Working Assets is my long-distance phone company. I love it dearly for its combination of business efficiency, social responsibility and progressive politics.
Each month, my phone bill carries alerts that urge me to take action on a specific issue or two. Recent Citizen Actions suggest the gravity of the issues chosen: "Save Our Constitution," "Impeach Dick Cheney," "Close Guantanamo."
This month Working Assets urged me to "Say No to Ethanol."
How did the use of ethanol end up alongside tyranny and torture as an evil to be conquered?
A couple of years ago, I was waiting my turn to speak to a well-attended California conference on alternative fuels. For this gathering, alternative fuels included natural gas, clean diesel, fossil fueled derived hydrogen, coal-fired electricity, as well as wind energy and biofuels. The leadoff speaker, from the California Energy Commission, spoke warmly about all the alternative fuels under discussion. Except one. When it came to ethanol, he visualized his perspective with the metaphor of a giant hypodermic needle from Midwest corn farmers to California drivers. For him and, I suspect, most of California's state government, ethanol belongs in the same category as heroin.
In the late 1990s, the nation discovered that MTBE, a widely used gasoline additive made of natural gas and petroleum-derived isobutylene was polluting ground water. The environmental community largely defended its continued use and vigorously opposed substituting ethanol. One well-respected New England environmental coalition raised the possibility that ethanol blends could cause fetal alcohol syndrome. Fill up your gas tank with 10 percent ethanol and your baby could be alcoholic, their report warned.
In the last few years, the environmental position has shifted from an attack on ethanol from any source to an attack on corn and corn-derived ethanol. The assault on corn comes from so many directions that sometimes the arguments are wildly contradictory. In an article published in the New York Times Magazine earlier this year Michael Pollan, an excellent and insightful writer, argues that cheap corn is the key to the epidemic of obesity. The same month, Foreign Affairs published an article by two distinguished university professors who argued that the use of ethanol has led to a runup in corn prices that threatens to sentence millions more to starvation.
Ethanol is not a perfect fuel. Corn is far from a perfect fuel crop. We should debate their imperfections. But we should also keep in mind the first law of ecology. "There is no such thing as a free lunch." Tapping into any energy source involves tradeoffs.
Yet when it comes to ethanol, and corn, we accept no tradeoffs. In 30 years in the business of alternative energy, I've never encountered the level of animosity generated by ethanol, not even in the debate about nuclear power. When it comes to ethanol, we seem to apply a different standard than we do when we evaluate other fuels.
When California discovered MTBE in its groundwater, it petitioned the federal government to be allowed to phase out MTBE without using ethanol. It wanted to substitute a 100 percent petroleum-derived fuel. The environmental community was strongly supportive of that request.
I can't but think that the environmental community, as currently constituted, would have supported the use of lead over ethanol as its no-knock additive of choice for gasoline in the early 1920s.
When President George W. Bush first embraced the hydrogen economy, most environmentalists applauded, even though they conceded that for the first 10-20 years, hydrogen would be derived from fossil fuels. Indeed, so eager were they to jump-start hydrogen that Minnesota environmentalists helped enact a bill that defines hydrogen made from natural gas as a renewable fuel.
When it comes to ethanol, reporters appear obligated by some unwritten rule of the profession to talk about whether ethanol uses more energy in the cultivation and processing of the crop than it contains. In the hundreds of interviews I've had with journalists about ethanol over the years, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times the net energy issue did not come up.
Articles about hydrogen in the mainstream, or alternative press, on the other hand, rarely talk about net energy. This despite the fact that while the net energy of ethanol may be debated, there is no debate about the energetics of hydrogen. Made from fossil fuels, hydrogen is a net energy loser.
While we're on the net energy issue, a few words about the ubiquitous David Pimentel. No article about ethanol is complete without a negative comment from Pimentel. David is a distinguished professor who believes corn ethanol uses more fossil fuels in its production than it displaces. It's certainly fair to quote him. He is a highly credible source.
But in 2005, a scientific journal published a new study by Pimentel and his collaborator, Tad Patzek. The study concluded that while corn-derived ethanol was a slight net energy loser, the energetics of biodiesel and ethanol made from cellulose were far worse.
The conversation about net energy went on as if nothing new had been added. The enemy was still corn. Pimentel and Patzek's conclusion that other crops were much worse than corn as sources of transportation fuels, was filtered out. My old psychology professor called this process cognitive dissonance. We screen out what doesn't gibe with preconceived notions. We hate corn. We don't hate soybeans or grasses. Therefore the negative things Pimentel and Patzek said about corn we consider authoritative. Their negative comments about soybeans and grasses we ignore.
I hope in the future we might engage in a more productive conversation and balanced discussion about the role of plants in a future industrial economy. To that end, I offer six propositions. I look forward to a debate on all or any one of these.
1. Sustainability requires molecules. Wind and sunlight are excellent energy sources, but they cannot provide the molecular building blocks that make physical products. For that we must choose minerals or vegetables (I'm lumping animals with vegetables for obvious reasons).
Minerals will always be an important source of molecules, in part because hundreds of billions of tons are already in existing products and these products have a very high recycleability potential. But ultimately we must increasingly rely on biological resources for our industrial needs if we are to achieve sustainability.
2. Wind and sunlight can only be harnessed for some form of energy (thermal, mechanical, electrical). Plants, on the other hand, can be used for many purposes: human nutrition, animal feed, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, clothing, building materials, fuels. The challenge for public policy is to design rules that encourage the highest and best use of our finite land area (and sea and lake areas).
Few would argue that human nutrition is the highest use of plants, followed by medicinal uses and possibly clothing. After that we might differ. My organization has argued that we should first use biomass to substitute for industrial products that use fossil fuels rather than for the fuels themselves. We make this argument in part because while there is insufficient biomass to displace a majority of fuels, there is a sufficient quantity to displace up to 100 percent of our petroleum and natural gas-derived chemicals and products. And these are much higher value products.
Thus vegetable oils should be used to make nonmineral motor oils and lubricants as a higher priority than being used to displace diesel. Plant sugars should be used to make plastics and other biochemicals as a higher priority than being used to displace gasoline. If we offered the $1 per gallon biodiesel incentive to biolubricants, would it significantly expand that market? If we offered the 51-cents-per-gallon ethanol incentive to bioplastics, would it significantly expand that market?
3. Corn is a transitional energy feedstock, but it has played a crucial role in creating the infrastructure for a carbohydrate economy. We are moving beyond corn, to more abundant feedstocks like cellulose. But a carbohydrate economy, where plants have an industrial role, would have been delayed by 20-30 years if not for corn.
As the nation's largest agricultural industry, with politically powerful corporate players like ADM, the corn industry had the clout to play with the big boys(e.g. coal, oil, natural gas) when federal incentives were liberally distributed in 1978 and 1980.
Federal incentives made ethanol blends competitive with gasoline at the gas pump. That was a necessary but wildly insufficient step toward getting biofuels into the gas pump. To accomplish that the embryonic biofuels industry had to persuade its competitor, the oil industry, to use ethanol instead of its own product. As the same time the ethanol industry had to convince car companies, which had designed their engines hand in glove with the oil companies for 60 years, to allow ethanol into their gas tanks.
For the first decade after the federal ethanol incentive was passed, a majority of ethanol was distribution through cooperatively owned and independently owned gas stations in the Midwest. Only in the late 1980s did car company manuals stop advising owners not to use ethanol blends.
Today a national biofuel distribution network exists. Some 30 percent of all cars use ethanol blends. The corn-derived ethanol industry has lowered per-gallon in-plant energy use by 75 percent since the early 1980s. And enzymatic research has been the foundation for new developments in bioplastics and other bioproducts.
We are nearing the end of the corn-to-ethanol era. Ethanol production has doubled since 2005 and promises to double again by 2010. It is unlikely any new corn to ethanol plants will be built beyond those currently in the construction pipeline. Even the National Corn Growers Association expects ethanol demand to exceed the capacity of the corn crop when all the new ethanol plants come online. All congressional bills that would increase the biofuels mandate also cap the amount of corn-derived ethanol at 15 billion gallons. After 2012, all additional ethanol capacity must be based on noncorn crops.
Cellulosic materials will be the prime feedstock. Some, like Vinod Khosla, a major proponent and investor in cellulosic ethanol plants, argues that his first plants, to be online by 2010, will produce ethanol competitively with $4 a bushel corn.
4. Electricity, not biofuels, will be the primary energy source for an oil-free and sustainable transportation system. But biofuels can play an important role in this future as energy sources for backup engines that can significantly reduce battery costs and extend driving range.
Even when we move from corn to cellulose, we likely lack sufficient arable land to cultivate enough biomass to displace more than about 25 percent of our transportation fuels (diesel plus gasoline). This is not an unimportant amount, but we need to accept that biofuels will not play the primary role in eliminating our dependence on oil. That role, as I've discussed in my 2003 report, A Better Way to Get From Here to There, will be played by electricity.
Miles traveled on electricity are oil-free miles because we use very little oil to generate electricity. Traveling on electricity means getting over 100 miles per gallon equivalent, triple the increased fuel efficiency standard under debate in the U.S. Senate. Traveling on electricity generates no tailpipe pollution and costs 1-2 cents per mile compared to 10-15 cents per mile for traveling on gasoline or biofuels. The electricity would initially come from a grid system almost 50 percent powered by coal, but given the renewable portfolio standards in place, an increasing percentage of our electricity would come from renewable resources like wind or sunlight.
The Achilles' heel of all-electric cars is the cost and weight of batteries and the need for recharging every 100 miles or so. A backup engine overcomes that shortcoming.
If the backup engine powers the car 25 percent of the time, we will have enough biomass to displace 100 percent of the petroleum used in the engine. Coupled with oil-free electricity, this can lead us to reduce by 80-100 percent our reliance on oil for transportation.
5. Approach biofuels as an agricultural issue with energy security implications, not as an energy security issue with agricultural implications. Design policies to maximize the benefit to rural areas of using plant matter for industrial and energy uses. The key is local ownership of biorefineries.
A 25 percent displacement of transportation fuels by biofuels will have an important, but not a determining or primary impact on energy security. But it could have a determining impact on the future of agriculture and rural communities. That's where we should focus our attention.
A 25 percent displacement of diesel and gasoline would require the cultivation and harvesting of more, perhaps far more, additional plant matter than is currently harvested for all purposes -- food, feed, chemicals, textiles, energy, paper, construction. That prospect affords us the opportunity to devise farm policies that dramatically restructure agriculture both here, and perhaps even more importantly, globally, where agriculture and rural villages still account for anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent of the population.
The two key problems with agriculture are: (1) millions of farmers compete to sell their raw material into increasingly concentrated markets and (2) farmers sell raw materials and buy back finished goods, falling further and further behind. For almost two centuries, governments have devised programs to deal with this. The United States has two core farm strategies.
One is called supply management. Quotas keep domestic prices high. This is the way the sugar program works. The other more prevalent strategy involves farm payments when prices fall below a target level. The farmer sells his or her crop at prices below the cost of production. The government, via the general taxpayer makes up the difference. The price of food is lower.
It is unclear, if and when we shift to cellulosic biofuels, that farmers will avoid the core problems currently confronting grain farmers. This year's farm bill likely will offer money to farmers to cultivate cellulosic crops like grasses. Quite likely this initial payment program will evolve into a target price program similar to that now used for commodity crops.
In 2015, cellulosic farmers may be selling their crops to biorefineries at prices below the cost of production and receive government payments to make up the difference. Fuel costs will be modestly lower, just as food costs today are modestly lower because of government programs.
However, we can devise policies that enable a different future, one in which farmers, and other rural residents, own the value added biorefinery. Agricultural materials, by their nature, are bulky and costly to transport long distances. Thus processing tends to be local and regional. Biorefineries, unlike petroleum refineries, can be small in scale and thus enable local ownership.
Local ownership benefits farmers in a number of ways. It allows them to hedge against crop price declines. If their crop price goes down, the input costs of the biorefinery also decline and all things being equal, profits will be higher and they will receive a higher dividend check at the end of the year. Studies by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and other organizations have found that farmers can earn up to five times more per bushel by co-owning a biorefinery rather than simply selling to it.
Local ownership benefits rural areas, as many studies have documented, because a much greater portion of the dollar generated by the biorefinery stays within the community. Local ownership benefits state economies because it generates more taxable income.
Local ownership and the scale of biorefineries have never been a consideration of the environmental movement. That may be changing. Until recently, the organic agriculture movement, for example, focused on the biological health of the soil, not the economic health and security of the farmers and rural communities. Now in several states, organic certification takes into account ownership and place. A new slogan is "Local is the new organic."
A priority on rootedness and local ownership should be included in initiatives proposed by the environmental community regarding biofuels. They should not only lobby for sustainable crops but also sustainable rural communities and a sustainable income for cultivators.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Minnesota led to the way in devising policies to encourage modest scaled biorefineries and farmer and local ownership. The movement caught on. Whereas in 1988 ADM accounted for 75 percent of ethanol output, in 2002 it accounted for about 35 percent. In that year, farmer owned biorefineries produced almost as much ethanol, collectively as did ADM's giant plants. Eighty percent of all new ethanol plants built or proposed that year were majority farmer or locally owned.
The current ethanol boom has changed the structure of the industry. Today, over 90 percent of all new ethanol plants are absentee-owned. The typical new plant has a capacity of 100 million gallons or more, almost triple the average size plant built in 2002 and making it very difficult to have majority local ownership.
In the 2005 Energy Act, Congress did direct the Department of Energy to give a priority to farmer ownership and rural development when it disbursed funds to accelerate cellulosic ethanol. DOE ignored the congressional directive. Congress made no fuss. All the attention is on getting more cellulosic ethanol, not getting better cellulosic ethanol, at least in its impact on farmers and rural communities.
Nothing in the current farm bill or current energy bills under consideration addresses the ownership and scale issue.
6. Support performance, not prescriptive standards.
Performance standards specify outcomes. They specify an end result, but not how that result is achieved. They focus on ends and leave the design of means to entrepreneurs. Performance standards foster competition and innovation. Renewable electricity portfolio standards, now in place in two dozen states, are performance standards. A variety of renewable fuels qualify -- wind, solar, biomass, hydro, geothermal, landfill gas, ocean or tidal power.
Prescriptive standards are like a recipe. They prescribe exactly how to achieve a specific result. The 2005 federal renewable fuel standard for transportation fuels and the new standard under debate in the U.S. Senate are prescriptive standards. They mandate the use of a single renewable fuel: ethanol.
