Peak Oil Media: Food v. (Bio)fuel, Fast Money saying "It's Supply, Stupid" and Cramer on Ending the Ethanol Mandate
Posted by Prof. Goose on May 9, 2008 - 10:00am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: algal biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol, corn, eroi, ethanol, fast money, jim cramer, joe terranova, mad money [list all tags]
UNDER THE FOLD, you will find two youtube videos that are worth your time. The first is from Fast Money (CNBC) yesterday entitled "It's Supply, Stupid." After a bit of discussion on the panel, Joe Terranova provides a really nice discussion (about 4 mins) of the reasoning behind why the price oil is rising: supply and demand. Sure, it's a little bit the weak dollar, it's a little bit speculation, but Terranova makes an elegant argument as to why it's mostly the fundamentals--which is kinda what we've been saying for a while around here, eh?
The second video, is Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money (1:30) discussing ethanol and its implications for food; he uses the words "Wall of Ethanol Truth," "that issue is killing Americans," "ending the ethanol mandate," and "Malthusian." Wow. Let's discuss.
and here's Cramer...he's not very happy with ethanol.
Thanks Leanan! :)
The rise and fall of ethanol as the answer to all our problems is quite dramatic. Now that the idea of alternatives to oil is dying we will see a re-awakening of the "drill everywhere at all costs now!" panic. Once they go through their own dramatic refutation we will begin to finally seriously address our problems.
Hi, I drive between London and Bristol twice a week in the South of the UK -about 100 miles- and there are bright yellow Rapeseed fields cropping up everywhere. I would bet a chunk of the UKs biodiesel is going to come from this crop and looking at the chart above it is a good mix to the UK.
The Algae looks like a winner but would probably be orders of magnitude more expensive than simply spraying seed onto cropland. One possible way would be to create vast algae blooms -either at sea or in lakes. With bio-engineering -e.g. one of Craig Ventures new breed of superalgae- the oil content could be raised substantially. This looks like it could eventually be a winner...
Nick.
I don't know why rapesed hasn't been tried before. It seems a lot better than corn and in England it's high water use will not be a problem.
The problem, as is so often the case, is scale. A study by Strathclyde University suggests that using all the set aside (deliberately unused) farmland in the UK to grow rape could meet 4% of the country's diesel fuel needs. That's less than the current 5% biodiesel target set for 2010.
I don't know how much biodiesel is being produced from crops on currently productive land in the UK. Quite a lot, I guess, although since the UK is less than 70% self sufficient in food production, some of the familiar arguments over biofuels vs food must eventually raise their heads in time.
Strathclyde University offers an online simulator allowing one to play with the outputs and implications of using various crops as sources of biofuel.
I agree with you about the amount of water we can count on in England.
RME (rapeseed methyl ester) is a solution to an EU farm price-support dilemma. By removing land from production of foodstuffs and producing non-food fuel products instead, it reduces the downward price pressure on everything from grains to cheese which results from chronic overproduction. The overproduction was in turn a product of excessive farm-price supports....
Remind you of American price supports for corn? It should. And neither one has a thing to do with energy policy, despite the language used to tout them.
As is becoming quite clear, we have not had overproduction of food in the past. We have had an underproduction in the last couple of years. We presently have inadequate food stocks. While price supports may not be the best way to assure adequate buffer surplus they have not been excessive in terms of performing that function.
Chris
Each year we've produced about 2,100Mt of grain. We need 1,230Mt if we feed people nothing else - give 'em their calories and protein, no nutrition.
About 750Mt goes to livestock, and 350Mt to biofuels. World stocks are about 420Mt, and these float up and down by 5-20Mt each year.
If not for biofuels, world grain stocks would rise by 340Mt or so each year - not far off doubling.
We produce enough food, it's just that a lot of it isn't used as food, but fuel.
We can easily feed the world twice over from what we grow. But we cannot both feed it and fuel it. When it comes to grains: food, livestock and fuel - choose any two.
yes Kiashu I think this is a valid piont, thus fuel must suffer!
Rapeseed (huile de colza, biodiesel, in fr.) is commonly used in Switzerland and Germany. Links are in french sorry. Ex: newspaper: http://largeur.com/expArt.asp?artID=1617
On the only measure that I have looked up, that is CO2 emissions (gives a very handy overall picture, not the whole story of course) biodiesel (rapeseed, palm oil, soya oil, other biomass, and used vegetable oil, which is collected in CH and parts of France..) does not perform well altogether in comparison with ethanol, methanol, or methane (from grass, potato, beet, corn, sorghum, barley, sugar cane, bio detritus, all from all countries, with cane being from Brazil, corn from the US, etc.)
