The French were right!

That's Freedom Fries.

The US cares about international goodwill when it needs the cooperation of other powers to achieve its ends.

For example:

- to hunt down international terrorist groups like Al Quaida

- to form a united front against Iranian nuclear ambitions

- to help extract itself from the mess that it is in in Iraq

- to help secure Afghanistan

- to maintain a united front against a crazed and nuclear armed North Korea

- to work out what to do about global warming

Now it turns out French intelligence is particularly good on the Islamic terrorist issue (having crushed Islamic terrorists in the early 90s, and being spectacularly well connected in the Middle East).

And before the invasion of Iraq, Syrian intelligence was very helpful in tracking down Al Quaida people (and Syria was part of the CIA Extraordinary Rendition aka torture network).

So GWB's bluster notwithstanding, the US needs the world, just as the world needs the US.

The conversion of coal or ng directly into liquid fuels must, by definition, be eroei negative. Nevertheless, there has been much discussion on TOD regarding when and how much of this might occur, eg it has already begun, I think, in China. I don't remember anybody worrying that the process would be negative, while there has been much concern that ethanol is, or is not, negative.

Ethanol and tar sands are both a conversion of ng + diesel into liquid crude that, apparently, is more valuable to the world. Why look at either of these in any different light than direct conversion? From this perspective it does not matter whether EROEI is positive or negative, naturally positive is better. One important issue is the relative amount of co2 released/unit liquid fuels... maybe ethanol is best? After all, a little of the energy does come from the sun.

And, raising corn prices - which, of course, means all grains - benefits farmers just as high oil/gas prices benefits the oil patch. And, these higher prices presumably mean that US farm grain price supports, which I think are price dependent, will decline even as the total paid for ethanol subsidies increase. Have no idea if the current ethanol vs grain subsidy environment is saving or costing the gov money...

A side benefiti of all this is that the public is becoming aware that fossil fuels are food, and vice versa. Perhaps a negative of both ethanol and tar sands is that increasing amounts of ng are consumed for these conversion at a time when NA ng production is declining, a point that the public will become aware of during the next cold winter.

Absolutely.

All of us at TOD agree that Peak Oil is imminent, ergo a crisis of some magnitude vis-a-vis mankind's petroleum dependency rests on the horizon +- 'x' number of years given the data sets one chooses to adhere to.

Furthermore, the members here have pointed out that no combination of alternatives will satiate this oil dependency, therefore demand destruction (likely through hyper-inflated price increases) will be forced upon us irrespective of how prepared we are.

Now human nature posits that although some of us will cry and moan about TEOTWAWKI, others will set about implementing mitigation strategies although as Hirsch has adroitly pointed out, any mitigation strategies considered must be deployed at least 15 years prior of Peak.

The problem is compounded further, however, in that due to the geologic nature of Peak Oil, the true market signals needed to foster commercial alternatives -outside of a national impetus- will likely be too late to be effective, while a national impetus in its own right, means admitting that Peak Oil is real.

Catch-22.

But I digress.

When analyzing all the Peak mitigation strategies available, conservation stands above the rest - something I have always maintained. Why? Because conservation directly and expeditiously reduces the amount of petroleum consumed.

And therein lies the context of my assertion about ethanol and why ethanol EROEI is not important.

In my opinion, the only Peak mitigation strategies worth considering, are those with the lowest petroleum input ratios [PIRs] and whether one likes it or not, ethanol (even corn ethanol) has a very low PIR.

I do think that EROEI "has importance". But it is not everything.

Return on Investment (ROI) is a stricter criteria, with a few clear exceptions, than EROEI. So if a company is investing in a project, it is fairly safe to conclude that it is EROEI positive with a few discrete exceptions:

1) Subsidies
2) Product quality improvements
3) Externalities
4) Sales margin or evaluating part of a process (i.e. a gasoline station is EROEI negative)

If the type of energy that are input are the same as those that are produced, it is impossible to have a project that is EROEI negative and ROI positive. Unless the input or output pricing is distorted

If the the quality of the output is better than a negative EROEI project can be ROI positive and useful. GTL, GTL and ethanol all fit into this category.

If an input is not counted, it can skew ROI. Corn ethanol production may not account for water, land and environmnetal destruction.

And so here's how it's done - team working helps, and so long as you are a lean mean running macine that can reach 70mph - you might just about survive. If you don't get in enough energy from the kill (and all those berries) to feed you and your family and all your mates then your stuffed.

Got to admit I don't understand why folks argue about EROEI - when I read about this first in Heinberg's book (a great read) it seemed like a no-brainer to me. In the finance world you can borrow or print money but in the energy world you can't - all you can do is steal it from a neighbour. But no one would ever dream of doing that - would they?

PS - the wildebast is an energy upgrading machine - producing concentrated proteins from grass.

For all the trashing of my comments regarding Fukuoka in the comments of another thread, it's interesting you provide a link to Rodale Institute duplicating his success with corn. Even better that it demonstrates superior yields to tilling methods. I'll be sure to send out this link with a similar link to USDA statistics.

You may consider rephrasing comments like "You misunderstand". Isn't that why we call it "communication" and not "message transmission"? You may presume that something might not be understood, which is why you have taken the time to comment further. Pointing this out explicitly will only serve to distract from your points and invite unwanted and unhelpful attention.

You did cherry pick when you used the 2003 harvest figure from the article linked in your comment.

http://www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu/marketing/grainoutlook/html/101703/101703.html

It is old data by a few years and at the top range of all time largest USA corn yields ever. There is no guarantee that farmers can keep up the herbicide and pesticide race with nature and return to 20-30 bushels per acre, as seen in most of the historical record.

I'm still failing to convey the point underneath berries and I'm not the one who started using the term. If you look through the Rodale claims, you'll notice claims of how little work was done to obtain these comparatively larger yields than till methods (whether organic or chemical). There is more to this than their roller contraption that Fukuoka would likely reject. Nevertheless, the results are encouraging in terms of crop yields per unit of energy invested. Performing some of these techniques you read about at the Rodale site have many overlaps to "primitive cultivation" techniques. Long term study of Hunter Gatherer groups have differing results than the short term studies often cited in popular press.

Sadly, I just don't have enough time to dig up the links for you. If I did, I might publish my own blog.

... compared to how much nitrogen is depleted from soil by growing beans. Since this discussion thread relates to Ethanol, I'm sure you could did up nitrogen use of sugar beets and sugar cane to debate this point. Either way, I know growing corn will require cover crops or fertilizer to compensate the loss in stored nitrogen in any soil base. For this reason, the "Three Sisters" include some variant of beans and begin with planting the seeds with fish. Since various other grains don't even grow during the same time of year as corn would be grown, I'm not sure what your point would be to discuss them.

Where are your statistics? I'm stopped looking for them after realizing how much you comment and the nature of those comments. Given your focus on insult, it didn't seem worth the effort. I suspect you don't feel heard. You might think about this, if your desire is to be heard. If the focus was to draw attention away from me, the results of this kind of communication style tends to backfire. An ignore button would eliminate the watering down you cause.