In news:[email hidden],
Nick Kew <[email hidden]> typed:
Quoted message said:In article <[email hidden]>,
"Ambrose Nankivell" <[email hidden]>Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Didn't I read that it took more energy to make biodiesel than it
contained?
Quite possibly.But they were bullshitting propagandists who said so.
The propagandists on my side say there's an 84% energy yield on it
from their studies. Which is not dissimilar to the 84% energy yield
from petrodiesel. Just that the biodiesel does it inna
carbon-neutral stylee,Bzzt, big red herring there.
In its natural state, the land devoted to growing biodiesel will be
covered in vegetation, and absorbing CO2. When growing for man to
burn, the same is true. Except that burning it then re-releases the
CO2.
So you've just neutralised land that *should* be making a positive
contribution - which is not so very different overall to burning
fossils but leaving todays plants to grow instead.
I don't quite understand how land can make a positive contribution to being
a carbon sink except for turning the soil into a carbon sink, and presumably
that runs the risk of liberating quite a lot of methane from the rotting
vegetation as well, which may be a gain in terms of CO2 levels, but hardly
in terms of greenhouse gases.
Presumably soil also has an output role to play in the carbon cycle as not
all the world's carbon has dissappeared into soil and coal (although of
course a fair proportion did upon the invention of the tree, but since then,
AIUI CO2 levels haven't changed much)
Quoted message said:Creative accounting is all about conveniently hiding things like that.
But it's fairly safe to assume that cultivated land will also be producing
products that are turned into carbon dioxide somehow, except for trees that
eventually end up as landfill.
A