

Nonesense. the fact is, their models are WRONG.

The only place where evidence can be found for CO2 driving global warming to some mystical tipping point is in their computer models, (and that is only in a tiny minority of models too). NONE of which predicted the near decade of temperature stasis followed by a dramatic fall in temperatures that has, in reality, happened to the only real model of the climate we have.

The theoretical models have many minor flaws and one major fundamental flaw in them. The tropospheric heat island that the theories predict should be growing (and creating a positive feedback loop) is actually rather conspicuous by its absence in the real world. It is NOT there. Without this heat island, all the other mechanisms of man-made global warming cannot occur. The NASA Aqua satellite data shows clearly that the climate regulates itself. That is why the earth has not fried to a crisp at times in the distant past when CO2 was at far higher concentrations in the atmosphere than today. That is why we get ice ages and then come out of the ice ages. All natural and without man's help.

In simple language, there is NO Significant Anthropogenic Global Warming. NONE! That is why the earth is currently cooling!

Yes CO2 does effect climate, yes it is a green house gas, but without the heat island high in the troposhere, there cannot be a cataclysmic infinite positive feedback loop. Instead we see a law of diminishing returns. The CO2 is effective as concentrations rise and then as the more CO2 is added, the less of an effect it has. Like painting over glass with thin paint. The first coat has a major effect of cutting out light. the second coat cuts out some more, the third a bit more, but the fourth and subsequent coats have no more effect.

So the raise in CO2 we have seen will raise temperatures slightly. (the vast majority of the raise in CO2 has been natural anyway) Maybe by a maximum of 2 degrees over 2 centuries then the climate regulates itself.

2 degrees is the target that the EU wishes to stall the temperature at, or rather, since global temperatures have dropped by half a degree in the last year, perhaps that should be 2.5 degrees.

Well it seems that we may not even get to a 2 degree rise. and certainlty we are not going to exceed it and that will happen without humans taking any action whatsoever.

The EU needs to get on board with the latest science, because otherwise, we are going to spend TRILLIONS and cause massive disruption to our way of life, for no gain whatsoever.

CO2 is NOT a pollutant, it is a natural gas.

Global politicians should be delighted, global catastrophe had been averted and we didn't even have to do anything about it. Yippee?

No, the alarmists need a great Satan. It is not a scientific thing, it is a human condition thing. The leaders always need something to scare the followers with. You know, to keep them in-line. The followers need something to believe in. Something they themselves cannot control, something bigger than themselves, so that they can maintain trust in the leaders and allow someone else to make decisions for them, but it must be something that they can participate in, so they can have a sense of belonging.

Religion does not work in the west as a great fearful motivator anymore, the fear of communism has gone away, science has taken over.

Without global warming to unite the globe in slavery to our benevolent democratic global leaders, what is there?

Oh yeah, "human induced climate disruption!!!"

What? It's snowing in Greece? darn those pesky humans!!!


the biofuel boom
By: eliana , Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:29:07 GMT

Bill Maher just wrote a really interesting article about Biofuels...http://www.236.com/blog/w/bill_maher/the_biofuel_boom_5671.php



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