ISIS Report 28/06/10
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A project based on a fallacious assumption about biofuels. Patrick Noble
The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) has just published what seems its
definitive Zero Carbon Britain Report [1].
The report is based on the following assumption: If biomass is burned, the
chemistry is more or less reversed, and the original energy and raw material
(C02 and water) are released. There is then no net gain or loss of CO2, which
is why biological fuels are considered to be “Carbon neutral”.
Unfortunately, this assumption is true only if no fossil fuel energy is expended
in growing the biomass, in producing the fertilizers, pesticides and other
chemical inputs, does not involve destroying natural carbon sinks and creating
huge carbon sources by cutting down forests and turning other natural ecosystems
into agricultural land, and so on; not to mention the displacement of indigenous
peoples and decimation of biodiversity (see [2, 3] Biofuels: Biodevastation,
Hunger & False Carbon Credits, SiS 33, ‘Land Rush’ as Threats to Food Security
Intensify, SiS 46; and many other ISIS articles dealing with the topic).
But someone must have said this at a Beautiful Person’s party, so now it is
generally accepted, and by most of my friends. More to the point, The Centre
for Alternative Land Use, the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural
Sciences, and even the IPCC assume it is true. (The Institute of Science in
Society is one notable exception (see its comprehensive reports [4. 5] Green
Energies - 100% Renewable by 2050 and Food Futures Now: *Organic *Sustainable
*Fossil Fuel Free .)
Consequently, every chart, graph and conclusion of the CAT report is suspect.
CAT’s “sequestration sink” will actually empty a little more at each harvest,
creating annual losses of CO2 to the atmosphere. CAT’s “biological fields” are
emphatically not “carbon neutral”.
The terrifying thought is that the Welsh Assembly is adopting Zero Carbon
Britain as a blue print for Zero Carbon Wales. That has galvanised me to speak
out and sound a warning that we could well end up instead with a Dust Bowl
Britain.
I wrote about this a couple of years ago, immediately after CAT’s first Zero
Carbon Britain report was released [6], and sent it to the authors, but got no
acknowledgement. Nothing has changed in principle, although the details have
become more sophisticated. I use the old report for analysis here, as it deals
more specifically with acreage, rotation and exposes the fallacy of CAT’s
underlying assumption more clearly.
The old report says that there are 18m hectares of agricultural land in Britain,
and proposes what many may agree to be necessary: a reduction of livestock
numbers, an increase in arable and intensive horticultural land and an increase
in woodland, at the expense of permanent pastures (6 m ha down to 1 m ha) and
rough grazing (6 m ha down to 2 m ha).
However, the report also suggests that 4m ha of short and longer rotation
woodland be burnt for energy and that a third of the arable rotation (Rape and
Miscanthus) should also be burnt. That means the output of 40.5 percent of the
agricultural land of Britain is to be combusted. There is no suggestion as to
what would replace the combusted nutrients and minerals lost to the land, though
it mentions that “organic methods” will increase carbon sequestration. Under the
CAT agricultural regime, British agricultural land will move inexorably towards
desert and life in the soils will be annually reduced, so less and less carbon
is sequestered.
Read the rest of this report at the ISIS website:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/zeroCarbonBritainOrDustBowlBritain.php
Or read other reports about energy generation
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/scienergy.php
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