245 comments on Requesting Feedback on Renewable Diesel Essay
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There is no choice to do so in the long run. The nutrients in the soil come from microorganisms that break down the surrounding rock and dust and make nutrient forms that are available to plants. Long term monocropping sterilizes the soil, especially when the feed for the organisms that live there is depleted. The lack of organic material makes the ground harder to till and plow. ('no-till' alternatives are designed for leaving more material on top of the ground than conventional tillage, but the point is that you always need to add organic matter to the soil or it loses productivity, no matter how much conventional fertilizer is used).
Other comparative uses of the land and plants should be considered. The problem with all energy/agriculture discussions is that they treat themselves as specialized, isolated functions, like a factory built on concrete. Agriculture requires synergistic thought, or it fails. Instead of growing biodiesel, the fields would be better off getting covered by solar panels and growing mushrooms underneath. All this tilling, hauling, conversion, processing and hauling is the biggest scam the banks have come up with yet to loan money to people to build processing facilities, buy trucks, buy advertising, and sell their cows which used to do it all themselves.
http://www.acresusa.com is a good place to find more earthy discussions of the effects of soil abuse.
AS for corn, rapeseed, etc; I would like to see comparisons between the use of these crops as home heating and greenhouse heating on the farm itself (look at http://www.growingformarket.com for past articles on greenhouse heating with corn and wood) instead of all the processing and hauling off-farm.
We need to start over with the energy equations from the standpoint of what is necessary for people to survive, then add the luxury of more consumption as we evaluate available excess natural productivity, instead of starting with what people are demanding, which is fed by what they are marketing, which is fed by what they are demanding.
Back to basics.
I would also like to see some comparison between the advantages of diesel in general over gasoline/ethanol in terms of working efficiency. There are several reasons that hard working engines are mostly diesels and recreational engines are spark-ignition.
"If you want Change, keep it in your pocket. You vote for a faux president every four years, but you vote for real corporations thousands of times each month. Your money is your only real vote."
The nutrients in the soil come from microorganisms that break down the surrounding rock and dust and make nutrient forms that are available to plants.
One attempt to address part of that problem:
http://www.remineralize.org/
"We need to start over with the energy equations from the standpoint of what is necessary for people to survive".
Having read all the comments so far I think "auntiegrav" has said it best. Forget about all of the luxury consumption currently taking place and calculate what is really needed to maintain foodstocks, critical infrastructure, etc. Sustainability must be the determining factor when weighing the different biofuel options for the PO world. In the days before synthetic fertilizers, crop rotations, animal manure and plowdown crops (green manure) provided soil fertility, and going forward this will once again have to be considered.
Biofuels produced on the farm will first be used to power farm equipment and provide electrical generation for the farm. The fact that bio-diesel can be stored for long periods will allow the farmer to save some fuel for a rainy day much like what is done with on farm grain storage. The first priority for the farm is the survival and viability of the farm, any excess biofuel may be sold to the open market. This is much like the predictions for the oil exporting countries, take care of your own needs first, there will always be a market for any excess.
Why, Thank You.;-)
Yes, think about this aspect as we look at using the biodiesel on the farm. Small scale extruders are available to produce the oil locally (farm or village level), and we have to ask how many people are going to survive the coming crisis.
If you could get humans to look ahead and follow this advice above, then we wouldn't be so locked into a crisis. The majority of petroleum use is unnecessary as far as survival is concerned. We are burning up fuels mostly so people can drive for the sake of driving, not so they can get anywhere useful. Most people, with a little planning, can drastically reduce transportation, food, and home energy costs. The fact that the major players have a name like "Demand Destruction" for it illustrates the seriousness of our insanity.
We don't have to destroy demand going back to the Stone Age, we only have to go back to the mid-20th century consumption level (WWII period without the war) to greatly improve our prognosis while we look for alternatives.
"I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!" -"Network", c.1976
Two farm based energies intrigue me, one is pelletized warm season grasses, this is being used in Canada in greenhouses to replace propane and natural gas. I produce native grass seed (organically managed) and prior to the growing season the grassland must be burned or the dried native grass harvested. At 2 ton per acre and 16 million btu per ton my 60 acre rotation (120 acres total grassland) would yield just under 1 billion btu's or 9,600 therms and this is a byproduct. This is 13 times the natural gas my house uses in one heating season in Minneapolis. See http://www.reap-canada.com for pelletized grass info.
The other is biodiesel, we will need some type of fuel to continue producing food in large quantities. The fact that most all large farm equipment burns diesel makes this attractive. I like the idea of farm scale biodiesel processing equipment, growing your own fuel so to speak. When the fossil fuels run out the highways could be a bit lonely as I tool along in my biodiesel powered Maserrati?