This can be seen in the second chart in the pdf which is easy to understand from any language; the better performing are few - French and Swiss used vegetable oils (they come as a kind of free lunch, or I suppose, post prandial gift...) and sugar cane from Brazil, no surprise there. Of course that is just eye balling, and much detail cold be dug into.
the study is swiss, from swiss pov, by the fed. energy agency. PDF, ecological evaluation of bio - energy, in french. Note the different rubrics counted; exploitation, transport, infrastructure, etc.
Right on brother. You make sense, a lot of these turkeys have their heads in the sand :) .
The reason why soybean planting is far wider than rapeseed may be the different usefulness for animal (cattle, swine and poultry) feed of the respective meals.
I saw something in today's Wall Street Journal that nearly made me choke on my coffee - a band of economists in a survey saying "It's supply, stupid" - economists mind you, who have always had creed about oil that says "It's speculation, stupid". Here is the survey:
I guess this means it's time to sell all your oil futures. They have been such a trustworthy contrary indicator. But we still have Yergin.
But since when do typical economists understand supply constraints?
they don't.
OMFG, no wonder people hate economists, they suck at their jobs.
Can it really be true that only 9% of economists put 'central bank policy' as the prime driver of prices?
Assuming that 'central bank policy' is a euphemism for 'printing like mad', I can assure you that the 15%-18% rates of growth seen in the macro money supply in the major economies of the world has a LOT to do with rising prices. If instead they meant that 'negative real interest rates' were to blame, then they are partially right there as negative real rates always drive investment dollars towards 'things'.
In my mind the causative factors for the recent surge in inflation, prioritized, are: Money supply growth --> negative real interest rates --> demand growth --> supply
I remain consistently amazed at how it is even possible for such a survey to go out without even a single direct mention of monetary growth rates as possible explanation for inflation.
/smacks head/
You think that's crazy-you've got Deflationists like Mish trying to spin the argument that 17% broad money supply growth is actually deflation.
Try this quote out from the latest Credit Bubble Bulletin from Doug Noland (emphasis mine):
Crude oil closed today above $126. The most vitally important commodity in the world has now posted a stunning year-to-date rise of better than 30% and has now doubled in the past year. It is worth noting that during the ten-year period 1996 through 2005 crude averaged about $29 a barrel. It’s now at four times this level - and running.
I don’t believe it is mere coincidence that crude has posted about a 30% y-t-d price surge at the same time as international reserve positions have expanded at about a 30% annualized rate - to a stunning $6.769 TN. Over the past 4 ½ years, official international reserves have ballooned an unprecedented $3.921 trillion, or 138%. During this period, crude prices surged almost 300%. Chinese reserves ballooned more than four-fold over this period to $1.68 Trillion; India’s reserve position tripled to $303bn; and Brazil enjoyed a four-fold increase to $189bn. After beginning 2004 at $73bn, Russian reserves have almost reached the half Trillion mark ($493bn). And in just the past year, OPEC reserves have inflated 42% to $490bn. To be sure, the world is awash like never before in excess “liquidity” for which to bid up prices of critical tradable resources.
http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php/CreditBubbleBulletinHome
Mish, whom I respect in some ways, is fixated, to the point of being blinkered, on the belief that we *must* face deflation.
The evidence to the contrary is pretty clear. A more than doubling of the central bank reserves in the past 4 years tells us that the global check kiting, circle jerk scheme being operated by the world's central banks is running at full tilt.
In my mind ANY analysis of prices has to include the growth in monetary aggregates and the best place to track those, at least tangentially, is in the reserve assets of central banks...
/I'm an inflationist
//Have a hard time believing that Bernanke won't continue to do exactly what he's said he will do and has been doing.
///3,800 failed currencies from history all died from inflation, not deflation...
////Our leadership is as morally weak as any that ever existed.
I just ordered some paint from a US company and the list price ran to just over $605 (including discounts) plus a 19% shipping charge (par avion Canada). The 19% I felt a bit on the extortionist side so I gave them a call and queried them on it. The upshot was that I got a return call shortly after to tell me that my total would be $599 including shipping. Brian, I don't know what you want to call this, maybe 'enlightened price decrease' would suit you or could we possibly use that old standby 'J'exige deflation!' for what occurred, anyway it's something that I think will be gathering vogue. (Only problem is who's going to be left with the bucks to benefit by that process?) I think any buck saved now will have a lot more purchasing power in the future. Save that pretty penny and you may end up feeling as bright as one:)
BTW if existing capital were to be destroyed at a rate of 18% while and the same time money supply were to grow at 17% what have you got? I think you got trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with Bubble here in Deflation-River City.
