David Pimentel - Corn can't save us: Debunking the biofuel myth, link above.
All green plants in the U.S. -- including all crops, forests, and grasslands, combined -- collect about 32 quads (32 x 1015 BTU) of sunlight energy per year. Meanwhile, the American population currently burns more than 3 times that amount of energy annually as fossil fuels! There isn't even close to enough biomass in America to supply our biofuel needs….
But consider that 20 percent of the U.S. corn crop was converted into 5 billion gallons of ethanol in 2006, but that amount replaced only 1 percent of U.S. oil consumption. If the entire national corn crop were used to make ethanol, it would replace a mere 7% of U.S. oil consumption -- far from making the U.S. independent of foreign oil.
David, David, all this has been said before, many times over. Why do you, and we, keep repeating the same old crap over and over and over? Simply because it is true? No, that is not a good enough reason. There has to be another reason we keep beating our heads against the wall about the terrible tragedy of our very stupid ethanol program. There must be another reason but for the life of me I cannot figure out what it is.
The answer is simple -- people in general are "magical" thinkers. In our enlightened age people continue to believe in the equivalent of the tooth fairy as an explanation for most phenomena. Most people couldn't tell how we know the earth goes around the sun, or why there are lunar eclipses. Almost no one has any concept of "entropy" -- and vanishingly small numbers have any idea about various forms of energy. Virtually everyone is completely baffled by any explanation involving calculation, and almost no one will sit still long enough to even try. And I include all those good-hearted people who only want to help make the world a better place, and who have been to college.
Yesterday I was at a friend's house dividing up packages of a frozen pig that we had bought to share. For a while we left the freezer door open to get at the packages. I asked my usual trick question -- "how long will it take to cool down the kitchen if we just leave this freezer door open?" And of course, the answers were the usual total misunderstanding of how a freezer works.
People spend their money on the lottery, believing it to be an "investment", and they continue to spend money on courses that teach them "think and grow rich" or "pray and grow rich."
Walt Disney has bridged the gap between the medieval world and the petroleum world-- and in the process, has capture the modern mind.
Magic and power is what it's all about. Rational thought is a deviant form.
For a while we left the freezer door open to get at the packages. I asked my usual trick question -- "how long will it take to cool down the kitchen if we just leave this freezer door open?" And of course, the answers were the usual total misunderstanding of how a freezer works.
You're lucky they weren't a bunch of engineers or before you could stop them the freezer would be up on bricks with the back side sticking out the window and polystyrene foam and tape all strapped up around it. :-)
For better or worse, most of my friends don't have engineering degrees. The person in question has a PhD in English.
But you are right -- there are little nests of geeks among us, and they are the ones who have created technical progress, despite all odds.
Somehow, the process of rational thought has to be moved from the geek world to the "real" world. I don't have a clue about that, since the forces enforcing magical thinking are in charge of education and the media, and are so much more powerful than anything I have been able to do. Not much has changed since the days of the medieval Church that enforced illiteracy -- except that these days they are so much more clever, and have convinced us to choose illiteracy and innumeracy.
No man is an island entire unto itself, and nothing exists in a vacuum.
The geeks played their part, as did the scholars, researchers, philosophers, politicians, lobbyists, advertisers, corporations, media, religion, and the vast, unwashed, blissfully ignorant masses.
We haven't been able to wrap our heads around all the various issues, structures, and processes for thousands of years.
Our system is unmanageably complex.
And there is also the problem of rational thought. Humans may have the capacity to be rational, but they do not always behave that way. Humans, inevitably, will do emotional ("irrational") things as well as rational things.
The geeks played their part, as did the scholars, researchers, philosophers, politicians, lobbyists, advertisers, corporations, media, religion, and the vast, unwashed, blissfully ignorant masses. ... We haven't been able to wrap our heads around all ... Our system is unmanageably complex.
Well said.
The human mind is good at not seeing the gaps and boundaries.
How often do you notice the blind spot in your retina?
How often do you notice the edges of your visual field?
Answer: almost never.
We are in constant denial of our every limitation. Why isn't each of us an expert in everything?
We don't question. Instead we have invented a beehive system where each of us is a "specialist" in some narrowly focused aspect of our hive works. One of us is a "politician, lobbyist, advertiser, corporate animal, media maniac, religionist", etc. and yes, even a techno geek.
The geek is no better or smarter than the rest of the worker bees. None of us can see when stuff slips past our blind spots. For example, most techno geeks are blind to social interactions. Dilbert can't see when the management is beating him down yet again. Dogbert wins every time.