Congress should transform the renewable transportation fuel standard into a performance standard, not only for internal consistency, but also because of the coming convergence of electricity and transportation.
California is developing a performance standard. Theirs is based on carbon emissions. Under that standard, natural gas derived hydrogen would probably not qualify as better than gasoline. Nor would corn ethanol produced in coal fired biorefineries. Cellulosic ethanol would rate higher than corn ethanol. Wind electricity likely would rate higher than cellulosic ethanol but perhaps lower than sugar cane derived ethanol where the cane cellulosic byproduct is used to power the processing plant.
For the next 5-15 years, the difference in the on-the-ground impact of a renewable transportation fuels standard rather than a biofuels mandate would be small in the same way as the on-the-ground impact of a renewable electricity standard versus a wind energy mandate has been small.
Wind energy accounts for 80 percent to 95 percent of the renewable electricity generated under the renewable portfolio standards. Because of their head start, national delivery systems and drop in capability to existing engines, ethanol and biodiesel would comprise at least as high a proportion of a renewable transportation fuel performance standard in the near future.
But in the longer term, a performance standard is superior public policy. It mandates ends, not means. It encourages diversity and flexibility and innovation, and provides a level playing field for entrepreneurs.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
Cash for Clunkers brought us ... more clunkers!
Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix
Comments
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odograph Posted 12:39 am
17 Jun 2007
The "corn hataz" may not be right about everything, but I think the current crop of political initiatives for corn ethanol are the worst sort of prescriptive standards.
This stuff goes back. I still think the paper A Complete Waste of Energy lays it out.
I would love it to death if we could get "performance, not prescriptive standards" - but in the meantime, I think I might "hate corn" because that's sort of a thumbnail counter-shock to all the corn love that's been going down.
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Whiskerfish Posted 12:43 am
17 Jun 2007
Biodiversity implications of biofuels are not addressed.
No explanation is given for yield increses (of both corn and ethanol from that corn) and the costs of those increases.
The 'corn is the key transitional energy feedstock' argument is weak.
Can we please have a proper calculation of the land needed to produce ethanol from different feedstocks under different circumstances (farming techniques (organic vs not) & ethanol prodcution methods)? And what percentage of US demand that'll satisfied under different scenarios? This one of the bigger elephants in the room.
Still no counter to the argument that food will go up - globally, not just in the US.
The stuff on cellulosic is confused. Is it good or bad? Net energy gain or loss? Khosla's cellulosic may be cost-effective, but we need to know whey and what the energy balance implications are.
Whiskerfish
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Whiskerfish Posted 12:44 am
17 Jun 2007
WF
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Ron Steenblik Posted 1:09 am
17 Jun 2007
That is to say: is (a) David Morris going to read our comments; and (b) is he going to respond to them?
If neither (a) nor (b), why bother commenting?
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:14 am
17 Jun 2007
This guy doesn't look at electricity as a fuel source.
All biofuels are a bad idea, except maybe algae (which has yet to be seen)
If biofuels were so desirable we'd be pouring our money into R&D, not into corporate porkbarrel.
The claim that ethanol provides an air quality benefit is dubious. All it does is merely create a tradeoff of one set of polutants for another.
_
But I guess the real kicker being.
If they wanted to clean the air with Ethanol?
They failed.
greyfalcon. net/ ethanol2
If they wanted to reduce CO2 with Ethanol?
They failed.
greyfalcon. net/ soy2
_
We already have a "transitional fuel"
It's called Oil.
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:27 am
17 Jun 2007
But he doesn't look at is as one which can replace liquid fuels.
Since the batteries are "expensive"
And likely the implied aspect is that batteries can't be charged fast enough.
As shown with corn Ethanol, what costs $6.75 in total cost being sold for half that price. If expensive were a barrier, the we wouldn't be doing biofuels.
Two, you CAN charge batteries to 80% capacity in as little as 1 minute.
http://www.altairnano.com/documents/NanoSafeBackgrounder0 ...
Just need new infrastructure for it. (Which is the same achille's heal as Ethanol)
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/30/aerovironment-suc ...
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justlou Posted 2:42 am
17 Jun 2007
As a complete system, I could almost buy the author's arguments. If we could couple a realistic level of ethanol production with very highly efficient vehicles then I'd be more open to giving it some slack. But, the current system of burning corn ethanol in low mileage,flex fuel vehicles is almost criminal. The models that are being churned out by Detroit have the potential of being on the highway another 20 years.
The environmental and ecological costs of cellulosic ethanol have barely been touched upon. As one example, whatever species of plants that win out the selection process, the massive acreages of these species will provide habitat to many insects, birds and mammals. So, give them a home and then wipe the landscape clean. Where will they find refuge -- in corn and soybean fields?
Even with local production, the economics dictate very large scale development of infrastructure on the farm and in the factory.
Finally, you are looking at a system that runs on an annual production cycle. With all the potential environmental disturbances that could reduce the annual capture of sun energy by photosynthesis, it is difficult to imagine this happening without a backup of stored fossil fuel energy.
The argument of this author seems to be along the lines that future developments in cellulosic technology justify this current production of corn ethanol. Always there seems to be this faith that we can keep ratcheting up the technology to sustain our current path. The result seems to be that we are carried further out on a limb that grows weaker at the base. It is not unreasonable to question whether at some point a sustainability threshold is being crossed. And to question what the end is that justifies this continual ratcheting.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:45 am
17 Jun 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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sunflower Posted 2:52 am
17 Jun 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:57 am
17 Jun 2007
Water - (Ogalala resivoir being drained even faster, and California's already in a drought)
If the goal is to reduce CO2, then they are just making things dramatically worse by shifting other agriculture to tropical rainforrests.
If the goal is to reduce CO2, then churning up tons of soil that holds carbon locked in it isn't going to do us much good.
Just in terms of physical limitations,
We don't have enough topsoil, enough fresh water, or enough natural gas for fertilizer to do agricultural biofuels.
At best all we're getting is 3% of our Oil offset, with marginal air quality benefits, for billions upon billions of dollars spent.
_
And his arguement that people "Aren't complaining about biodiesel or hydrogen" isn't really a good one.
The reason people aren't complaining is because largely those vehicles do not exist in the US.
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:04 am
17 Jun 2007
Heatwaves, floods, water shortages, and planting the same monoculture over and over, would mean that we get decreased yields.
BioFuels are the most vulnerable and unreliable source of fuel we can choose.
And if we base our entire economy around it, our fate is left up to the fickle disposition of crop yields.
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odograph Posted 3:13 am
17 Jun 2007
And how many want the same political game, but with their "winner" winning?
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:18 am
17 Jun 2007
Mere energy effeciency could reduce our oil demand far faster, cleaner, and cheaper than the growth of biofuels ever could.
And it doesn't neccisarily need to be an electric car.
It could be a hybrid, a diesel, lightweighting, horsepower tradeoffs, any number of effeciency options.
But building giant infrastructure around something which will be obsolete is just foolish.
_
Sadly this should be the arguement that people always give first.
And when it comes to spending billions and billions of dollars, we'd be far better suited by spending it on those who can make that change happen. (i.e. The Car companies)
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Ron Steenblik Posted 3:34 am
17 Jun 2007
We all know that the claim that "corn is the prelude to cellulosic ethanol" is only half right. There may well be cellulosic ethanol produced in the future all right, but mostly it will be an add-on, a way to use more of the corn plant than just the kernel. Studies by Iowa State University have shown that farmers with prime farmland in the Midwest will always grow corn over switchgrass. That is why Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) are now trying to offer new subsidies to reward farmers who grow feedstock for cellulosic-ethanol plants. Note, they are not proposing to take away any of the subsidies that are currently fueling the corn-ethanol boom. But in ethanol policy money seems to be unlimited; subsidies can go in only one direction: up, up, up, more, more, more.
David Morris says, "We are moving beyond corn, to more abundant feedstocks like cellulose." No, we have a few, heavily subsidized cellulosic-ethanol plants being built. That is not the same thing. Hey, give me enough money and I'll build you a plant that makes fuel from earwax.
OK, that's three paragraphs, but close enough for government work. ;-)
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JMG Posted 4:10 am
17 Jun 2007
The "transition fuel" argument for corn is an absolute crock. When you reward A, you get more A, not more B. The best example is how the Big 3 played the subsidy game with the "Partnership for the Next Generation Vehicle," the Clinton-Gore boondoggle that sent over $900M to Detroit so that they could ... think deep thoughts or something, while Toyota and Honda brought the first hybrids to market.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 4:36 am
17 Jun 2007
I think this argument by Morris is absolutely nonsensical, though:
The assault on corn comes from so many directions that sometimes the arguments are wildly contradictory. In an article published in the New York Times Magazine earlier this year Michael Pollan, an excellent and insightful writer, argues that cheap corn is the key to the epidemic of obesity. The same month, Foreign Affairs published an article by two distinguished university professors who argued that the use of ethanol has led to a runup in corn prices that threatens to sentence millions more to starvation.
Cheap corn has been key to the epidemic of obesity in recent decades, but the ethanol boom of the last few years has made it rather less cheap, which does seem to be pricing the least-affluent around the world out of the market. Corn still remains cheap enough that it hasn't reduced its use in American food products (most notably as high-fructose corn syrup) noticeably so far, though, so we're unlikely to notice Americans slimming down right away.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:38 am
17 Jun 2007
E15 lowers your mileage 10%, so for every 10 gallon fillup you need to buy (and burn, spewing more GHG)an extra ($3+) gallon of fuel.
That 1.5 gallons of ethanol took over 1.5 gallons of fossil fuel to produce. A net loss of energy independence from oil and terror/eternal war producing imports.
And that 1.5 gallons of ethanol took 6 gallons of water to produce.
Lastly the subsidies to that 1.5 gallon of ethanol could buy over a gallon equivalent of kwh to charge up an electric car.
Write as long as you want, you aren't going to overcome the huge eco/financial deficit in fuel farmed ethanol transportation. Give it up Mr Morris, join the plugin vehicle juggernaut and come on in for the win.
Divert all fossil, nuclear, and fuel farmed fuel subsidies to plugins plugged into renewable distributed power generation and storage grids now!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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potatofarmer Posted 4:46 am
17 Jun 2007
To the readers: I have farmed for several years and have mastered the optimization of the collection of solar energy via plant life within the irrigated and dryland areas of Washington State. I have grown a dozen crops such as potatoes, corn, and hay.
Farmers annually farm solar energy stored into biomass.
Our problem is that we have built our Western society on prehistoric stored solar energy via fossil fuels. We are at war in the Middle East because they have over 80% of the remaining known world crude oil reserves left to easily extract for our current Western society to continue. So we ask our farmers to provide a solution.
Corn is currently the most efficient collector of annual solar energy to provide for food, feed, and fuel within the U.S. agricultural region. Brazil has sugar cane for their region.
Now the naysayers will need to go out and plant the crops, harvest them, process them, and get the products out to the marketplace to educate themselves on what is the most efficient way to provide all of Western societies needs from the farm. Corn is king in the U.S.. Wheat and barley acreage expansion can be used in the dryland areas as an additional amount of solar energy. We pay farmers in Washington State over 80 million dollars to raise no crops on 1,400,000 acres.
Cellulosic ethanol would be a great next step to pay for the management of healthy forests and reducing forest fires. This goal of reducing forest fires would reduce CO2 emissions and the loss of solar btus that could drive our cars.
I would love to continue this conversation but I gotta go.....
Green Greed makes Greed Green
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amazingdrx Posted 4:53 am
17 Jun 2007
At any rate if fuel use is reduced to 10% by plugin hybrids or even 25% as you estimate, oil will last a lot longer, bankrupting everyone who invested in fuel farming.
But all that conservation reserve cropland will have turned to dustbowl by then. never heard of soil depletion and GHG caused drought? gotta get out of the office ocasionally and go out on the land dude. hehey. smell the ecosystem burning. lake Okechoebee (for instance)is on fire!
And we were shocked years ago by the Ohio river burning from chemical dumping?
Because fossil fuel is burned to produce eyhanol, which is also burned, and takes up conservation land that would otherwise store carbon, fuel farmed ethanol gives a triple does of gHG compared to oil. Plugins plugged into renewables eliminates gHG entirely.
Need we go on bludgeoning you with the facts? probably so.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:58 am
17 Jun 2007
No it's not.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol.png
Corn is about 0.25% solar effecient.
The WORST solar panels are about 6-8% effecient.
And the best is currently pegged at 40.7%
However the most cost effective currently is solar thermal, which is 35%
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:58 am
17 Jun 2007
However theoretically it could reach a maximum of 11%
Still pretty pathetic.
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JMG Posted 5:05 am
17 Jun 2007
But I got a funny feeling reading the Morris piece above: too slick, too pat. It reads like something Ari Fleischer or Tony Snow would say--simply denies that people disagreeing have any legitimate objections, simply repeats things that have been disproved over and over, questions the motives of opponents and makes sweeping statements like "environmentalists applauded hydrogen" without acknowledging that plenty of enviros knew (and know) better.
So I thought I'd run over to ILSR website and check out their funders---and, lo and behold, you can't find anything on their website about who funds them.
Since the Competitive Enterprise Institute (whore for Exxon) and Patrick Moore (for nuclear) rightly get slammed for being paid while pretending to be neutral, I'd like to ask that ILSR add a breakdown of its funding to its website. Maybe it's not the Corn Growers' lobby talking, but it sure seems like it might be.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:09 am
17 Jun 2007
The Conservation Reserve Program
Which does a hell of a lot more good than the supposed CO2 benefits of corn.
It's one of the main reasons that US is trapping carbon.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/feb01/bank0201.htm
http://www.pww.org/article/view/10982/
But yes, lets go churn up that soil, and release all sorts of gases into the atmosphere.
_
Besides most of it's erroded and marginal land.
Catch being intensive farming on it would make it just barren land.
_
But then again, it looks like they are effectively attempting to Cancel the CRP program.
http://jhawkins54.typepad.com/ifb_ethanol_blog/2007/02/fy ...
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/outdoors/tompkins/457 ...
http://www.ducks.org/news/1187/Decisiontocurtailear.html
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odograph Posted 6:00 am
17 Jun 2007
You know, if you put a carbon tax on fossil fuels, you shouldn't even need to do that. The carbon tax should be sufficient to drive (a) efficiency and (b) conversion to renewable energies (not just "bio" fuels).
