Thank you 2hotel9 and carrick. After the 3rd readthrough I understand it better. If I got it right the use of biofuels WILL result in an increase to global warming. Just not the simply way I perceived it. I liked the comments on water vapor and the clouds. I only took my idea to the increase in water vapor and not to the natural conclusion of what the water vapor will do in the atmopshpere. Very interesting and just MAYBE with the other information I read about a calming cycle in the sun causing a global cooling. Maybe we should fire up those infernal internal combustion engines to help keep the world out of a cooling period. LOL….

And not to mention the massive amount of non-reusable waste products from making biofuels. And the massive amounts of water used to make biofuels.

Just run down the list of products that result from making Gasoline,motor oil, and diesel. Then try to find useful byproducts from biofuel.

Could someone please answer this question? Using biofuels is supposedly good because the byproduct would be water vapor. But, this study released in 2007 “Flasification of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within the Frame of Physics” by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner, both from German Univeristy’s, states that Earth’s natural greenhouse effect keeps the Earth 33 degrees C warmer than it would be without the trace gases in the atmoshpher. 80 percent of this warming is attributed to water vapor and 20 percent to the 0.03 volume percent CO2.” Would we not be causing global warming by using biofuels????? Anyone know someone they could pass this along to? I have tried a few University Blogs and Science blogs but only hear crickets as a response. Maybe it’s a stupid questions but I think it has some weight.

Gee, again we have leapt before we looked, why isn't that surprising. This is why public policy can't be allowed to be driven by hysteria, which is the real inconvenient truth.
DKK

richNJ, 2hotel9 asked me to respond to this.

The short answer is that biofuels are equally as bad as regular gasoline with respect to CO2. The main reason they are "good for emissions" is they help oxygenate the fuel, resulting in a more complete combustion.

It's not well known, but a gasoline engine running at optimal efficiency produces water vapor and CO2, and that's about it. CO, soot and the hydrocarbons that contribute to afternoon smog in a big city are the result of the incomplete combustion of the gasoline engine. This happens typically when the engine is accelerating from stop (or otherwise "lugged down). Ethanol-gasoline mixtures simply allow for more complete combustion and reduce the amount of "unwanted pollutants".

But again, the point is either gasoline, gasoline-ethanol mixes or pure ethanol will produce CO2 as a by-product. Any combusted carbon based fuel must produce CO2, it's just conservation of the carbon (otherwise where does the carbons go after the fuel is burned?)

This misconception between ethanol as a pollutant lowering fuel and a CO2 free fuelant has led to unrealistic notions about ethanol being some kind of wonder chemical. It's not of course. Of course CO2 isn't even a pollutant, it's a necessary gas for life to exist on the Earth.

As to the reference, it's right in the basic physics but flawed in its conclusions. Essentially it relies upon the idea that you can't have an atmosphere with net flow of energy simultaneously with thermal equilibrium.

That's technically true. The issue is that the physical scales over which heat transport occur are a few mm and larger, whereas the wavelength of infrared energy are of course much more microscopic (e.g., 0.001 mm). The lower limit to the turbulence scale is a result by the way of the finite viscosity of the atmosphere. As a result of this, each "cell" of turbulence contains thousands of wavelengths of infrared radiation, and all practical purposes the necessary presuppositions for radiative balance are all met.

In an atmosphere with no viscosity, their argument would hold. Then again, a spherical chicken feather plucking machine would work if all chickens could rightly be assumed to be spherical, so that's not saying to much. Also, you don't even need to make the assumption they're criticizing. The correct way to start the argument is the way I've broken it down.

It's thought that CO2 does not primarily heat the atmosphere by the direct greenhouse gas effect, but rather it acts to enhance the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere (it is a "greenhouse gas accelerator"). The physics of this are well understood. The main uncertainty is what happens to the extra water vapor: Does it stay as a vapor, does it form thin, high altitude clouds (in which case there is an increase in sensitivity beyond the water vapor effect), or heavy, low-altitude clouds (in which case there is a reduction in the effect from adding the extra water vapor).

Generally it is assumed that the effects of the high-thin clouds and low-thick clouds balance each other. But this is really just a punt, because the models don't accurately model the cloud formation period and they're just hand waving away a flaw of the models.

People who say it's obvious that adding CO2 appreciably warms the atmosphere due to the direct greenhouse gas effect bluntly have no idea what they are talking about.

Hope this helps.

See WIkipedia for more on incomplete combustion and ethanol-gasoline mixtures. Usually if you know the terms to search for, Google works pretty well.

Good deal, Carrick! I knew you would come through. Now, perhaps you could take a swing at explaining this to Congress?

Spart, the fake tan crowd is not limited to NJ. Here in rural west PA it is spreading like a melanoma. And these people look freaky! Especially the ones that only use the small tanning lights, that only do the face and upper neck. Ugh!