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Andris Piebalgs : getting a sense of proportion
Posted by Luis de Sousa on March 29, 2008 - 12:30pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: andris piebalgs, biofuel, energy efficiency, eroei, european commission [list all tags]
Andris Piebalgs continues this Friday his blogging on bio-fuels, addressing some of the concerns expressed by the readers of the last blog-entry.
I agree that a radical change in consumer behavior is needed if we want Europe to be more energy efficient. At the same time, as policy makers we have to come up with policies that are based on present day realities. And the reality is that most Europeans are living and working in big cities and using modern means of transport. It would be unrealistic to impose sanctions on car producers and users if no alternatives are provided.
Before continuing I can't but express once more my joy in seeing EU's leaders having such a close interaction with their citizens. More bio-fuel talk under the fold.
Crossposted at the European Tribune.
In Europe, we use less than 2 percent of our cereals production for biofuels, so they do not contribute significantly to higher food prices in the European context. Even if we reach our 10% biofuels target by 2020, the price impact will be small. Our modeling suggests that it will cause a 8 to 10% increase in rape seed prices and 3 to 6% increase in cereal prices. Increase in the price of the latest has very small influence on the cost of bread. It makes up around 4 per cent of the consumer price of a loaf.
[...]
We need to use first-generation biofuels as a bridge to the second generation biofuels using lignocellulosic materials as a feedstock. With this in mind, the Commission within the forthcoming review of the Common Agricultural Policy will urge the farmers to invest more in short rotation forestry crops and perennial grasses which are the most typical feedstocks for advanced biofuels.Over the past 30 years, Europe’s farmers have stood accused, through their association with the Common Agricultural Policy, of over-producing and dumping their surpluses with the aid of massive export subsidies on over supplied world markets, therefore depressing market prices and contributing massively to poverty and starvation in poor countries. That criticism has now been reversed. The charge now is that EU biofuel policy will contribute to third world poverty by driving food prices up. My impression from this debate sometimes is that we the Europeans know best what is good for people in developing world. Let them speak for themselves.
[...]
And let’s not forget that oil is a finite commodity, and high oil prices are one of the main factors making food more expensive, particularly in poor countries.
The most important questions raised in the previous log entries were left unattended. Here's a simple accounting exercise to get a real sense of proportion:
The EU consumes today roughly 20 Mb/d of Oil. Of that about two thirds are used in Transport, make it 13 Mb/d. Assuming that EU's Transport use remains unchanged up to 2020 that turns the target to something like 1.3 Mb/d.
Ethanol has an energy density of about 60% of gasoline, biodiesel is somewhat better, so make it 75%. Thus to replace those 1.3 Mb/d of Oil, about 1.75 Mb/d of bio-fuels are needed ( 1.3/0.75 ).
Ethanol production in temperate climates has an EROEI below 2:1, biodiesel about 4:1. Oil's EROEI differs markedly from place to place (offshore versus onshore, etc) but 10:1 is a general enough mark. Accounting for EROEI, the useful energy the EU gets from Oil is about 1.2 Mb/d. To match that useful energy, total bio-fuels production has to rise to 2.1 Mb/d ( 1.2/0.75/0.75 ).
Corn crops yield about 3500 litres of ethanol per hectare per year (that's 9.5 litres per hectare per day). With sugar cane in the tropics that number goes up to 6000 (16,5 litres per hectare per day). But for bio-diesels the numbers are considerably lower, around 1250 litres per hectare per year (3,5 per hectare litres per day).
Using 159 litres for a barrel, 2.1 Mb correspond roughly to 333 Ml (mega-litre). Using again the most optimistic figure for the temperate regions, the EU needs to allocate thirty five million (35 000 000) hectares to bio-fuels production.
I live in a state that has an area of less than 9 million hectares. Germany has an area just over 35 million hectares.
All that dark green area producing ethanol in 2020?
Good or evil? Friend or foe? This kind of wording doesn't fit in my Engeneering/Architecture dictionaries. Bio-fuels are not an option, it's all a matter of numbers.