It's like ... I've got a $15/mo electric bill ... how big a solar tax credit do you want to give me? How big a credit should I get? (IMO, none.)
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Biodiversivist Posted 6:20 am
17 Jun 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Jon Rynn Posted 7:42 am
17 Jun 2007
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David Roberts Posted 8:36 am
17 Jun 2007
Is a book group worthless if the author doesn't attend?
I learn a lot from these discussions; I know others do to. Whether Important People are here learning along with us is hardly a deal breaker, at least for me.
grist.org
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amazingdrx Posted 9:23 am
17 Jun 2007
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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JMG Posted 10:13 am
17 Jun 2007
Further, we were discussing liquid fuels, which are currently heavily and expressly subsidized, as opposed to electric power, for which the subsidies are indirect (not having to pay for externalities, mainly).
So, no, I don't want to give you a tax credit; and if you start making biofuels, then I think you should only be given a subsidy (if at all) on the net renewable content of those biofuels.
I want to take Ron S and Robert Rapier's position (end all subsidies, price carbon, and it works out even better than if you subsidized renewables), but I can't help but noticing that we're not getting anywhere with that. Meanwhile, supposedly green types like ILSR are still pushing corn ethanol.
("Rationalization: the substitution of a good reason for the real reason.")
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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potatofarmer Posted 12:06 pm
17 Jun 2007
I drive down the road with my ethanol converted E-85 2000 Subaru. I got off my petro addiction - well at lest I'm 85% there. I doubt you are off the petro - am I right?
First Law of Thermodynamics - read it.
Corn is the most efficient solar energy collector on the American farm. We can grow it using organic nitrogen which we call manure (or some farmers may prefer to use human excrement - plentiful in China but concentrated near US cities and off limits to US Farmers). We can drive our tractors using biodiesel to harvest the crop - 100 years ago we used another renewable power source known as horses.
Now, sir, we only extract the seed of this most amazing plant and use it for food, feed, or fuel. In Washington State, we can take a renewable resource such as water pumped into irrigation pivots powered by renewable hydropower. This process yields over 260 bushels of corn per acre or 14,560 pounds of food per acre. Using hydropower and wind we can heat boilers to produce 4,853 pounds of ethanol and 4,853 pounds of cattle feed that will be eventually converted to meat or milk. The remaining 4,853 pounds is CO2 emitted into the atmosphere to be used by corn plants next year - remember Co2 is the air plants breath. It's the addition of co2 from our petro addiction we must be concerned with, right?
Now cows eat the feed produced from the byproduct of the corn to ethanol process. What about the energy to be collected from the cows such as methane and manure that the animals emmit? What about the energy from human waste gases and excrement caused by the consumption of milk and meat? What about accounting for the energy btus of the heat generated off animals and humans that have consumed "corn to ethanol" byproducts aka distillers grain? And going back to the corn crop itself, what about the corn stalks that cows digest all winter in the corn field and account for the energy from the corn stalks transferred to animal heat, animal waste gas, animal manure, animal meat and milk and the energy from the human consumption of those ag products? Then you go back to what is left of the corn plant in the field and look at the remaning stalks and roots that are disced back into the soil to add to the soil "bank". That is right! more corn energy to be used by other crops next year - just disc whats left in the ground.
Now you say it is wrong to farm the CRP in Washington. Go look at the ground - its is full of weeds. And your concerned about emitting co2 into the atmosphere by turning the soil for crop production? Are you using petro in your car, Sir? Shouldn't we all be more concerned about adding additional co2 that has been locked away for millions of years? And furthermore, shouldn't we be concerned about the fuel that is being used in your car coming from the Middle East?
You have a petro addiction Sir. You will diss corn ethanol and American farmers with your mouth full while driving your car with Middle Eastern crude oil shipped half way around the world while your car is emitting additional co2 causing Global Warming.
I'm very happy when driving my used car with ethanol - at lest I'm not an Enviromentalist hypocrite!
Green Greed makes Greed Green
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Craig Allen Posted 12:21 pm
17 Jun 2007
Besides:
If deep dry geothermal has anywhere near the potential elsewhere as it seems to have in Australia (see the geodynamics website for a revelatory experience).
And if a breakthrough in the production of fuel from CO2 using electricity and new catalysts can be achieved (eg. as being investigated here and as described here).
Then the whole biomass to fuel concept becomes irrelevant.
Imagine how quickly we could get these kinds of solutions of the ground if even a fraction of the money spent on fusion and fission research were put into this kind of thing.
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sunflower Posted 1:35 pm
17 Jun 2007
Solar thermal can deliver the energy equivalent of 900 barrels of oil per acre per year (180,000 pounds of 37800 gallons crude)
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Sam Wells Posted 2:16 pm
17 Jun 2007
You're probably burning E10 right now because of the phase-out of MTBE. Other oxygenate boosters such as ETBE and TAME are too expensive to sell on the retail gasoline market. You already got it in your tank most probably, man. At issue is further use such as for E85 gasoline. Some thoughts:
Expanding dead zone of black water off the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico, growing larger every year. More corn production in any part of the watershed could make this worse.
Ethanol actually lowers fuel economy, even though the engine is more efficient and burns more cleanly. It has a lower BTU content then gasoline when burned, so you have to use more of it.
Wild-eyed speculation about hundreds of new ethanol plants and million of gallons will eventually flood the market, with obvious implications
What the gentleman at the top was saying is that ethanol is an alternative fuel and why pick on it - although he didn't say that methanol and hydrogen could be serious problems from a public risk point of view.
Hey man, you're talking to a guy who knows first-hand about LNG buses. What a joke. /sam
Onward through the fog
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:00 pm
17 Jun 2007
http://greyfalcon.net/sugarsolar
2. Nitrogen Fertilizer comes almost exclusively from Natural Gas.
With a price volitility that far exceeds gasoline.
http://energy.seekingalpha.com/article/33925
http://www.fapri.missouri.edu/outreach/publications/2005/ ...
http://southwestfarmpress.com/mag/farming_high_natural_ga ...
And increasingly that comes from other nations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WJeYVuDCDY
3. Conventional industrial corn is one of the most water intensive crops we got.
Three times more water needed than Cotton. (Which is also a water intensive crop)
2500 gallons of water for 1 gallon of ethanol, hardly seems like a fair tradeoff.
http://www.polarisinstitute.org/cant_drink_ethanol
4. We don't have enough water resources.
http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcsupply/6worllarg2. ...
5. Even if we converted every single piece of corn we have into fuel, we would only offset 1% of the miles driven in the US.
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/05/e85-spinning-our- ...
6. Corn goes a long way to destroying the soil.
http://www.stopbp-berkeley.org/CellulosicBiofuels.pdf
http://greyfalcon.net/peaksoil
7. We should be concerned with doing what is the most cost effective, and quickest solution.
Spending billions upon billions to accomplish virtually nothing isn't going to do us much good.
Especially when it prolongs how long we stay with a liquid fuels economy.
Driving Hummers on Ethanol isn't going to do us much good.
And yet thats basically what the current policy is.
8. Considering how much fossil energy goes into making corn,
Fossil Fuel fertilizer, GMO seeds, pesticides, transport fuel, process fuel, and irrigation.
You might as well call it laundering fossil fuels to give them a green image.
9. Ironic thing being, turning natural gas into a fuel additive?
Thats exactly what we were doing with MBTE.
So largely we haven't even replaced a drop of Oil with Ethanol.
10. If anything we've increased our dependance on oil, by allow car makers to downgrade their fuel economy for making flex-fuel cars.
http://www.tradewatch.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2401
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:06 pm
17 Jun 2007
Perhaps Natural Gas isn't as scarce as I thought.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iAkJzKqV6I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkwawK-HKuQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty7uxG4Q45A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmku0SyY3_Q
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Ron Steenblik Posted 4:59 pm
17 Jun 2007
If your land is producing corn organically, then I presume it counts among the only 0.016% of corn-producing acres in the USA that are certified organic. The vast majority of corn ethanol comes from farms that are using good-ol' high-input, high-yield methods of producing the feedstock. Yes, I suppose more corn feedstock could be produced organically. But could you please provide evidence that that is happening?
You are proud to be driving a seven-year-old flex-fuel Subaru and say that by fueling it with E85 you are 85% towards ending your petrol addiction. Forgetting that some petroleum was involved in producing that fuel, and that winter blends can contain as low as 70% ethanol and still be called E85, getting that fuel to you involves a substantial amount of public money.
Not only was the corn subsidized, but every other part of the supply chain, including the pumps that dispense the E85 to your vehicle, are subsidized also. (And your neighboring state, Oregon, is now proposing to create new, additional subsidies for crops used for producing biofuels.) Just the cost to the U.S. Treasury of the $0.51/gallon volumetric ethanol excise tax of keeping your Subaru tanked up is on the order of several hundred dollars a year. Keeping a big SUV tanked up on E85 can cost up to $1000 a year. (Source: "Biofuels--At What Cost?")
The question that needs to be asked is, what are all these subsidies gaining for the country? The air-quality benefits of E85 are marginal, at best (PDF alert). And, because of the risk of crop failure due to drought or disease, the national-security benefits of corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel are also slim.
So, how about CO2-mitigation benefits? On even the most generous assumptions about the reduction in CO2 gained from corn-ethanol, the subsidy is on the order of $500 per ton of CO2-equivalent reduced for ethanol produced and consumed in the Midwest.
Since your state, Washington, is not in the Midwest, the following conclusions from a study conducted by researchers at Oregon State University are perhaps more relevant to your situation:
The cost of reducing CO2-equivalent emissions by promoting biofuels is compared to various economic studies that have evaluated the costs of other types of climate change policies. These policies include regulatory controls on CO2 emissions, carbon sequestration actions of various types, and market-based approaches such as carbon taxes or "cap-and-trade" schemes. Those studies suggest a midrange estimate of $50 per ton. Compared to this benchmark, the cost of reducing CO2 emissions with corn-ethanol is found to be more than 200 times higher, or $10,700 per ton of CO2-equivalent emissions. For biodiesel, the cost is estimated to be 11 times as high as the $50 estimate, or $580/ton. And in the case of cellulosic wood-based ethanol, the cost is 7 times as high, at $350/ton. Hence, other policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions appear to be significantly more cost-effective than a shift to these three biofuels. [My emphasis.]
Finally, comments like the one you wrote in your first posting are unnecessary:
Now the naysayers will need to go out and plant the crops, harvest them, process them, and get the products out to the marketplace to educate themselves on what is the most efficient way to provide all of Western societies needs from the farm.
For one, many of the active discussants on Grist -- most notably Tom Philpott -- do have experience farming. Others of us grew up on farms, or have developed some expertise on the subject through other means.
And in any case, that kind of comment is fine if the farming community is asking only for understanding and sympathy. But the farm lobby (perhaps not you personally) also demands billions and billions of subsidies a year from the rest of the 98% of taxpayers who do not farm for a living. In my mind, that demand gives the non-farmers a seat at the table. By making that comment, were you suggesting that these people should instead just pay up and shut up?
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Rune Posted 6:05 pm
17 Jun 2007
Ethanol is less energy dense than gasoline and, as such, the more it is substituted for gasoline, the less able our already maxed out system of fuel pipelines is to deliver the quantity of fuel needed in various regions of the country. That means shortages in California and elsewhere are likely as the percentage of ethanol in gasoline blends increases. The gasoline distributors don't want to build new pipeline capacity unless they are convinced there will be a good payback for doing so. One way to get a good payback is for consumers to pay a pretty price for a greater volume of fuel over a long time. Another is for the government to offer more incentives and tax breaks for the distributors to keep people from shooting each other in long lines to fill up gas tanks. Once those long lines develop, by next summer if not this one, the industry may be in a position to bargain for policies that ensure both outcomes--that is, subsidies and ongoing upward demand for the volume of fuel flowing through the pipelines. Neither of those options will get the country aimed in the direction of serious conservation, which a couple people have noted is really the wisest, most economical, and most certain way to reduce GHG and dependence on fossil fuels.
Growing corn organically sounds great. By all rights, we should just halt all use of natural gas and oil as fertilizer and pest management inputs, just like we should wave a magic wand and convert to an all dirty power sources to solar, wind, tidal, and, for a more limited time, geothermal. Ah, but reality keeps getting in the way. And the reality is that it takes lots of time, investment, risk, and energy up front (which means conventional energy, you see) to make such transitions. Merely knowing how to do something on a limited scale does not mean you can quickly transform the infrastructure that took the better part of a century to develop into something else.
Knowing that, big agra has felt secure investing in ever more industrialized and synthetic means of boosting, or at least maintaining, output per acre. It's not clear that acres of dirt are actually the limiting factor to be worried about, but that does seem to be how the game has been played for a very long time. And one of the most recent efforts in that direction has been to resort to bioengineering corn and soy, often with consequences that threaten an eventual return to agricultural methods that do not rely on oil and gas inputs or some two dozen derivatives thereof that blur the meaning of the word "organic" in this context, or I would use it to describe the alternative means of agriculture to whic I am merely alluding. (Sorry.)
So, what do you suppose might be the consequence of getting the whole country substantially dependent on a GMO crop for its fuel supply when the time comes for big agriculture to ask for permission to turn loose, the bioengineered switch grass that BP just effectively bought a controlling interest in UC Berkeley to develop? Isn't it likely that industry will argue that we have nothing to lose by turning loose more (and very different, actually) GMOs for the purpose of growing fuel now that we have already condoned such for ethanol production through corn? And as the water and bioactive soil problems already mentioned in this discussion worsen, won't regulators, politicians, and the public at large be just that much more desperate and willing to gamble on minimally tested GMOs if they discover they are already hooked on GMO fuel crops of some sort the way they are now hooked on oil and willing to promote its production from dirty, water threatening sources such as tar sands?
I dunno about all of you, but to me serious conservation of water and energy coupled with localization and diversification of increasingly "organic" agriculture makes a lot more sense than investing synthetic strains of monoculture crops grown on a hyper industrial scale far away from most consumers as a way to address fuel needs--while more or less overlooking the already visible implications for food prices and availability. YMMV--especially if it depends on increasing quantities of alcohol to turn you motor.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 6:15 pm
17 Jun 2007
At the moment, ethanol from the Midwest arrives in California mainly by rail, in tanker cars. A lot of ethanol in the USA is transported simply by truck.
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justlou Posted 9:08 pm
17 Jun 2007
A 250 bushel corn yield is extremely rare in the corn belt. Average yields hover closer to 150 bushels.