While the majority of people on this blog agree with "wasteful" energy usage, those wastes supply people with hundred of millions of jobs worldwide. Those jobs to supply the world with iPods, sports cars, gaming LANs, and plastic everything.
How many different programming languages, cereals, shoe brands, and cosmetics do we need as a society?
And who makes the call? And what happens to the suppliers and consumers of the obviated options?
And we still haven't addressed our seeming need to grow. Because if we calculate the minimum necessary to maintain foodstocks, infrastructure, etc., and implement a suitable plan but we keep growing, then we are at this point again in 10 to 30 years, and left with no more efficiencies to find, no more slack to take up, no more fat to trim from the system.
And then what will we do?
There used to be hundreds of thousands of people employed making horse carriages, saddles, tack, and buggy whips. There used to be stables in every town and city, each employing lots of people. Everyone forgets what a huge business ice used to be before refrigeration; hundreds of thousands were employed in the harvesting of ice each winter and in the transport, storage and delivery of ice year round.
Maybe all those jobs will be re-created - who knows?
Times change. Nobody gets a guaranteed lifetime job (except maybe tenured academics, and even then only if their institution and program continues to exist).
I am not the first one to think that perhaps if energy will from here on out become increasingly expensive, then the long-term trend of substitution of energy-powered mechanization for human labor might unwind, and the demand for human labor increase. There could be a demand for plenty of workers in the future for jobs that don't even exist now. Unfortunately, most of these are not likely to be well-paying jobs.
And we still haven't addressed our seeming need to grow. Because if we calculate the minimum necessary to maintain foodstocks, infrastructure, etc., and implement a suitable plan but we keep growing, then we are at this point again in 10 to 30 years, and left with no more efficiencies to find, no more slack to take up, no more fat to trim from the system.
Oh! YES! YES! YES!
This is the point which is ABSOLUTELY, CONSTANTLY OVERLOOKED.
Even if we could get out of the current predicament this would be of no use and even DETRIMENTAL if we don't find a cure for the general problem of decreasing marginal returns (and population growth too).
Deep lack of understanding of Tainter's ideas (or plain ignorance).
Jobs don't matter. What matters is basic needs, and long term survival of the species. What's the point in making a lot of people fat, dumb and stupid just for the sake of having a lot of people?
I make the call. Or I can tell you how to make the call. It's called "Net Creativity", or "Good and Evil" or "For the Children". Nature decides which species survive based upon their Net usefulness to the future after subtracting the resources they consume. Good and Evil is determined by what benefits the most people FOR THE LONGEST TIME. Our Children will need resources to survive. They don't need 6.5 billion people in order to preserve the future capabilities of our species.
Whether we figure out how to live cooperatively and rationally as a species will be determined by our forethought and planning. It is already too late to preserve the 6.5 billion numbers that we have spawned. Nature will see to that. However, we have to decide how to preserve as many as we need to ensure genetic diversity and adaptability for whatever disasters may come, or to be able to prevent such disasters to our planet. In other words, we can't throw away all of our knowledge and technology and live in caves, but we need to live in the caves that are available, and minimize our impact so that we have a possible future to save for at least some of the species.
Cooperation, trumps competition. Wisdom trumps blind faith, conservation trumps consumption, Scientific caution trumps corporate profits, needs trump wants, and especially; future needs trump present demands.
Except we have several historical examples of societies that would much rather die trying to hang on to their current mode of existence than convert to something more workable, and very few of the opposite case.
It seems highly unlikely that Western societies, accustomed as we are to an abundance of food, comfort and luxury are going to willingly give it up.
Honestly I only see two alternatives: we somehow magically invent and implement enough new technology in time to be able to continue providing the same level of existence without continually degrading the planet (technically feasible, but I wouldn't put any money on it), or we suffer a severe, extended economic depression that is sufficent to forcibly change government, corporate and consumer attitudes. Attitudes towards consumerism were surely very different coming out the 1930's than they are now. The difference next time will be that there will be too many of us, a too-heavily-degraded environment, and a lack of cheap abundant energy with which to allow a return to our current mode of existence.
Congratulations. You just condemned the 90% of the people in America that exist off of luxury consumption to death. Either that, or we are looking at a future america which consists of 350 million serfs and a few thousand lords.
That's only because you presume 350 million people will readily submit to serfdom under the control of a few thousand lords.
Poppycock!
Or should I say: poppyseeds. ;-)
Since it's poppycock, can you explain to me the operational difference, other than vocation, between a serf and a person with no property rights and no habeus corpus? 'Cause Americans happily submitted both those things in the last year or so. Who needs rights, we've got American Idol!