____
(click to enlarge --warning, won't work for body parts)
It is not really all that complex. Many are astounded by the results of the process and see complexity while the process itself is actually pretty simple. The ecosystem seems complex but the process that gave us the ecosystem and the diversity of life is not.
Those that are emeshed in the matrix of the technosystem with their specialized functions are truly amazed at the seeming complexity of it all. This perceived complexity supports magical thinking.
I don't view it as unreasonable to have a "default" belief in progress, since empirically it has been what's happened in recent memory: My grandmother told stories about life from just before WWII, through the blitz and in to postwar deprivation. My mother had a better quality of life. My sister and I have had even better lives (so far). I'm an educated computer scientist/engineer, and I personally wouldn't bet against pulling a technological rabbit out of the hat. But until I see a multiply verified, production scale rabbit I'm planning for the possibility of a severe energy and resource crunch.
The two things I find most worrying is that (i) people in general won't entertain even the possibility that things may be heading for a crunch, and (ii) almost everyone these days regard it as more important to win an argument than figure out "the truth". Although it'd be disappointing for an engineer not to figure out theoretically that the fridge won't cool the containing room, the unforgivable thing would be to not go grab a thermometer to validate whether a claimed cooling of the room was occurring but just maintain one's argument about what must be happening.
The mistakes are in thinking that progress is inevitable and automatic, in thinking that progress is always a totally good thing (instead of it sometimes being a mixed bag), and in thinking that progress is a one way street, that regress is impossible. Most people operate assuming all three of these are true, but they are not.
Where in the room would you hold that thermometer, and for how long would you take readings?
The reality of the situation would be very complex, but it was (presumably) supposed to be a simple demonstration to show how little people apply the basic notion of conservation of energy to the world around them - for example, a large steel and concrete structure being turned mostly to dust by it's own gravitational potential energy...
That's a little over the top, but I think you get the picture.
People generally think that cold and heat are substances that stoves and freezers make. They don't think of a unified theory of heat, not even on an intuitive level
My comment was simply that although it's disappointing when people get arguments based on physics and maths wrong, it happens. I manage to confuse myself in the area in which I'm a highly educated expert every so often. The most fundamental thing is to actively investigate to see if you're right or wrong, and if you turn out to be wrong rethink things. That's what's good about all most of the stuff at the oil drum (ELM, etc): it's based on careful reasoning but people are looking for confirmation/disproof in real world numbers.
Me, if I had thought the refrigerator would cool the room, I'd go to the middle of the room with the thermometer and wait half an hour. If there was no noticeable effect on the temperature I'd be forced to rethink things. (Incidentally, I'm not a physicist but I think it's 2nd law of thermodynamics not conservation of energy that applies here.)
I agree, but my questions were rhetorical. As step back pointed out, you could hold the thermometer anywhere. My point was that the example should be thought of in less complex terms - it was just a simple illustrative example.
"(Incidentally, I'm not a physicist but I think it's 2nd law of thermodynamics not conservation of energy that applies here.)"
The 1st law of thermodynamics still applies to the 2nd law...
It's also the law of inefficient heat engines (Carnot engines) that applies.
The refrigerator is less than 100% efficient. On first look you might assume that the coolness it produces is balanced by the heat emitted from the condenser coils. But not so. The compressor produces additional heat. So do accessories in the refrigerator like lights, defroster mechanism, fans, etc. So the refrigerator is a net heat source, with or without its door being open. :-)
The geeks (and I number myself among them), who are atypical in their pursuit of technical excellence, have contributed tremendously to the problem. They have given these "magical" devices to vast numbers of people who don't understand their principles or the full consequences of their use. In fact, they themselves, in their narrow focus on making and creating things, do not understand the systems into which they inject these devices and cannot apprehend the full consequences to the world when the widget they have worked on multiplies into the millions and billions. The humble refrigerator and air conditioner both have produced vast quantities of CO2 and affected the development patterns of suburbia on a large scale. And even knowing these things, it seems unlikely that the geeks would stop what they are doing, not when there are so many rewards to be made from it.
The technology used in everyday life has advanced so far from anything most people can understand, that they have become used to "magic". There is not much difference between the things so many do all the time to make things happen, and the kinds of things that are used in "Harry Potter".
I do this, and that happens - I do not know why. I move this mouse thing and click on the pretty icons and stuff happens. I say a couple of words and I can talk to someone on the other side of the world through a little thing in my ear. Is that so much different than waving a wand and speaking magic words?
In my opinion it doesn't matter - it all has to do with access to excess energy. That in turn allows enough excess food production capacity that large parts of the society can engage in non-food production pursuits, like science and engineering. Eventually that trend will reverse, the stuff will fail and not be replaced, and the magic of technology will become a memory of past glories.
