Talk:Issues relating to biofuels

Neutral point of view

Several of the issues included in the article are controversial, nor all biofuels have the same impacts (for example corn ethanol vs. sugarcane ethanol). The article is lacking WP:NPOV in several of the issues. Particularly the Searchinger paper is very controversial, and has been questioned from several renowned scientists, and the ethanol industry of course. See the LCFS article for some of this criticism during CARB ruling. I will begin this weekend a new article on the indirect land use change impacts of biofuels, and later can bring back some of the controversy for NPOV purposes.--Mariordo (talk) 00:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

• Done, more NPOV is required in other sections though.--Mariordo (talk) 03:49, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

"Energy efficiency and energy balance of biofuels"

We need a clear definition in the first paragraph. Does "Biodiesel made from sunflowers may produce only 0.46 times the input rate of fuel energy." mean that there is a net gain of 46% or a net loss of 54%? In the latter case, there is a problem with "However, this is not necessarily a reason to use oil instead of biofuels, nor does it have an impact on the environmental benefits provided by a given biofuel." Certainly, not all farming practices have a net energy gain, and I don't understand what this article says about that. Is biofuel already contributing to energy or is it only after a big improvement in agricultural methods that it is supposed to contribute? Accurately stating information from accurate sources does not lead to accuracy if the definitions are not clearly stated. David R. Ingham (talk) 04:56, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

In regarding the neutrality of this article

I find this article fairly balanced on its views. Whatever evidences it had provided are pretty much consistent with todays moderate views on these issues, by the scientific community anyways. If you must factor in the view points of corporations such as monsanto and others, in order to create a perfectly balanced article devoid of opinion, then I think we have lost the essence of wikipedia as a progressive social project bend on benefiting the world. Gw2005 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC).

Wikipedia is not a progressive social project. See WP:ADVOCACY. You may be thinking of Appropedia (which I recommend). Also re-read WP:NPOV, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:V, WP:WEIGHT, WP:NOBLECAUSE, and WP:TRUTH. Wikipedia contains a lot of information, so there is probably something here to interest both progressives and corporatists. --Teratornis (talk) 08:59, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Additions to Biodiversity Impacts Section

This section is very sparse. Over the next few weeks I will add some materials here, and encourage others to do likewise.Bothell130 (talk) 20:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

ILUC ?

If the land is used for agriculture, the crops that were planted need to be relocated. This could mean that there is an extra CO₂-cost in transport (crops need to be transported further). This is known as ILUC. Appearantly, a report exists of the ODM KU Leuven (see http://www.kuleuven.be/onderzoek/onderzoeksdatabank/onderzoeksgroep/51815809.htm ) on this containing a schematic with CO2 emissions of various crops. Perhaps it can be mentioned — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.159.99 (talk) 07:48, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

IC engine modifications

I added this to the page today: The modifications necessairy to run internal combustion engines on biofuel depend on the type of biofuel used, aswell as the type of engine used. For example, gasoline engines can run without any modification at all on biobutanol. Minor modifications are however needed to run on bioethanol or biomethanol. Diesel engines can run on the latter fuels, aswell as on vegetable oils (which are cheaper). However, the latter is only possible when the engine has been foreseen with indirect injection. If no indirect injection is present, the engine hence needs to be fitted with this.

Add references if needed. 91.182.207.104 (talk) 09:52, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we need to differentiate between regular Diesel engines and maritime (2-stroke) Diesel engines (even direct injection engines, see MAN B&W documents). The latter is generally allready foreseen on running thick oil (crude oil) and thus no modifications at all are needed (regular 4-stroke) (direct injection) engines need a modification to indirect injection.

91.182.28.17 (talk) 17:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Broken Links

Link 24 is broken. I made a very cursory search for a replacement, but a more through check should be done before deciding the content has to be removed entirely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.21.38.220 (talk) 23:32, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

"Biodiesel made from soybeans may produce 3.2 times the input rate of fossil fuels."

I honestly don't get this. The rest of the article is talking about how biofuels have a worse energy balance than fossil fuels in regards to how much energy was used (input) to get a certain amount of energy back (output). Therefore this statement appears to be inconsistent to the rest of the message and is also outright impossible considering that fossil fuels are stated to have a 0.8 energy balance. If fossil fuels have this energy balance then soybean biodiesel would have an energy balance of 2.4 or greater from the above statement.

If my logic is wrong, that just means the statement is incredibly unclear to those that don't know how the logic is supposed to work. CorruptSnowflake (talk) 18:36, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

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Citations lead to dead links

Several of the citations on this page, notably the ones related to biodiesel, are missing, or now lead to dead links. I have tried searching for alternative sources for the facts presented, but have yet to find them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steffikwok (talk • contribs) 21:14, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

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Wiki Education assignment: Current Topics in Environmental Biology

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 January 2022 and 8 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): A.R.Gene71 (article contribs).