Try that call at the gas station or the grocery store-try it with your heat or electricity provider-try it with your insurance company or your property tax bill. They lowered the price of the paint because they are floundering-the next step is they are out of business when you call them. That isn't deflation-a depression can coexist with hyperinflation and destroy many businesses-ask the paint supplier if THEIR costs are magically "deflating".
No, don't think I will, the gas station is too far to walk and I think instead I will buy your house, soon for peanuts, and use it for fire wood to heat mine. Anyway there is a big credit derivitive thingy, the size of the Hindenberg, out there crashing away so I'm not going to worry about the current price of gas for my rusting Hutmobile. Soon all but the filthy rich will be riding shanks mare and who knows what the price of gas could be then? The few I have known have not been easy to part from their gelt unless it was in what they considered a good cause ,... namely themselves. Would you, at least, agree with that last little bit:)
You aren't seriously suggesting that with unemployment in excess of 9%, that inflation in the US is demand-driven, with the Fed fueling the demand-driven inflation by setting interest rates too low?
Are you?
Because, not to put too fine a point on it, that would be silly. Its almost as silly as people who think that a Reserve Bank directly decides on how much money is created in a modern monetary production economy.
Huh? Oil suppliers have this mantra of late that the speculators are to blame - I'm not aware of economists taking that line (I might be wrong, but I've been generally watching for economists talking about what the oil companies and opec etc are spouting).
From the little I have garnered from a couple of blogs and lengthy discussions with my economics student brother, standard economic theory discounts speculators as a cause without increasing storage (ie: the speculators would have to drive up price by buying actual gloopy oil, rather than futures contracts)
Dropping the Ethanol mandate would probably cut gas spending this summer more than the silly tax holiday proposal would.
It may not lower the price at the pump, but ethanol lowers gas mileage, so getting rid of it means you fill up less often. That plus an eventual drop in food prices, is a win win situation. (Unless you are ADM)
You know, I've been saying this since I started posting on this site. Physics does not change, people! As much wishful thinking as you may wish to apply, PHYSICS DOES NOT CHANGE.
That means that all the other predictions are likely to come true as well--specifically, WE WILL NOT HAVE A TECHNO-SOLUTION that lets us keep things THE WAY THEY ARE.
Powerdown is inevitable. A population crash is inevitable. We either do this the smart way, using relatively cheap energy to facilitate and prepare the way for a low tech society, or we can floor this mother and see just how damned hard and fast we can drive this polluting, stinking, riotous, warring bus we call "Western Civilization" into a the side of a mountain.
My guess is that many here will say, "Drive on!"
really? no plug-in hybrids? no electric cars? no switching from an SUV to a smaller car? no conservation?
things might not be the way they were but isn't that a GOOD thing?
plug-in hybrids, electric cars, switching from an SUV to a smaller car
All are temporary experiments that are not the best use of remaining fossil fuels
We need to redesign / rebuild communities especially housing and agriculture
In addition, we need to redesign people's brains. In the city, at least, I agree the car should be made obsolete. But that's just me.
I agree that cars should be made obsolete in the city. I have been living in a house just beside a highway the noise from the cars are disturbing. I guess it's mainly the people living in the suburbs around the cities that use the highways but it's the people in the cities that have to live with them.
I think building more Public transit and using corn or other crops to make drinkable alcohol would be a lot nicer.
"All are temporary experiments that are not the best use of remaining fossil fuels"
some people will always drive to work and we need emergency vehicles to get around so these cars will be needed. of crouse we should use the most fuel efficient cars. they are temporary until something better comes a long.
The something better that is going to come along is relocalization, working where you live, and generally staying put.
No, but ok.
John,
you obviously didn't follow my advice to watch Albert Bartlett's show on youtube.com.
I would still recommend it to you.
HTH,
J. Daehn
Right On!
Back in the late 70s and early 80s, there were a lot fewer talking heads who are into promoting their own livelihoods and 1. know nothing about energy, 2. wouldn't know the public good if it bit them.
Today there are so many heads with personal or purchased agendas that it is nearly impossibly for the average person to know who is telling the truth. So folks stick with the head the best fits their desired view of the world.
Things need to get much worse before people start to seriously doubt their favorite head. Of course the head will come up with some excuse, or simply never be called onto the carpet for their past balarney.
Given all that, it will be a near miss if we don't smash into the side of the mountain.
My guess is that many here will say, "Drive on!"
Have you forgotten where you are posting?
LOL. Indeed.
I think Chernekov meant HERE as in Western Civilization. But...I bet many here are driving on ... old habits are hard to break!
"Powerdown is inevitable"
so why don't you get us started and powerdown your computer!
