DrumBeat: October 7, 2007
Posted by Leanan on October 7, 2007 - 9:04am
Topic: Miscellaneous
When the peak-oil theory was publicized in Kenneth Deffeyes’ Hubbert’s Peak, Richard Heinberg’s The Party’s Over, David Goodstein’s Out of Gas and Paul Roberts’ The End of Oil earlier this decade, energy industry officials and their government friends quickly ridiculed the notion. The idea of an imminent peak — and subsequent decline — in global petroleum output was derided as crackpot science with little geological foundation.“Based on [our] analysis,” the U.S. Department of Energy confidently asserted in 2004, “[we] would expect conventional oil to peak closer to the middle than to the beginning of the 21st century.”
Recently, however, high-level government and industry reports have begun to suggest that the peak-oil theorists were far closer to the grim reality of global oil availability than industry analysts were willing to admit. Industry optimism regarding long-term energy supply prospects, these official reports indicate, has now given way to a deep-seated pessimism, even in the biggest of Big Oil corporate headquarters.
Kuwait to start producing natural gas in December
Oil-rich Kuwait will begin producing free natural gas for the first time ever in December, but it will be for local consumption only, a senior official told the Kuwait News Agency on Sunday.
Iraqi Kurdish leader defends oil deals
Iraq's Kurdish regional government on Sunday defended its adoption of an energy law and the clinching of global deals, saying the moves were aimed at making oil "work for the people of Iraq."
Permian Basin's oil and gas riches nearly went unharvested
The United States draws approximately a quarter of its daily domestic oil production from the Permian Basin.But this major source of crude was nearly overlooked.
"If you start with 1918-1920, the best-informed geologists really didn't think there was anything here," said Dr. Diana Hinton, J. Conrad Dunagan chairwoman in Business and Regional History and professor of history at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. "There had been some experimenting earlier around Toyah where they got some small amounts of oil. Then Spindletop came and why bother with small amounts when you had Spindletop?"
Oil prices barrel ahead toward 100 dollars: analysts
Oil traders appear to have cast aside concerns that high prices will lead to a global recession, and some analysts say the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has done little to bring prices down."It seems like the world is willing to pay more money for oil, it does not seem like it is slowing down growth," Tsocanos said. "OPEC does not have really a lot of capacities and so they could not increase production if they wanted to."
Of doomers, realists, powerdowners and fantasists
Reverend Norton says that what he is not persuaded of is “that human civilisation is about to come to an abrupt end.” Neither am I. I have argued elsewhere, however, that it is much more logical for one’s plan for the future at least to entertain that possibility. I will not repeat those arguments here. I simply would like to make the point that we realists (Oh fine, “we doomers”) think what we do because of our logical analysis of the facts, not because we like bombs, hurricanes, or death, or because we have a problem with the police, the Man, or whatever status quo. To imply otherwise, especially when one admits to hope (a synonym for “wishcasting” if ever there were one), is vaguely offensive, though I hardly think the Reverend Norton meant it that way.
Garrison Keillor: Finding St. Paul on the road
Those of us brought up on the Bible remember the parable of the rich man in hell and the beggar Lazarus in paradise, and yet we still do enjoy fine restaurants and four-star hotels -- though we see flames licking at the windows -- because it takes a hardscrabble upbringing to truly appreciate the home beautiful, the exquisite salad, the bison rib-eye in mushroom sauce, the braised tomatoes. As Emily Dickinson said, "To comprehend a nectar requires sorest need."More than hotels and restaurants, I love the Sunday real estate ads, my favorite pornography -- the big frame house overlooking Puget Sound, the penthouse at 72nd and Broadway, the beach cottage on Antigua, the stone house on the Isle of Harris -- I look at them and imagine how happy at last I would be, if I could only take one more leap.