Regardless of whether it has happened already or not, you're both overlooking the third population group, the new middle class: feudal soldiers personally loyal to those few thousand lords, whose job will be to encourage folk to submit to serfdom. Feudalism will be making a comeback, not least because it relieves the masses from the terrifying burden of thinking.
IMO, anyone looking to learn a useful post peak skill should consider learning to make black powder and muzzleloaders.
"Let us wrestle with the ineffable and see if we may not, in fact, eff it after all."
-Dirk Gently, character of the late great Douglas Adams.
No difference. In fact, in a neofeudal world, no one has an assured place if they fall out of favour. Lord Conrad Black is facing a possible 20 years in prison for theft of a mere $60 million. Yet Dov Zackheim, who saw over $2 trillion vanish from the pentagon on his watch is a free man.
Oh, I don't deny that our present arrangement doesn't amount to much more than a form of glorified serfdom.
However, such an arrangement is dependent on a lot of top-down control mechanisms -- political, social, ecological, etc. -- that is increasingly coming apart at the seams precisely because it is all beyond anyone's control. Once this Humpty Dumpty control system starts breaking down for good, it won't be going back together as before.
Nor would I say that "Americans happily submitted" to the losses you mentioned. There has been a surge of push-back against their theft. Whether any of this really matters I would further argue that the true test of such submission has yet to have happened. Despite the lack of mass protests in the streets I do think there is more than enough animosity at the grass roots level and from a thousand and one different angles against the controlling naked emperor interests that could erupt given the right circumstances.
With any luck it could be, like in the Soviet Union breakdown, a mostly non-violent event that pulls the rug out from under our modern serfdom system once enough people recognize how ill-served they are by the controlling interests. We may not be there yet, but we aren't far from it.
While I certainly don't rule out the use of force upon us, such brute control will not long stand in the face of all the other unraveling factors beyond any Powers That Be, not the least of which will be to further shred the legitimacy of those in control.
In any event, a post crash Feudalism may well be forced upon, and/or submitted to in some areas, but it will by no means be complete or unresisted. That is clearly what I was objecting to.
You are setting up a false dichotomy. The present US economy and medieval serfdom are not the only two possible ways in which an economy can be organized. There are many others, including many that haven't been tried yet. Some of them might even look pretty good.
Our most scarce resource right now apparently is not crude oil but imaginative and creative thinking.
I've been trying to make that very point for quite some time now.
I'm not sure I see real lack of imaginative and creative thinking...it's the lack of imaginative and creative doing that's a problem, and it's becoming really hard to see what will force people into taking part into that sort of doing.
Not to mention the fact that ideas are all very well and nice, but until proven to work successfully in reality, they are just that: ideas.
The day we start to genuinely see a lack of imaginative and creating thinking is the day we can be sure the human race is truly in a state of decline.
You can't get people to do something if they think it's useless or counterproductive. They have to think that it will get them somewhere first.
But I don't believe that's the reason people aren't doing enough. You have companies like Exxon explicitly coming out and saying that have no interest in renewables. You have car manufacturers explicitly fighting against proposed CAFE standards even while losing business continuing to build over-sized, inefficient vehicles. And worst of all you have governments explicitly promoting one of the few "oil-substitute" technologies we all know doomed to fail: corn ethanol.
In Australia, we have car manufactures preferring to shed jobs and complain about reducing import tariffs and/or the strong Aussie dollar rather than invest in smaller car sizes and/or new technologies. And we have governments still planning to spend far more on freeways than on public transport, despite a whole host of suggested options for improving public transport in our cities, and strong evidence that increasing petrol prices are already beginning to encourage people to drive less and use P.T. more.
It seems the large corporations and governments that could genuinely make a difference are all singularly determined not to, or to go about it the wrong way. You could blame this on a lot of things, but lack of creative and imaginative ideas doesn't strike me as one of them.
Hard to stop the "business as usual" mindset relative to fossil fuels, what drives the government of any country, follow the money.
I have no problem with a "follow the money" principle, providing it's "Follow the money, without jeapordising the long-term prosperity of the company, and indeed the human race".
Or to put it more simply, "Follow the long-term money".
Currently the attitude seems to be "Increase this year's bottomline at all costs, screw the future".
And among governments "Make it look like you're doing something in order to get elected this/next year, screw the future".
You missed BTU's point. One follows the money to find out why today's political pressures are what they are. This tells you where you have to push to change them.
One source of pressure behind corn ethanol is, not suprisingly, corn farmers. This is one reason why I proposed incentives for non-grain biomass as part of my Sustainability scheme; it would benefit the same farmers for the same crop, without going through the thoroughly wasteful conversion steps for the ethanol product or competing with food consumers.