119 comments on The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
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I think that it is impossible to replace sunlight stored for 100 to 500 million years ( oil ) with sunlight stored during the course of one year. Powering down seems to be vital. However, we are going to need other forms of energy. I think ethanol should be one of them. It´s a good fuel ( about 125 octane )is reasonably carbon neutral, and it is possible to grow it sustainably. Farmers years ago produced ethanol from spoiled or unmarketable crops. Food vs fuel is a bogus argument when you consider how many could starve if there are no replacements for petroleum. We have to stop looking for the one energy product that is going to get us out of this mess and realize that we are going to need many diffuse ones.
" it is possible to grow it sustainably"
How ?
Where did this come from ? A link please
You might want to start by googling organic agriculture. From there a good site to start from might be journeytoforever.org/biofuels
Evidence that organic agriculture can sustainably produce significant amounts of biofuels is lacking and far from conclusive. (This excepts areas that can grow sugar-cane.) As someone who has spend the last few years studying and practicing organic agriculture, I strongly suspect that it can't be done.
For food crops, where complicated crop rotations can be used, organic agriculture can produce on levels comparable to conventional agriculture, but bio-fuels are a completely different beast. Bio-fuels can be produced sustainably or in significant quantities, but not both.
I've argued for some time now that it is quite feasible for farmers to grow a small amount of oilseed (maybe 5% of total cultivated acreage), and press it themselves to provide them with something to fuel their diesel equipment. This is no silver bullet, but it can work as an alternative technology approach to enable some agricultural mechanization to carry on.
I think an organic farmer can sustainably grow his own fuel. Perhaps a bit more can be produced for sale or barter locally. The thing plants do best is make sugars and starches. These are the base ingredients for ethanol. Bushes like jatropha can be planted as living fences and provide oilseeds for biodiesel. There are some size limits based on amount of labor and its cost. That seems to be the tradeoff. An individual can only farm so much land sustainably. It takes considerable knowledge and skill. Its being done already. We need more organic farmers.
"I think that it is impossible to replace sunlight stored for 100 to 500 million years ( oil ) with sunlight stored during the course of one year. Powering down seems to be vital. "
It's important to realize that the process by which oil was created and stored for our eventual consumption was incredibly inefficient, perhaps .000000000001% efficient.
The world is bathed in 100,000TW of sunshine every second, and we only use the equivalent about 4TW.
¨It's important to realize that the process by which oil was created and stored for our eventual consumption was incredibly inefficient, perhaps .000000000001% efficient.¨
Interesting number. Since no one was around back when oil formed speculating on efficiency is kind of risky.
We might get 100,000 TW of sunshine every second but until someone can figure out how to harness and store it better than plants with less embedded energy than solar panels we still have a problem.
" Since no one was around back when oil formed speculating on efficiency is kind of risky."
Well, it's pretty straightforward. If all of our analysis on TOD is to trusted, we have a pretty good idea how much reoverable oil is in the ground. Just divide the energy in the sunshine that fell over millions of years into the energy in the oil, and you have your number. And, it's a pretty low number.
" until someone can figure out how to harness and store it better than plants with less embedded energy than solar panels we still have a problem."
Not really. Even the most energy-intensive silicon panels pay back their embedded energy in a year or two, and the CIGS panels like Nanosolar's pay back in a few months.
So it is now possible to make silicon panels with energy not derived from fossil fuel. That is something I was not aware of.
Man is it ever tiresome to continually have to refute this argument.
How do you make solar panels (or any other kind of equipment) without energy derived from fossil fuels?
Do it in Quebec or Iceland or Brasil or any of the other places that get a significant chunk of their electric power from renewable non-fossil sources.
This won't just STOP even if we run out of fossil fuel tomorrow.
Jay Hansen is WRONG.