Today I just explained the simple concept of turning off the fridge in winter and keeping your beer on the balcony and some kind of box for butter and iceberg lettuce and meat... What about global warming I was asked?
Hmm. It was 24 degrees yesterday in the Grisons (Switz. - and not! in the South.) and in my own flat, with the radiators turned off, I was sweating in a tank top and shorts and cursing the sun. (All the curtains are removed in the winter. The place was built to get max. sun heat, it is a kind of greenhouse, and the *building* is heated, I’m on the top floor, there are pipes with hot water in them in the floors etc. that can’t be turned off. It was built in 1996.)
Last January was even more spectacular. Hotties in swim suits are now a mid-winter staple. Sure, the press gets into it.
The official nos. are 1.5 C rise since 1900. (Near as dammit.) For the whole country. From top to bottom, from valley to peak, town to forest, south (palm trees) to north (fir and rock, lichens..) Micro climate pockets have undergone spectacular changes.
So I hmmmed. No way you can keep 100 dollar a pound bison meat on your balcony or in your garden in the "winter."
Why in the world would you be putting a pig in the freezer? A pig wouldn't feed ONE family, much less two. And, Veggies? what about veggies? You can't live on meat, alone, even if you could put a whole year's worth of meat in a freezer. And, what about next year?
Shouldn't you be using that time to plant a garden? And, a fruit tree? That's much more efficient than feeding pigs.
Ol' "Doomer" (100 million is the max that America can support) Pimental's argument doesn't make any more sense than mine just did.
We're not going to replace ALL of the energy needs of the country with biomass. We, also, have Wave, Wind, Waste, Nuclear, and Solar. What we ARE going to do is replace some of our oil usage with biofuels. It will help out a lot in the next few years. Kind of like that pig is going to help out next month. :)
Great question -- and cuts to the heart of the modern dilemma. Why would anyone freeze meat to preserve it, unless they lived at the North Pole? Because we can, of course. It's easier than canning or smoking or salting -- and each of those technologies has adverse consequences. Here in the northwest, sun-drying the meat is out of the question.
And why would anyone eat meat anyway? I have become more or less convinced that Permaculture and its varients are the proper way to live in most of the temperate world -- a balance of animal and vegetable husbandry allows a reasonable population density without depleting anything. The real problem is factory farming, factory pigs, factory chickens -- the purpose of that mode of "agriculture" is to extract a profit and externalize the costs. Factory farming is mostly just a way of turning petroleum, fossil water and topsoil into food and money, and as we have seen over the last 40 years or so, it is becoming a disaster, because there is no closed loop to recycle nutrients, and especially because it uses more water than exists on the planet.
You can't live on meat, alone, even if you could put a whole year's worth of meat in a freezer.
Though it is peripheral to your main point, I would just like to point out that this is false, and that there are documented instances of people living on meat alone for extended periods, and in fact thriving on it. In fact at least one entire society ate pretty much nothing but 'meat' (fish and seal) - the Inuit.
Maybe it's all those advertisements on TV with some guy talking to a bunch of children talking about how this new hulking SUV is "green" because it can run on E85 and is a hybrid? (The E85 negating the 2mpg gain from it being a hybrid?) Considering they pay a large portion of my salary, I'll refrain from naming names.
Or maybe it's because of those guys in Iowa, wanting to boost grain prices by pushing bills that force consumption of ethanol? (And our shrub who pushes the same thing?)
Or maybe, for some strange reason, it's because that the current American "consumer" (not citizen) actually believes all of this ethanol hype?
[sarcanol]On the other hand, if you were evil, you could view ethanol as a good thing. It drives up grain prices, which causes demand destruction in poor countries. Of course, those people would be starving anyhow, so it's all OK, right? [/sarcanol]
The sad thing about it all, is once you've sold people that corn-based ethanol is a crock of horse excrement, they start blathering about how cellulose-based ethanol will save us. Switchgrass... Wouldn't they do better with industrial hemp or something? Oh wait, Reefer Madness. Nevermind.
Silver BB's.... Along with a few plastic ones painted to look silver..