Taking more land and crops in the US for biofuels will reduce food and feed to developing countries. This demand is rising rapidly in countries like China with increased meat consumption. This will result in the clearing of more tropical forests with dire ecological consequences -- loss of biodiversity, reduced rainfall, and elevated CO2.
Importing ethanol from Brazil might increase the price of the fuel to their citizens, increase the pace of natural ecosystem destruction, and increase their own oil production and consumption.
Transportation of ethanol is a big determinant in the siting of new corn ethanol plants. For plants under construction, there may not be train cars available for a couple of years due to shortages in tank cars.
Given all the negatives, it is difficult to imagine how growing dependence on biofuels is going to make the world more secure.
We have witnessed some great costs to misdirected efforts of making the US more secure from terrorism. Likewise, some of our efforts to make the US more energy independent may feedback with unintended consequences.
Global warming is a burning issue. We need to stop the fire. Internal combustion is a good place to start. Can we imagine a world with far fewer cars and trucks? If not, I think we are screwed.
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 10:43 pm
17 Jun 2007
Hello all,
Alice Friedemann's excellent "Peak Soil" has been posted to Grist several times but here it is again for those who missed it.
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_con ...
Peak Soil: Why Cellulosic ethanol and other Biofuels are Not Sustainable and are a Threat to America's National Security
Part 1. The Dirt on Dirt.
Part 2. The Poop on Ethanol: Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI)
Part 3. Biofuel is a Grim Reaper.
Part 4. Biodiesel: Can we eat enough French Fries?
Part 5. If we can't drink and drive, then burn baby burn. - Energy Crop Combustion
Part 6. The problems with Cellulosic Ethanol could drive you to drink.
Part 7. Where do we go from here?
Appendix
Department of Energy's Biofuel Roadmap Barriers
References
Culture Change:
http://www.culturechange.org
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odograph Posted 11:26 pm
17 Jun 2007
As I said there, this stuff goes back. And it was striking to me when I came across this article in 2005, that people from opposite sides of the environmental spectrum could come to the same conclusion.
Jerry Taylor is (or was) director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute. Dan Becker is (or was) director for the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program.
I'll grant that it is sometimes necessary to work within a system, but I think we have to recognize when a system can't be won.
When armchair pundits and armchair lobbyists argue for "their" technology, I think all we do is perpetuate a system where real pundits and real lobbyists get to manipulate things for their benefit.
That's how we got the Hydrogen Highway for gosh sakes, and that's how we Corn Ethanol disaster.
We should chuck this system .. but maybe we can't. Maybe it is too seductive to be an expert, to be an amateur lobbyist ....
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atreyger Posted 12:06 am
18 Jun 2007
Nice way to make a point though: If we convert all our corn, we'll get ONE percent...
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atreyger Posted 12:15 am
18 Jun 2007
Sign me up.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:24 am
18 Jun 2007
Where it would produce clean power and charcoal as a soil amendment that serves as a perpetual carbon sink.
with high tech machines directed by hunman operators, the waste wood that poses a fire risk could be economically, safely, ecologically harvested for this purpose. Illegal cleanup crews (as the foresters are rumored to employ now)won't do it economically. Human labor is too costly even at illegal wage rates.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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sunflower Posted 12:36 am
18 Jun 2007
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amazingdrx Posted 12:40 am
18 Jun 2007
A solar fan touting combustion? For shame! Hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 12:43 am
18 Jun 2007
Wood or corncobs up the chimney? For something mother earth can do? No way.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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odograph Posted 12:52 am
18 Jun 2007
Then JMG wouldn't have to sweat what was "liquid" and what wasn't. Amazing, and Grey, and Sunflower could all try their stuff ... and tell us how it actually works in the here and now.
BioD might even get a new refrigerator ;-)
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:11 am
18 Jun 2007
Putting all of that ethanol into the gasoline supply would mean ethanol could comprise 19% of the gasoline supply on a volumetric basis
Ignoring co-products for a moment, that means the created energy was a mere 8% in excess of the input energy. Given that the fossil fuels (primarily natural gas) that went into making the ethanol can usually serve as transportation fuels, the amount of transportation fuel that is displaced is only the 8% that was "created". That means that in reality, using our entire corn crop would only displace 1% of our annual gasoline consumption. http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/05/e85-spinning-our- ...
You don't drive gallons, you drive miles....
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sunflower Posted 1:28 am
18 Jun 2007
Biomass will oxidize into CO2 whether we burn crop waste or not. Displacing dead carbon emissions is job number one.
Be effective and find the most cost effective methods to displace fossil carbon combustion.
The sequesture of charcoal (or using ethanol, pv, coal sequestration,,,) won't hold a match to not burning dead carbon and is akin to grasping at straws while drowning in a panic. Remain calm and think this thing through.
Yes odo, tax carbon!
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sunflower Posted 1:32 am
18 Jun 2007
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:02 am
18 Jun 2007
I don't want to pop your bubble but we don't' ask farmers for solutions, we simply pay them for the stuff they grow. Politicians buy votes with tax money by giving it to industrial agriculture to grow agrofuels. They then mandate that this agrofuel be blended into the taxpayer's fuel, forcing them to buy the expensive agrofuel they were just forced to subsidize.
We pay farmers in Washington State over 80 million dollars to raise no crops on 1,400,000 acres
Again, that is one way to look at it. Another way is that the farmers are making money by doing nothing and they seem to like it, or they wouldn't have rented that land to the government. The idea is to keep them from bankrupting themselves by planting crops on marginally economical, erosion prone land presently serving as wildlife habitat and carbon sinks. Putting it all under the plow again would barely make a dent in reducing fossil fuel use.
Without the welfare (subsidies and mandates) pouring into the pockets of farmers and agrofuel refiners, few would be buying this environmentally destructive fuel except as an additive and even that might stop with the end of government welfare. Which leads us to the house of cards excuse for milking the taxpayer: the bridge fuel argument.
Cellulosic ethanol would be a great next step to pay for the management of healthy forests and reducing forest fires. This goal of reducing forest fires would reduce CO2 emissions and the loss of solar btus that could drive our cars.
Like a million other ideas, this sounds great in theory. But if it is a good idea, we don't need to wait for cellulosic. We can burn wood to displace coal and natural gas to make electricity right now. Why aren't we doing it? Answer: anyone trying to do so will go bankrupt.
I got off my petro addiction - well at lest I'm 85% there. I doubt you are off the petro - am I right?
Again, hate to pop your bubble but when you run the numbers, 70% to 110% of what is in your gas tank came from fossil fuels, 70% if you assume the iffy 1.6 EROI using co-products, 110% if you accept the latest probability analysis from MIT. In addition, your car only gets 21 MPG. So, anyone driving a car with 30% better MPG or driving 30% fewer miles is using the same amount of petro as you, assuming 1.6 EROI, or if you accept the MIT study, pretty much anyone getting 21 MPG and driving the same number of miles is using less petro than you.
We can drive our tractors using biodiesel to harvest the crop
Then why don't you? Can't afford to give up 380 gallons of corn oil for every 40 gallons of soy? Could it be that the only reason farmers don't use ethanol or biodiesel to power their farms instead of petro is because both are too expensive and the losses would eat all profit margins? Source.
I'm going to stop here. Your posts are fantasies of what you want to be true. You are the guy the politicians are buying votes from.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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David Morris Posted 2:04 am
18 Jun 2007
Several people asked if I am reading these thoughtful comments and would respond to them. I am and I am. I didn't read them until this morning. Sundays are days away from the computer if I can possibly manage it.
Having jumped in after several dozen comments are already posted, I'm tempted to respond in chronological order, but perhaps a few overall comments might be useful.
Several people gave a tip of the hat to my organization and me for our other efforts(e.g. anti-big box retail) or our earlier books(e.g. neighborhood power) while taking me to task for one person called my "obsession" with ethanol. I appreciate the praise but would argue that the same philosophical framework that guides our work on neighborhoods and large retail guides our work on energy. We believe that most, if not all, the world's problems can be solved most effectively from the bottom up, and that communities need to develop new rules that can stimulate human ingenuity into getting the most useful work, on a sustainable basis, from local resources. In this case local resources means human, capital and natural. The major natural resources are sun, wind, geothermal and soil. Since our earliest days(1974) we have supported every one of these resources, although to the person who told me he had heard in speak during the first OPEC embargo on biofuels, he is mistaken. My very first love was(and is) solar cells and solar thermal. I came to biomass in the late 1970s.
My obsession is not with ethanol, it's with decentralized economies and political systems and local self-reliance. But I am one of the few that insists that plant matter needs to be part of the industrial and yes, energy equation. Whiskerfish mischaracterizes my position. He says I believe corn ethanol is the key transitional biological energy feedstock. I believe it is the key transitional biological industrial feedstock.
My first proposition in my column states that we need to rely on biological sources for industrial materials because only biology gives us molecules that can substitute for mineral-derived molecules. I don't believe anyone has talked about that proposition. Do we think that plants should be used for other than food and feed purposes(some I know believe they should be used only for food purposes, not for feed)? Do we believe vegetable oils should be used to replace mineral oils? Should starches be used to replace petroleum derived plastics? If so, how much acreage or tonnage should be allow for that? Currently, aside from the use of trees for paper and energy and construction, we use about 10 million tons of plants as industrial materials. In theory, if we increased this to 200 million tons, we could displace virtually all organic(that is, carbon based) chemicals with biochemicals. Greyfalcon says "All biofuels are a bad idea". Does he believe that all bioproducts are a bad idea as well? Starch can be made into industrial starch, into ethanol, into industrial ethanol, into plastics, etc.
My second proposition argues that since we have a finite amount of arable land or even photosynthetic capacity, we should develop public policies that encourage the highest and best use of plants. Nutrition comes first. We would argue that biomaterials would come before biofuels.
The first biorefinery out of the gate was the corn wet mill, which was focused on the production of high fructose corn syrup. The next iteration produced ethanol as a primary product, and the next iteration was the efficient dry mills that produced ethanol and higher value products as well.
Another proposition is that electricity should be our primary transportation fuel and that biofuels should fuel the backup engines which might drive the vehicle for 25 percent of the total miles or so. Several commenters ignored this point. One said, "I don't look at electricity as something that can replace liquid fuels". I do and said so. Whether electricity can replace 100 percent of the need for liquid fuels is for the future to decide. An all electric car requires a large battery capacity and rapid recharging facilities. Is this less expensive than a backup engine using biofuel? We must remember that biofuels are not only an energy source; they are storage system. They replace batteries. Which is why the cost of ethanol or the efficiency of conversion of crops should not be compared to the cost of electricity or the efficiency of conversion of solar cells. The storage systems must be made from something. I would argue that they should ultimately be made from biological materials. And by the way, a flexible fueled engine costs about $100 more for the car mfg than a conventional engine.
The reason for a performance standard rather than a prescriptive standard, another of my propositions, is so renewable generated electricity can compete with renewable biofuels. In the long run that might lead to 100 percent displacement of electricity for liquid fuels, but that is a very long run indeed and I'm all for the market and entrepreneurialism making that decision.
None of the commenters addressed my proposition that ownership and scale be taken into account. That is disappointing. Our perspective on this also leads us to take a controversial position on solar and wind energy. We prefer decentralized solar to centralized solar and we prefer decentralized, locally owned wind turbines to centralized wind farmers requiring high voltage transmission lines. But that's another conversation for another time.
With these are my overall views, let me make more specific responses to some of the commenters.
The perfect should not be the enemy of the good. The use of ethanol has cleaned up the air. That is the empirical case. It has reduced carbon monoxide, reduced toxic emissions, reduced particulate emissions. In high blends it reduces volatile organic compound emissions. For goodness sake, ethanol is liquor. We can drink it. It is a single chemical. Gasoline is a blend of hundreds of chemicals and the blends change by season and from gas pump to gas pump, and every last one of those chemicals is toxic and more than a few of the primary ones cause cancer.
One commenter said the current system of burning corn ethanol in low mileage flex fuel vehicles is almost criminal. I agree. Even more criminal is giving flex fuel vehicles a break on CAFÉ standards so that having an FFV SUV is equivalent to having about a 30 mile per gallon car for CAFÉ standards. Adding insult to injury, the car companies get that credit even if the car never uses a drop of ethanol.
Biodiversivist says "it all comes down to biodiversity". Fine. That does not answer my question about the extent to which we should use plant matter for substituting for petrochemicals, etc.
GreyFlen makes several points. One is that agriculture is dependent on weather. Yes it is. And it is dependent, say several others, on water. Yes it is. Droughts can cause a reduction in supplies, which occurred in 1996 in the US corn crop which was about equivalent to the reduction in oil supplies in 1979 I believe. This is a reason for stockpiling crops, which the federal government had as a part of its farm policy until 1996, which has led to most wilder fluctuations in crop prices. GreyFlen also says that efficiency is better than increasing supply. Yes it is. My proposition is to go for plug in hybrids, which as I said in the article, I've been promoting and writing about since 2003, after the second iteration Prius made this a real possibility). Traveling on electricity gets 100 miles per gallon equivalent. This is triple the fuel efficiency standard proposed by the Congress today in one bill.
Steenblik says that the first cellulosic ethanol plants will use corn stover. I'd actually prefer that, but the first 6 funded by DOE are using other materials.
John Fish Kurman wants us to move stuff around much less, rely on our own biological energy and electrify transportation. Fine with me.
amazingdrx says E15 lowers mileage by 10 percent or so. E15 is not sold, so it was an odd choice. In any event, E10 reduces mileage by about 3% by energy equivalent, although the tests indicate that some is made up by the higher octane and higher efficiency of the ethanol so it comes to about a 2% loss. If the engine were optimized for ethanol rather than gasoline, as the Saab turbo in Sweden is, the loss would be about 1%. The amazing dr. also says that it takes more fossil fuel to make ethanol than ethanol displaces. The empirical evidence is overwhelming that this is not true. Even the most ardent opponents(Pimentel) now argues that the net energy loss is trivial. But if ethanol plants use cellulose(e.g. wood waste) to displace natural gas in the plant itself the net energy rises significantly(several now do). If the corn farmers use no till cultivation, as many do(but not nearly as many as should) the net energy goes up even further.
To potatofarmer. Thank you.
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JMG Posted 2:06 am
18 Jun 2007
Any of our resident poets care to take a crack at rewriting the lyric to address our carbon problems?
"Wouldn't it be nice if we were smarter ..."
