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I read Bjorn Carey's story at LiveScience, but am still unclear if the "net energy gain" of the production of ethanol from corn takes into account not just the cost (in today's terms) of petroleum used to grow (not harvest and refine) the corn crop, but the diversion of the natural gas from its more basic and essential use: space heating. To justify cost-effectiveness in today's world without considering sustainability in tomorrow's is to risk the availability of limited supplies of fuel types that will be needed to build the "Beyond Petroleum" infrastructure of the future.
Additionally, there seems to be no analysis of the amount of cropland that would need to be converted from food production to syn-fuel production. As our intensive petro-based agriculture converts to lower energy form (due to lack of natural gas as "feedstock" for fertilizer/pesticides), more land will be needed to feed the people of the Planet. If we sacrifice a substantial proportion of our already-stressed cornbelt for fuel production, whence will we derive our food? And to divert groundwater of the depleting Ogallala Aquifer and non-renewable topsoil of Kansas and Nebraskan farms only to supply more non-food energy seems wasteful. These considerations, too, seems to be left out of the reductionist approach of Kammen's cost-benefit analysis.
I do find the concept of converting cover species (switchgrass, willow) to ethanol intriguing, especially when considered in tandem with the clearing of land for increased agricultural production.
Finally, this is yet another justification of the supply-side solution
to our energy predicament. In my opinion ethanol could serve as a useful fuel source during transition to a lower energy world, and possibly as a local source of energy to drive farm-related production. It is our challenge to simultaneously develop demand-side solutions while investigating supply-side solutions.
OM Shanti,
Jim Zack, Sustainable Saratoga Springs (NY)
Hi Jim,
Short answer: yes.
http://rael.berkeley.edu/ebamm/
Kammen's group appears to have done a very thorough job, accounting for all inputs as well as making sure that co-products (like corn meal feed) are charged with part of the input costs as well.
Regarding losing food cropland to fuel cropland, that's an alarmist argument and holds very little water. As you point out, cover crops were looked at and determined to be an even better source for ethanol production than corn (I suppose if the Corn Lobby funded this study, they didn't care for that assessment very much). Fuel crops can grow on much more marginal soil than food crops can. Market forces (there, I said it) will always balance food production against any other land use.
Myself, I'm much more concerned about selling good farmland to developers who then build Sprawl.
Biofuel production is in its infancy: while there are some farms running their tractors on SVO or biodiesel, it's really a nascent industry. So we do have a real opportunity, right now, to keep it decentralized. Regional or even local biofuel production should be a top priority for relocalization efforts.
RE: Market forces (there, I said it) will always balance food production against any other land use.
Food for whom? In South America, thousands of peasants have been forced into urban slums over the past twenty years to starve--thrown off of the land that once grew the staples of life for them and their countrymen--so that rich folks from other countries could get richer by growing and exporting soy beans--much of it not for food use.
The market as a balancing tool is grossly inadequate when political and economic power are not also balanced among the people who comprise "the market," or when entire groups of people, due to their low purchasing power, are excluded from its membership.
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs
is to be ruled by evil men. (Plato)
Denise,
You're absolutely correct. Thanks for expanding that aspect of "market forces" out to show why it's mentally lazy to invoke it.
If we were already making all our buying choices on a local level, there wouldn't be a market for those exported soybeans. We'd also discover, if we chose to constrain ourselves to locally preoduced resources, that homes can be built in nice dense clusters on hillsides with ridges and gorges left as open space, fertile flat land can grow plenty of food, and marginal land can grow fuel crops. Oh yes: and we wouldn't be eating much meat, since the marginal land previously used for grazing would be repurposed for fuel. Huh, I suppose there is a food trade-off. Well, we eat too much meat anyway.
I have far more faith in educating people about the consequences of their buying choices and then letting the market reach an equilibrium than I do in any political mandate to create sustainable communities and relocalization.
I see a real clear demarcation: political power should be used to support/create infrastructure and hold economic power in check, as well as allow for a settling of grievances between entities. I get very worked when politics joins with economics to shuffle people off into slums.
People get upset when you bring it up so I'm
glad someone else did, but yes, we eat
far too much meat. I wish everyone on this board and
everyone intersted in post-peak, permaculture, etc,
would read over e.g. Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine,
http://www.pcrm.org/health/
Harel, happily vegetarian since 1991 (vegan since 1994),
and enjoying my food not less, not the same, but
FAR MORE than previously....(just like cutting back on salt
and replacing it with more complex flavorings
means you don't enjoy food less, but enjoy it MORE...analogous in my experience)
Bob, or anyone else so inclined,
I-SIS published this article on their website recently. In it, the organization claims "Biodiesel has greater environmental impacts than diesel." It also purports that external costs in the lifecycle of biodiesel production are ignored.
I am certainly no expert on biodiesel generation, so I'm asking for a critique or review of this article.
Thanks,
Jim Zack
Jim,
I think even the "experts" on bio-fuels are feeling around in the dark.
