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TLDR 'Scott Irwin, an economist at the University of Illinois calculates...the extra cost for biodiesel comes to about $1.80 per gallon right now, meaning that
by olivermarks 9y ago
TLDR 'Scott Irwin, an economist at the University of Illinois calculates...the extra cost for biodiesel comes to about $1.80 per gallon right now, meaning that the biofuel law is costing Americans about $5.4 billion a year'.
'Biodiesel is very expensive, relative to petroleum diesel'
'Defenders of biodiesel insist that it's a much cleaner fuel than regular diesel, because it doesn't come from the ground, but from soybean plants that capture carbon dioxide from the air as they grow. In fact, by the EPA's calculations, replacing petroleum-based fuel with biodiesel will cut greenhouse emissions at least in half.
A growing number of environmentalists, however, say that this calculation is dead wrong. They say that if more soybeans are needed to make fuel in addition to food, it inevitably means that people somewhere on Earth will have to plow up grasslands or cut down forests in order to grow that additional supply — and clearing such land releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.'
- jandrese 9y agoAs long as the subsidy is US only I think they can avoid having too much forest land plowed over to make room for Soybeans.
- tamcap 9y agoThe effects are connected. Converting more soybeans into fuel means it costs more to buy soy for food - higher incentive to make a new soy field anywhere.
- jandrese 9y agoDepends how the subsidy is set up. If it creates a price floor just above the production cost then it just reduces risk for the farmers without incentivizeing them to devote extra field space to soy. Basically the food market gets serviced until the price almost drops below the point where it would be sustainable and the excess is bought up by the Diesel producers (who receive the government subsidy).
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoBy creating a price or demand floor you create an incentive for someone in some country with lax environmental regulations to bulldoze rain-forest to grow soybeans.
- wonderwonder 9y agoNot really, the soybeans used don't have to be grown in the US. So forests in south america are destroyed to make room for soybeans that will be used in the US to make biodiesel.
- digi_owl 9y agoNever mind that biodiesel can be made from something other than soy. Perhaps a weed plant that can grow on lands unsuitable for food crops?
- ams6110 9y agoRapeseed?
- soneca 9y agoIn the case of Brazilian Amazon forest, indeed there is a negative impact of soybean. Up to 2006 was a direct impact causing deforestation. But a law passed making it hard to sell soybean cultivated in deforestated areas (specially to the USA). But still there is an indirect impact, since then. Cattle raising is the main force behind direct forestation of the Amazon on brazilian area. But once the cattle extinguish the resources of the land and move to a new land to deforestate, the soybean farms occupy the empty land they left behind. So soybean farmers have an interest in supporting cattle raisers deforestation of the Amazon. source: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1414-753X2012000200002 http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1414...
- testplzignore 9y agoI think deforestation isn't going to be solved by going after a single industry/product. Humans will eventually find a reason to destroy any forest we can find. We can target soybeans and cattle, but that'll be replaced by gold prospecting, logging, housing, parking lots, nuclear weapons testing, spaceports, or anything else humans can think of to make a dollar. For large swaths of the Earth, we need to say "You can't touch this area for any reason. Don't even step foot here. Go away."
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Spooky23 9y agoMandating its existence has other strategic advantages as well -- oil price shocks can and will happen in the future, so having the infrastructure to manufacture biodiesel and ethanol in place has a benefit as well. There's a short, medium and long term outlook here. In the short term, there's a wastage of $5.4B. In the long term, burning things for fuel is bad. In the medium term, being able to moderate swings or ensure minimum supply of fuel mitigates risk that endanger the economy as a whole.
- DanWaterworth 9y agoAlso in the medium term, artificially increasing the price of fuel incentivizes research and development of alternatives.
- nate_meurer 9y agoBut this doesn't actually work yet. Oil prices are transmitted through to biofuels because the biofuel supply chain depends critically on fossil fuel inputs. For example, planting, harvesting, and transport of corn and soy feedstock is currently completely reliant on fossil-fueled machinery. This may change in the future, but the current reality is no better than a 1-to-1 transformation of fossil fuel into biofuel.
- gr3yh47 9y ago>This may change in the future, but the current reality is no better than a 1-to-1 transformation of fossil fuel into biofuel. I was with you until this. a brief thought experiement makes it seem impossible that it would be 1 to 1, but rather that some smaller amount of fossil fuel used would yield a much larger amount of biofuel
- Retric 9y agoRemember, biofuel costs significantly more. Pump prices include taxes, so difference in pre-tax vs pre-subsidies of 1.80 $ is huge. The value of biofuels is simply cushion in case of poor harvests.
- 9y ago
- swarnie_ 9y agoIs that $1.80 on top of the average $3.00 for regular? What i would give to buy fuel that cheap...
- ams6110 9y agoDon't forget that when this law was passed, diesel fuel was well over $4.00 per gallon. Recently it's been about half that.