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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odograph Posted 2:12 am
18 Jun 2007
"None of the commenters addressed my proposition that be taken into account."
I'm sure you understand that in a "no-subsidy" situation I assume that will work itself out.
If we don't take that approach, we will be left to "engineer" appropriate "ownership and scale" for the next hundred years. I don't want that.
I mean, look at the "ownership and scale" of the Hydrogen Highway companies as a model of success and efficiency ...
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JMG Posted 2:13 am
18 Jun 2007
It would be most helpful in considering your arguments to know the extent to which ILSR and your "Democratic Energy" campaign are funded by those with particular interests in particular outcomes.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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odograph Posted 2:15 am
18 Jun 2007
Can that work, even in a lossy and inefficient way?
Maybe, but I think it is a poorer bet than getting some voices opposed to this version of SPY VS SPY played by energy lobbyists.
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atreyger Posted 2:20 am
18 Jun 2007
I misunderstood what you meant by 'offset', since it's thrown around so often. I agree with you about the stupidity of using corn for ethanol.
Biod, harvesting wood for burning right now can make people bankrupt. The reason for that is the lack of demand from the industrial energy production sector. No other reason. And the reason for that? Previous subsidies to other forms of energy production? Solution to this? Subsidies to infrastructure creation? A benevolent rich person? A cadre of investors? A combination of the above?
I don't think attacking subsidies for undeveloped or unimplemented technologies is a rational decision. I think once the initial subsidy is in place, then the subsequent subsidies should be removed at a gradual rate to allow for an easy economic transition to the free market.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 2:29 am
18 Jun 2007
I think once the initial subsidy is in place, then the subsequent subsidies should be removed at a gradual rate to allow for an easy economic transition to the free market.
Specifics, please? An example of a major subsidy involving agriculture that once in place has been removed gradually? Even the Mohair subsidies, created in WW2 and phased out in 1994, were re-instated.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 3:14 am
18 Jun 2007
Regarding your one response to my comments, you say, "Steenblik says that the first cellulosic ethanol plants will use corn stover. I'd actually prefer that, but the first 6 funded by DOE are using other materials."
According to the Department of Energy's own website on the plants, this is what they say about the Iogen plant in Idaho and the two in the Midwest, which is the area I was referring to, since your article is in defense of corn-ethanol:
Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass of Kansas, LLC of Chesterfield, Missouri, up to $76 million. The proposed plant will be located in the state of Kansas. The plant will produce 11.4 million gallons of ethanol annually and enough energy to power the facility, with any excess energy being used to power the adjacent corn dry grind mill. The plant will use 700 tons per day of corn stover, wheat straw, milo stubble, switchgrass, and other feedstocks.
Broin Companies of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, up to $80 million. The plant is in Emmetsburg (Palo Alto County), Iowa, and after expansion, it will produce 125 million gallons of ethanol per year, of which roughly 25percent will be cellulosic ethanol. For feedstock in the production of cellulosic ethanol, the plant expects to use 842 tons per day of corn fiber, cobs, and stalks.
Iogen Biorefinery Partners, LLC, of Arlington, Virginia, up to $80 million. The proposed plant will be built in Shelley, Idaho, near Idaho Falls, and will produce 18 million gallons of ethanol annually. The plant will use 700 tons per day of agricultural residues including wheat straw, barley straw, corn stover, switchgrass, and rice straw as feedstocks.
I see corn stover in all of these. Yes, the three others are being built in elsewhere (well they would, wouldn't they, since one of the basic tenets of political economy is to get a good geographic spread of your subsidies). One of the six plants is to be built in Florida, deep in the cane-growing area. The DOE lists its feedstocks as "yard [?], wood, and vegetative wastes and eventually energycane." So despite the Department of Agriculture saying categorically in a study it published last year that sugar-based ethanol is not economic to produce in the USA, and environmental groups calling for an end to policies that support cane farming on the edge of the fragile Everglades, the government is still trying to raise hopes for a big ethanol boom down there as well. Bye-bye Gulf of Florida.
Now I couldn't help notice that you did not respond to any of the comments regarding subsidies. Care to tackle that topic?
Yes, I suppose we all are remiss for not picking up on some of your other points. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to subsidies. If your corn-farming buddies want to pool their own money and build an ethanol plant -- or a plant to produce biodegradable paper plates -- fine. Nobody would complain. It is not an issue of whether farmers should be making ethanol or chemicals from corn, it is whether, and how much, they should be subsidized to do it -- not only subsidized, but demanding and getting a government guarantee that there will be a market for their product!
In that context, I can't help but read with awe your observation that "with politically powerful corporate players like ADM, the corn industry had the clout to play with the big boys (e.g. coal, oil, natural gas) when federal incentives were liberally distributed in 1978 and 1980." Quite correct. But should we be applauding ADM? If so, should we not equally applaud Enron, "for taking on the big boys?" I thought you stood for the little guys!
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Jon Rynn Posted 3:36 am
18 Jun 2007
In the long run that might lead to 100 percent displacement of electricity for liquid fuels, but that is a very long run indeed and I'm all for the market and entrepreneurialism making that decision.
The best way, in the very long run, to have an all-electric transportation system is to switch to a train-centered transportation system, no? I don't see how the market can do that. Also, it terms of local self-reliance, it seems to me that light-rail controlled by local communities is more in the spirit than a globalized auto industry. In the same vein, wouldn't a local, or at least national light-rail capability also be more self-reliant? Currently, there is no American subway industry, and NYC has to take bids from Japan and Europe; the NYC region, along with others, could certainly support a home-grown subway industry.
One other thing that confuses me about your interest in biofuels -- and by the way, I have commented previously about using plant matter to replace petro-derived feedstocks -- is that you don't seem to be pushing for localized agriculture, around cities, using permaculture/intensive agriculture; I don't see how monoculture agriculture, in which the cities are basically stuck waiting for grain from the midwest and fruits and vegetables from California, advances local self-reliance.
Finally, thanks very much for responding, your work continues to inform mine.
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justlou Posted 3:38 am
18 Jun 2007
Actually, I (justlou) did address this in my first comment:
"Even with local production, the economics dictate very large scale development of infrastructure on the farm and in the factory."
I believe this will be the case. Regardless of ownership, the development of cellulosic ethanol is not going to be some farm shop welding project. The scale and investment costs on this will be huge. There is also a question of how you will get farmers to invest in the machinery and buildings to harvest and store the massive tonnages of material. And how they will allocate time from their existing crops to harvest the alternative cellulose crops. None of this is going to happen without huge investments of taxpayer dollars in the form of subsidies and loans. So, just how local is it?
"This is a reason for stockpiling crops"
With increasing world demand for both food and fuel, do you really think we can stockpile enough crop to make up for a severe shortfall in production? Plus, what would be the potential cost to the economy of $10 or more per bushel of corn if a serious drought does occur in the Midwest? Remember, I am focusing on corn ethanol here, the subject of the original post, and not your advocacy of decentralization which I happen to agree with.
"Steenblik says that the first cellulosic ethanol plants will use corn stover. I'd actually prefer that"
Agronomists warn that removing the stalks from the fields would result in a reduction of soil organic matter on at least 50% of crop land if this becomes widely practiced.
" amazingdrx says E15 lowers mileage by 10 percent or so. E15 is not sold"
Not yet. There are proposals in the works to increase the ethanol content in gasohol from 10% to 15%.
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Tom Philpott Posted 3:40 am
18 Jun 2007
I confess to being confused by your assertion that "sustainability requires molecules." Let me ponder it some more.
But leaving that aside, let me pose a few questions.
1) Your group is devoted to decentralized economies and local control of resources. But since its origins in the 1970s, ethanol production has been driven by Big Ag interests like ADM and Cargill. For a time, farmer-owned ethanol cooperatives were gaining traction, but since the latest round of government support (ie, last year's energy bill), most of the cash sweeping into ethanol has come from Wall Street. How can do you square this government-protected gold rush with your pro-local ideals?
In fact, i think ADM alone still produces about a quarter of US ethanol (correct me if I'm wrong.) Cargill probablly owns another 5 percent of the market. Tha's a CR2 of 30--low by ag standards, but still pretty damned concentrated. These companies' deep pockets will give them tremendous leverage to buy up assets at bargain prices, including farmer-owned assets, in the nearly inevitable event of a downturn in ethanol prices. Are farmers who invest in ethanol plants not exposing themselves to huge risks--and do they really know that?
2) Let's say a farmer-owned cooperative in Iowa builds local wealth by growing corn and transforming it into ethanol, capturing the "value added" to corn that would otherwise accrue to, say, ADM. I can see how that would square with ILSR goals.
But in growing that corn, the Iowa farmers are apply agrichemicals that end up in the Gulf of Mexico, where a giant algae bloom blots out sea life and wrecks local fishing economies. How do you square these outcomes.
3) Your argument seems to amount to, yes, corn-based ethanol is imperfect, but it has gotten us to the point where cellulosic ethanol is possible, thus corn-based ethanol is valuable.
But is cellulosic ethanol actually viable--and will it be so in the next decade? If so, i missed the news release. I keep reading ag economists like Runge saying cellulosic is a decade off. How long are we going to have to put up with ever larger, ever more intensively cultivated corn plantings before cellulose arrives?
And how much will it cost to convert plants built for corn as a feedstock to cellulose--and who will make those investments?
4) I don't understand your support of corn stover as a cellulosic feedstock. Corn is a heavy feeder; harvesting its residue only puts more pressure on the soil, surely a key asset in any rural economy.
At least in theory, native prairie grasses could be sustainably harvested.
Your use of Pimentel is puzzling. He says corn ethanol is worthless from an ecological standpoint, and cellulosic is even worse. Wow. That's hardly a powerful argument for corn-based ethanol. In fact, if Pimentel is even close to being right, your whole argument that corn provides a useful bridge to cellulose crumbles, and the whole push for biofuel is a tragic waste of resources.
You say that scale should be a factor in government support for biofuel. But scale seems to have no place in the political discourse. Indeed, politicians seem bent on promoting the largest scales possible--24 billion gallons, now 36 bollion gallons, and so on.
Why is ILSR boosting ethanol as a catchall policy response, rather than region-appropriate initiatives? Why not conservation as an emphasis?
Farmers in the grain belt can certainly try to build wealth by entering the energy business. But why not devote resources instead to entering the value-added, direct-to-consumer food business, as suggested by the work of Ken Meter? Rather than grow ever more resource-intensive corn for an industrial ethanol market, why shouldn't they diversify their plantings and produce higher-value food for their neighbors? And why should public policy prod them into doing the former and not the latter?
Victual Reality
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:37 am
18 Jun 2007
Morris' comment about using plants for "molecules" and "feedstock" did not have to do with fuel or energy, but with all of the things now used, mainly by oil, for things like chemicals, plastics, drugs, lubricants, etc. etc. Since transport takes up about 70% of oil use, about 20% (rough figures) is used for feedstock. Even when oil is too expensive to use for transportation, it will still be a deal to use it for feedstocks. Products derived from oil are much more expensive, by weight, then gasoline.
So even if we electrified all transport (with solar/wind), we'd still need to replace oil for feedstocks. Some of this might be not replaced, but dropped -- do we really need plastic bottles? We don't know how many chemicals are toxic, could be done without, etc. But there might be some amount that it would be really nice to have some feedstocks for (again, using manufacturing processes based on electricity, not fuel). That is the idea Morris poses, and I think it is the only legitimate long-term use of plants, besides as food. Sorry if you assumed this, but I wasn't sure
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atreyger Posted 5:09 am
18 Jun 2007
I have a question about subsidies to Ron: what are your, and your organization's goals regarding subsidies? I believe that subsidies can be and sometimes are a good thing; for example, interest free loans for college education.
Ag subsidies are a mixed bag: the goal is to provide enough food at a cheap price, which seems to have been achieved, albeit with disastrous consequences. Also, I did not fully understand your statement regarding my previous comment on subsidies. Instead you mentioned Mohair, which at the time worked out great for the nation, Fifth Reich averted? Granted, these subsidies are still around, but are you just using a shotgun approach to subsidy reform: kill 'em all now, sort 'em out later?
I think in order to understand the majority of your comments, I, at the least, and maybe others need to understand what your and your organizations' goals are, what are your intentions and solutions. So far, most of what I see goes like this: this subisidy is bad and here are the reasons. If this is your intention, why not go after the bigger fish?
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Ron Steenblik Posted 5:53 am
18 Jun 2007
We are concentrating on subsidies that have, or at least have the potential to have, negative consequences for the environment and for developing countries. See our web page: http://www.globalsubsidies.org
I believe that subsidies can be and sometimes are a good thing; for example, interest free loans for college education.
I agree. The GSI would agree. Check our web pages. See anything there against education subsidies, or health-care subsidies?
Ag subsidies are a mixed bag: the goal is to provide enough food at a cheap price, which seems to have been achieved, albeit with disastrous consequences.
That "the goal is to provide enough food at a cheap price" is one version of the story, part of the continuing myth. It is what Food Stamps (which are not suggesting be eliminated) are for. The basic problem with commodity-based farm subsidies is that they get capitalized into the value of farmland. Once in place, and in place for a long time, they become very difficult to dislodge. Payments to protect the environmental amenities associated with rural land can be positive, if designed well. Current biofuel subsidies are in conflict with such land uses.
Also, I did not fully understand your statement regarding my previous comment on subsidies.
I was asking you to provide an example of a subsidy program (related to agriculture) that involved a one-off subsidy, and then a stream of declining subsidies. Most subsidy programs quickly become entrenched.
Instead you mentioned Mohair, which at the time worked out great for the nation, Fifth Reich averted? Granted, these subsidies are still around, but are you just using a shotgun approach to subsidy reform: kill 'em all now, sort 'em out later?
I mentioned mohair as a rare example of a subsidy that was killed once. But even it wouldn't stay dead. No, our approach is not "kill 'em all now, sort 'em out later?" There enough new ones being proposed to keep us busy. For those, our advice would be: think them through, very, very thoroughly.
I think in order to understand the majority of your comments, I, at the least, and maybe others need to understand what your and your organizations' goals are, what are your intentions and solutions. So far, most of what I see goes like this: this subisidy is bad and here are the reasons. If this is your intention, why not go after the bigger fish?
Like I said, please see our website (and the various issues of Subsidy Watch. We are going after bigger fish, and are this summer starting a big project on subsidies to fossil fuels. Big enough for you?
