[Biofuel] The Tyee – IMF Pegs Canada's Fossil Fuel Subsidies at $34 Billion
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/05/15/Canadas-34-Billion-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies/ [multiple links in on-line article] [$34 billion annually is about $1,000 per Canadian per year. It is enough to pay off the entire Canadian national debt in less than 20 years, by itself. It is more than 10 times the projected federal government deficit for the current fiscal year (2014-15: $2.9 billion). Or, it's almost $1/litre of gasoline sold in Canada - currently retailing at about $1.30 to $1.40 in most of southern Canada. It is about a million electric cars at full retail, a year, which could replace the entire national road fleet in less than 20 years). This does not include the unassessed environmental damage subsidy.] IMF Pegs Canada's Fossil Fuel Subsidies at $34 Billion In such giveaways we're a world leader, a fact rarely noted when federal budgets are debated. By Mitchell Anderson, 15 May 2014, TheTyee.ca While Canada slashes budgets for research, education and public broadcasting, there is one part of our economy that enjoys remarkable support from the Canadian taxpayer: the energy sector. The International Monetary Fund estimates that energy subsidies in Canada top an incredible $34 billion each year in direct support to producers and uncollected tax on externalized costs. These figures are found in the appendix of a major report released last year estimating global energy subsidies at almost $2 trillion. The report estimated that eliminating the subsidies would reduce global carbon emissions by 13 per cent. The stunning statistics specific to this country remain almost completely unreported in Canadian media. Contacted by The Tyee, researchers from the IMF helpfully provided a detailed breakdown of Canadian subsidies provided to petroleum, natural gas and coal consumption. The lion's share of the $34 billion are uncollected taxes on the externalized costs of burning transportation fuels like gasoline and diesel -- about $19.4 billion in 2011. These externalized costs include impacts like traffic accidents, carbon emissions, air pollution and road congestion. The report also referenced figures sourced from the OECD showing an additional $840 million in producer support to oil companies through a constellation of provincial and federal incentives to encourage fossil fuel extraction. This brought total petroleum subsidies in Canada in 2011 to $20.23 billion -- more than 20 times the annual budget of Environment Canada. In comparison to other countries, Canada provides more subsidies to petroleum as a proportion of government revenue than any developed nation on Earth besides the United States and Luxembourg. Natural gas consumption also enjoys billions in subsidies in Canada. The IMF estimates that un-priced carbon emissions from burning natural gas added up to $7.3 billion per year. There's another $440 million in producer support and $360 million in other un-taxed externalities, all of which tops $8.1 billion. This tax giveaway on natural gas alone is 44 per cent more than Canada provides in international aid every year. What about coal? Canada consumes over 30 million tonnes per year. While we currently export over half our domestic production, the IMF study only considered externalized costs within our own country. They found that the coal industry receives $4.5 billion in annual subsides -- almost all of this is un-priced carbon and sulfur dioxide emissions. This generous largesse towards the dirtiest of fuels is about four times what the CBC receives in public support every year. Or we could spend that on... What could Canada do with an extra $34 billion a year? Both Vancouver and Toronto are struggling with how to fund long overdue upgrades to public transportation. Subway construction comes in at about $250 million per kilometre, meaning we could build about 140 kilometres of badly-needed urban subway lines every year. Light rail transport (LRT) is about one-quarter of the cost of subways, meaning for the same money we could build about 560 kilometres of at-grade transit infrastructure. This foregone revenue in less than two years could fully fund the Big Move transit plan for southern Ontario, providing affordable access for 80 per cent of people living from Hamilton to Oshawa. Toronto's transit system has languished for decades. This sorely needed infrastructure would save the average household thousands in wasted time sitting in traffic, and Canada's economy billions in reduced congestion costs. The proposed Vancouver subway line to the University of British Columbia could be built using less than two months of the subsidies provided every day to the energy sector. Forty kilometres of rapid transit in Surrey could be had for about the same amount. What about green energy infrastructure? Adding solar and wind capacity provides some of the best job-generation per dollar of any option available -- more than