Horse manure also makes good doomer anti ethanol posts on TOD. As long as doomers refuse to recognize the real world situation with ethanol, they will forever be in a funk as ethanol continues to expand. Ethanol is an effect of Peak Oil not the cause. Food prices are up due to inflationary monetary policy, Peak Oil and bad weather in the case of wheat which, by the way is up the 60 cent limit today on the CBOT. The ignorance of knowledgeable people who understand Peak Oil when it comes to ethanol is unbelievable. If ethanol is as bad as those who hate claim, it will fail. By the way that awful SUV burning E85 saves more fossil fuel than a Prius because it gets such poor mileage. In the Midwest burning E85 gives those whose income is based on corn at lot of psychological satisfaction even if it costs more. When you produce your own fuel and then read doomer porn it's very satisfying. The Iowa economy is booming and it is flooded with ethanol. I think that is the real bitch of those who hate ethanol. All Iowa is doing is using the ELP model so frequently held up as the ideal. We are economizing on transportation by consuming corn locally to produce ethanol. Isn't that what ELP is all about? And it works.
Building anything in America, besides military hardware, is getting much more difficult. It isnt only the poor condition of the US economy, but the shortage of materials and skilled labor. So, why are we squandering our scarce resources on BioFuel plants?
...snip...'Commenting, Scott H. Pearce, the Company's President and CEO said, "We are obviously disappointed by this delay. Unfortunately, despite an admirable degree of high level management attention at TIC, construction at both Wood River and Fairmont have experienced and continue to face challenges. These have largely been due to the still very strong industrial construction market and the resulting competition for personnel and material. Until recently, it was believed that most or all of the time slippage in particular aspects of the job could be made up. However, delays in the delivery of large vessels, pipe and steel, virtually all of which are now finally on site, and continued difficulty in obtaining and keeping skilled construction labor, has forced TIC to revise their schedule. We remain confident in the expertise and dedication that TIC and Delta-T continue to apply to the project and are impressed with the depth of their commitment to delivering top-of-the-line facilities."...snip...
Ethanol has only 2/3 the energy per unit volume as gasoline. For Ethanol to "succeed", the price of ethanol (meaning E85) at the pump must be no more than 2/3 the price of gasoline. When gasoline sells for $3.00 per gallon (or there abouts), that means E85 must cost less than $2.00 per gallon (mol). Besides, burning E85 doesn't result in very much reduction in FF use (if any), it only means that the FFs burned include coal and natural gas, not just oil. Since coal and natural gas have been less expensive than oil lately, the economics results in relatively low costs for ethanol production. As the prices for coal, natural gas and fertilizer are increasing, it would appear that the cost to produce ethanol will approach the reality as seen in calculations of EROEI. Take away the ethanol subsidy and let's see how long those farmers will keep putting E85 in their tanks (or anyone else's tank for that matter).
We've already seen in the link I posted on a prior thread that tests conducted by N. Dakota Univ, and Mn State (using EPA cycle) show that ethanol can deliver BETTER fuel economy in IC engines than straight gasoline.
It's all in the OCTANE. Admittedly, these results were with mid-level ethanol blends; but, wait until you see the new engines with DI, VVT, and VRT. The forerunner (though without VRT) will be in the chevy HHR this fall. My bet is you'll be down to less than 10% difference between unleaded, and E85.
Don't live in the PAST, folks. The World is a'changing.
Yes, engines designed for higher octane fuel can deliver better conversion efficiencies. However, in engines designed primarily for regular gasoline, there is no advantage to running higher octane fuel. But, your comment was regarding what you called "mid-level ethanol blends", perhaps E10. Since I don't have your link available, I think you are probably blowing smoke regarding the gasoline mileage of E85, since the higher octane of E85 has little impact on conversion efficiency when used in an engine optimized for regular. Comparing higher octane E85 with unleaded 89 octane regular is an improper comparison if you are going to specify an engine design optimized for high octane.
Ultimately, there's less energy in a gallon of E85 than there is in a gallon of regular gasoline and it's the energy which makes the car move. The miles per unit energy are likely to be quite similar, but that's not the same thing as miles per gallon.
Ethanol is an effect of Peak Oil not the cause. Food prices are up due to inflationary monetary policy, Peak Oil and bad weather in the case of wheat which, by the way is up the 60 cent limit today on the CBOT.
First, when has anyone on this forum -- or anywhere on the planet -- said that ethanol causes peak oil?
Second, your assertion that grain prices are being driven by inflation fails simple economics. In this scenario, farmers being squeezed by higher input costs (and hence lower margins) would be planting fewer acres thus resulting in a decrease in supply and higher prices. Of course, this is not reality. Farmers are planting more acres, but prices are still increasing because of higher demand due to ethanol subsidies. True, wheat is higher because of crop losses in AU. However, it is quite likely that even more wheat acres would be planted elsewhere to compensate if it were not for demand for land for corn.
David Pimentel - Corn can't save us: Debunking the biofuel myth, link above.