(personal anecdote)
My jokey plan; son, 22, is keen, as is a friend, to go
motoring in France
for the last time ever.
We would have the silver bird with wheels, and stop at castles, scenic spots, nice restaurants, small hotels, see the center of small provincial towns. Wear sunglasses, eat snails, daube, canard à l’orange, dutifully gaze at four poster beds, tapestries, ancient wells and walls, paintings in the local museum; visit the local vineyards and cellars, and taste; go to fairs, antique markets, drive on, slowly, merry on the country roads, to the next destination. We wondered if we should have hats - if so what kind, men can wear panama hats, they never go out of style.
Drink too much in the Café du commerce, or smoke a joint on the terrace, or lying on the lilo in the pool.
Nostalgia
A ritual .. to give up. What went before.
Robert is that a hint of anarchy on your breath? ;-)
Chernkov writes: "Powerdown is inevitable. A population crash is inevitable. We either do this the smart way, using relatively cheap energy to facilitate and prepare the way for a low tech society, or we can floor this mother and see just how damned hard and fast we can drive this polluting, stinking, riotous, warring bus we call "Western Civilization" into a the side of a mountain.
My guess is that many here will say, "Drive on!"
Actually if I remember correctly that was Jay Hansen's recommendation. He thinks a quick, hard crash at 7 billion will be less destructive than a long, slow decline at 10 billion that consumes all our resources and extincts most species. He suggests that after the long. slow decline there will be nothing left to support civilization and hence a decent into Olduvai.
As long as human population keeps growing, and that appears to be so today, this problem will not abate. Mitigations will be used but if population growth keeps on keeping on the long, slow decline seems to be our future. I just hope it doesn't happen in my lifetime.
There is no motivation to address population growth-for the top 1% of the human population, it is global GDP that is paramount, not per capita GDP. As the median standard of living declines, the standard of living at the top level increases-I realize this stage is not permanent, but nobody cares about 50 years from now.
Olduvai is not a perspective I had considered before. There is no question "Powerdown is inevitable!" I have commented here numerous times that population is the major issue ala Malthus. So the question becomes: "Is 'Drive On!' our last best hope to cap this baby at 7 billion?"
No-the chances of global population peaking at 7 billion are slim and none.
I happened to be at home from work yesterday (recovering from dental surgery) and tuned into CNBC. Most of the day's coverage was on the price of oil. CNBC seems to be getting it. My impression is that the business reporters are more intelligent than the rest of MSM and can actually decipher the difference between hype and reality. So there is just a glimmer of hope since once business realizes that there is a problem, the politicians will be taking notice.
Just barely and many of them are infected with the "stocks only go up buy the dips" disease.
Can you add hemp to the chart? I'm very, very curious to see it's potential vs. the others you have listed.
Hemp oil is much better used as a source of omega 3 and 6. The rest of the plant is very useful for making clothes, paper, building material and in some cases can be used in composites.
I think using bio-gas is a much better idea, and vehicle engine should move towards LNG / CNG which can be supplemented with an amount of bio-gas. Low emissions and is moving in the right direction towards fuel cells (ducks). Unfortunately you would quickly hike the price of natgas to match that of oil.
Microturbines are lightweight and simple, and IMO would be ideally suited to act as range extenders on plug ins, unfortunately they are not cheap, but if they could act as CHP units in addition to range extenders there might be a cost saving. They can also run any many fuels.
Also digestion of various feedstocks is a scalable, modular process suitable as an alternative to waste disposal. I think the process waste can be pressed and vermi-composted (worms) then the liquid can be fed into the next batch as it contains all the right bugs.
The gas could also come from gasification of various feed-stocks as the Choren process has shown, again with the waste being used as a soil amendment.
Also grow lots of willow to gasify to make charcoal for water filters, or burning.
Biogas power plants have a unique factor of being renewable and controllable, they play a part regulating the output of wind turbines in the 'virtual power plant' model, chuck in some hideously expensive NaS batteries, smart meters, frequency responsive heating/cooling and you might get a working system. Pure speculation, just throwing some ideas around.
As far as investing goes, I think investing in refiners is currently a bad bet, and very likely to stay that way.
Mark Folsom
"I think investing in refiners is currently a bad bet, and very likely to stay that way."
why?
Have you looked at the crack spread lately?
As oil production falls, there will be greater and greater excesses of refining capacity. Refiners will have no market power, and margins will be roughly equal to costs.
"Have you looked at the crack spread lately?"
is it going to stay that way for awhile? refineries if they can't make any money will go out of business until such a time as the industry can finally make money. just a year or two ago the crack spread was huge and the refiners were printing money.
