Kevin Drum says:
I don't know if George Bush loves switchgrass because he got a visit from the switchgrass lobby or because someone just whispered the word in his ear, but who cares?
Well, if you happen to care, you may be interested in what David Bransby, professor of energy crops at Auburn University, said Wednesday on NPR's All Things Considered. He has called and emailed regularly with the office of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). One of the last emails claimed, in Bransby's words, that switchgrass "was a last minute inclusion in the speech, and it was Senator Sessions that helped get it into there." Sessions' spokesflack later confirmed that Sessions had a heart-to-heart with Al Hubbard, the chairman of Bush's National Economic Council, last Friday.
This AP story has Sessions reacting enthusiastically:
U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions praised the president's plans for energy reform, saying his goal to replace more than 75 percent of the country's oil imports from the Middle East by 2025 is a "big challenge" but one that Alabama could play a role in accomplishing.
"He really made some big commitments concerning bio fuels," Sessions, R-Mobile, said. "He talked about using wood chips and switch grass (in ethanol production) and Alabama's got great potential for that."
Sessions said he's supported research at Auburn University involving switch grass for the past several years, and "it looks like we're at a point where 'swithcraft' could help."
Why might Sessions be so psyched about switchgrass?
Well, in 1999 he said:
Some say wind, solar, and biomass technologies are the way to meet our air pollution goals. I know of some good research projects. One in my home state uses switch grass and coal to help produce electricity. It is an environmentally friendly project, and I hope it will be successful.
In 2005, he was one sponsor of the ...
... Vehicle and Fuel Choices for American Security Act, which would direct the White House Office of Management and Budget to publish a plan to reduce oil consumption by 2.5 million barrels per day by 2016 and 10 million barrels daily by 2031. .... The targets could be achieved with cars that burn ethanol and other alternative fuels, hybrid-electric and plug-in hybrid-electric cars, and fuel cells.
Many of the Senate bill's sponsors are from states where farming and forestry are important components of their economies.
Alabama Power company, one of the Department of Energy's "Green Power Partners," offers a Renewable Energy Rate that gives residential customers the option of purchasing blocks of renewable energy. According to DoE, "the initial source of the green power will be Alabama-grown switchgrass co-fired in a utility-owned coal-fired power plant."
It looks like the Senator from Alabama may be responsible for one of the most left-field phrases in recent SOTU memory -- a real teleprompter-squinter for Bush.
(Incidentally, is it me, or is Bush's energy policy nothing but spastic flailing toward this well-connected special interest and that? There's no other discernable pattern.)
One last thing Kevin says I would take some issue with:
If the left loves ethanol for environmental reasons and the right loves it so we don't have to buy so much oil from Saudi Arabia, maybe there's a deal to be made.
I don't know about "the left," but I don't think smart environmentalists "love ethanol" -- not without qualification. In reality, "ethanol" in the context of American politics means domestic ethanol, and that means corn-based ethanol. Corn is already heavily subsidized and grown by some of the worst actors in the corporate world, and as a chemical-heavy, soil-depleting monoculture, it's not exactly an unmixed environmental blessing.
I would love ethanol if it were cellulosic, but right now it's not, and I've yet to hear anything more than techno-optimism about how "wood chips, stalks, and switch grass" are going to get more voluminous and cheap than corn any time soon.
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atreyger Posted 5:28 pm
03 Feb 2006
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amazingdrx Posted 9:08 pm
03 Feb 2006
"The prospect of cheap cellulosic ethanol makes it possible to envision a very different energy landscape. Since it doesn't require fuel-intensive refining, Iogen's product would provide a net energy gain"
This is a bit misleading. Actually the Iogen process requires more processing energy than ethanol from corn does. Which is what it ought to be compared too.
Sam is comparing it to the energy intensive process of breaking down the cellulose into fermentable starch and sugar using large industrial pressure cooking, similar to the process used to break down cellulose to make paper.
The Iogen process uses a bacteria that works like a natural organism in a wasp's digestive system to break down the cellulose. That adds an extra fermentation process which takes more energy than the single fermentation of corn mash.
The lower price of ethanol from the Iogen process is due to the feedstock, crop waste, wood chips, or switchgrass is a lot cheaper than corn.
And the net energy gain from cellulosic ethanol is from the lack of chemical fertilizer needed to grow switchgrass and the fact that crop waste gets a free ride (so to speak) fertilizer wise, because the cost of the fertilizer is absorbed by the food portion of the crop, the grain or corn.
Monoculture switchgrass taking over the land now in conservation would further devestate the environment and burning more fossil fuel or using more nuclear power to process crop waste will cause more green house gas and other pollution and contamination related to nuclear power.
Only cellulosic ethanol from crop and food waste processed with wind, solar, and by using heat pumps to make fermentation and distillation much more efficient will be an eco-friendly method.
