Home

Previous Entry | Next Entry

Back at it

  • May. 27th, 2008 at 11:29 AM

The fella whom I responded to in the Ukiah Daily Journal has responded to my response:

Biofuels not the answer

To the Editor:

This is in regards to Mr. Plocher's letter in the May 19 Daily Journal. He has left out some very important truths in his factual letter. The truth is the kitchen oil he refers to does not just magically get to the restaurants he buys it from. It is trucked in by vehicles that burn diesel fuel. The vegetables that the oil comes from in turn are grown in fields that are serviced by vehicles that use diesel and other fossil fuels. So no matter what numbers he says that he gets out of one gallon of grease to fuel goes out the window. It still takes two gallons or more of fuel to produce his biofuels. His assertion about the Harvard study is in question as the study was industry funded. Follow the money and you get the truth of the matter. According to last year's USDA figures 25 percent of our corn and grain crops went to produce one percent of our fuel supply. All of this subsidized by we the taxpayer. Where wheat was once grown farmers are growing corn and soy products to get ethanol to make bio fuel. His very claim to be in the bio fuel business brings one to question his motives for trying to debunk reality as he has a vested interest in keeping the myth going. Also let's use a little basic physics as well; heat converts into energy biofuels produce less heat thus less energy therefore you have to burn more to get the same results. So any benefit of the biofuel is lost. Remember people you can cast pearls before swine or put lipstick on a pig it still doesn't make the pig anything other than what it is. Biofuels are not a solution nor even a stop gap, no matter what anyone says.

John Pearson

Ukiah


Naturally, I am obligated to carry on the debate. Just sent:


To the Editor,

I would like to thank Mr. Pearson for continuing this discussion with his latest letter, "Biofuels not the answer". By calling into question my motivations and business practices, he has given me an opportunity to educate your readers on some of the finer points of the biofuels industry, and Yokayo Biofuels' place in it. As before, I will tackle Mr. Pearson's points one-by-one.

First, while it is true that the used fryer oil we use to make biodiesel "does not just magically get to the restaurants", what we are doing is adding a second, bonus life to a product through recycling. If Mr. Pearson's concern is the embodied energy in each gallon of vegetable oil prior to it ever having arrived at the restaurant, then his issue is with the restaurants more than with the biodiesel manufacturer, as the restaurants are the original user of the oil. If Mr. Pearson's reasoning is that the energy required to produce a product from recycled material must include all of the previous energy used to create the product in the first place, then it follows that glass, aluminum, paper and many other recycled products become more and more costly to society the more they are recycled. Clearly, that is not the case. Recycling is actually the less energy-intensive alternative to the original production process. That is why we recycle!

Which brings me to energy balance. Recall that the U.S. Department of Energy found the energy balance of conventional soybean oil biodiesel to be 3.2 gallons out for every gallon in, and my own energy audit, and the audits of several peers in the industry, have found the energy balance for typical recycled fryer oil biodiesel to be more than twice as beneficial (over 7 gallons out per gallon in). Pearson asserts that my energy balance numbers "go out the window", and then states that "it still takes two gallons or more of fuel to produce [my] biofuels". Mr. Pearson has not done any kind of energy audit on my process. I understand if he doesn't trust my own, so here is the website of an energy audit done by the nonprofit Piedmont Biofuels, on a very similar process: http://biofuels.coop/education/energy-balance/ This website is thorough and well-researched, and arrives at the figure of 7.8 to 1 for recycled fryer oil biodiesel. My question for Mr. Pearson: what metric are you using to refute these numbers, and from where are you getting those "two gallons"?

Mr. Pearson goes on to state that my emissions numbers are in question "as the study was industry funded". Well, I wasn't referring to simply one study, and if your readers would like impartial data on biodiesel emissions, the best place to go is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's website, where you can download a copy of their Biodiesel Handling and Use Guidelines: http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/npbf/feature_guidelines.html

Finally, I'd like to remind Mr. Pearson and your readers that biodiesel and ethanol are not only two very separate biofuels (he seems to repeatedly confuse them), but they are made from many different sources and many different processes, all of which affect the sustainability of the end product. Mr. Pearson's concerns about various sources and practices are my concerns as well- that is precisely why I am serving on the National Biodiesel Board's Taskforce on Sustainability!

Sustainable anything is not an endpoint- it is a journey. I believe in biodiesel because it presents us with an opportunity to fuel existing, conventional vehicles more appropriately. As we say at our website, "We want you to use less fuel. It's true. We don't think that using biodiesel can ever solve the fuel crisis. That will take smart growth management and a heck of a lot of conservation."

Kumar Plocher

Hopland