If the world is past peak, it is going to stay that way permanently. Capacity which was in use last year will be idle next year.
Jim Cramer. Arghghh!
I think people should be really careful about trusting or referring to anything he has to say. He is so consistently wrong, biased and off-the-wall on a purpose, it's not funny (anymore).
On the few occasions he happens to be correct, it seems to me it's more like pure luck or that whatever he is saying is now in line with his own portfolio changes (i.e. he's trying to make a buck).
To me his program is the worst of the worst @ CNBC and that is saying a lot for that 'channel'.
Agreed.
Goldman calling for $200 oil, and other media people pushing the idea that oil always goes up, makes me nervous. Have the people on Wall Street come over to Peak Oil? If so, they will come in their own way.
My prediction: a run-up in the price of oil to the $130-$150 range, then some kind of generated frenzy caused by a series of bearish events happening at about the same time, such as: Bush pulls a few million barrels out of the SPR, the Saudis SAY that they will increase production; some hedge fund involved in energy gets in trouble and sells off lots of positions (or some non-oil event rocks the market); the Wednesday morning crude-gasoline-distillate numbers show a big uptick into storage, the ECB makes a huge purchase of dollars, a wave of shorts wash into the oil market at the same time, plus maybe also bearish information about gold or other commodities surfaces as well (for example: a larger than expected sale of gold by the IMF).
The result: a good whacking of price. It is then that Wall Street will back up its new found understanding of oil with action, and establish seriously decent positions by buying into the temporary frenzy of the downswing.
The problem is that, IMO, oil prices are being set at the margin as importers bid against each other for declining net oil exports, and our model, and several case histories, show that net export decline rates tend to accelerate with time. While there will certainly be pullbacks, I expect to see what amounts to a geometric progression in oil prices--the price of oil doubles, and then doubles again. A steady exponential decline rate would show up on this chart as a flat line, parallel to the horizontal axis:
http://graphoilogy.blogspot.com/2008/01/quantitative-assessment-of-futur...
Just saw the CFTC report.
Commericials INCREASED their net long by 14,000 contracts in the face of the biggest tuesday to tuesday rise in oil prices.
The small investor SHORTED 31,000 contracts. Ouch!
Does not look like a top to me.
$165 before $105.
A symmetrical shaped oil production curve and a rising or flat consumption will cause the export to fall a lot faster after a peak than it increased before.
Agreed. I didn't post it to pimp Cramer, I posted these to pimp what they were saying...just the fact that these memes are making it into the media (prompted by the price of a resource, yes), is a big deal.
But I did think the first video was a good explanation of why this is supply...etc.
"He is so consistently wrong"
no he isn't. he's very wrong about some things and very right. he was right on gold commodities and the agflation plays.
I loved his Bear Sterns play - genius
"don't take your money out of B.S.....it's FINE!!!!
cramer was talking about the firm in that instance not the stock. I don't know if he had a buy or sell on the stock.
Starvation was being wiped out until ethanol came along!??! What planet is Cramer living on?
In North America, it takes 10 calories of fossil fuels to put 1 calorie of food in your mouth.
You are DREAMING if you think that a doubling of corn prices is going to have a greater negative impact of food prices than a 300% increase in the price of oil.
And don't give me the, 'Oh, but the farmers are taking away food acreage for corn' - because they're not.
Combined corn, soybean, and wheat planted area is projected at 225 million acres, the highest since 1984.
- Wheat planted area in 2008 is expected to increase 3.6 million acres to 64 million.
- Corn acreage for 2008 is expected to decline 3.6 million acres (to 90 million) from 2007.
- Soybean area is projected to recover to 71 million acres in 2008, up 7.4 million from last year.
- Rice planted acreage for 2008 is projected at 2.70 million acres, down 61,000 acres from last year.
Source: USDA Agricultural Outlook (May 9th official)
Again...
Peak Oil is a liquid transport fuel crisis - one that the market will not be able to react to in time to offset the consequences.
Mitigation of said crisis, requires smart government mandates for renewable, liquid transport fuels with a low PIR or petroleum input ratio as part of an overarching, integrated bio-refinery construct that complements a transition to an all electrical or bio-hybrid transport system.
Ethanol -including corn ethanol- is a low PIR fuel but more importantly, however, ethanol can be made to a global standard from anything, by anyone, anywhere in the world.
The fight to see this www.e100fuel.com not happen… has been 100 years in the making.
Ethanol is not the answer
as far as the Agricultural Outlook ....
you left out the full report
http://www.usda.gov/oce/speeches/Bange-KCNASMarch2008speech.pdf
In North America, it takes 10 calories of fossil fuels to put 1 calorie of food in your mouth.
