A lot has happened since I spoke about alternate fuels atthe 2007 TMC annual meeting. At that session I warned about legislators passingregulations before scientists have the opportunity to gather the pertinentfacts. I realize the legislators all have their re-elections to manage, but wehave a country to run here.
Recently, Minnesota mandated that as of May 1, 2009, alldiesel fuel must now contain 5% biodiesel (up from 2%). This keeps the stateheaded toward its goal of 20% biodiesel by 2015. This is a wonderful ideal, butit completely ignores the cost side of the equation. We also know that higherconcentrations of biodiesel create flow difficulties in low ambienttemperatures.
California recently passed legislation demanding a 10% cutin carbon in transportation fuels by 2020. Again, California is attempting to force R&D to develop lower carbonfuels starting in 2012, because it has always believed it can force technologythrough legislation. As usual, more thought has been given to Los Angeles’problems than to the impact of these standards on the trucking industry.
CARB officials calculate that these new requirements willcreate a need for 1.5 billion gallons of biofuel per year. To realize thisgoal, 25 new biofuel facilities will need to be built. Of course, CARB issaying that this legislation will create 3,000 new jobs.
The problem with both pieces of legislation is that they aretrying to force the use of fuels containing lower carbon content withoutconsidering the inevitable side effects such as cost. The real goal here should be to reduce carbondioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere. There are other ways to achievethis.
It is fact that carbon dioxide emissions into the atmospherehave increased approximately 25% since 1958. Since then, scientists havemeasured atmospheric CO2 concentrations in Hawaii. CO2 levels have increasedfrom 310 PPM in 1958 to 390 PPM today. Humankind’s negative influence on theatmosphere cannot be denied.
We also know that both CO2 and water vapor can prevent theheat from the sun from being released from the earth. The result is global warming,which rising temperatures in the polar regions and acidification of theplanet’s oceans already substantiates.
What we do not know are all the consequences of globalwarming due to increases in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. How muchtemperature rise can humans tolerate? If we have any hope of reducing CO2concentrations in the atmosphere, we must burn less fuel containing carbon orplant more trees to absorb CO2. This is where diesel fuel shines. To do a givenamount of work, diesels burn significantly less fuel than other engines. Ifeach of us planted some trees, this could also make a difference in a fewyears.
Our legislators are already discussing “cap-and-trade”systems or a tax on carbon emissions. When trying to evaluate such schemes to forcereduced carbon usage, one must always “follow the money.” Cap-and-trade systemshave proven ineffective in Europe because the caps were set too high bypoliticians influenced by politically connected businesses. (We don’t have anyof those, do we?) As a result, big polluters got away with murder, and carbonemissions weren’t significantly reduced.
I prefer a direct carbon tax in the form of aconsumption tax, but only if the tax money goes directly to fund alternatefuels R&D. We need to reduce carbon consumption, and a direct carbon taxwould tend to drive energy conservation efforts. In general, I do not liketaxes that go directly to governments to make them even larger. The Departmentof Energy was originally created in 1973 to find alternative sources of energy.Thus far, its thousands of employees have spent millions and accomplishednothing.