David, David, all this has been said before, many times over. Why do you, and we, keep repeating the same old crap over and over and over? Simply because it is true? No, that is not a good enough reason. There has to be another reason we keep beating our heads against the wall about the terrible tragedy of our very stupid ethanol program. There must be another reason but for the life of me I cannot figure out what it is.
Ron Patterson
The answer is simple -- people in general are "magical" thinkers. In our enlightened age people continue to believe in the equivalent of the tooth fairy as an explanation for most phenomena. Most people couldn't tell how we know the earth goes around the sun, or why there are lunar eclipses. Almost no one has any concept of "entropy" -- and vanishingly small numbers have any idea about various forms of energy. Virtually everyone is completely baffled by any explanation involving calculation, and almost no one will sit still long enough to even try. And I include all those good-hearted people who only want to help make the world a better place, and who have been to college.
Yesterday I was at a friend's house dividing up packages of a frozen pig that we had bought to share. For a while we left the freezer door open to get at the packages. I asked my usual trick question -- "how long will it take to cool down the kitchen if we just leave this freezer door open?" And of course, the answers were the usual total misunderstanding of how a freezer works.
People spend their money on the lottery, believing it to be an "investment", and they continue to spend money on courses that teach them "think and grow rich" or "pray and grow rich."
Walt Disney has bridged the gap between the medieval world and the petroleum world-- and in the process, has capture the modern mind.
Magic and power is what it's all about. Rational thought is a deviant form.
You're lucky they weren't a bunch of engineers or before you could stop them the freezer would be up on bricks with the back side sticking out the window and polystyrene foam and tape all strapped up around it. :-)
For better or worse, most of my friends don't have engineering degrees. The person in question has a PhD in English.
But you are right -- there are little nests of geeks among us, and they are the ones who have created technical progress, despite all odds.
Somehow, the process of rational thought has to be moved from the geek world to the "real" world. I don't have a clue about that, since the forces enforcing magical thinking are in charge of education and the media, and are so much more powerful than anything I have been able to do. Not much has changed since the days of the medieval Church that enforced illiteracy -- except that these days they are so much more clever, and have convinced us to choose illiteracy and innumeracy.
I dunno. There are some who would say "geeks" are the ones who got us into this mess.
No man is an island entire unto itself, and nothing exists in a vacuum.
The geeks played their part, as did the scholars, researchers, philosophers, politicians, lobbyists, advertisers, corporations, media, religion, and the vast, unwashed, blissfully ignorant masses.
We haven't been able to wrap our heads around all the various issues, structures, and processes for thousands of years.
Our system is unmanageably complex.
And there is also the problem of rational thought. Humans may have the capacity to be rational, but they do not always behave that way. Humans, inevitably, will do emotional ("irrational") things as well as rational things.
The human mind is good at not seeing the gaps and boundaries.
How often do you notice the blind spot in your retina?
How often do you notice the edges of your visual field?
Answer: almost never.
We are in constant denial of our every limitation. Why isn't each of us an expert in everything?
We don't question. Instead we have invented a beehive system where each of us is a "specialist" in some narrowly focused aspect of our hive works. One of us is a "politician, lobbyist, advertiser, corporate animal, media maniac, religionist", etc. and yes, even a techno geek.
The geek is no better or smarter than the rest of the worker bees. None of us can see when stuff slips past our blind spots. For example, most techno geeks are blind to social interactions. Dilbert can't see when the management is beating him down yet again. Dogbert wins every time.
____
(click to enlarge --warning, won't work for body parts)
It is not really all that complex. Many are astounded by the results of the process and see complexity while the process itself is actually pretty simple. The ecosystem seems complex but the process that gave us the ecosystem and the diversity of life is not.
Those that are emeshed in the matrix of the technosystem with their specialized functions are truly amazed at the seeming complexity of it all. This perceived complexity supports magical thinking.
geeks attempt to solve whatever problem is put in front of them
they tend to be under-represented in the class of people who prioritize the problems
I don't view it as unreasonable to have a "default" belief in progress, since empirically it has been what's happened in recent memory: My grandmother told stories about life from just before WWII, through the blitz and in to postwar deprivation. My mother had a better quality of life. My sister and I have had even better lives (so far). I'm an educated computer scientist/engineer, and I personally wouldn't bet against pulling a technological rabbit out of the hat. But until I see a multiply verified, production scale rabbit I'm planning for the possibility of a severe energy and resource crunch.
The two things I find most worrying is that (i) people in general won't entertain even the possibility that things may be heading for a crunch, and (ii) almost everyone these days regard it as more important to win an argument than figure out "the truth". Although it'd be disappointing for an engineer not to figure out theoretically that the fridge won't cool the containing room, the unforgivable thing would be to not go grab a thermometer to validate whether a claimed cooling of the room was occurring but just maintain one's argument about what must be happening.