But don't think of subsidies to biofuels as small. They may be now (if you consider $6 billion a year "small"), but some politicians are calling for biofuel mandates that, in combination with current (much less proposed future) subsidies could cost the U.S. Treasury tens of billions of dollars a year -- more than total farm subsidies are already.
So, in order to understand the majority of your comments, how about sharing your intentions and solutions?
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David Morris Posted 6:21 am
18 Jun 2007
Thanks again for responding thoughtfully. I love a good conversation. I can't say I'm going to respond every few hours but a number of people in the original comments raised the issue of subsidies, as they did in their comments on my response, so let me say a few words on this important topic.
People tack a different tack on subsidies. Some propose we end all subsidies to all fuels and let the chips fall where they may. Others support the use of subsidies temporarily but want to end them when they are no longer needed.
My take on ethanol subsidies was fleshed out in a June 21, 2006 Op Ed in the New York Times. In it I expressed opposition to the federal incentive as currently structured, an opposition I've expressed for many years. The current incentive has no cap, has no connection to need, and goes to the oil companies primarily, not the producers. I suggested that part of the incentive be indexed so that when the price of oil was high and the price of corn or cellulose or oilseeds was low, the incentive would disappear. And the rest of the incentive should be converted into a direct incentive rather than a blenders' credit and be allocated up to a certain number of gallons produced per plant per year and a higher incentive go to locally owned plants. We did that in Minnesota and it led to 80 percent of all plants being farmer owned and modest in scale.
By the way, I argue that the same be true of the wind energy incentive. It is a direct incentive to the producer, but because of various restrictions, it actually has little relevance to local owners(e.g. the tax credit can be used only against tax liability from passive income, not ordinary income, which means income from dividends and capital gains only).
If all subsidies to all fuels disappeared, the renewable fuels market would disappear completely, except for those states that have renewable fuels mandates and for a small green premium market. If the full costs of fossil fuels were incorporated into their price this might not occur but that is a complicated political step and perhaps more theoretical than practical.
As I said, I would index incentives. The wind electric incentive today is about 50 percent of the wholesale price of electricity while the ethanol incentive is about 35 percent of the wholesale price of gasoline. There are other subsidies, like those for hybrid and electric cars and PVs, that are somewhat more difficult to calculate in a comparative way.
I believe incentives should be offered on a comparative basis, but that becomes tricky when biomass is involved, for the reason that unlike sunlight and wind, which can be used only to generate some form of energy(thermal, electrical, mechanical), biomass has many possible end uses. So if we were to offer an incentive per kwh, say, or per million Btus, we would actually be favoring a certain end use for biomass and that could be problematic.
This has already occurred. The federal renewable electricity incentive is paid per kWh generated. Poultry manure is considered biomass under amendments to the 1992 law. Minnesota currently offers a very handsome incentive for incinerating turkey manure to generate electricity. When the first plant opens this month, it will be using 50-65% of existing turkey manure in the state. That manure already has an existing market as a fertilizer, so in effect, the state(and federal government) is subsidizing an inferior end use when an unsubsidized superior end use was already taking all the turkey manure generated.
So we need to be nuanced in how we offer the across the board incentive. In the case of the turkey manure, assuming we want to subsidize waste disposal(ILSR does not), then it should be on a per pound basis. But that is hard to translate into a comparative wind or solar incentive.
A couple of briefer responses to others.
Steenblik is right. Half the plants awarded grants by DOE say they will use at least some corn stover. We'll see. The Iogen plant in Idaho, for example, will use little if any corn stover simply because it is contracting for wheat straw and there is little stover available.
Jon Rynn talks about localized agriculture. I agree. ILSR has worked on localizing vegetable production, as well as dairy, etc. production since the beginning. Tom Philpott asked why are boosting ethanol as a catchall policy response and not offering region appropriate initiatives. We do. Indeed, our name explains our decentralist perspective, "local self-reliance". We would not suggest a biomass policy for Nevada or Arizona. Nor would we suggest a solar policy in a significant way for Coos Bay, Oregon.
Several people addressed the issue of scale and ownership. Philpott, for example, says that farmer owned ethanol cooperatives were gaining traction for awhile but now Wall Street is taking the drivers seat. I agree. My question is whether Tom's support of ethanol in 2002, when farmer ownership was the primary ownership model and the ethanol plants were 30-40 million gallons in capacity, was strong. ILSR fought ADM's dominance in the 1980s, helping to change Minnesota's incentive so that it would nurture homegrown value-added alternatives. And we have fought the new absentee owned, 100 million gallon a year structures and argued for public policies that favor local ownership and modest scale. We would be ecstatic if the environmental community took ownership and scale into account in its policies
And yes, my comment about molecules had to do with all the things now made from organic chemicals. Although I would also want to raise the issue of things made from minerals in general, since mining is a major problem.
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atreyger Posted 6:24 am
18 Jun 2007
I really have no specific intentions with regards to subsidies, because I am not an economist nor do I have a clear understanding (not that many people do) of the whole subsidy world. Insofar as biofuels go, I am in full favor of cellulosic biofuels, specifically in terms of low value wood. I am not quite familiar with the actual energy numbers, but it would appear that wood co-generation and flexible feedstock power plants, such as the one in Burlington, VT are the best implementation of low value wood. This is particularly true, as the high value wood and associated genetic material are being mined out across the northeast, with poor form trees with low disease resistance as the remaining stock.
Beyond that, I believe R&D into cellulosic feedstocks for materials (a la David's post) are very promising for future goods production. At the same time, there is also some potential for liquid fuel production. These aspects require subsidies for R&D and infrastructure, since, for starters, the co-generating power facilities are almost as rare as the Dodo.
I can go on about conservation and efficiency, which are both important, but I believe we have already have multiple commenters who covered the topic well enough to an almost zealous fervor.
At the same time, I cannot foresee in the near future any sharp change in our society and economy to reduce fossil fuel consumption. This IS the primary driver for climate change, jabailo notwithstanding, and it stems from previously existing infrastructure and consumer goods in the marketplace: most cars are made for using gasoline. While an effort to reduce the use of fossil fuels is commendable, it is still a REDUCTION, not a cessation. What I believe we need to do is to create alternative renewable fuels that would provide some transitional liquid fuel for the majority of the fleet, combined with creating more efficient vehicles and creating a carbon tax (or cap-and-trade, which appears to be sketchy) to reduce the use of vehicles to the point where we would only need to use only renewable sources of power.
While a tough sell, this can be achieved from a regulatory standpoint, but the need to create an infrastructure to create a transitional liquid fuels would most likely require some sort of a subsidy, whether a governmental one, or a large monetary infusion from the likes of Richard Branson.
I think that's about where I stand.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 6:30 am
18 Jun 2007
How about this?
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David Roberts Posted 6:31 am
18 Jun 2007
Sky-high oil prices and a national ethanol mandate have undermined the rationale for incentives. With oil at $60 a barrel, ethanol can compete with gasoline without federal subsidies. For much of 2005, oil prices approached or surpassed the $60 level. In recent months, they've hovered near $70.
Last year, Congress ordered a near doubling of ethanol sales by 2012. Industry has responded so rapidly that the nation may have enough capacity to meet the Congressional goal by 2008. Indeed, Congress is already debating measures to increase mandated levels to 10 billion gallons in 2010 and 30 billion in 2020.
If the current 51-cent-per-gallon tax credit remains in place, these mandates would cost the Treasury Department $5 billion in 2010 and more than $15 billion in 2020. In the face of high oil prices, such subsidy levels are likely to prove politically untenable when there's no need for tax credits to make ethanol competitive.
Moreover, the rapidly changing structure of the ethanol industry argues for an entirely different kind of incentive. In 2003, some 50 percent of all ethanol refineries and perhaps 80 percent of all proposed plants were controlled by farmers, with an average annual output of about 40 million gallons each. But now, around 80 percent of new ethanol production is coming from plants controlled by absentee owners that produce 100 million to 125 million gallons.
As farmer and ethanol refinery have become delinked, so have biofuels policy and agricultural policy. True, the increased demand for ethanol has benefited farmers, but only modestly, raising the price of a bushel of corn by 10 cents to 15 cents. But when the farmer is also an owner in the refinery, he or she receives annual dividends averaging about 50 cents a bushel and more than $1 a bushel in very profitable years. Farmer-owners can also use an ethanol plant as a hedge against a drop in the price of their raw material. If the price of corn falls, so does the production cost of ethanol; all other things being equal, refinery profits and therefore dividends will rise.
How might Washington redesign the federal incentive to reflect the realities of an increasingly competitive absentee-owned, large-scale ethanol industry?
First, tie incentive levels to an index comprised of the price of a bushel of corn and the wholesale price of a gallon of gasoline. (A similar index can be developed for biodiesel or cellulose-derived ethanol.)
Such an incentive would honor the nation's commitment to both farmers and taxpayers. The farmer-producer would be protected if the price of oil plunged or the price of corn (or soybeans or cellulose) jumped. The taxpayer would be protected from having to underwrite handsome subsidies when the biofuels industry no longer needs them.
Second, transform part of the federal incentive from a gas tax exemption for those who market the ethanol into a direct payment to those who produce it. Minnesota did this in the 1980's, turning an incentive for consumption into one for production.
The new federal producer payment should encourage locally owned ethanol plants while not being a continual drain on federal resources. A payment of 15 cents per gallon for the first 20 million gallons produced each year might be offered to an absentee-owned plant with payment increasing to 25 cents a gallon if the majority of a plant's owners were farmers or local residents. No plant should be able to receive payments for more than 10 years.
Drastically changed times call for a drastically changed federal biofuels incentive, one that minimizes the long-term costs to America's taxpayers while maximizing the long-term benefits to our rural communities and farmers.
grist.org
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GonzoDon Posted 7:05 am
18 Jun 2007
So now we're gonna meet all of our food needs, all of our shelter needs, all of our feedlot needs, all of our plastic-product needs, AND our energy needs by just magically growing everything we need??
This is a chimera, folks. Ain't possible to do all that without another planet earth or two to exhaust in the process. Whether we like it or not, whether we want to or not, our lives and our consumption habits are going to change radically. Mother Nature will force that on us. Many will starve in the process. It ain't gonna be pretty. Unless we start doing something meaningful today.
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Sam Wells Posted 7:37 am
18 Jun 2007
That leaves acid waste, right?
Hey man, it's like making diesel out of fat, which requires extreme caustics such as lye. Great. Now whatcha going to do, pilgrim? Throw it in the river?
I'm waiting for some joker to say we should blast the crap into outer space!
sam
Onward through the fog
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JMG Posted 7:47 am
18 Jun 2007
Having asked about ILSR funding twice and seen you ignore those queries twice, I am led to conclude that you refuse to disclose the sources of your funding, which leads one to infer that you obtain significant funding from the National Corn Growers Assn. or a similar organization, and that you speak for them when you urge us to "give ethanol a chance" -- as if decades of subsidies hadn't already been made.
Ron S's website is an interesting contrast -- its funders are listed right there on the mission page. Good for them.
Congratulations on making Patrick Moore look like a model of integrity -- at least he admits to his nuclear industry funding when asked directly about it.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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David Roberts Posted 7:53 am
18 Jun 2007
grist.org
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odograph Posted 7:59 am
18 Jun 2007
As my closing, in response to:
If all subsidies to all fuels disappeared, the renewable fuels market would disappear completely, except for those states that have renewable fuels mandates and for a small green premium market. If the full costs of fossil fuels were incorporated into their price this might not occur but that is a complicated political step and perhaps more theoretical than practical.
Certainly if effective carbon taxes were applied, and alt fuels still disappeared (losing to "efficiency?") that would be a strong signal that we didn't need, should not have, perscriptions supporting them.
On the political likelihood of a "no subsidy" plan ... I look around and see too few voices for that plan ... even if "it" fails, it might serve to reduce subsidy mania (I hope!).
BTW, did anyone see that Freakanomics used it's pulpit to call for a gas tax? (found via env econ). That's another thing that might not "win" but it might serve a purpose nonetheless. It might (like "no subsidies") encourage less bad behavior.
Anyway, thanks for the replies, best wishes.
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JMG Posted 8:05 am
18 Jun 2007
Insulting is acting like the question wasn't raised or that it is somehow beneath notice.
The Grist and Gristmill archives are loaded with posts about how gets funding from who, and how that influences their policy positions on environmental questions. Is there a "good guys" exception to the rule that it helps to know who's paying the piper when you're trying to figure out why the "good guys" are playing a funny tune that seems to be the same one being played by corporate agribusiness?
If ILSR doesn't take money from the corn lobby, then let them say so and their position in support ethanol will be stronger thereby.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Rune Posted 11:30 am
18 Jun 2007
I keep hearing that Beach Boys song ... "Wouldn't it be nice ..."
Any of our resident poets care to take a crack at rewriting the lyric to address our carbon problems?
Well, here ya go! After singing a few bars, be sure to click on the links to gain even more information and perspective to further this great conversation.
Wouldn't It Be Nice?--Like California Dreamin' All Over Again!
Wouldn't it be nice if solar could scale?
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long.
And wouldn't is be nice if corn was benign?
Then perhaps Morris would not be wrong.
The highest use for plants is no use
The end of wilderness is abuse
Wouldn't it be nice if intense farming
Wasn't wiping out diversity?
But what it would take to go organic
Just might take too long for you and me
It's time to think outside of the box
A battery exchange? Now, that rocks!
Wouldn't it be nice?
Wouldn't it be nice if conservation
Got as much hype as ethanol?
But rather than learn obvious lessons
We pretend we can have it all
But wouldn't it be nice?
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Rune Posted 11:37 am
18 Jun 2007
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Gary Gifford Posted 12:08 pm
18 Jun 2007
Cheers,
Gary Gifford
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Rune Posted 1:12 pm
18 Jun 2007
Let me be the first to say how glad I am that no one is expected to come up with the solution to climate destabilization/peak oil/petro-food/species declines/etc./etc. types of conundrums. Frankly, I am most put off by the people who think there is a simple solution and that they have found it. More often than not, what we are facing are Wicked Problems. The best we can do for ourselves is to pick at them until a fuzzy notion of promising and less promising sets of complex actions emerge from the discussion.
With that in mind, there are some unrealistic ideas, and it helps to expose them so, hopefully, not a lot of time and other resources will be wasted on them. But requiring people to come up with the solution to complex problems marked by uncertainty is itself an unrealistic idea, IMO.