How is it, then, that we are told that 10 calories of fossil fuels can put 13 calories of ethanol in your tank? Ethanol advocates like to have it both ways. They blame high food prices on higher fossil fuel prices. And I agree that they have a big impact. On the other hand, when arguing ethanol's energy return, they try to downplay the fossil fuel inputs. Which is it? Do they have a major impact, or don't they? Or does it depend on the point you are trying to make?
"How is it, then, that we are told that 10 calories of fossil fuels can put 13 calories of ethanol in your tank?"
I don't know but to take the example of corn we plant corn and use only the kernals. doesn't ethanol use the husk and etc.?
doesn't ethanol use the husk and etc.?
No.
John,
dude, do some resarch, please:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol
You can also produce ethanol from wood, but the process only uses the sugar released and not the cellulose.
I used to live near a plant in Switzerland where proceesed wood that way.
http://www.chemcell.com/eway/default.aspx?pid=240&trg=LeftPage_8139&Left...
http://www.chemcell.com/eway/default.aspx?pid=240&trg=MainPage_8078&Main... (Solothurn)
The nearby river Aare smells pretty bad once it has passed the plant and swimming is not recommended. There are constant quarrels with the neighbours over the smells and they will probably close it down if they continue to ignore environmental standards again.
http://www.luterbach.ch/01gemeinde/Umfrageergebnisse_Borregard_2007.pdf
http://borregaard.blog.ch/0803/letzte-chance-f-r-borregaard
The statement about calories of fossil fuels applies to all food. The amount of calories gained versus inputs depends on what you eat. If eating lower on the food chain, it takes less fossil fuel calories for food calories. A vegan requires way less fossil fuel calories than a meat eater.
I take your point but it would be more meaningful to compare fossil fuel calories to produce corn. Corn, however, is very fossil fuel intensive compared to, say, soybeans. Therefore, increased fossil fuels costs will probably have a greater impact on corn and, therefore, ethanol, than many other crops.
The questions remains. What is more significant? The increase in fossil fuels or the proportion of corn taken by the ethanol industry?
The statement about calories of fossil fuels applies to all food. The amount of calories gained versus inputs depends on what you eat. If eating lower on the food chain, it takes less fossil fuel calories for food calories. A vegan requires way less fossil fuel calories than a meat eater.
Not if the vegan in question is eating corn produced from petroleum derived fertilizers and the meat eater is eating pastured beef which is solar powered. If the vegan is eating vegetables from the back yard grown with zero inputs and the pastured beef is being shipped cross-country then yes the beef requires more oil.
Perhaps, more important, the following: http://www.dtnethanolcenter.com/index.cfm?show=10&mid=32
takes lots of calories in as well as water etc to make one cow, chicken, or pig
veggies don't consume much, livestock do
for beef it can easily be as high as 40 cals in per 1 cal of beef out
Re: the 10 calorie vs. 13 calorie assertion
The net energy of ethanol from biologic feedstock, includes the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy i.e. it is not all fossil fuel energy.
As for the fossil fuel inputs of ethanol, I am not downplaying them as opposed to highlighting the fuel's low petroleum input ratio - a key difference.
Smart ethanol advocates blame higher global food prices on a host of factors, not just fossil fuels. However, in this post I was responding to Cramer's rant re: the price of American food - likely the most fossil fuel intensive food on the planet.
So here's my question:
Are you paying more for your pizza because the price of corn has increased the cost of production for the 50 cents worth of cheese and meat on it?
Or is it the new $5 surcharge imposed by the owner to cover the increased cost of gas for pizza delivery?
The net energy of ethanol from biologic feedstock, includes the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy i.e. it is not all fossil fuel energy.
Are you under the impression that the production of corn for eating does not also involve that same photosynthetic conversion of solar energy? Your answer is a non-sequitur.
Corn production will decrease significantly which means that the impact of ethanol will even be greater on corn prices. This will cut the supply of corn available for other purposes like feeding cattle and direct consumption. Reduce the supply, increase the price. Whether or not farmers are taking acreage away from other crops is not really the issue; the issue is whether ethanol has an impact. Unless the law of supply and demand has been repealed, ethanol has a significant impact.
One of the reasons that corn planting is being reduced is because of the increased prices for fossil fuel driven inputs like fertilizer and diesel which just reinforces the idea that corn is a poor choice for biofuel, just as the chart implies.
"In North America, it takes 10 calories of fossil fuels to put 1 calorie of food in your mouth. "
This is an assertion you here all the time on peak oil sites.
If it's ever been true it doesn't matter because it doesn't HAVE TO be true.
The vegetables reaching my plate from my backyard have ZERO fossil fuel input.