I'm very concerned about the rush to globalize biofuel production. Haven't we learned anything? I perceive the great promise of biofuels is that they are grown, refined, and used at the regional level. In fact, that's a goal of the Berkeley Biodiesel Collective: to ensure that our fuel comes from local sources.
In the I-SIS report, they talk about the fertilizer that would be used to grow rapeseed for virgin oil. Where do they get their figures for how much fertilizer would be used? Why do they suppose the fertilizer feedstock would be a petroleum product? Why do these studies focus on all the ways this process won't work, instead of offering us ways they could?
If rapeseed requires such chemo-intensive farming in Europe, don't grow it! Grow some other oilseed!
Somehow, Brazil manages to run something like 95% of its transportation on fuel crops. Where are the studies that are looking at what's working in Brazil, and what could be improved?
Bob,
Thanks for the analysis. I-SIS issued a press release today (15 Mar 2006) claiming that cellulosic ethanol (CE) is neither sustainable nor environmentally benign.
They seem to challenge your perception that CE production is down-scaleable to local biomass-driven production facilities. John Sheehan of National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL) found that has discovered that "biorefineries"--which produce not only power (ethanol), but animal feed, fuels, chemicals, polymers, lubricants, adhesives, fertilizers and power--need to process 5,000 to 10,000 tons of biomass per day to be economically viable. Mr. Sheehan goes on to state "Below 2,000 tons per day, capital costs skyrocket."
I'm not sure how production occurs at the Berkeley Biodiesel Collective, but surely it is using less than 2,000 tones of biomass per day. Please tell us where Mr. Sheehan has erred. Is BBC producing co-products, or just ethanol?
The I-SIS article goes on to compare the waste products of combustion of ethanol vs gasoline and states that the former produces increased amounts of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde (both known carcinogens), and peroxyacetylnitrate (PAN), which is genotoxic (causes genetic damage) and produces respiratory and eye irritation and may produce lung damage.
The I-SIS article goes on to tell us that, according to Cal Hodge of A 2nd Opinion, Inc., ethanol was given a clean bill of health by the EPA despite its combustion releasing more oxides of nitrogen than gasoline and permeating the seals in automotive fuel systems. He was actually calling for a ban on ethanol-containing gasoline fuels. He may have vested interests in saying so; I'm just not sure...
Finally, in another I-SIS web-lication, the figure of 40% (not 95%) is given for the percentage of Brazil's driving fuel that is ethanol. However, in some amazing forethought, the country's "flex-fuel" fleet of vehicles can run on 100% ethanol or 100% gasoline. I'd infer from that statement that the fleet can run on any blend of the two fuels as well. Bear in mind, however, that Brazil's president Lula has admitted that biofuels are derived from genetically-modified (GM) soybeans, while "good" soybeans are used for human consumption.
There seems to be a lot of conflicting information about the sustainability and environmental impacts regarding the production and combustion of ethanol. I'm not sure whose special interests are being served or whether there is a cloak of obfuscation being drawn over the topic. As I mentioned, I will not pretend to understand all this information, but feel I have a responsibility to follow pertinent discussions and articles.
Peace,
Jim Zack
Hi Jim,
Over at Ethanol in Brazil Wikipedia, it confirms that 40% of the transportation fuel, nationwide, is provided by ethanol. Since flex-fuel cars and ethanol cars account for nearly every passenger vehicle in Brazil, over 95% of the folks there are driving with some amount of ethanol in their tanks: they're driving on 100% ethanol or a gasohol blend.
Brazil uses only half its sugarcane for ethanol production. They could conceivably be providing 80% of their fuel needs if sugar wasn't such an excellent cash crop (dang! There's that relocalization hook again!).
Regarding the Berkeley Biodiesel Collective, perhaps you missed the "biodiesel" part. Biodiesel has been accepted as a net energy gain for some time; waste or virgin oil, perform a minimum of processing, and you've got fuel. It's the sort of thing you can do in a backyard shed. Fermenting plant sugars into fuel was less obviously a net gain because distilling takes energy.
What Brazil has proved for decades now is that they can take 50% of their harvest, ferment it, distill it (using energy from burning the rest of the cane parts) and finish up with auto fuel as well as extra electricity to sell back to the grid. Pretty clearly, a net energy gain.
And that's why Kammen et. al.'s work is exciting, is because it brings that info into our borders, so we can start thinking about a local crop we could grow on marginal land to provide fuel for transportation at a regional level.
I just heard a feature on NPR's Morning Edition that discussed the Pimentel report that Ethanol is a net energy loser.
A Google search for "Patzek and Kammen" revealed this article on UC-Berkeley's site, that points out the omission of proper accounting for co-products in the Pimentel study.
To be fair, the NPR piece did include some positive spin for cellulosic ethanol, but that was buried in Patzek's pessimism about the fuel.
Bob, would you be kind enough to report the findings of Farrell et al. to NPR?
OM Shanti,
Jim Zack, Sustainable Saratoga Springs (NY)
ethanol is the farmers enron, a pure rip-off.
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