ASPO Newsletter, October 2007 (PDF)
867. Polar Oil
868. Peak Oil hits a political manifesto
869. Peak Oil and Geology
870. Discovery in 2006
871. Oil Price and Financial Chaos
872. World Energy Council reports Peak Oil
873. 6th International ASPO Conference
874. Two New Books
875. Conflict in Myanmar
876. IEA Medium Term Oil Market Report
Fuel rationing saves Iran $1bn
Iran said on Saturday it had saved $1 billion in the first hundred days since the world's fourth largest oil producer began rationing gasoline for drivers, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported.
China’s net oil imports up 18 percent
China’s net imports of crude oil rose 18.1 percent in the first eight months of the year as the booming country’s voracious energy demands continued to grow, state media reported on Sunday.
Energy Investments in the Middle East Fall Due to Rising Costs and the Capital Markets Crisis
"Despite higher capital budgets, MENA energy investments appear to be losing momentum." This new and important conclusion has been reached by Apicorp, which was established by members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) in 1975 in Saudi Arabia, and appears in Apicorp's most recent monthly economic bulletin.
Iraq To Seek Term Contracts To Sell Kirkuk Crude
Iraq is planning to ask international oil companies to buy its crude oil produced from its Kirkuk northern oil fields through term contracts rather than the current auction system, the country's Oil Minister said Friday.
Clinton Says She Would Shield Science From Politics
In a stinging critique of Bush administration science policy, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said yesterday that if she were elected president she would require agency directors to show they were protecting science research from “political pressure” and that she would lift federal limits on stem cell research.
Wallace Stegner and Big Oil Oil drillers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, circa 1939 - review of Wallace Stegner's Discovery!
Even when Stegner wrote it in the mid-1950s, it was clear that, as he says on the final pages of his book, "the American involvement in Middle Eastern economic, cultural, and political life . . . would grow deeper, more complicated, and more sobering. Not inconceivably, this thing they all thought of as 'progress' and 'development' would blow them all up, and their world with it."
But what if we faced a problem which is even more widespread and insidious, but for which we had much less data? What if the predictive tools that we had, like the data, were partial and flawed? What if we kept producing grandiose environmental policy goals that were impossible to achieve and programs that were doomed to failure? What if investment programs designed to fix the problem had misconceived goals and, anyway, produced very few demonstrable outcomes because we have no adequate performance measures? What if, in lieu of outcomes, we merely measured progress by money spent and anecdotal evidence? What if market based instruments were problematical? Well, yes, we do face such a problem. It is the destruction of the fabric of the global biosphere caused by the impact of the growing human population.
Water isn't the only endangered resource. Forests were chopped down long ago, and the roots were dug up for firewood. Thousands of displaced families are living atop prime agricultural land, preventing farmers from growing food.As the Darfur conflict approaches its fifth year, the environmental strain of the world's largest displacement crisis is quickly depleting western Sudan's already-scarce natural resources. Experts say the situation is exacerbating chronic shortages of land and water that contributed to the fighting in the first place.
Hot wheels: Economy cars in vogue
With high gas prices, Shear says, the kind of older Escorts, Neons, Accords, Saturns, Sunfires, Cavaliers and Camrys he buys and sells are among the hottest things on wheels.“My most frequent customers now are looking for fuel-economy cars,” he says. “When gas hit three bucks, people started really thinking about mileage.”
Sri Lanka: Sharp drop in bread consumption following price hike
Bread consumption has dropped sharply following the increase in wheat flour prices, market sources said. The drop in demand is clearly seen in rural areas and traders and bakery owners said that the sale of bread has declined by nearly 50%.
When it’s metal, even scrap is precious
The high prices have paid off for legitimate junk peddlers but have contributed to an increase in copper and metal theft. In the South Sound, thieves have stolen wiring from local parks, sports fields and construction sites, and even pilfered a copper gong from a Federal Way yoga studio. The rash of crime led 20 states, including Washington, to pass laws this year aimed at cracking down on shady scrap-metal sales, according to stateline.org.
