<DrumBeat: July 14, 2007The Oil DrumCongestion Pricing: It all comes down to three men in a room>

245 comments on Requesting Feedback on Renewable Diesel Essay

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auntiegrav on July 14, 2007 - 3:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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.

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

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btu on July 14, 2007 - 4:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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?

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710 on July 14, 2007 - 4:52pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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?

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WNC Observer on July 14, 2007 - 7:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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.

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Kevembuangga on July 15, 2007 - 12:53pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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).

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auntiegrav on July 21, 2007 - 2:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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.

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?

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?

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.

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