Data sources:
Previous coverage of Andris Piebalgs blog:
Piebalgs on European Energy Security
Luís de Sousa
TheOilDrum:Europe
Great analysis, Luis.
The big question is, why haven't the EU policymakers done this little bit of arithmetic, or hired someone who can?
The arithmetic might have spoilt the show, that's why --- at least from the perspective of the powerful biofuel-pushing agri-lobby. And Piebalgs isn't really engaging in dialogue: he is churning out the party line. Including the insinuation that opposition to biofuels is a symptom of the Communist mindset.
We've had the Fidel Castro tune song twice already in his blog:
Fidel Castro is a Commie thug
Fidel Castro is opposed to biofuels.
Other people are also opposed to biofuels.
Therefore, nudge-nudge, those other people are quite possibly Commie thugs as well.
I fear Commissioner Piebalgs is trying to sell a product rather than debating whether the product is worth selling at all. Still, his blog is uncensored, and we should make the most of the opportunity to enlighten his readers, even if he himself has a closed mind.
Cuba / the Castro-system is one real world place where “we the world” can get real-time information as to whether bio-fuels would work or not!
B/c Cuba would go after bio-fuels years ago, if it was possible, no? Sure they would and probable have tried, and concluded accordingly: Not possible.
If 1 square meter returned say 1-2 liter of bio-fuel, just like that, without any other inputs – it would have driven Cuban society as a showcase society for the transition to such ways, for "the rest of us". BUT sadly this is not the case.
That's a sharp question EP.
It leads the common man to think that they are either dumb for never had done the math or just puppets serving some vested interest.
I'm sure that Andris is neither of those, so this insistence on bio-fuels leaves me very unconfortable.
Of course, they did their own calculations! E.g., have a look here.
In fact, their calculation yields exactly half the needed area as in the analysis of Luis, namely 17.5 million instead of 35 million hectares.
Why this big of a difference?!
I suppose the most important reason is that they speak about a "10% biofuels target", which I interprete as "10 % of fuel used for transportation is biofuel". On the other hand, Luis analysis is about "10 % less fossil transport fuel needs". Because of lower energy density and EROI of biofuel in comparison with fossil fuels, for "10 % less fossil transport fuel needs" one then actually needs a lot more biofuel, namely 2.1 Mb! In comparison with a total of (13 - 1.3 + 2.1 = 13.8 Mb), that actually makes 15 % instead of 10 % of "fuel used for transportation"!
For "10 % of fuel used for transportation is biofuel", one would only need 1.3 Mb instead of 2.1 Mb, resulting in 21.7 million hectares, which is 13.3 million hectares less as Luis suggested, but still 4.2 million hectares more as in the above linked presentation.
The analysis of Luis also shows that "10 % of fuel used for transportation is biofuel" results in only about 6 to 7 % "less fossil transport fuel needs".
The remaining 4.2 million hectares differences could probably be explained with expected car fuel efficiency gains I suppose they incorporated into their calculation.
17.5 million hectares is still a hell of a lot, and although also I am very, very sceptical about biofuels, I think Andris Piebalgs made some relevant points.
By the way, a very interesting article about the nonsense of biofuels, and how much more efficient it would be to use this arable land for photovoltaics, I found here. Unfortunately, it is in German, but the diagramm at the bottom is clear for everyone. It was at least astonishing for me...
Plants are typically only 1% or 2% efficient at producing energy we can use.
A solar PV panel can produce 15% or more but only if it is kept at 90 degrees to the suns rays, I suspect the calculations have been made assuming this - what is it if the panel is just flat on the ground like the plants?
I doubt I (or most people) could afford to use current PV panels to power any car I might want to use - no oil, no car! - PV is VERY expensive, especially at high lattitudes.
The efficiency of the Photosynthesis process for plants is indeed typically 1% or 2%. But only a very small part of the energy is converted into usable oil. According to the article I referred to, rapeseed converts only 0,15% of the solar energy into oil!
Roughly speaking, a tracking PV panel produces about one third more electricity as an optimally positioned fixed PV panel (not flat on the ground). A panel lying flat on the ground produces about 85% of an optimally positioned fixed PV panel (at least in Germany, on the equator the optimal position is flat on the ground). But than you could use the whole field, instead of only about one third, because then you don't have the problem of one panel shadowing another. In total you would even have more yield pro hectare, but at a much larger cost because you need a lot more panels!