Frito-Lay 'Flips Switch' on Solar Power at Phoenix Facility
Frito-Lay employees dedicated the new solar electric power system that has been installed on the roof of their Arizona Service Center, the company's largest distribution center in the country. The 201-kilowatt system, made up of more than 1,000 Kyocera high output 200-watt photovoltaic (PV) modules, is the largest business-owned PV system in Arizona. The system will produce roughly 350,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually.
Ohio and Kentucky have lagged behind California and other Sun Belt states, where solar power is far more common. And for years, the Cincinnati area has been less interested in solar energy than the rest of Ohio - fewer than 1 percent of households here use solar energy, according to state reports.But that's starting to change.
Reported gas price differentials of nearly 20 cents per gallon have many locals fuming, questioning why recent history has shifted and Columbus has become more expensive than surrounding communities.
Businessman miles ahead of taxman on green initiatives
For example, we tax incomes, profits, sales, payrolls and savings — which suppresses jobs, savings, new investment and business formation. The tax system encourages everyone to cheat, and it is ferociously inefficient. The cost of accounting, administration, paperwork and waste may amount to 65 cents for every dollar collected.But, says Hawken, look what would happen if we shifted our focus to products and processes, and placed heavy taxes on pollution, waste, energy consumption and the use of non-renewable resources. Instead of taxing things we value, like initiative and entrepreneurship, we would be taxing things we wanted to discourage. The tax would induce people and companies to make environmentally sound choices.
Global Warming, Western Ranching, and the Bovine Curtain
In the summer 2007 report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, UN researchers concluded that livestock production is one of the … most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” According to the UN, livestock contributes to “problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.” But few environmental groups mention this report or its findings, particularly if they are located in the cowboy West behind the Bovine Curtain. They would have to admit that the findings conclusions apply equally as well to the western U.S.
The last green taboo: engineering the planet
"Geo-engineering" sounds like a bland and technical term but it is actually a Messianic movement to save the world from global warming, through dust and iron and thousands of tiny mirrors in space. It is also the last green taboo.
Two biologists who measure field time with polar bears in decades sat in a federal building here, envisioning two possible fates for this denizen of ice in a warming world — and neither future looked bright.
Melting ice pack displaces Alaska walrus
Thousands of walrus have appeared on Alaska's northwest coast in what conservationists are calling a dramatic consequence of global warming melting the Arctic sea ice.Alaska's walrus, especially breeding females, in summer and fall are usually found on the Arctic ice pack. But the lowest summer ice cap on record put sea ice far north of the outer continental shelf, the shallow, life-rich shelf of ocean bottom in the Bering and Chukchi seas.
There is a long article in the Washington Post this morning by Bjorn Lomborg:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR200710...
I wouldn't have even mentioned it were it not for the story that HO did where he compared global warming denailism and peak oil denialism.
The article itself sound like just a distillation of the arguments that he made in the book..
I suppose the most important -- perhaps the only -- reason to pay attention to Lomborg is that he is an articulate and immaculately groomed exponent of a very influential line of thought: "everything in the world has a price. Everything is measurable, tradeable, fungible and above all, everything is for sale."
Of course, that is just a peculiar human conceit -- but taught to us from the cradle -- "replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" -- in the version I learned, but I imagine the Chinese have their own scripture.
I just finished reading an account of a voyage of the Glomar Explorer which recounts the discovery that the Mediterranean Sea dried up about 6 million years ago and the whole region turned into a 3000 ft below sea level desert salt flat.
It isn't that Lomborg is wrong, so much as that he is essentially irrelevant.
In theory Lomborg is right. But it's a really bad theory.
Lomborg isn't giving us a theory -- it isn't testable or falsifiiable. He is asserting what he considers to be "facts" which are self-evident to anyone who sees the world through his eyes.
And a lot of people do -- and they are currently the ones who rule the world. Hence, a completely vapid article, produced as an exemplar of "reason" on the 1st page of the second section of what is arguably the most influential newspaper in the country. Who else gets to spout such drivel in such an important place?