The mistakes are in thinking that progress is inevitable and automatic, in thinking that progress is always a totally good thing (instead of it sometimes being a mixed bag), and in thinking that progress is a one way street, that regress is impossible. Most people operate assuming all three of these are true, but they are not.
This is the most astute observation I have seen on this site. Ever.
Read some thoughts on "progress" from Wendell Berry in this excellent essay about his work:
http://www.ovpes.org/2003/Collins.pdf
And here I thought it was just common sense... and common knowledge.
Crap. We *are* in trouble.
Cheers
Kurt Cobb's just written an article about that mindset - http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/. Quite a good read.
Where in the room would you hold that thermometer, and for how long would you take readings?
The reality of the situation would be very complex, but it was (presumably) supposed to be a simple demonstration to show how little people apply the basic notion of conservation of energy to the world around them - for example, a large steel and concrete structure being turned mostly to dust by it's own gravitational potential energy...
That's a little over the top, but I think you get the picture.
People generally think that cold and heat are substances that stoves and freezers make. They don't think of a unified theory of heat, not even on an intuitive level
I think I'll hold my thermometer up against the condenser tubes of the refrigerator. :-)
My comment was simply that although it's disappointing when people get arguments based on physics and maths wrong, it happens. I manage to confuse myself in the area in which I'm a highly educated expert every so often. The most fundamental thing is to actively investigate to see if you're right or wrong, and if you turn out to be wrong rethink things. That's what's good about all most of the stuff at the oil drum (ELM, etc): it's based on careful reasoning but people are looking for confirmation/disproof in real world numbers.
Me, if I had thought the refrigerator would cool the room, I'd go to the middle of the room with the thermometer and wait half an hour. If there was no noticeable effect on the temperature I'd be forced to rethink things. (Incidentally, I'm not a physicist but I think it's 2nd law of thermodynamics not conservation of energy that applies here.)
I agree, but my questions were rhetorical. As step back pointed out, you could hold the thermometer anywhere. My point was that the example should be thought of in less complex terms - it was just a simple illustrative example.
"(Incidentally, I'm not a physicist but I think it's 2nd law of thermodynamics not conservation of energy that applies here.)"
The 1st law of thermodynamics still applies to the 2nd law...
It's also the law of inefficient heat engines (Carnot engines) that applies.
The refrigerator is less than 100% efficient. On first look you might assume that the coolness it produces is balanced by the heat emitted from the condenser coils. But not so. The compressor produces additional heat. So do accessories in the refrigerator like lights, defroster mechanism, fans, etc. So the refrigerator is a net heat source, with or without its door being open. :-)
The geeks (and I number myself among them), who are atypical in their pursuit of technical excellence, have contributed tremendously to the problem. They have given these "magical" devices to vast numbers of people who don't understand their principles or the full consequences of their use. In fact, they themselves, in their narrow focus on making and creating things, do not understand the systems into which they inject these devices and cannot apprehend the full consequences to the world when the widget they have worked on multiplies into the millions and billions. The humble refrigerator and air conditioner both have produced vast quantities of CO2 and affected the development patterns of suburbia on a large scale. And even knowing these things, it seems unlikely that the geeks would stop what they are doing, not when there are so many rewards to be made from it.
The technology used in everyday life has advanced so far from anything most people can understand, that they have become used to "magic". There is not much difference between the things so many do all the time to make things happen, and the kinds of things that are used in "Harry Potter".
I do this, and that happens - I do not know why. I move this mouse thing and click on the pretty icons and stuff happens. I say a couple of words and I can talk to someone on the other side of the world through a little thing in my ear. Is that so much different than waving a wand and speaking magic words?
In my opinion it doesn't matter - it all has to do with access to excess energy. That in turn allows enough excess food production capacity that large parts of the society can engage in non-food production pursuits, like science and engineering. Eventually that trend will reverse, the stuff will fail and not be replaced, and the magic of technology will become a memory of past glories.
It's just the conversion of oil into magic.
great laughs, thanks.
Today I just explained the simple concept of turning off the fridge in winter and keeping your beer on the balcony and some kind of box for butter and iceberg lettuce and meat... What about global warming I was asked?
Hmm. It was 24 degrees yesterday in the Grisons (Switz. - and not! in the South.) and in my own flat, with the radiators turned off, I was sweating in a tank top and shorts and cursing the sun. (All the curtains are removed in the winter. The place was built to get max. sun heat, it is a kind of greenhouse, and the *building* is heated, I’m on the top floor, there are pipes with hot water in them in the floors etc. that can’t be turned off. It was built in 1996.)
