Today in Biofuels Opinion: “Bathroom time may not be wasted time after all.”

Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn: “A letter recently delivered to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger about the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard and Indirect Land Use Change (iLUC), signed by me and others concerned about national security, was well-intended. However, upon more careful research and reflection, I now believe the letter missed the mark. It was my understanding that the position represented by the letter would simply champion the rapidly growing biofuels industry against an effort by fossil fuel advocates to weaken the LCFS. While that may be true, the way in which we replace fossil fuel with biofuels must take into consideration how those biofuels are made, from what feedstocks, and the total impact they have, from “field to fuel tank”, on greenhouse gases. I have concluded that the LCFS and iLUC do that very well, and I support immediate implementation by the State of California. In fact, the development and implementation of similar standards should be accomplished at a national level.”

From Discover magazine: “Bathroom time may not be wasted time after all: A year’s worth of your poop can be turned into 2.1 gallons of useable diesel. And the Norwegian capital of Oslo plans to put all that waste to work powering 80 of its buses with fuel made from the Bekkelaget sewage treatment plant, which houses the waste of 250,000 people. If all goes as planned, the city’s other waste treatment plant, as well as biofuels made from food waste, will eventually contribute to the total supply—and with serious results: Fueling 400 or so buses this way would reduce 30,000 tons of carbon emissions a year.”

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