Now that I think of it, you're absolutely right, and my comment about it being a bad theory was unwarranted. It's not a theory, it's a fixed idea.
Lomborg needs to go have a chat with the Arctic ice.
Then maybe he could say a word or two to the Polar Bears.
I've been reading Tim Flannery's "The Weather Makers" and he seems to have thought through any argument I've heard associated with Lomborg and others of Lomborg's ilk already.
If one is going to use Lomborg as a source for argument, it might be wise to direct them to Flannery's work. It is only one book, not too long, and is emminently readable for a scientific overview of Global Warming.
Lomborg's writing provides and excellent example of Thomas Homer-Dixon's description of denial. The Skeptical Environmentalist was "Existential denial" (the problem does not exist). Now that the evidence has become overwhelming, he has written Cool It and moved to "consequential denial" (the problem exists but its not really going to affect us or be that bad). Hopefully he won't move on to "fatalistic denial" (There's nothing we can do, we are doomed so I might as well use as much energy as I can get my hands on).
I find it disturbing that the media sucks up to someone like him.. He's been on scads of talk shows promoting his book, even The Daily Show. No actual GW researcher would ever get this much media exposure - I'm sure Richard Alley would have liked to go on a book tour for a while. And Tim Flannery, while he is "person of the year" in Australia, is hardly a household name in the US.
So while the media seems to embrace the problem of GW, they still jump on any opportunity to present the case that, yes, it's a problem, but not really a very big one.
I find it equally disturbing that the media, as well as countless individuals, suck up to Flannery and Gore.
What both these guys are propagating is some kind of idea of a "soft landing", suggesting a shift in the economy towards creating tons of jobs that are supposedly green will solve the problems they talk about, but steering clear of changes to the economic model itself.
And since that model is firmly based on ongoing and never-ending growth, it shouldn't be hard to figure out where it will eventually lead, whether industries and employment are painted with a veneer of green or not.
Both Gore and Flannery actively promote growth models, they just add words like green and sustainable to the repertoire. Well, there is still no such thing as sustainable growth.
Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded, and we can only pray it's handed to someone more deserving than Gore.
Hey,no 'negatism' allowed. This country demands happy endings!
The reason Lomborg is on all the talk shows is simply that people like good news. The reason the Lomborg book makes money for TOD is that it gives people an easy way to reconcile cognitive dissonance - soothing relief just a click away from those depressing facts.
The media is easy to manipulate: it makes Pavlov's dog seem nuanced. As it now exists, it's incapable of not carrying certain stories. This avenue is available to anyone with sufficient hubris or salesmanship. There are many who contribute to this forum whose credentials would give them a free pass to sell any sort of bullshit. That so few do is to their credit.
So saying, the media and zeitgeist are what they are, and it could be that Gore is doing the best that he thinks can be done. If you lead with a doomer message, you don't get out of the starting gate.
You make it sound as if its a good thing that people have faith in, and follow, someone who offers no solution whtasoever to their problems, simply becuase the message is too hard to swallow. Got to give you this: At least that paints Gore for what he truly is: A snakeoil salesman, as is Flannery.
In the meantime, though, any chance of finding something that could work recedes ever further into the distance, since these nutcases take up all the media space.. And that is not exactly an innocent little feat. Think they don't know that?
Whups, didn't mean to start a longer thread, just waking up... but:
My guess is that Gore does more good than harm. Mind you, I don't like the guy much but that's for other conservation issues he has mucked up.
As a lifelong activist - and if I do say so a very effective one - I find it daunting to know just what to tell people to do now. That being the case, I don't throw stones at those who are just telling half the story or whitewashing it. (I reserve the right to throw stones at meatweasels like Lomborg). Similarly, I can hope for Alan Drake's success even if I suspect it will be too little too late, and would do much to see him succeed.