[Biofuel] Video: How can coffee power buildings? - Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/biofuels/10848944/How-can-coffee-power-buildings.html [Most of the information for this article is in the included video.] How can coffee power buildings? Bio-Bean uses oil from waste coffee grinds to power buildings and vehicles Oil extracted from waste coffee grinds may be the next necessary biofuel. Bio-bean takes oil from coffee waste and uses a chemical process to turn it into biomass pellets, which can be used to run buildings and vehicles. Arthur Kay, CEO and co-founder of Bio-bean explained how it works on Bloomberg television: a small bean of energy for big impact. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Biodiesel Magazine - The Latest News and Data About Biodiesel Production
http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/articles/84770/new-sustainable-biodiesel-process-uses-ethanol-from-glycerin New, sustainable biodiesel process uses ethanol from glycerin By Michigan State University | May 21, 2014 A new fuel-cell concept, developed by a Michigan State University researcher, will allow biodiesel plants to eliminate the creation of hazardous wastes while removing their dependence on fossil fuel from their production process. The platform, which uses microbes to glean ethanol from glycerol and has the added benefit of cleaning up the wastewater, will allow producers to reincorporate the ethanol and the water into the fuel-making process, said Gemma Reguera, MSU microbiologist and one of the co-authors. “With a saturated glycerol market, traditional approaches see producers pay hefty fees to have toxic wastewater hauled off to treatment plants,” she said. “By cleaning the water with microbes on-site, we’ve come up with a way to allow producers to generate bioethanol, which replaces petrochemical methanol. At the same time, they are taking care of their hazardous waste problem.” The results, which appear in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, show that the key to Reguera’s platform is her patented adaptive-engineered bacteria—Geobacter sulfurreducens. Geobacter are naturally occurring microbes that have proved promising in cleaning up nuclear waste as well as improving biofuel processes. Much of Reguera’s research with these bacteria focuses on engineering their conductive pili or nanowires. These hair-like appendages are the managers of electrical activity during a cleanup and biofuel production. First, Reguera, along with lead authors and MSU graduate students Allison Speers and Jenna Young, evolved Geobacter to withstand increasing amounts of toxic glycerol. The next step, the team searched for partner bacteria that could ferment it into ethanol while generating byproducts that ‘fed’ the Geobacter. “It took some tweaking, but we eventually developed a robust bacterium to pair with Geobacter,” Reguera said. “We matched them up like dance partners, modifying each of them to work seamlessly together and eliminate all of the waste.” Together, the bacteria’s appetite for the toxic byproducts is inexhaustible. “They feast like they’re at a Las Vegas buffet,” she added. “One bacterium ferments the glycerol waste to produce bioethanol, which can be reused to make biodiesel from oil feedstocks. Geobacter removes any waste produced during glycerol fermentation to generate electricity. It is a win-win situation.” The hungry microbes are the featured component of Reguera’s microbial electrolysis cells, or MECs. These fuel cells do not harvest electricity as an output. Rather, they use a small electrical input platform to generate hydrogen and increase the MEC’s efficiency even more. The promising process already has caught the eye of economic developers, who are helping scale up the effort. Through a Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization grant, Reguera and her team are developing prototypes that can handle larger volumes of waste. Reguera also is in talks with MBI, the biobased technology “de-risking” enterprise operated by the MSU Foundation, to develop industrial-sized units that could handle the capacities of a full-scale biodiesel plant. The next step will be field tests with a Michigan-based biodiesel manufacturer. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] 'Tide is Turning' as Oregon Voters Overwhelmingly Approve Ban of GE Crops | Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/21-1 [multiple links in on-line article] Published on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 by Common Dreams 'Tide is Turning' as Oregon Voters Overwhelmingly Approve Ban of GE Crops Ronnie Cummins: These victories make it clear to agribusiness giants like Monsanto and Dow that the day has come when they can no longer buy and lie their way to victory. - Lauren McCauley, staff writer In a victory for sustainable food advocates everywhere, two counties in Oregon on Tuesday voted to ban the cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) crops. Despite an onslaught of spending by agribusiness giants such as DuPont and Monsanto, voters in Jackson County and Josephine County overwhelming took a stand for measures protecting seed sovereignty and local control of food systems. The Jackson Measure 15-119 passed 66-34 percent, while the Josephine County Measure 17-58 passed 58-42 percent. It's a great day for the people of Oregon who care about sustainability and healthy ecosystems! GMO Free Oregon wrote on their Facebook page after receiving the final tally. “Tonight family farmers stood up for our basic right to farm,” cheered Elise