And that brings us to costs. In Germany, they have a feed-in tariff of 35.49 cents/kWh for freestanding PV-plants. So, a car consuming 16kWh/100km has a 'fuel cost' of about 5.68€/100km... The fuel cost of a typical 7.4 l/100km (32mpg) gasoline car is considerably higher! (at least in Europe) And feed-in tariffs are falling (up till now 6,5% a year, from next year on probably 8,5%), whereas oil prices are rising. For a PV powered hybrid car, not as much the price of the "PV fuel" is the problem, it's the battery cost!
R G
You are forgetting the taxation component of automotive fuels. The government will eventually have to tax "automotive" electricity if we all start using it. The price will rise 6 fold then. How they will do this, I don't know but they will find a way!
It would make sense to tax mileage and perhaps adjust that tax according to the 'fuel' efficiency of the car and perhaps price in some form of peak congestion charging.
I suspect this would create a new industry in 'clocking' although many of the big brother propsals for satelite tracking on vehicles would resolve this.
Jevons' Paradox in operation?
Jevons' Paradox in operation?
Comparing biofuels to PV-powered plug-in hybrids is a valid comparison, but several things must also be examined;
1. EROEI of the PV panels: How much energy was used in the manufacture compared to lifecycle energy output?
2. Hybrid extras: How much more energy was used to make the batteries, electric motor, and any additional items?
3. Costs: What are the cost differences between the two alternatives to the consumer?
4. Environment: How do the environmental impacts of each compare?
5. Food prices: What will the food price differential be between the two alternatives?
I currently have both a hybrid and a PV-powered house, so the above comparison is of great interest to me as well.
Incidentally, a field of tracking PV arrays could also be a source of switchgrass or other cellulosic ethanol feedstock, as seen in the main photo at this link provided by RenewableGuy above. It would be nice to see a translation of this article, which compares ethanol and PV-powered plug-in hybrids.
As has been mentioned before here and on Andris blog, simply continuing the same level of automobile use should not be considered a sustainable approach. Increased levels of mass transit, buses, biking, and walking are certainly more sustainable, and rely on best land use planning practices. For those unable or unwilling due to current distant suburb/exurb locations, velomobiles with electric boost can be considered the next step.
Of course, this crashes head-on with the size and influence of the EU auto industry;
Why do you reject biofuels? They can suerly be a partial solution.
Magnus, I think what bugs most critics of biofuels is the a priori assumption that they are a 'good thing', regardless of the empirical data relating to relative market prices, EROEI, and environmental externalities. That's all. Critics belong to the a posteriori community -- people who are at least willing to change their minds when the data doesn't fit in with the theory.
Luis has come up with hard facts. Piebalgs has come with such near-meaningless statements as " Our crops are more than capable of producing food and fuel".
I think Piebalgs just doesn't get it. He is a consummate politician. He got his job by politicking, not by reading Geoergescu-Roegen or agonising about entropy. The EU boat has been sailing towards biofuels for the past decade and there is no way Piebalgs is going to rock it. The downside of biofuels is of no more interest to him than the downside of chain-smoking is to the tobacco industry. But as I said already, Piebalgs's blog is open and uncensored, so make the most of it!
I work inside the Swedish political system and have talked with more then a dozen of the companies, organizations and authorities that are involved in biofuels. They are not dumb, all has been aware of the limitations with different biofuels and markets. Its known that it is a question about finding efficient ways of turning different raw materials into fuel and other products with the maximum sale value and the value varies between customers. The people who actually do things then start with the raw materials, knowledge, infrastructure and customers they already have. Thus we got RME, biogas and ethanol from wheat and distillation with forest biomass.
The production volumes and mix of technologies will be another one in 10 and 20 years. There is technology development of making high value chemicals and fuel from celulose and ligning with multiple companies pursuing different solutions. The refineries are working with adding biomass to different stages of their process. There is a push for recultivating all of the fallow fields and intensifie forestry. And there are enourmous investments in new electricity production and lots of plug-in hybrid initatives.
