Green solutions are often nowhere near as green as they seem at first glance.
Following green fashions is de rigueur these days, not only for consumers but also for companies and public policy.
The media feeds consumers simplistic headlines lifted from environmental NGO reports, unsupported by any basic reporting or critical thinking.
Those consumers, each virtue-signalling how much they sacrifice in their noble quest to ‘save the planet’, create demand for whatever the latest green fad is.
Markets merely adapt to demand.
So instead of tackling the problem of proper plastic bag disposal, we get given canvas or paper bags, even though these alternatives are more expensive, have major drawbacks, use more resources to produce and transport, and are ultimately more harmful to the environment.
Instead of tackling the problem of abandoned fishing gear, which accounts for much, or even most, of the plastic in the ocean, we get stupid plastic straw bans, which subject us to soggy paper straws or unhygienic, expensive and impractical reusable alternatives.
Soy and soy oil
Last month, I wrote about the undeserved positive image of soy among much of the public.
Although it was widely promoted as an alternative to meat by environmental organisations and hokum vegumentaries like Cowspiracy, drawing an artificial distinction between soy grown for livestock feed and soy grown for human consumption turned out to be facile.
Even if everyone had gone entirely vegan (as they continue to advocate, despite the fact that vegan diets are feasible only for rich people with lots of time on their hands), it would have only modestly curbed the 15-fold increase of acreage under soy production since 1950, which has been a major cause of deforestation, especially in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil.
The production of soya beans turned out to be a land hog, a water hog, a fertiliser hog and a pesticide hog, increasing emissions due to land-use change, contributing to habitat destruction and loss of biodiversity, and producing an excess of waste products.
The oil of soya beans is widely promoted as a healthy vegetable oil, but a more commonly-used substitute, the oft-demonised palm oil, turns out to be eight times more efficient in terms of land use.
Soy seems set to join a growing list of green trends that with hindsight turned out to do more harm than good. A surprising feature of all of these is that it wasn’t all that long ago that we thought they were the bee’s knees, from an environmental perspective.
Biofuels from food crops
Promoted as a promising solution to reduce the dependence of the transport sector on fossil fuels, which would, it was believed, help mitigate climate change, biofuels made from food crops gained traction in the 1990s.
In 1974, Archers Daniels Midland, a US producer of high-fructose corn syrup, was trying to find a market for a waste product, ethanol.
Like all good American capitalists, it came up with a way to sell it: as an additive to petrol, which it argued would increase fuel octane and decrease vehicle exhaust pollution.
Like all bad American capitalists, it proceeded to enlist the aid of the US government, promising politicians a future of energy independence (which was a big deal after the 1974 oil crisis), productive use of excess corn (maize) production capacity, improved air quality, and a vibrant rural economy.
A massive lobbying effort ultimately encompassed not only corn, but also soy and sugarcane. It peaked during the 1990s and early 2000s, winning bipartisan support for elaborate ethanol support programmes.
Biofuel production became heavily subsidised, turning swathes of food farms into fuel farms.
Because not enough people actually wanted biofuels, even if they were subsidised, mandates were introduced to force fuel companies to adulterate their petroleum products with ethanol.
However, the trend soon revealed its dark side. Large-scale conversion of agricultural land for biofuel production led to deforestation and habitat destruction.
Moreover, as crops were diverted from food to fuel, global food prices surged, sparking concerns about food security and exacerbating hunger in some regions.
The indirect land use changes caused by this conversion often released more carbon emissions than the biofuels were expected to offset.
In every single way, ethanol production from food crops turned out to be a disaster, but for several decades, the ethanol industry laughed all the way to the bank.
The detrimental environmental and social consequences of this trend became evident around the mid-2000s, prompting a reassessment of biofuel policies and a shift towards second-generation biofuels that utilise non-food feedstocks, but are probably still dubious.
Compact fluorescent lamps
Another green trend with ties to the 1974 oil crisis is the compact fluorescent lightbulb (CFL). Although fluorescent lights date back to the 1940s, a compact spiral version was invented by a General Electric engineer, Edward E. Hammer, in 1976.
GE shelved the project, citing manufacturing costs, and although other manufacturers got involved in the R&D, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that the many technological obstacles to a tolerable drop-in replacement for traditional filament lightbulbs became available.
By 2000, CFLs were heavily promoted by eco-minded lobby groups as a greener alternative to traditional incandescent bulbs, due to their energy efficiency and the promise of longer lifespans.
Governments and environmental organisations actively promoted their use as a way to reduce household energy consumption and carbon emissions. Many governments passed legislation to phase out filament lightbulbs entirely.
Since the quality of light emitted by CFLs was harsh and less aesthetically pleasing than the warm light of filament bulbs, consumers were, ahem, incandescent with rage.
Then concerns arose over their mercury content. Mercury is a hazardous substance that can be released when CFLs break or are improperly disposed of, posing risks to human health and the environment.