Higley, Jackson County farmer and campaign director for the Our Family Farms Coalition, in a statement following the vote. Calling the bans a tremendous victory for the citizens and farmers of the counties, as well as for the national anti-GMO movement, Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), said the votes are further proof that, when given a voice, citizens will choose a sustainable food system over corporate-dominated agribusiness. These victories make it clear to agribusiness giants like Monsanto and Dow that the day has come when they can no longer buy and lie their way to victory, Cummins said. By using the tools of democracy, such as ballot initiatives, citizens can overcome corporate and government corruption through honest campaigns, built on a foundation of truth, science and fair play. In Jackson County, proponents of the ban raised only $375,000 compared with the nearly $1 million raised by the opposition, whose donors included Monsanto, Syngenta and DuPont Pioneer. Spending in Josephine County was lower on both sides. According to OCA, the Josephine ban will likely be tested in court after that state's passage of the controversial law S.B. 863 in October 2013, stripping counties of the right to pass GMO bans. The Jackson County measure is exempt because it had qualified for the ballot prior to the passage of the law. The Oregon counties now join a growing list of communities who have enacted similar bans including Santa Cruz County, Trinity County, Marin County and Mendocino County in California, and San Juan County in Washington state, as well as numerous cities nationwide. Hawaii’s Big Island and Oahu have banned GE taro and coffee. Earlier this month, Vermont passed a landmark law which mandates that all GE foods sold in the state must be labeled. Unlike Conneticut and Maine, which passed measures that require a certain number of other states to also enact GMO legislation, Vermont's law has no such trigger clause. Where the federal government has failed, local efforts like this are taking action, said George Kimbrell, Portland-based senior attorney for Center for Food Safety (CFS). The tide is turning towards a sustainable food future and GE-free zones are a vital step.” “The people of Jackson and Josephine Counties have given the rest of the country a model – and the inspiration – to protect local communities, added Rebecca Spector, who spearheads state labeling initiatives for CFS. This is just the beginning.” ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Three Years After Oil Spill, Lawmakers Learn About $5 Million BP Gave To Governor's Office | Texas Public Radio
http://tpr.org/post/three-years-after-oil-spill-lawmakers-learn-about-5-million-bp-gave-governors-office Three Years After Oil Spill, Lawmakers Learn About $5 Million BP Gave To Governor's Office By Ryan Poppe Typically, money slated for the state budget is handled by the Legislature. But yesterday the Texas House Appropriations and Natural Resources Committee found out about $5 million paid to the state of Texas by British Petroleum following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico happened in April 2010, and in September of that same year the governor’s office received $5 million from BP without informing the Legislature of the funds. Here is state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, speaking with the Mike Morrissey from the governor's office, who is deputy chief of staff and senior advisor: MARTINEZ FISCHER: Sort of the way that I understand the separation of powers and how things work, who disperses those public funds? Constitutionally. MORRISSEY: Well, the legislature certainly appropriates. MARTINEZ FISCHER: I read this agreement and it almost looks like governor is the appropriations committee and BP is the Legislature. Martinez Fischer said he was shocked to hear lawmakers were first finding out about this money, which was exclusively accessible to the governor’s office. Something inspired BP to make that grant very timely in September of 2010, Martinez Fischer told Morrissey. I imagine it was negotiated prior to that, so maybe they started earlier than that so maybe they started before that. But for you to have $5 million of public money at the sole discretion of the governor and no plan, no process and no real result; I think if this legislature knew about in 2011 we could’ve helped you. We could’ve helped you spend it.” Morrissey told lawmakers the money was slated to pay back state agencies for ongoing work related the spill. Close to $1 million of the money was paid to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in September 2013, money their representative labeled as a gift. “I really don’t recall any testimony from those agencies about these ongoing expenses, said state Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo. The over three year gap in reporting the money has many asking why the Legislature is just now finding out about the unspent funds. To me this is a day that I would characterize as virtually having a bomb dropped in our laps and now we need to figure out what a responsible approach is,” Martinez Fischer said. As far as whether there needs to be an investigation, Martinez-Fischer said he’s not there yet. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