I would expect EU politicians and transnational companies in EU to be as smart as the local ones. The problem is the PR, that it is very hard to sell something that is more complex then a single method solution. This is true for all kinds of sale efforts including getting voters. I think I can be lucky that most of our politicians within the field talk about multiple solutions.
Magnus, the population of Sweden (~9 million) is similar to that of a large city in other European countries - try and see the bigger picture.
To give you an idea, Sweden has a population density of ~20 per km2 the European average is ~112 per km2. Sweden comes #195 out of 241 independent territories recognised by the UN.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density
I know we have a lot of natural resources per capita. But I do not get why having a larger populations would lead to dumber entreprenuers and politicians.
Some facts about the UK where I live:
we don't have any wood - all the forests were chopped down so we could conquer the world centuries ago - so we will have to rely on net exports of others
we don't have any excess agricultural land, fish stocks are falling - we already import 40% of our food - so we will have to rely on net exports of others
we don't have adequate amounts of inorganic N, P & K - so we will have to rely on net exports of others
in 10 years or so we won't have any oil - so we will have to rely on net exports of others
in 10 years or so we won't have any natural gas - so we will have to rely on net exports of others
we have a small amount of coal - we don't produce all we use, our production is back to levels last seen ~1820 - so we will have to rely on net exports of others
we don't have any uranium - so we will have to rely on net exports of others
we are at a high latitude so solar doesn't work in the winter when we need the power
our population density is high at ~380 per km2 and is growing about 0.6% a year
we already run a current account deficit of ~£58 billion, around 4.2% of GDP - so we will have to rely on net credit of others
gold is currently near it's all time peak price - our government sold all our gold at the bottom of the market costing us £2 billion - (are your politicians as dumb as that) so do we rely on the politicians of others?
What is good for others isn't necessarily good for us.
xeroid,well put, but I'm afraid you've come to grips with reality.
REALITY Definition: facts of existence .... and then of course there is REALITYs ANTONYMS like : belief, fantasy, hypothesis, imagination, theory
Ok some realy dumb decisions have been made in Sweden, like toying with socialism and a large number of realy awfull school refors and emptying or cold war era stock of refined fuels. (Tripple dumb, abandoning having a year or more of spare fuel, selling it cheap and abandoning the hardened storage facilities. )
We will be able to export a lot of wood products to you and Sweden and probably also the nordic electricity trading area is likely to have spare electricity. You could move energy intensive production over here and/or build a cable to Norway.
You could pay for it by exporting culture, labour intensive goods and specialist services and hight tech products from niche industries.
Norway is already maxed-out on hydro-electricity, if that is what you have in mind. We’ve built our first nat.gas-station and there is a lot of handwringing over where to install wind farms.
In the same 10-15-years that UK will run out of oil, Norway will follow suit. By then the whole of Europe will import oil from … ehh ……… ehhh don’t ask me. And in the same very years bio-fuels will eventually have been understood for what it is: NONSENCE
There is only one way out of this mess to come: Conservation! Only conservation!
Magnus : Start to demand from SAAB and Volvo to only manufacture buses and trucks that have small engines and a lot of seats. Private cars must be banned ASAP, but some years of lead time must be allowed to introduce politics that will make the world go round ...... after the ban is to be enforced.
Your government doesn’t get it - in increasing the Swedish speed limits up to 120 km/h… pity
Neither Norway or Sweden is maxed out in hydropower but we would rather build anything else then dam some of the rivers that are left more or less unchanged. Some additions can be made and Norway has a good potential for combined heat and power, and lots of possible wind power, wave power if that works out and the technology level needed to support nuclear powerplants.
The Swedish near term "surplus" is a government prognosis based on already buidling investments that mostly are combined heat and power and nuclear power.
Conversation is extremely important but we also need biofuels, more electricity, etc.
The possibility for most of the population to use a car when needed needs to be preserved for us to keep the old rural part of our culture alive. Loosing it would be a major cultural problem and would also make it harder to use the biomass resources.
