Large Scale Biofuel Production - Dead On Arrival
While biofuels from wastes offer limited economic potential and a wise environmental strategy - biofuel from waste production also represents practically - less than 1% of energy needs. Waste biofuel production is severely economically limited by logistical costs and climate - such that only a few site locations are economically feasible. There have been at least four or more major mass balance analysis studies of biofuels and all of them have agreed on at least one thing - significant energy production from biofuels will require NPK fertilizer - same as our food production for which biofuels will compete directly. Some experts have estimated a global biofuel industry could quadruple NPK demand over food production demand.
According to the 2011 USDA Fertilizer Import Summary - "U.S. nitrogen and potash supplies largely depend on imports. More than 54 percent of nitrogen (N) and 85 percent of potash (K2O) supply was from imports in calendar year 2011. Because domestic production capacity is limited, any increase in nitrogen and potash demands will have to be met largely by imports."
A decade ago the US was a net exporter of NPK and it's most critical component rock phosphates (also the only known at scale economic source of ag. and ind. phosphorous) that supply the phosphorus (most critical element) in NPK fertilizers which are btw totally dependent on petroleum for their production today. We now import a growing amount of rock phosphate - 15% of our consumption in 2011. From where you should ask? Well, that would be largely from Morocco. This begs the logical question - "If we have to import the fertilizers that we use for civilian/military biofuel and food production - how is that less risky, or a lower priority than importing foreign oil?" and "How does it reduce our critical dependency on foreign resources - especially in times of war where foreign dependency can be used against us as an effective weapon?"
