Category Archives: Biofuels

Do you want to eat, drink, or fly?

Posted on December 6, 2023 by

Preface.  In this post the New York Times writes about renewable airplane fuel from corn ethanol, and questions whether there is enough water and a few other problems.  First I’m going to summarize their issues with this, and then follow … Continue reading →

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Why biofuels can not scale up to replace petroleum

Posted on May 22, 2023 by

Preface. This is my favorite paper on why we can’t replace crude oil with biofuels.  Of course, oil is a biofuel. But alas, not renewable, since it took over 100 million years to make them. Every year we burn fossil … Continue reading →

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Dust Bowls

Posted on November 16, 2021 by

Preface. As if there weren’t enough to worry about, more Great Dust Bowls may be on the way.  The irony is that some of it will likely be due to planting corn and soybeans to produce biofuels, yet another reason … Continue reading →

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Biogas from cow manure is not a solution for the energy crisis

Posted on July 17, 2021 by

Preface. Smil’s article about biogas sums up why it won’t contribute to energy shortages as fossils decline. Biogass doesn’t scale and is easy to muck up. Hayes (2015) also makes this case, pointing out that even if every ounce of … Continue reading →

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Updates to Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy

Posted on May 14, 2021 by

Updates to “Life After Fossil Fuels” Last updated 28 April 2024. Other posts related to this book here. My book is about our many dependencies on fossil fuels, quickly depicted in these very short videos:  Life without Petroleum  A Day … Continue reading →

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Far Out power #6: Stale beer, crayfish shells, and burning metal powder

Posted on February 24, 2021 by

Preface. Unfortunately, turning beer into biogas requires a pandemic so that it isn’t drunk at pubs instead. Scientists assure us there will be more pandemics as we mow down (rain)forests for shopping malls and come into contact with new viruses, … Continue reading →

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Distribution – why it is so hard to add E15 or E85 at a gas station

Posted on June 30, 2020 by

Preface. One of the huge hurdles to shifting from oil to “something else” is the chicken-or-egg problem of no one buying a new-fuel vehicle with few places to get it, so few are made, so service stations don’t add the … Continue reading →

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Peak soil: Industrial agriculture destroys ecosystems and civilizations: Biofuels make it worse

Posted on August 31, 2017 by

Preface. In 2018 I thought it was time to reorganize this post, as it grew more and more bloated and disorganized with new information. Eventually it turned into my 2021 book Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative … Continue reading →

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No, we’re not going to make ethanol out of CO2 and stop global warming

Posted on July 26, 2017 by

Preface.  In the article below Robert Rapier debunks the research paper proposing to convert CO2 into ethanol.  The researchers were honest and said “that the process is unlikely to be economically viable.” But the press spun it into a major … Continue reading →

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Why studies come up with different Energy Returned on Invest (EROI) results: can it be fixed?

Posted on March 21, 2017 by

[ There are many issues with biofuels beyond their trivial to negative energy return on investment (EROI). In Peak Soil I point out that current industrial farming techniques are destroying topsoil about 15 times faster than pre-fossil fuel economies — … Continue reading →

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