Scania, Volvo(trucks), Saab(GM) and Volvo(Ford) are all working on efficiency, hybridization and biofuels for all kinds of wehicels. There is no way the car will be banned and we will end up with a better solution then WW-2 producer gas wehicels.
Norway is virtually maxed out for all practical purposes !!!! There are a few national park rivers , but those are outside the discussion.
This is the sort of charts you simply don't grasp !
Try to see where all sorts of renewable is today. Then try to imagine the OIL PORTION ONLY go to zero ... and then follows ; what substances or fluids in motion (remember we must make energycatching equippments for such) will ever be able to replace that energy. Let alone nat.gas and coal are headed the very same way as oil .... man!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:World_energy_usage_width_chart.svg
This is not a new issue for me.
The local heating oil use in Sweden is currently going to zero. It is replaced with a combination of nuclear and renewable power. This change started in the 70:s and will be completed within about 10 years. It could probbaly have been done in about 20 years.
Doing the same for wehicle fuels would probably be possible for Sweden with a multiple decade effort working with every partial solution in parallell. A large number of the reasonable efforts are already started and I think that we locally can handle a peak oil downslope where most of the work will be done via market mechanisms.
Handling such a change takes multiple decades and cost a noticable fraction of GNP. It might be so that only they who already have started will handle it gracefully and those who do not do anything for a few years will be "demand destructed" in favor for more efficient economies.
I am not arguing that biofuels etc will save the whole world, it will be enough for manny millions but not all billions. I think there are enough knowledge and resources for everybody but they have not been used in a wise way and its not likely that they will be used wisely. I hope there will be manny and large prosperous areas on the globe and I care about is adding to those areas.
no sure ... Magnus sure it's not an issue for you.
You are a dreaming poet Magnus, that’s what you are.
Take Norway as a Western example, b/c I know our numbers, and done the math’s before.
Norway uses 250 000 b/day /365, converted by volume into rape-fields at running conversion rates, Norwegians need a rape-acreage amounting to 20 km X 20 km every single day . On an annual basis that goes to about half of Norway’s mainland area. Norway is a rugged, mountainous and cold place with a short growth season and God forbid a bad harvest, because that we can’t afford after oil is gone. Norway has 4,7 Mega inhabitants …. This world has 6,7 Giga inhabitants. When oil is gone I don’t think the Brazilians or anyone else is gonna sell us any of their bio-fuel at any cost, as opposed to what is touted in today’s MSM dreams.
Whatever you understood from these NUMBERS Magnus ….. NUMBERS and AREA …. Magnus … use it in your poetry. BUT for God’s sake, make it RHYME.
You could start by ignoring the NIMBY people and build more high tension lines, wind power and hydro power and you have a nearly unlimited potential to build pumped hydro storage. You dont have to ever run out of electricity.
Then I recommend building more electrified railways, when natural gas starts to run out you can make nitrogen fertlizer with the old electric Norsk Hydro methods and you can electrolyze more water into hydrogen and oxygen for gasifieng wood and from the gasified wood and electric hydrogen you can make fuel for the high value uses like powering capilary logistics, tractors and fishing boats.
I guess the Norwegian rapeseed crop will be eaten locally and used to lubricate chainsaws.
A lot of the current oil use will simply become impossible. There might not even be any flights or manny freight ships between Norway and continental Europe, it could all go on rail via Sweden, a new Helsingör - Helsingborg tunnel, thru Denmark and the soon to be built Fehmarn belt bride.
How about investing some of the oil money in domestic infrastructure and infrastructure in the neighbouring countries? It could make life easier for manny generations.
I hope this reads like poetry. ;-)
Magnus what you write here make a lot of sense in a future scenario. But IMO it’s completely out of course as compared to what you have been writing earlier… and yes this is a more realistic kind a' poetry.
The intent of Luis' post here is the silliness(impossibility) of EUs goals of 10% bio fuel by 2020, remember? That is what is at focus here. You are shooting in all directions….
Between today and the picturesque (low energy) picture you paint just here, something has to happen : Either planned OR unplanned, b/c the oil will be gone for all practical purposes between 2050 and 2100.
