Now is the time when everyone is writing letters to the new Obama administration. It seems like it might be worthwhile discussing a letter written by a group of organizations warning of the dangers of biofuels. The letter can be found at the site of the Global Justice Ecology Project. The statement on the website about this letter says:

Corn and sugar based agrofuels have already come under extreme scrutiny due to their documented contribution to the food crisis, with venture capital investment in these so-called 'first generation biofuels' dropping to zero. The open letter exposes the further problems that will result from the so-called 'second generation' of agrofuels. These problems range from wholesale destruction of the world's rainforests and other sensitive forests, to the forced displacement of entire communities to make way for agrofuel expansion, and the biosafety risks of gambling on novel technologies like Synthetic Biology and genetically engineered trees. The letter also makes clear that agrofuels made from inedible plant feedstocks (cellulosic fuels) will continue to exacerbate the food crisis by monopolizing additional agricultural lands for the growing of agrofuel crops such as grasses and trees, instead of food crops.

This is Part 2 of my post relating to curriculum for a science peak oil course. It incorporates changes based on many of the comments made below. Part 1 can be found here. A PDF version which contains both Part 1 and Part 2 can be found at this link.

One theme of Part 2 is energy, and why energy is important to our standard of living. I try to compare the energy in oil to the energy in food. To make the comparison more understandable, I convert energy to kilocalories, since most people are familiar with calories in food. I also point out the errors of economists, both in the text and in the discussion questions at the end.

Another theme is the special characteristics of oil, and why oil is valued as a liquid fuel. I think we are sometimes kind of fuzzy in our thinking about substitutes for liquid fuel. We don't think about our built infrastructure, and just assume electricity can be substituted for oil when it really is at best a very long-term alternative. I discuss various alternatives including battery-operated cars, hydrogen, and conservation. The two sections relating to corn ethanol could probably be a post of their own.

I also talk about the impact of oil on prices. I make the point that big increases in petroleum prices are likely, with only a small shortage of oil. I also point our that food prices are likely to increase, partly because of the use of petroleum for food production, and partly because corn for ethanol competes with food for land use.