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PeterPage Posted 1:31 pm
18 Jun 2007
We could turn every acre of Middle America into a corn field and not produce enough biofuel for our current fleet of cars and trucks.
We can't resolve our climate change crisis without (along with a long list of other things)drastically reducing gasoline consumption.
The solution is 100 mpg plug-in electric hybrids. With cars like that we won't be burning enough gasoline to matter very much and it won't be very difficult or destructive to produce sufficient biofuel.
Peter Page
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Tom Philpott Posted 1:57 pm
18 Jun 2007
"All of our current problems are unintended negative consequences of our existing technology. The rapid advances in technology during the 20th century have been creating difficult new problems faster than they have been solving old problems: that's why we're in the situation in which we now find oursleves. What makes you think that, as of January 1 2006, for the first time in human history, technology will miraculously stop causing new unanticipated problems while it just solves the problems it previously produced?" --Jared Diamond, Collapse
Of course it's important not to merely complain and tear down; thinking ahead is key. But the search for "solutions" can become a fetish. It's possible that our real problem isn't finding a way to profitably turn corn or grass into liquid fuel for cars; instead, the real challenge may be convincing people in a society hinged on easy consumption to find pleasure in using less.
Victual Reality
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David Roberts Posted 4:17 pm
18 Jun 2007
I assume that most of the people who criticize corn ethanol would offer, as their "positive alternative," a combination of:electrifying transportation as much as possible, as quickly as possible, while greening electricity generation, anddriving less, by some combination of sticks (gas tax), carrots (cheap, clean, fast public transportation), land-use changes (densification), and moral exhortation.No?
grist.org
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justlou Posted 8:39 pm
18 Jun 2007
Maintaining the unsustainable might be constraining the sustainable. Our comfort may be limiting our imagination.
How can we transform the paradigm from big man/small nature to big nature/small man? How can we transform our identities derived from what we consume to what we save?
The solution lies in transforming this maladapted dinosaur into many rapidly evolving, small creatures. We only need to examine the extinctions and explosions of bio and cultural diversity on this planet to imagine what is possible.
Globalization and the fuels that feed it are the enemies of man and nature.
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spaceshaper Posted 9:58 pm
18 Jun 2007
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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odograph Posted 10:43 pm
18 Jun 2007
The perverse thing is, that while everyone knows it would work (given an effective carbon tax), few people are ready to give up their own ego, their own personal (excessively detailed) plan to save the world, and endorse it.
I mean, how the heck can you be a web pundit and expert when you "let everyone" find their personal answer to higher carbon-fuel prices?
And how the heck can you be a powerful politician if you are not negotiating billion dollar deals with industry?
(and at the same time, some of you question the "other guy's" motivation. geez louise.)
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Ron Steenblik Posted 10:47 pm
18 Jun 2007
Yes, we know that the likelihood of Congress passing such a tax is close to nil. Then we need to be absolutely honest about what current biofuel policies in the U.S.A. are doing. The subsidies are, essentially, expanding the supply curve. That is to say, they are INCREASING the amount of motor fuel that can be provided at a given market price. However, the price at which that effect kicks in is relatively high, so we should not pretend (as some biofuel boosters like to do) that the policies are going to reduce gasoline prices down to what they were several years ago. Yet, at the same time, the import tariff is discouraging imports of ethanol from Brazil, which is both cheaper to produce and yields a larger carbon offset.
That points to a number of things that should NOT be done. Raising volumetric targets for "alternative fuels" -- be they ethanol, biodiesel, butanol or liquids from coal -- would be bad policy. So would extending volumetric excise tax credits beyond their expiry date (2008 for biodiesel; 2010 for ethanol). Save a last-minute mass conversion of lawmakers on the road to Damascus, however, it looks probable that these are exactly the policies that Congress will enact. As described in an article by Phil Brasher in last Saturday's edition of the Des Moines Register, the Senate Finance Committee is currently proposing proposing to reduce the 51-cent-per-gallon volumetric ethanol excise tax credit (VEETC) by a nickel some time around 2010, but extend it, and to create a new, additional tax credit of 50 cents per gallon for ethanol made from crop residue, wood and other sources of plant cellulose. That's 96 cents per gallon in total, folks, or around $1.40 per gallon on a gasoline-energy-equivalent basis. Those subsidies would be on top of any state-level production-linked tax incentives or subsidies, state or federal grants or loans for construction of new plants, and any federal subsidy for the feedstock itself (as proposed, for example, in the Thune-Nelson bill, S. 36).
One thing's for sure: whether or not corn ethanol is a "bridge fuel" to some future cellulosic nirvana, it is certainly proving to be a bridge to ever higher subsidies.
Support for R&D, rather than production-related support, would be less economically distorting. But even government R&D budgets are limited, and the money should be spent wisely. It would make no sense, for example, to spend a lot of public money on trying to marginally reduce the cost of producing biodiesel using the standard transesterfication process, given that so much of that cost is determined by the price of the feedstock (oils and fats).
David Morris writes in his New York Times editorial that the federal government should "transform part of the federal incentive from a gas tax exemption for those who market the ethanol into a direct payment to those who produce it." The federal incentive is no longer (as Minnesota's incentive once was) an exemption from the gasoline excise tax; it is a tax credit, which comes out of IRS revenues, rather than money flowing into the Federal Highway Trust Fund. Mr. Morris also writes enthusiastically about the conscious effort Minnesota made to promote smaller, farmer-owned ethanol plants. If the sole criterion for judging that policy is, did it accomplish its goal?, it worked. But whether it was a smart policy from a broader societal perspective is open to question.
The record of U.S. policies intended to favor the yeoman or family farmer is mixed at best, starting with limited allotments of land to settlers of the Great Plains in the 1800s, to the limits that the Bureau of Land Reclamation put on the number of acres that could benefit from BLR-subsidized irrigation water, to more recent attempts to support "small" biofuel plants through the small producers' credit. In all three cases, these limits were either overtaken by market forces (e.g., land consolidation) or quietly revised upwards by Congress. Just a few years ago, the limit on the size of a biofuel plant that could benefit from the additional 10-cents-per-gallon small producer's credit was 30 million gallons per year. It is now 60 million gallons per year.
The large economies of scale for cellulosic ethanol plants suggest that any attempt to favor small-scale plants would be expensive indeed. In several of the smaller-scale cellulosic-ethanol demonstration plants being funded by the DOE, the subsidies (i.e., not the total investment) per gallon of annual capacity range from around $2 to $6.50 per gallon of annual capacity. Further research and engineering will reduce those numbers; but they would have to fall a lot to make subsidizing them to a point that their fuel can compete on a price-parity basis with gasoline anything but a very, very expensive proposition.
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odograph Posted 11:04 pm
18 Jun 2007
"Yes, we know that the likelihood of Congress passing such a tax is close to nil."
Did you just write off global warming response, completely?
(it may wait for the next president, but i think we will get a carbon tax (or a similar mechanism) within a few years. the question is whether it will have teeth)
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Ron Steenblik Posted 11:43 pm
18 Jun 2007
Sorry, I should have added, "in this Congressional session." At heart I'm an optimist, so I agree that there is a strong chance that the USA will get a carbon tax (or a similar mechanism) ... eventually. What I'm more worried about is the damage, in the form of unintended consequences, that can be wrought before then.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:48 pm
18 Jun 2007
Then we get a Gulianni (family values, 911 hero). Who will invade Iran to get more oil.
And a GOP house and senate to rubber stamp more war on terror and gas guzzling. It will not get any kind of carbon tax passed.
Never forget the rove swiftboat. In fact, since gulianni is a cross dressing, serial marrying, farce of a leader. These atributes will be transferred to his opponents.
Bush was a war dodger. So they swiftboated Kerry as faking his military career.
This is politics in the foxnoise, drudge, murdoch media age.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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atreyger Posted 11:50 pm
18 Jun 2007
Hey now...
ANY policy is open to question on whether it was a smart policy from a broader societal perspective. Unless it's something along the lines of: we shall enforce not killing puppies.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 12:19 am
19 Jun 2007
That's all
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Jon Rynn Posted 12:53 am
19 Jun 2007
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:01 am
19 Jun 2007
Odo,
An earlier comment you made:
Just curious, how many are ready to support the Sierra Club and Cato "no subsidy" plan? To let the future find its own winners?
And how many want the same political game, but with their "winner" winning?
This really rubs the wind, solar, hydrogen, biodiesel, butanol, coal to liquid, pyrolysis, geothermal bla bla bla enthusiasts wrong, but you are right. A dumb, self serving, bloated, bumbling bureaucracy is picking winners. How? By oiling the squeakiest wheels, the squeakiest of which has been ethanol for the last 30 years.
We need to find a way to force government out of the business of picking winners for us and back into the business of creating level playing fields for competitors. Back in the 70's and early 80's the government funded solar hot water. As soon as the funding was ended in 86, the solar water industry collapsed and many used solar panels can be found on the market today from the defunct heating systems. Enthusiasts of today have cobbled together a number of excuses for why it collapsed and why the funding should be reinstated, but in reality, it was an example of government bumbling. It was an expensive boondoggle. The ethanol industry will do the same thing the minute the government pulls its funding, the funding it has been feeding it for over thirty years. We are propping up the ag industry and fighting wars with tax money that should go to things like health care.
Your four word answer ("carbon tax, no subsidies") is a way to create a level playing field. I just hope that they don't keep the money collected from such a tax but instead find a way to return it to the consumer, maybe with health care for its citizens.
I do feel that government should generously fund research. Billions in research funds would be drop in the bucket compared to the subsidies approach and would be much more productive.
Ron,
As with Odo, your thoughts consistently run parallel to my own.
The ehtanol tariff is a double edged sword, as we have discussed before. Dropping it would destroy carbon sinks where ever cane can be grown. Dropping the tarif, mandates, and subsidies while imposing a carbon incentive would be a good idea. The whole ethanol industry would likely just disapear, allowing entreprenuers to find the best solutions.
Our government has not slapped a tariff on Japanese hybrids yet, but I can almost see them doing it. Screw the citizen consumer at large to line the pockets of special interests like the ethanol/Detroit cabal and its live green comedy act.
Mr. Morris also writes enthusiastically about the conscious effort Minnesota made to promote smaller, farmer-owned ethanol plants. If the sole criterion for judging that policy is, did it accomplish its goal?, it worked. But whether it was a smart policy from a broader societal perspective is open to question.
I concur.
In all three cases, these limits were either overtaken by market forces (e.g., land consolidation) or quietly revised upwards by Congress. Just a few years ago, the limit on the size of a biofuel plant that could benefit from the additional 10-cents-per-gallon small producer's credit was 30 million gallons per year. It is now 60 million gallons per year.
The large economies of scale for cellulosic ethanol plants suggest that any attempt to favor small-scale plants would be expensive indeed.
Dead on. Mr. Morris is tapping the public purse to fulfill his personal fantasy of thriving, robust rural communities, which is a euphemism for sprawl, and is counter to urbanization and all the envrionmental benefits it imparts. Substituting a water sucking, conservation reserve land grabbing, air polluting, ethanol refinery for a strip mall isn't what I call progress.
If ethanol isn't the answer what is? Let the entrepreneurs find it in their quest for profit. Get the special interest and competing energy enthusiast lobbyists out of the way. If ethanol is destined to fill the tiny gas tanks of plug-in hybrids (which by the way, are not the result of pouring hundreds of billions of tax dollars for decades into special interest subsidies) the market will say so. I find it intensely ironic that Mr. Morris wants to pair his multi-billion dollar government prop job with a recent entrepreneurial break through, the plug-in hybrid car.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Ron Steenblik Posted 1:14 am
19 Jun 2007
Design trains that look like bigger versions of Hummers, with (fake) machine guns on top, and everybody but everybody will be beating down the doors to ride in them.
;-)
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:25 am
19 Jun 2007
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Rune Posted 3:55 am
19 Jun 2007
How can we transform our identities derived from what we consume to what we save?
I shared some thoughts about that, albeit in a slightly different context, on AlterNet recently. Here is what I wrote about the personal transformations that must add up to a collective shift in consciousness if those in the most developed countries are to find meaningful and satisfying ways of living without dooming many generations to come (or not come, as the case may be).
--
Simply by identifying as a consumer, one places the marketing and P.R. forces of manufacturers in a position to pile up profits by burning up more of the planet to sell it to us. Being a consumer is all about getting the maximum, immediate emotional gratification from the consumption of stuff that one can with a given budget. That means buying as much stuff as possible (oh boy, bargains!) or buying the stuff that is loaded with the most potent emotional triggers. And today, everyone is conditioned to see anything green as a status booster and anxiety reliever, so much so that they will load up on anything marketed as "green" or "sustainable" without really thinking through the implications of the life cycle of such products and what they really mean for society or the natural environment the same way a dieter might binge on anything labeled low-fat or low-carb without stopping to ask do I need this?, do I like this?, or is this really healthy?
The truth is, we can't consume our way to a more stable, less dangerous environment unless we reverse the growth of human populations in wealthy and rapidly developing nations. Worldwide, "clean" energy, excluding hydro (which isn't really sustainable or significantly expandable given the life of dams and global warming's impact on regional water supplies) accounts for a small fraction of 1% of today's energy use. Clean energy is struggling to grow at a 30% to 40% annual growth rate. There is no way that clean energy can come close to keeping up with the 1% to 3% population growth going on in moderate to high energy consuming nations given the extremely small scale of the industry today and current and projected growth rates. Even the most optimistic projections for the next few years have clean energy losing ground to the projected increase in demand. And so it is with green products people are gobbling up while throwing away vast amounts of old "junk" (which may not be junk at all) and copious amounts of packaging that no one seems to think about when they buy their "green" products.
As consumers, people want to think they can buy their way to personal improvement, social acceptance, a better future, and an immediate sense of self worth and well being. The flip side is that this leaves consumers feeling very vulnerable to any suggestions that they reduce or limit their consumption. This creates a powerful opportunity for marketers and PR people to push the buttons of consumers to get them to devote their lives to gathering resources and blowing them on shopping sprees. "Green" is just one more trigger to get people to try to buy their way to happiness, over and over, like a cursed character pushing a rock up a hill as if he can actually get where he wants to be that way.
The only real way out is to quit seeing ourselves as consumers and start seeing ourselves creative members of our communities who infuse life with meaning and value by learning and doing, shopping and devouring. Sure we need a certain amount of stuff to live and a little extra is great for play. But when getting more and newer stuff becomes an obsession, which it is, by definition, among people who see themselves primarily as consumers, shopping is stressful, truth is obscured, and the message about a sucker being born every minute takes on a whole new meaning on an overburdened planet.