Suddenly, every broken lightbulb became a toxic waste site underfoot where the children play.
By the mid-2010s, the short-lived CFL boom was over, forever to be replaced by even more energy-efficient alternatives such as light-emitting diodes, which are merely annoying when they fail.
Electric car battery disposal
With the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and oil dependency, use of hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs) started gaining momentum by the early 2010s.
The development of lithium-ion batteries was instrumental in making these vehicles viable.
As the vehicles became more practical and less expensive, however, various previously-ignored issues emerged that marred the green image of these vehicles.
Lower life-cycle emissions than those from internal combustion engine cars are only really achievable if the EVs are charged using renewable energy in the first place. Otherwise, they just shift emissions from the exhaust to the power station.
Most comparative green analyses stop with emissions, however. They don’t consider other vectors of environmental pollution or negative social impacts.
The harder rubber required to support these heavy batteries increases rubber dust, which (unlike straws) is one of the primary contributors to microplastics in the environment.
We could handwave that away, since actual harm from microplastic pollution has yet to be convincingly demonstrated.
More seriously, heavier braking systems produce far more particulate dust than those in traditional cars. Particulates are known to cause a variety of harms to human health.
Most critically, however, EV batteries impose significant environmental harm, both upon manufacture and disposal.
The extraction of materials like lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth elements for battery production often involves environmentally damaging or morally questionable mining practices.
Recycling large EV batteries is a complex and resource-intensive process, and safely disposing of large volumes of very toxic and highly inflammable batteries is a problem that has yet to be solved.
Biomass energy
The concept of using biomass, such as wood pellets and agricultural residues, for energy generation dates back centuries, of course.
An early large-scale example with the explicit aim to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and reduce carbon emissions was fired up in Stockholm in 1983, providing both power and heat to Sweden’s capital city. It used renewable and locally sourced biomass.
The concept gained wider traction, especially in the developed world, as the 21st century dawned and energy producers cast about for renewable alternatives to fossil fuels.
As one can imagine, unintended consequences happened. They outsourced the nasty business of procuring the fuel feedstock (wood pellets or briquettes) to the poor world, and it became a deforestation bonanza.
These power stations burn vast quantities of fuel. The largest biomass power station I could find, the Alholmens Kraft in Pietarsaari in Finland, generates 265 MW of electricity and 160 MW in heating steam and water.
It burns 1 000 cubic metres of compressed, dessicated fuel per hour.
Deforestation to harvest wood for pellets led to habitat loss and biodiversity decline, while monoculture farming for biomass crops displaced food production and reduced ecosystem resilience.
The extraction and transportation of biomass resources also resulted in more carbon and other pollutants.
Concerns about the ecological and social impacts of large-scale biomass production prompted reevaluation of the sustainability of burning biomass in power stations.
There have been calls for stricter regulations, sustainable sourcing, and a more comprehensive assessment of the environmental impact of biomass energy. Waste-derived biomass energy may find a niche, but frankly, I think the whole idea of wood-derived biomass energy is nuts.
Hydroelectric dams
Hydroelectric dams were hailed as clean energy sources that could replace fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This trend gained prominence in the mid-20th century as nations sought to harness hydropower for electricity generation and water management.
They were also sold as grand public infrastructure projects that could be funded with deficit spending to artificially gin up GDP numbers and earn accolades for the political elite.
The realisation that dam construction had detrimental consequences unfolded gradually.
Very obviously, large dams displaced communities whose homes and ancestral lands would be submerged.
With time, it also became clear that dams altered river ecosystems, and disrupted important fish migration routes.
The filling of reservoirs often led to the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from decaying vegetation underwater.
By the 21st century, growing awareness of these negative impacts spurred debates about the true sustainability of hydroelectric projects, leading to more comprehensive assessments and consideration of alternatives like smaller-scale, run-of-the-river hydropower and other renewable energy sources.
The development of intermittent renewable energy sources has revived an interest in dam building, however, since pumped storage schemes work as effective large-scale batteries to buffer unreliable energy production.
Life cycle
Like the story of soy, these examples highlight the importance of considering the full lifecycle and potential consequences of green policies before widespread adoption.
Environmental solutions are a dime a dozen. Environmental sciences courses are over-subscribed. Millions of people and thousands of organisations are all vying for attention and subsidies for their particular green special interest.
This is a reminder that the critics need space, too. Research on proposed environmental ‘solutions’ needs to be aggressively, and adversarially, tested.
We can’t rely on the developers of a proposed new solution, who may present a report outlining only the benefits of their new-fangled idea. We need critical reviews and comprehensive assessments before commencing new projects, and hear from opponents who may have relevant knowledge and experience.
Green solutions are often nowhere nearly as green as they seem at first glance. Many turn out to be grand follies.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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