Download The Findit App

Share Your Posts On These Major Social Networks

Instatag Your Posts to Instagram Facebook + Twitter

News

Biofuels: Land and Water Concerns

Salt Lake City 5/7/2014 9:30:00 PM

Biofuels are fuels made from organic matter. They include liquid fuels such as ethanol, biodiesel, and methanol; gaseous fuels such as methane and carbon monoxide; and solid fuels such as biochar and the more traditional charcoal. Biofuels may have some environmental advantages over gasoline and diesel fuels, but they are more expensive to produce and cannot supply more than a small part of the world's total transportation energy needs. And because they compete with food crops and nature for land, water, and nutrients, expanding the use of biofuels could negatively affect human health and natural ecosystems. 
Elcock (2008) projects 12.9 billion gallons per day of water will be consumed in the manufacture of ethanol by 2030. This "increase accounts for roughly 60% of the total projected nationwide increase in water consumption over the 2005-2030 period, and it is more than double the amount of water projected to be consumed for industrial and commercial use in 2030 by the entire United States." 

A 2009 study by Argonne National Laboratory estimated life-cycle water consumption for one gallon of four types of fuel: ethanol, gasoline from domestic conventional crude oil, gasoline from Saudi conventional crude oil, and gasoline from Canadian oil sands (Wu et al., 2009). For ethanol, they estimated an average consumption of 3.0 gallon of water/gallon of corn ethanol during the production process in a corn dry mill, a yield of 2.7 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn, and the average consumptive use of irrigation water for corn farming in three U.S. Department of Agriculture Regions (5, 6, and 7) representing the vast majority of corn production in the United States. They found "total groundwater and surface water use for corn growing vary significantly across the three regions, producing 1 gallon of corn-based ethanol consumes a net of 10 to 17 gallon of freshwater when the corn is grown in Regions 5 and 6, as compared with 324 gallon when the corn is grown in Region 7." When these figures are adjusted to reflect the lower Btu/gallon of ethanol compared to gasoline (75,700 / 115,000, or .66), the amount of water consumed per gallon of gasoline equivalent ranges from 15.2 to 25.8 gallons in Regions 5 and 6 and 492 gallons in Region 7. 

More News

https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1779165_19221_160115073943

The Influence of CO2 on Plant Antioxidants

Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. "The Influence of CO2 on Plant Antioxidants.” Last modified January 8, 2015. http://www.co2science.org/subject/a/summaries/antioxidants.php.

Released On: 1/16/2015
Views: 6371

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1771807_19221_050115011904

Health Effects of Hot Vs Cold Temperatures in Asia

Health Effects of Hot Vs Cold Temperatures in Asia.

Released On: 1/5/2015
Views: 6610

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1767800_19221_291214123540

Coral Reef Responses to Temperature Stress: Thermal Adaptation

Coral Reef Responses to Temperature Stress: Thermal Adaptation. As living entities, corals are not only acted upon by the various elements of their environment,they also react or respond to them.

Released On: 12/29/2014
Views: 6259

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1767752_19221_291214111658.jpg

Forest Growth Response to CO2

Forest Growth Response to CO2. By examining various properties of tree rings, researchers can deduce how historical increases in the air's CO2 concentration have already affected tree productivity and water use efficiency.

Released On: 12/29/2014
Views: 4861

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1767751_19221_291214110504.jpg

Onward Marches the Great Pause

Onward Marches the Great Pause. Since October 1996 there has been no global warming at all (Fig. 1).

Released On: 12/29/2014
Views: 3908

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1752698_19221_081214123011.jpg

RESPONSE OF VARIOUS MARINE ANIMALS TO OCEAN ACIDIFICATION AND WARMING

RESPONSE OF VARIOUS MARINE ANIMALS TO OCEAN ACIDIFICATION AND WARMING.

Released On: 12/8/2014
Views: 3557

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1752697_19221_081214121522.jpg

FACE EXPERIMENTS AND GRASSLAND SPECIES

FACE EXPERIMENTS AND GRASSLAND SPECIES.

Released On: 12/8/2014
Views: 4140

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1752696_19221_081214114115.jpg

EFFECTS OF OCEAN ACIDIFICATION ON FISH

EFFECTS OF OCEAN ACIDIFICATION ON FISH.

Released On: 12/8/2014
Views: 4156

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1741944_19221_211114021804.jpg

Response of Fish to Ocean Warming

Response of Fish to Ocean Warming. According to the IPCC, CO2-induced global warming will be net harmful to the world's marine species.

Released On: 11/21/2014
Views: 4076

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1741943_19221_211114021100.jpg

Long-Term Open-Top-Chamber Study of Sour Orange Trees

Long-Term Open-Top-Chamber Study of Sour Orange Trees. Eight 30-cm-tall sour orange tree (Citrus aurantium L.) seedlings were planted directly into the ground at the Agricultural Research Service's U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory in Phoenix, A ...

Released On: 11/21/2014
Views: 4109

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1741902_19221_211114020343

The Global Medieval Warm Period

The Global Medieval Warm Period. Between the 10th and 14th centuries AD, earth's average global temperature may have been warmer than it is today.

Released On: 11/21/2014
Views: 3903

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1701566_19221_300914015604

Growth Rates of Old versus Young Forest Trees

Growth Rates of Old versus Young Forest Trees. The planting and preservation of forests has long been acknowledged to be an effective and environmentally-friendly means for slowing climate-model-predicted CO2-induced global warming.

Released On: 9/30/2014
Views: 4154

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1701354_19221_300914102740

Tropical Trees

Citation: Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. "Tropical Trees.”

Released On: 9/30/2014
Views: 4229

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1701356_19221_300914105354

Water Use Efficiency of Agricultural Species

Water Use Efficiency of Agricultural Species.

Released On: 9/30/2014
Views: 4127

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1689629_19221_120914021236

GLOBAL TEMPERATURES AND BIOSPHERIC PRODUCTIVITY

Global temperatures and biospheric productivity. Among the many climate-alarmist fears of CO2-induced global warming is the concern that the productivity of the biosphere will decline if global temperatures rise to the extent predicted by compute ...

Released On: 9/13/2014
Views: 4096

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1689623_19221_120914020343

REWRITING SUNSPOT HISTORY

Rewriting sunspot history. In 2006, when I first made the mistake of writing publicly of my doubts about the Party Line on manmade global warming.

Released On: 9/13/2014
Views: 4154

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1689620_19221_120914015840

ANALYSIS OF THE SECOND ORDER DRAFT OF THE WORKING GROUP I CONTRIBUTION TO IPCC 5AR

ANALYSIS OF THE SECOND ORDER DRAFT OF THE WORKING GROUP I CONTRIBUTION TO IPCC 5AR. The preparation of IPCC Assessment Reports involves several stages.

Released On: 9/13/2014
Views: 3998

View
https://s3.amazonaws.com/findit-pictures/19221/1689615_19221_120914015244

THE ECONOMICS OF BIOFUELS

The economics of biofuels. Aside from rejecting biofuel expansion and use for environmental reasons.

Released On: 9/13/2014
Views: 3837

View
Load More wait