So far, I've seen no solutions which will allow the earth's current population to be sustained indefinitely, nor do I see that as in any way desirable. So I can either be insincere or make a documentary nobody will watch. Talk about your inconvenient truths...
It's ridiculous to characterise Tim Flannery (and probably Al Gore) as snake oil salesmen and nut cases. Or Bjorn Lomborg for that matter, but that's for a lot of different reasons.
Dr Flannery has a very good track record of writing popular and accessible science on difficult and contentious issues, and he also wrestled long and hard about accepting the "Australian of the Year" award, if there were any chance it would hinder his on-going and harsh criticism of government policies.
You sound like the Old Left, bickering and fighting among themselves, splitting very fine ideological hairs, while the real enemy ignores their sensitive self-righteousness. Flannery and Gore are better than nothing - far better - and their appearing on or in the MSM is no reason to condemn them at all - it is both naive and poor strategy.
ADM,
Have you read their climate books?
As I said, they both promote growth models, and these models are the problem, certainly not the solution. Isn't that enough said? We're better off being led by the blind, just because they're better than nothing, and we're in such dire need of a leader?
If that's the best we can come up with, throw the towel. Their message is a sure way to damnation. That is not an opinion, but a fact. Perpetual growth of any kind leads to only one outcome. Yet, when you read their books, that is their message.
The Old Left, if we can assume we have the same understanding what that means, has, to my knowledge, a sordid history of not being able to look past those same exact growth models.
And we are now supposed to keep on doing that, according to you? Because it's "better than nothing"? When does that misguided notion stop, you think? My idea is that it only will when it's too late. But it is all Flannery and Gore have to offer. Those retarded Live Earth concerts have given the world one loud and clear message: saving the planet can and will be done through consumption.
Only, it will not.
I certainly share the skepticism about Al Gore and other MSM mavens. Even our own local Arctic-explorer hero in MN is indebted to biofuels folks for underwriting some of his work, and so shills for them.
Here's the Will Steger Foundation website:
http://www.globalwarming101.com/
Every writer, lecturer, and media persona has flaws and strengths. Yes, our media and culture is a strong filter which shuts down messages which oppose the dominant forces and premises of our culture.
The problem is essentially about bondage of the imagination. Walter Breuggemann wrote"The Prophetic Imagination" which does an admirable job of breaking down the ways in which cultures can be blind to their own oppressiveness or brutality, how radical prophetic critique from figures such as Moses, Micah, Jesus -- and Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others can bring about change only with great difficulty.
When we are comfortable, we do not want the boat rocked. When we are not comfortable, we can be manipulated to support the status quo even when that works against us. Fear and anger can be channeled for the benefit of those who maintain the status quo. The seduction of promised or immediate rewards helps as well.
It is pretty hard for people to step outside of our immediate experiences and analyze the way things are, and then to work from that basis. Especially when our culture makes doing that "swimming upstream."
So, yes, I am often disappointed by what Main Stream representation of PO and GW are out there, but not surprised.
Hope may be scarcer than oil in a few years and I am trying to pre-position myself for that.
Recent runs at the Millennium Institute give me greater hope and certitude. I am unsure if they want to wait till their Wednesday 1.5 hours at Houston-ASPO to release the exact #s BUT "Electrification of Transportation" certainly minimizes the post-Peak Oil pain :-)
Best Hopes for avoiding immobilizing Despair,
Alan
Best hopes for more immobilization. I, unfortunately, went to Estes Park, Colorado yesterday for a meeting. Well past the usual tourist season, the main road through town was completely gridlocked, the city fathers not having the wisdom to shut down the traffic before it gets to town. But the town has figured out a way to become immobilized and seems proud of it. All these cars stuck in traffic emitting not just emissions but the smell of money. If only, all those vehicles's engines would at least shut down when stopped, like the Prius. At least, then, there would be some benefit to autotonia.
We have a choice, at least. Go extinct, or change radically. Thus far, my bet is on extinction but yet I process as if there is hope. Either way, the planet benefits eventually.