I am for the PLANNED version of the above, you are seemingly against that b/c you cannot see the concept of banning the private car, on-the-other-hand that I can.… and in doing so we have a lot of available “free” oil-energy to do some real planning with (!) That's where Scania/Volvo make my proposed "cheaply-run-engines-with-many-seats-buses"
We are off on a tanget in this part of the thread but Swedens share of the EU targets will probably be met.
I would suggest you start exporting your young ones and only import Birth Control. How the Hell does the UK plan to exist much longer?
Any one over there got an IQ over 50?
Oh, sorry, the Queen will take care of all her subjects....
I guess you Folks in the UK are that stupid.
BZ
I visit the UK Parliament once or twice a month for the Peak Oil discussions - apparently, the Government thinks the "fundamentals are sound".
However, I'm not sure what the 'fundamentals' that they talk about are.
Should I trust that the UK Government, Banking System, MSM etc are all looking out for me and planning for my best interests?
We tried exporting people before (the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are full of them) and still our population grows - it seems the economy is better here than elsewhere in Europe!
lol
maybe it's due time to call them all back home, for a nifty Peak Oil party, and at the same time ask for some advice ?
Xeroid,
Its funny you mentioned Gordon Brown's selling (giving away as it now turns out) of our gold stocks since only yesterday did I have this very converasation. Same applies to North Sea Oil, which was actually how the conversation started, the gold issue was later mentioned as a similar act of stupidity!.
I think we are in general agreement that we are probably stuffed.
There's a huge difference between Uranium and carbon based fuels (wood coal oil etc). A lump of coal for example can be burnt by anybody anywhere to do any pupose viz direct heat source or to generate mechanical power. To extract energy from uranium, things are a little more involved!
"we don't have any wood - all the forests were chopped down"
Kielder Forest
475,000 cubic meters of timber is harvested annually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielder_Forest
Its big. I cycled about in it. And its one of many.
Almost no wood is used as fuel in the UK any more, it is not an alternate for oil.
The area of the UK is 241,590 km2, the area of Kielder is just 500 km2 - I leave you to do the math to see how insignificant a % that is - 'big' is not an apropriate word to describe something so small!
In 2005 the 'net import' of wood into the UK was 45,000,000 m3. Kielder produced just 475,000 m3 - and was it sustainable production?
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/foreststats.nsf/byunique/imports.html
You might think that Kielder is sustainable in the long term and will adequately supply all our energy needs - I sure hope you are correct, but I don't think you have grasped the scale of the problem facing us. Try using Google Earth to see how bad it really is.
We need food more than we do wood.
More than anything we need a surplus of something to trade for the oil, gas , coal, wood, uranium, food etc that we need - instead we have an accelerating deficit.
Xeroid
People seem incapable of grasping the scale of our energy consumption and the problem sustaining the level at what it is, including those promoting biofuels. Recently, Using the very figure you quote for UK land area, i did the sums for rape oil production in the uk using every square mm of the uk land area for that production, at 2.5 tonnes per hectare yield. I'm not going through it again, but it won't work and can't work, even if you assume no energy is used in the process, we can't get the fuel volumes needed.
The uk alone requires about 70 million tonnes of oil each year, the world consumes 31 billion barrels or 1.3 cubic miles of oil every year. Bio fuels, Not a chance!
Appeal to the lowest common denominator ? (The larger the group, the lower the LCD).
Less voter-politician contact and more media directed "contact" ?
Alan
Biofuel is contributing to the current trend of increasing price of food and vegetable oil.
As of now, the demand for biofuel is increasing, but as Luis pointed out, the energy density of ethanol and other biofuels is lower than that of gasoline, more crops are needed to fill the gap, which results in the competition for crops between food and biofuels.
What is making this rising food price even worse is the biofuel use mandated by the governments in Europe and North America. This makes raising crops for biofuels more lucrative than for food. As a result, many farmers are switching their crops that are being grown for biofuels, not food.
While governments may feel 'good' that they are doing something for the environment, they really should have more insights into what might happen as side effects.
Wheat shortage sends bread, pasta prices soaring: http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/02/20/wheat-prices.html