Stuff can be a thrill, but very few people ever end up on their death beds saying, "oh, if only I had worked more so I could have bought more stuff that I would not have had time to enjoy anyhow!" All this stuff, even the stuff with the green veneer, is killing us and killing our planet. We need to quit being consumers in a perpetual junk food feeding frenzy and start becoming humanists and materialists, that is people with a deep appreciation for a few excellent humans and fine materials in our lives. New and improved is something to be, not something to buy.
--
I am not particularly hopeful about the prospects of such a shift in consciousness taking place. For one thing, there are not a lot of resources being devoted to helping people make such a profound change. And, of course, profound changes in society don't usually come easily unless they are preceded by changes in technology that makes it easy and attractive to fall into new habits and expectations--which is largely, though not completely, in opposition to the post-techno-consumer shift I have in mind. Meanwhile, we have a growing concentration of wealth in the hands of interests that are not only hell bent on using every lever at their disposal to keep the masses entrained to shop till they drop, but actively extinguish most attempts to popularize movements toward simplicity, self-sufficiency, or stepping off the work-and-spend treadmill by portraying such self preserving tactics as a threat to the well being of the economy (oh, the irony!) as well as a ticket to untold hardship and impoverishment.
And so, here we are, held captive on a dying planet by our own thoughts, which have us choosing palliatives we know to be poisonous rather than addressing the causes of the disease. In the past, when the disease was merely a source of irritation, that may have worked. Now, multiplied by the increasing power of our technological knowledge and ability, which is growing even faster than the geometric progression of population increases that further exacerbate the consequences of the condition, we may have truly reached The Cancer Stage of Capitalism.
I don't believe there is a surgical solution, a techno-fix, if you will. This is an inoperable cancer, at this stage. What we seem to need is the modern day equivalent of a shaman, who can heal by shifting the perceptions, and, thus, the functions, of those who choose to be guided. It is not clear to me that many will make that choice even if they happen to find such a guide.
"The earth, said he, hath a skin; and this skin hath diseases. One of these diseases, for example, is called 'man.'"
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, from Thus Spake Zarathustra
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odograph Posted 4:22 am
19 Jun 2007
(A lot's been written on that treadmill, much worth reading.)
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atreyger Posted 4:35 am
19 Jun 2007
Depressing, ain't it? I'm more of an optimist and think that there is not one single solution, but things will turn out for the better. And if not, then I'll be dead, and it probably won't matter to me then.
Biod,
Plug-in hybrids are a result of entrepreneurialism? I think it's a result of a successful corporation, which I believe, and correct me if I am wrong, has been and is being helped out quite a bit by state, federal and international governmental bodies through tax breaks and improved tariffs. Of course, there is clearly a certain amount of ingenuity in it, but is this really a good example of a non-subsidy free market? Also, it's clearly a result of a good ad campaign and a good market strategy, at which ethanol and flex fuel people are obviously not as successful.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 4:50 am
19 Jun 2007
Green Energy Resources predicts $50 per ton biomass woodchip prices within the next twelve months. The current US price level is between $25-32 per ton. Demand caused by the 25-30 new power plants planned in New England by 2010 does not include industry, institutions, universities, hospitals or conversions from natural gas, or cellulostic ethanol. Procurement of woodchips will be based on the delivery capacity of suppliers not local prices for the first time in history. Green Energy has been positioning in New England with rail and port locations to meet the anticipated sector expansion.
Green Energy Resources mitigated risk management approach offers power plants guaranteed supplies regardless of market or weather conditions. Green Energy Resources recently obtained rights for over 1 million tons of standing timber in the southeast US and has options on wood generated from future hurricanes as well as its Urban Tree Certification System (UTCS). Additionally, Green Energy Resources is the only biomass supply company to offer carbon-offset credits through its own platform, and has submitted an application to trade and register the credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange.
New power plants have mandatory requirements for supply contracts prior to obtaining financing and permitting. The current situation is similar to California in the 1970s. Then, consultants indicated an abundance of supply but failed to realize the number of competing regional plants would exhaust supplies in a short period of time. This led to many plant closures throughout California within a few years of their opening. A nearly identical situation is developing throughout New England unless woodchips are transported from beyond traditional limits.
The rush to build alternative power plants has been driven by the need to create local energy reliability performance as a result of the 2004 blackout and the Northeast Regional Renewable Portfolio Standards(RPS) enacted in 2006. Nine (9) New England states, including Maryland and Delaware [sic], comprise the regional greenhouse-gas initiative that became effective in 2007. The plan includes mandatory reliability standards in eighty-three categories now enforceable by the North American Electric reliability Corporation (NERC) under federal law with fines up to $1 million for non performance. [My emphasis and punctuation.]
I have not been following the U.S. market for biomass-power, but from what I have seen in Europe, the economics of generating heat and power from woody biomass is much better than for turning that biomass into ethanol. What this announcement seems to suggest is that -- no surprise -- thanks to competition from other sectors, assumptions about an abundant availability of cheap woody feedstocks may also be over-optimistic.
P.S., Great posts, BioD and Odograph. We should thank David Morris for generating a lively and interesting discussion!
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Rune Posted 5:49 am
19 Jun 2007
Depressing, ain't it? I'm more of an optimist and think that there is not one single solution, but things will turn out for the better. And if not, then I'll be dead, and it probably won't matter to me then.
Well, no, I am not depressed by this situation. I would like it to be different, and I take pleasure in helping some people make a difference, if only at an individual level or in moderately sized groups. And that is why I am not depressed by the typical and messy bumbling of my particular cohorts in this particular chapter of the dramatic and often ridiculous story of human history.
Look, people screw things up big time for other people, and often for other species. That's just a part of what we do. Always has been, probably always will be, for so long as there are humans.
Just the same, many people have managed to lead, rich and meaningful lives. I rather enjoy that myself. There are no "solutions," but there are ways to increase or diminish hope, wisdom, justice, comfort, curiosity, creativity, pleasure, and love for the many during our own brief moment to appreciate the sentient experience. I am onboard for increasing, rather than diminishing, those fine qualities of life.
Of course, my ideas about how to keep the party rolling without undue damage to person or place may not be immediately obvious or acceptable to some of my co-hosts. That's to be expected. And, so, from time to time, I speak up about that and point out where I think some of their ideas might be far fetched, if not downright dangerous. It's only fair, as there seems to be no end to the number of people who will take it upon themselves to shoot down ideas that I and people like me find promising, all the while promoting their own idea of the true secret of life.
I don't think it is necessary to attack people's politics, when we can just explain the hedonic treadmill, and how jumping off might make us happier.
Well, Odograph, I assume that comment was in reaction to my previous post, and, if so, it does seem that you have said a mouthful. For instance, I put the focus on personal perception and empowerment in the context of pervasive economic institutions, and from this you seem to have come away with the notion that I have "attacked" someone's personal "politics." Tell me, who is it you have in mind, and what brand of politics might that be?
If I wanted to talk about one of the mechanisms underpinning the psychological, social, economic, and environmental dynamics I briefly sketched, I could have confined my comments to the "hedonic treadmill." But that was neither my intention nor my point.
Oh, well, party on, dude! <grin>
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DBL J Posted 5:59 am
19 Jun 2007
As if that were not enough do a google search on wood pelleting. Some large players in the Northeast and in Florida are significantly increasing capacity, in the northeast it makes sense since wood pellets can replace heating oil and economically I might add, but a huge pelleting operation in Florida where is the market?.............The EU
Because of policy decisions, and a lack of enough biomass, the swedes, as well as other EU contries are building pellet plants all over the place. Canada, Florida, South Africa, etc.
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odograph Posted 6:05 am
19 Jun 2007
I can hear "cancer stage of capitalism" and have a friendly conversation ... but I know people to the right of me who would turn off their ears.
Do they need to be turned off?
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wecandobetter Posted 6:06 am
19 Jun 2007
If we had to use biofuels, hemp is the best one because of its multiple harvests, uses, and because it is the least harmful to the land.
If we really wanted to fix our energy problems we'd stop buying so much stuff and create communities that are conducive to public transportation (walking and bicycles).
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:50 am
20 Jun 2007
Plug-in hybrids are a result of entrepreneurialism?"
Sure they are, as are cell phones and computers. There are no government mandates to purchase these items.
"I think it's a result of a successful corporation,"
Corporations that invent new products as opposed to just manufacturing existing ones, are acting in an entrepreneurial manner.
"which I believe, and correct me if I am wrong, has been and is being helped out quite a bit by state, federal and international governmental bodies through tax breaks and improved tariffs."
Subsidies are relative. Ethanol has been backed by hundreds of billions for decades and would disappear tomorrow if that support were dropped. When the government gave us the tax credit for hybrid cars they just wasted tax money, as they often do.
"Of course, there is clearly a certain amount of ingenuity in it, but is this really a good example of a non-subsidy free market?"
I don't think there is anything that is totally subsidy free today. The government has it fingers in everything.
"Also, it's clearly a result of a good ad campaign and a good market strategy, at which ethanol and flex fuel people are obviously not as successful."
Actually, until just recently, Toyota spent next to nothing advertising the Prius. Until they finally caught up with demand, there was no reason to waste money to advertise. Not that advertising is inherently bad. Our posts here are advertisements of our views.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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caniscandida Posted 2:17 am
20 Jun 2007
<<
don't think there is anything that is totally subsidy free today. The government has it fingers in everything.
>>
I thought the common wisdom was that the GOP, both in the White House and in their states, are doing their best to privatize as much as possible.
<<
Not that advertising is inherently bad. Our posts here are advertisements of our views.
>>
Whoa. Major confusion alert!
All you posting contributors presumably believe sincerely in the truth of what you post. Commercial advertisers do not.
All you posting contributors presumably do not base your livelihood or enrichment on our agreement with your assertions, and our being moved to act in accord with such agreement. Commercial advertisers do.
Commercial advertising is a major ill and weakness of our civilization.
It is evil, that we allow people to lie, hoping in our gullibility, to our harm.
It is even more evil, that we encourage people to believe they are doing good, to themselves and even to society, by such lying.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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JMG Posted 2:22 am
20 Jun 2007
I would prefer to maintain the perhaps quaint distinction between advertisements and content.
I think our posts state our views. Unlike the BS image advertising from GE that so often pollutes this site, the posters here aren't selling anything.
(But if you DO want to post a paid ad for a hybrid bike conversion kit, I'm sure Grist would offer you an attractive rate, and many of us would be delighted to make an inquiry as a result.)
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:02 am
20 Jun 2007
Many ads reflect the beliefs of the advertisers, even though they may be wrong. Grist advertises. Many ads simply imply things, like coolness, which may or may not be true, or may become true as a result of the ad. Anti-smoking ads reflect the beliefs of the advertisers and implies anti-coolness. Political ads, regardless of party can be very deceptive. Not all ads are created equal. Ultimately, it is up to the recipient to decide. All ads should be viewed with skepticism. Skepticism should be taught in our schools. Positive attitudes are over rated :-(
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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caniscandida Posted 3:30 am
20 Jun 2007
It is not so much a matter of which advertiser is telling us the truth. It is a matter of understanding that some advertisers do not themselves believe what they are telling us to be true, but are very interested in getting us to believe it.
Of course skepticism should be taught in our schools. And, I would add, so should cynicism.
The too easy granting of our trust is what American school children have for many generations been rewarded for, happily receiving gentle pats on their towheads. American school children should be taught instead to mistrust. Starting with their parents. (They already mistrust their teachers plenty, which actually should give us a good foundation to build upon.)
As the young Herod Agrippa says to the young Claudius, in Robert Graves's "I, Claudius," "Trust no one, little marmoset." That was good advice during the Roman Empire; and now that we are the latest avatar of the Roman Empire, apparently, it is good advice for us too.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Ron Steenblik Posted 5:14 am
20 Jun 2007
I thought the common wisdom was that the GOP, both in the White House and in their states, are doing their best to privatize as much as possible.
Privatization is a question of ownership. Almost all the energy corporations that receive subsidies (apart from some municipal and federal electric utilities), and all the farmers, and all the automobile manufacturers are "private". Has that fact dented the government's enthusiasm for corporate welfare?
And as for the subsidy habits of the current administration and their friends, may I suggest as background reading "The Conservative Nanny State."
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caniscandida Posted 5:25 am
20 Jun 2007
But you know what I am talking about: governmental functions and operations put in the hands of private contractors.
We are talking about different things, in other words. "The subsidy habit" of the present administration is well known here in Gristmill, and should be much better known more generally. And along with that, it should be better publicized, how environmental regulations have not been enforced.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Rune Posted 11:35 am
20 Jun 2007
Mexican farmers replace tequila plant with corn
Ethanol demand has doubled corn prices, making it more profitable than agave.
Tequila, Mexico - - Martha Venegas Trujillo stands in the center of the town square of Tequila, the heart of a plan to connect distilleries, archeological sites, craftsmakers, and restaurants via a route called the "Tequila Trail."
Her eyes shine. A highlight of the project she is coordinating, modeled after similar tourist circuits such as California's Napa Valley, are the miles and miles spent driving past the blue-hued agave fields that blanket the state of Jalisco.
But imagine if those fields, which were named a UNESCO World Heritage site last year, looked more like the American Great Plains, fringed instead by towering stalks of corn.
Far-fetched, Ms. Venegas Trujillo and her colleagues at the Tequila Regulatory Council say. Still, about one-quarter of those who grow agave, which is used in the production of tequila, are expected to burn their fields to make way for corn, as prices have nearly doubled from what they were a year ago, due to US ethanol demand.
Agave is not the only casualty of the corn-based ethanol craze. Mexican beans, potatoes, rice, and barley have all been mowed over for corn, a crop whose origins reside in ancient Mexican lore but has long been associated with poverty: corn farmers who can't compete and head north, Mexicans who can afford nothing but. . . .
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:50 am
20 Jun 2007
This isn't a very well understood term, but basically the concept is to "level the playing field".
By default this means removing all subsidies, but it can also mean giving subsidies proportionately.
Much like when you have competative sports, the only time you're going to have REAL competition is with a level playing field.
That said, if Solar got anywhere near the subsidies that is lavished on Corn, we'd have to pay people to take them off our hands.
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sunflower Posted 1:11 pm
20 Jun 2007
Solar is the friend of humanity.
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ethanol Posted 4:53 pm
05 Jul 2007
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