What you are describing is called a "mild hybrid".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mild_hybrid
this gives new meaning to the term tourist trap.
I think a more precise way of putting it, as if it really makes any difference, is that "you can only sell positive things to people."
People like to hear negative news as well. Our current catastrophe and fear driven media is a testament to this.
However, it is very difficult as such, to _sell_ things like reduction of consumption, powerdown, hardship and a not so positive future outlook.
People might listen to that, they might even emotionally respond for a while, but you can't _sell_ it to them in the sense that they want to start preparing for it and carrying it out.
And why would they? Nobody wants to works towards a less positive future outlook (that's how they see it).
The easier way out is just to discard the even more negative alternative. Problem solved!
This way one doesn't have to look at the data and to really think hard through all the ramifications.
Just believe, damn the data.
And sometimes, funnily enough, it actually works. Even if only for a while.
Why? Polar bear meat isn't exactly a commodity with high volume on the market. The question is simply whats the cost-benifit of climate change mitigation.
The conversation I had in mind was Lomborg vs. a couple of polar bears on one of the remaining ice floes. Give them a couple of days alone, then come back to receive the conclusion.
This villification of Lomborg doesn't make any sense. What's valuable to society? It sure isn't polar bears.
From the top article:
Another example of how "the world" means the few rich countries. Poor countries in Africa and Asia are struggling with acute fuel crises, but why would the financial community notice? If you're poor, you don't make any difference.
Leanan posted a lot of great links today. Thanks. The link on Water is Running Out is vert revealing.
Africa, along with everywhere else, is becoming dryer and its forests are disappearing. Wood is the fuel people can get cheap and they do. As the article points out, even the roots are dug up for fuel. And geuss what, it's going to get worse, a lot worse.
As fossil fuels dwindle people depend more and more upon natural fuels such as wood or dung. But that fuel will disappear also. As the water and grasslands dry up, fewer cows can graze. And soon there will be no trees to crop either.
And the cornucopians believe that we will just find some other source of fuel to keep the world humming right along. Well hell, it is about damn time they got started. After all, the trees and water will be gone soon, and if we expect to keep the population of human beings booming upward, some "new kind of energy" needs to be found soon or disaster will be upon the world. As if it isn't already.
Ron Patterson, an unapologetic doomer.
Let's see. And it doesn't help when the Media is
doing Cover Up.
Khaleej Times Online - Poland’s ambassador to Iraq in serious ...
WARSAW, Poland - Poland’s ambassador to Iraq was being kept in an artificial ... The ambassador, Gen. Edward Pietrzyk, was wounded when his three-car convoy ...
www.khaleejtimes.com/.../theworld/2007/October/theworld_October215.xml&s... - 23 hours ago - Similar pages
Poland's Iraq envoy wounded - Yahoo! News
Poland's ambassador to Iraq was lightly wounded in a triple bomb attack ... Our ambassador, Gen. Edward Pietrzyk scrambled out (of the wreckage) on his own. ...
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071003/ts_nm/iraq_dc - 41k - Cached - Similar pages
Arctic Melt:
Center reported that Arctic ice shrink may be 30 years ahead of worst-case.
1 October 2007
Arctic Sea Ice Shatters All Previous Record Lows
Diminished summer sea ice leads to opening of the fabled Northwest Passage
This is a press release from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
When the authors analyzed the IPCC computer model runs, they found that, on average, the models simulated a loss in September ice cover of 2.5 percent per decade from 1953 to 2006. The fastest rate of September retreat in any individual model simulation was 5.4 percent per decade. September marks the yearly minimum of sea ice in the Arctic. But newly available data sets, blending early aircraft and ship reports with more recent satellite measurements, show that the September ice actually declined at a rate of about 7.8 percent per decade during the 1953 to 2006 period.