Last January was even more spectacular. Hotties in swim suits are now a mid-winter staple. Sure, the press gets into it.
The official nos. are 1.5 C rise since 1900. (Near as dammit.) For the whole country. From top to bottom, from valley to peak, town to forest, south (palm trees) to north (fir and rock, lichens..) Micro climate pockets have undergone spectacular changes.
So I hmmmed. No way you can keep 100 dollar a pound bison meat on your balcony or in your garden in the "winter."
Why in the world would you be putting a pig in the freezer? A pig wouldn't feed ONE family, much less two. And, Veggies? what about veggies? You can't live on meat, alone, even if you could put a whole year's worth of meat in a freezer. And, what about next year?
Shouldn't you be using that time to plant a garden? And, a fruit tree? That's much more efficient than feeding pigs.
Ol' "Doomer" (100 million is the max that America can support) Pimental's argument doesn't make any more sense than mine just did.
We're not going to replace ALL of the energy needs of the country with biomass. We, also, have Wave, Wind, Waste, Nuclear, and Solar. What we ARE going to do is replace some of our oil usage with biofuels. It will help out a lot in the next few years. Kind of like that pig is going to help out next month. :)
Great question -- and cuts to the heart of the modern dilemma. Why would anyone freeze meat to preserve it, unless they lived at the North Pole? Because we can, of course. It's easier than canning or smoking or salting -- and each of those technologies has adverse consequences. Here in the northwest, sun-drying the meat is out of the question.
And why would anyone eat meat anyway? I have become more or less convinced that Permaculture and its varients are the proper way to live in most of the temperate world -- a balance of animal and vegetable husbandry allows a reasonable population density without depleting anything. The real problem is factory farming, factory pigs, factory chickens -- the purpose of that mode of "agriculture" is to extract a profit and externalize the costs. Factory farming is mostly just a way of turning petroleum, fossil water and topsoil into food and money, and as we have seen over the last 40 years or so, it is becoming a disaster, because there is no closed loop to recycle nutrients, and especially because it uses more water than exists on the planet.
Simply because it may be a very healthy diet.
Though it is peripheral to your main point, I would just like to point out that this is false, and that there are documented instances of people living on meat alone for extended periods, and in fact thriving on it. In fact at least one entire society ate pretty much nothing but 'meat' (fish and seal) - the Inuit.
Maybe it's all those advertisements on TV with some guy talking to a bunch of children talking about how this new hulking SUV is "green" because it can run on E85 and is a hybrid? (The E85 negating the 2mpg gain from it being a hybrid?) Considering they pay a large portion of my salary, I'll refrain from naming names.
Or maybe it's because of those guys in Iowa, wanting to boost grain prices by pushing bills that force consumption of ethanol? (And our shrub who pushes the same thing?)
Or maybe, for some strange reason, it's because that the current American "consumer" (not citizen) actually believes all of this ethanol hype?
[sarcanol]On the other hand, if you were evil, you could view ethanol as a good thing. It drives up grain prices, which causes demand destruction in poor countries. Of course, those people would be starving anyhow, so it's all OK, right? [/sarcanol]
The sad thing about it all, is once you've sold people that corn-based ethanol is a crock of horse excrement, they start blathering about how cellulose-based ethanol will save us. Switchgrass... Wouldn't they do better with industrial hemp or something? Oh wait, Reefer Madness. Nevermind.
Silver BB's.... Along with a few plastic ones painted to look silver..
~Durandal (http://www.wtdwtshtf.com)
Horse excrement makes excellent manure, and is a good fuel source when dried.
Horse manure also makes good doomer anti ethanol posts on TOD. As long as doomers refuse to recognize the real world situation with ethanol, they will forever be in a funk as ethanol continues to expand. Ethanol is an effect of Peak Oil not the cause. Food prices are up due to inflationary monetary policy, Peak Oil and bad weather in the case of wheat which, by the way is up the 60 cent limit today on the CBOT. The ignorance of knowledgeable people who understand Peak Oil when it comes to ethanol is unbelievable. If ethanol is as bad as those who hate claim, it will fail. By the way that awful SUV burning E85 saves more fossil fuel than a Prius because it gets such poor mileage. In the Midwest burning E85 gives those whose income is based on corn at lot of psychological satisfaction even if it costs more. When you produce your own fuel and then read doomer porn it's very satisfying. The Iowa economy is booming and it is flooded with ethanol. I think that is the real bitch of those who hate ethanol. All Iowa is doing is using the ELP model so frequently held up as the ideal. We are economizing on transportation by consuming corn locally to produce ethanol. Isn't that what ELP is all about? And it works.