It is quite conceivable to walk or bicycle to a farmers market.
It is quite possible to take transit to the store in many cities.
So I dispute the "we're eating oil" line.
But feel free to continue to quote one of the main tenets of the dieoff religion.
Obviously you are are narcissist and a liar and in denial.
You preach to the rest of the world because you grow a few vegetables........maybe. Maybe you are a liar.
Could you show me how families living in suburbia, high and low rise apartments, mcmansions and shanty towns can grow vegetables year round in their back yards even with the assistance of oil?
Then show me how farmers markets grow and transport their crops oil free.
I defy you to support your family with your back yard season after season?
What vegetables do you grow and when?
How big is your vegetable patch?
What do you use for fertiliser?
What do you use for pesticide?
Why don't you get back in your hole.
Looking at the top table, algae seems to be the winner but it takes a lot of energy input however greenhouse gas emission is negative, how is that? what kind of energy are we talking about?
Algae is in almost exactly the same boat as cellulosic ethanol. Those energy returns are hypothetical; they have never been demonstrated at scale. It's like when someone claims cellulosic ethanol has an energy return of 5 to 1 or something like that. In reality, it is almost certainly less than 1 to 1, but they are speculating that if you could burn the spent biomass for steam....
"In reality, it is almost certainly less than 1 to 1, but they are speculating that if you could burn the spent biomass for steam...."
how are they speculating?
some algae projects seem to be good because they use waste products.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/05/micro-algae-will-save-world.php
Your link is speculation. They haven't actually demonstrated it. That's the point. All of these projects are speculations.
It is not just speculation, it is a falsehood that a cellulosic ethanol plant can power itself from the remaining lignin. We imposed a mass-conservation balance on a hypothetical switchgrass ethanol plant, and found that if you achieve the 380 liters/tonne output that most assume (EBAMM, etc), then the remaining lignin is sufficient only to provide 50% of the plant's power (at 100% efficiency of recovery and combustion) and certainly less given lower combustion efficiency. Ironically, only if you get lower yields from switchgrass than corn could the remaining biomass theoretically provide enough energy to run the plant.
The EROI is decidedly negative at this point. EBAMM and other models (e.g. GREET) credit the entire energy content of the biomass back to the ethanol to achieve a positive return.
Interesting. I didn't realize it was actually false, not just speculation. How soon will this information filter back to those working on this issue?
As soon as our report on the topic for the state of California is released in late June this year :)
Wasn't it Pimental that assured us, after a similar study, that the "theoretical" limit was 2.7 gallons of ethanol from a bushel of corn? And, now we're averaging 2.8, and some are getting 2.96?
It strikes me that there are an awful lot of really, really smart gene-splicers out there working like the dickens to make your work obsolete.
How do you Discount that?
ps. Is yield per acre an important factor in driving the eroie negative? If so, what yield/acre did you base your study on? Or is it just that using enough biomass to power the process 100% will render the remaining output insufficient to cover the energy inputs in the building of the plant.
Try this link: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GAFCCAB.php. I think the trick is not to burn all the stuff you make by feeding ff power plant flue gases to the algae, i.e. do something else with the crispy algae flakes left over from making biodiesel.
Maybe some algae residues remain unburnt and stored or thrown away. If this "sequestered algae" is bigger than the carbon emissions produced from FF inputs during its production we'll have negative carbon emissions. Just a guess.
On the biofuels chart above, I am having difficulty reproducing the result that 50% of US consumption of fuel could be replaced by biofuel made from rapeseed, grown on 30% of US cropland.
According to the Wiki Biodiesel article, there are 470,000,000 acres of arable land in the United States, and rapeseed yields about 102 gallons of biodiesel per acre. Using these amounts, 30% of the arable farmland will yield the equivalent of 938,000 barrels a day of biofuel.
Based on EIA data, total petroleum consumption in the US in 2007 amounted to 20.7 million barrels a day. The 938,000 barrels a day amounts to only 4.5% of this amount. According to the same chart, the amount of distillate fuel oil used in the United States amounted to 4.22 million barrels a day. The stated amount of biofuel is only 22% of this, not the 50% claimed.
Perhaps they are defining the "fuel to be replaced" in a narrow fashion - perhaps the distillate fuel used as diesel fuel in certain applications. I could see how they might exclude home heating oil, but it looks like they excluded more than this. They may also be assuming higher yields per acre, or more farmland.
The other thing is, none of those are net energy numbers. It takes a lot of energy to make a lot of those fuels - and that isn't subtracted from the total production.