"Because of this disparity, the shrinking of summertime ice is about thirty years ahead of the climate model projections," said NSIDC scientist and co-author Ted Scambos. This suggests that the Arctic could be seasonally free of sea ice earlier than the IPCC projected range of 2050 to well beyond 2100.
Australia wheat crop 'to double'
Australian farmer overlooks land impacted by drought
Australia's drought is deemed the worst on record
Australia is set to see its winter wheat crop more than double, as heavy rains offset a record drought, according to official forecasts.
The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics forecasts that wheat crops will hit 26 million tonnes in 2007, up from 10 million in 2006.
That's 9.8 in 06, not ten and this year's will be, maybe 6.
But you won't find out until...
Australia's Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE) Sep Outlook STILL has outrageous info.
http://www.abareconomics.com/interactive/ac_sept07/htm/wheat.htm
South America chokes as Amazon burns
By Daniel Howden and Jules Steven in La Paz
Published: 05 October 2007
Roberto Smeraldi, head of Friends of the Earth Brazil, said the situation was out of control: "We have a strong concentration of fires, corresponding to more than 10,000 points of fire across a large area of about two million sq km in the southern Brazilian Amazon and Bolivia."
Good luck on when the MSM fills you in on this.
The Tipping Point is past.
Once the Amazon goes up in flames and the Arctic goes ice free as Australia is forced to import wheat.
And then Mexico has to cut the US off as the US "experts" think Alberta can fill the void...
Arkansaw of Samuel L Clemens
I think the link above should be as follows:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2007/October/theworld_October215.xml§ion=theworld&col=
Is is time to get into KOOLAID futures?
Approximately two thirds of the global wood harvest goes for fuel. Those who think that lumber producers and pulp mills are the big worry need to look into this factor. The most vulnerable are the forests at the margin of agricultural and grazing land.
Meanwhile, vast stands of pine in the boreal forest of Canada are going through a massive die off due to the mountain pine beetle pestilence. Like a plague of locusts, these things create a background hum as they go about their business. It's natural, I suppose, but the lack of sufficiently cold winters has led to an opportunity for them to have a party, much like our petroleum party.
One would expect that the standing dead carcasses would pose a fire risk, but perhaps the lack of needles and such makes it more difficult to get going. There is a huge patch of red forest covering much of the interior of BC that will either rot or burn as there is no market for the timber, especially considering the housing market.
I've often wondered whether there is more energy to be had by burning the wood or corn directly than in converting it to methanol first. Quite where the extra energy 'wood' come from is a mystery to me? Am I missing something? Does a ton of corn make more than a ton of ethanol? Does a ton of ethanol have more energy than a ton of carbon/wood? Or is it just that you can't pour wood?
One bushel (56 lb) of corn makes perhaps 2.8 gallons (18.5 lb) of ethanol.
A short ton of biomass has roughly 16 million BTU of energy. A short ton of ethanol (~303 gallons @ 78000 BTU/gal) has about 24 million BTU of energy.
So if you dryed the corn and burned it like wood you'd get 56/37ths as much energy as you'd get from the ethahol product discounting whatever was short or left over from burning the dryed for free bagasse.
Seems as tho you'd be better off just burning biomass if freezing to death was the big 'issue'.
I'm still looking for more than pourability to make me love the ethanol lobby.
Now THIS is what I call accounting!
Corn is about 392,000 BTU/bushel, but given the natural gas inputs for distillation you'd be roughly twice as far ahead to just burn both the corn and the natural gas instead of making ethanol.
Thanks EP, for the useful numbers.
Everybody should keep in mind that gasifiers are easy to make and work just fine, and the resulting gas, from any biomass, can be stored in a tank, frm which it can be taken and used to drive any IC engine, like on a tractor or truck. Needs a compressor to push the gas into a pressure tank on the vehicle.
Search for FEMA wood gas generator for vehicles
Here in Iowa you can get a stove that will burn corn or wood pellets. I've lived here pretty much my whole life and I just noticed these things on sale for the first time this year ...