I'm happy for Iowa. My daughter lives there.
Ethanol for fuel still sucks. And if we stop the government subsidies, it will fail.
'BioFuel Reports Construction Delay'
Building anything in America, besides military hardware, is getting much more difficult. It isnt only the poor condition of the US economy, but the shortage of materials and skilled labor. So, why are we squandering our scarce resources on BioFuel plants?
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.aspx?Feed=PR&Date=200801...
...snip...'Commenting, Scott H. Pearce, the Company's President and CEO said, "We are obviously disappointed by this delay. Unfortunately, despite an admirable degree of high level management attention at TIC, construction at both Wood River and Fairmont have experienced and continue to face challenges. These have largely been due to the still very strong industrial construction market and the resulting competition for personnel and material. Until recently, it was believed that most or all of the time slippage in particular aspects of the job could be made up. However, delays in the delivery of large vessels, pipe and steel, virtually all of which are now finally on site, and continued difficulty in obtaining and keeping skilled construction labor, has forced TIC to revise their schedule. We remain confident in the expertise and dedication that TIC and Delta-T continue to apply to the project and are impressed with the depth of their commitment to delivering top-of-the-line facilities."...snip...
Ethanol has only 2/3 the energy per unit volume as gasoline. For Ethanol to "succeed", the price of ethanol (meaning E85) at the pump must be no more than 2/3 the price of gasoline. When gasoline sells for $3.00 per gallon (or there abouts), that means E85 must cost less than $2.00 per gallon (mol). Besides, burning E85 doesn't result in very much reduction in FF use (if any), it only means that the FFs burned include coal and natural gas, not just oil. Since coal and natural gas have been less expensive than oil lately, the economics results in relatively low costs for ethanol production. As the prices for coal, natural gas and fertilizer are increasing, it would appear that the cost to produce ethanol will approach the reality as seen in calculations of EROEI. Take away the ethanol subsidy and let's see how long those farmers will keep putting E85 in their tanks (or anyone else's tank for that matter).
E. Swanson
We've already seen in the link I posted on a prior thread that tests conducted by N. Dakota Univ, and Mn State (using EPA cycle) show that ethanol can deliver BETTER fuel economy in IC engines than straight gasoline.
It's all in the OCTANE. Admittedly, these results were with mid-level ethanol blends; but, wait until you see the new engines with DI, VVT, and VRT. The forerunner (though without VRT) will be in the chevy HHR this fall. My bet is you'll be down to less than 10% difference between unleaded, and E85.
Don't live in the PAST, folks. The World is a'changing.
Makes no difference there is still 60 to 80% FF fuel embedded in each gallon.
And 80% of the energy 'lost' as heat
FF good for heat, bad for motion
Yes, engines designed for higher octane fuel can deliver better conversion efficiencies. However, in engines designed primarily for regular gasoline, there is no advantage to running higher octane fuel. But, your comment was regarding what you called "mid-level ethanol blends", perhaps E10. Since I don't have your link available, I think you are probably blowing smoke regarding the gasoline mileage of E85, since the higher octane of E85 has little impact on conversion efficiency when used in an engine optimized for regular. Comparing higher octane E85 with unleaded 89 octane regular is an improper comparison if you are going to specify an engine design optimized for high octane.
Ultimately, there's less energy in a gallon of E85 than there is in a gallon of regular gasoline and it's the energy which makes the car move. The miles per unit energy are likely to be quite similar, but that's not the same thing as miles per gallon.
E. Swanson
I don't need to blow smoke; I've got the facts on my side.
http://www.rhapsodyingreen.com/rhapsody_in_green/files/optimal_ethanol_b...
Study showing 3 of 4 cars got better mileage with ethanol blend.
Speaking of ignorance and manure...
First, when has anyone on this forum -- or anywhere on the planet -- said that ethanol causes peak oil?
Second, your assertion that grain prices are being driven by inflation fails simple economics. In this scenario, farmers being squeezed by higher input costs (and hence lower margins) would be planting fewer acres thus resulting in a decrease in supply and higher prices. Of course, this is not reality. Farmers are planting more acres, but prices are still increasing because of higher demand due to ethanol subsidies. True, wheat is higher because of crop losses in AU. However, it is quite likely that even more wheat acres would be planted elsewhere to compensate if it were not for demand for land for corn.
I'm not a doomer. But the day we poured food into our tanks I thought the doomers had a point.