Algae based energy production is a sham, some stock promoters claimed it is "the" solution to energy problems, their statements lack credibiility as they have not shown any ability to sustain such projects based on income after expenses. Am not sure why it is on that chart as a viable energy solution. Consumers want cheaper gas/fuels, not inventors learning how to make it for five times the cost of gasoline. America as a massive sugar cane producer is also a deception. More than 90 percent of your land is in areas where sugar cane was not being planted. You will not see it grown in Kankakee, IL unless you build massive greenhouses, and to do such would cause you to lose money.
Energy credits for solar water heating, solar electric, hybrids, windmills, etc. would be better than subsidies and mandatory ethanol gasoline blending. Alkylates were added to gasoline and reduced ozone pollution without using half the nation's corn crop.
What makes ethanol unique, and what these stories keep missing, is the Co-Product, "Distillers Grains." Distillers Grains are Corn with the CO2, and Starch removed. They, actually, have a greater capacity for weight-gain in cattle than straight does straight corn.
You get back approx. 17.5 lbs of distillers grains for every 56 lbs of corn that's run through the refinery. Considering the fact that you retain 40% of your cattle feeding capacity through distillers grains it would be accurate to divide the output of the plant (up to 2.96 gal/bu, as per below link - see table 2) by 3/5, or .60.
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/objects/documents/1652/2007_analysis_of_the_ef...
If I divide 2.96 by 2/3 I get 4.44 gal of ethanol for every bushel of cattle feed (corn) that's diverted into fuel.
Take all this recent ranting with a grain of salt, folks. Oil, through it's proxies, is putting on a last-ditch, full court press to try and derail the move toward biofuels. With Gasoline at $3.80/gal it isn't going to work.
I, like you, have been concerned about the ever increasing price of gasoline. I’m also puzzled about some of the alternatives that have been developed, such as bio-fuels from corn. When you stop and think about the time and money allocated to produce these products, the overriding effect they have on the cost of food, as well as the enormous amounts of resources used to manufacture them - it’s amazing that the public has bought into their viability. Ah – the magic of public relations.
Within the past year I happened to be watching the Science Channel on television when I came across an incredible story about some vehicles, more specifically their engines and the fuel that powers them. I was awed by their potential, inspired by their inventors, and relieved by their practicality.
The Air Car is a thing of beauty. Using compressed air to power both a piston engine, as well as a rotary engine, the results are superb. I continue to wonder why the main stream news media, political candidates, the automotive industry, and the public-at-large have not raised their voices about this fantastic invention. Could it have something to do about special interest groups? Hmm.
Air in, air out - what can be better, cleaner, and more efficient?
If you’d like to see the air car video; the same segment that appeared on the Science Channel, click on the link below (or enter "air car" in google). Once you’ve watched it I urge you to tell your friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4
Please tell your friends to consider the thermodynamics of heat exchange, mechanical & aerodynamic losses and electrical efficiencies in regards to any air car. These effects may reduce efficiency below EV options.
http://www.efcf.com/reports/E14.pdf
CO2,
Thanks for the PDF. The conclusion section of the document you provided does seem to substantiate the viability of the air car.
It's quite a marketing coup, that's for sure. But its technical merits are quite a bit less than the hype. You can tell by the amount of double-talk around it and the reluctance of the advocates to give straight answers.
Of course, we've been over it before.
Just about any battery you could name. The paper you think is so good mentions that the energy loss in just the air compression system is about 50%, and overall efficiency about 40%. Even with equalizing charges lead-acid hits 70% efficiency, and Li-ion is 95% or so.
Compressed air only has a future if batteries are expensive but energy and high-pressure tanks are cheap. I don't see us going to that world.
Just in case you missed it in Wednesday's WSJ...
The Biofuels Backlash
Pimental, I don't know if he's an old fool, or a crook (but, ya gotta pick one.)
He didn't mention that that imported ethanol gets the same $0.51/gal tax credit that domestically produced ethanol does. I love it; the same people that get mad over a tax credit for American Ethanol get mad over the lack of a subsidy for Brazilian Ethanol. Ya just couldn't make this stuff up.
As for acreage - what a tool. We will produce 9 Billion Gallons of Ethanol this year. We will average somewhere over 150 bu/acre. The average plant produces 2.8 gal of ethanol (and 17.5 lbs of distillers grains from every bushel processed. The distillers grains are 33% more efficient at the primary job of putting pounds on steers. That means we're only using 60% of that bushel for ethanol (actually, it's even less than that since 31% of the plants sell their CO2.)
So 150 bu/acre X 2.8 = 420 Divided by .60 = 700 gal/acre. To get to 9 Billion Gallons we divide 9B by 700 = 12,858,000 acres, or 14.29% of our 90 million planted acres.
You mean if you feed the ddg to cattle you magically increa