And taking all that crop waste, normally tilled back in, out of the soil ecosystem will devestate the soil even further than chemical farming already has. Use up the soil and we are sunk.
The costs, all heavily subsidized, for this cheap fuel could never compete with electric cars charged up with wind, solar, and wave power systems.
And where did anyone get the idea that burning ethanol is that much better than burning gasoline as far as global climate change is concerned?
The fuel cell/ethanol concept seems a good one as far as greenhouse gas goes, except that fuel cells are way too expensive and the catalytic converters to produce hydrogen from ethanol have not been perfected and still may emit a certain amount of CO2.
Wind, wave, and solar powered by the nuclear reactor in the sun is as close as we will ever get to perpetual free fueless non-polluting energy. And run through electric vehicles and geothermal heat pumps it will beat these other schemes all hollow in every respect.
But that's in a real free market without government subsidies, hidden as in the cost of war, global climate disaster, and nuclear waste; or exposed in the form of pork barrel legislated corporate welfare for oil, nuclear, and agri-bizz interests.
Once again, I will repeat, the environmental movement needs to get unified behind the very best energy policy or the powerful interests behind these other subsidized corporate plans WILL win.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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ben1364 Posted 10:07 pm
03 Feb 2006
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Drew Posted 10:37 pm
03 Feb 2006
"Wherever I go, there's my bicycle."
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Tom Philpott Posted 11:17 pm
03 Feb 2006
You say, "Corn is already heavily subsidized and grown by some of the worst actors in the corporate world..." No corporation would ever grow corn; the economics are too rotten. Farmers do it because they bought the idea that input-heavy mono-cropping is more efficient than the old, diversified ways--and then they got caught on a treadmill. In the '50s, '60s, and '70s they took out loans, bought or leased as much land as possible, bought giant combines, huge amounts of fertilizers and pesticides. Meanwhile, the buyers of their product--millers, grain dealers, etc.,--were consolidating, essentially down to ADM and Cargill. That gave the latter huge pricing leverage. Faced with declining prices for their goods, farmers only accelerated the above-mentioned trends, figuring they could make up on volume what they were losing in price. What resulted was a giant boom in farm productivity, a collapse in the farm economy, and a profit windfall for ADM and Cargill. The latter two posed as friends of the farmers; they went to Capitol Hill babbling about the "family farm" and the need for subsidies. And their profit bought them plenty of influence. Why would they grow corn when farmers are willing to grow it for so cheap? The system works beautifully for ADM and Cargill. They don't actually receive a cent of the subsidies they rely on for their cheap inputs, so they're a shadowy target for critics.
I once met a brilliant cheese-maker and dairy farmer in NY named Jonathan White of Bobolink Dairy. Like corn farmers, conventional dairy farmers essentially give their product away to processors, who make all the profits. White, who turns all of his his grass-fed milk into some amazingly flavorful cheese, which he then sells for $20/pound at the NYC greenmarket and to chefs, says he used to drive around ask fellow dairy farmers why they didn't sell half their herds, stop buying feed, and invest the proceeds in cheese-making equipment. "The value of your farm is leaking out right there," he'd tell them, pointing to the spigot that the milk truck hooks into to siphon their milk away. "And they'd tell me, well, I lose money on every gallon, but I'm trying to make up for it on volume."
The conventional dairy farmers' bitter joke aptly describes the situation of corn farmers.
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ben1364 Posted 2:57 am
04 Feb 2006
Huh! Ever hear of ADM or Cargil to name just two major agribusiness conglomerates? Where did you get the notion that corn production isn't subsidized?
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amazingdrx Posted 3:49 am
04 Feb 2006
Add the rest of the best green energy technology to the energy equation, wind and wave power and electric cars and the Bush administration would most likely get the support of the environmental movement.
A good way to start would be to withdraw government subsidies from agri-bizz, fossil fuel, and nuclear industry corporations then apply those funds directly to a massive green energy effort similar to WW 2 war production. That would make Bush a truly great president.
Here in the northern midwest, where 30 below zero in January was a normal event only a decade ago, it did not even get below zero here in the warmest January on record, glaciers and the planetary ice caps are melting.
And the Bush administration is still suppressing the free speech of NASA climate scientists about the dire situation.
They got US into a war over oil based on lies. The president himself proposing a Gulf of Tonkin type scenario to Tony Blair to get the war going.
Now that the oil war is going badly,the solution he proposes involves "switchgrass"? This word should become a symbol of corporate welfare and government pork barrel corruption.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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sunflower Posted 5:26 am
04 Feb 2006
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birdboy Posted 8:01 am
04 Feb 2006
Please share with us your ideas on how to make better policies come into action to save our planet. Please understand that when we critisize our leaders (wise and compassionate though they may be), we are not 'playing politics'. It really wouldn't matter what party the offending policy came from- were it a self-proclaimed Green Party member or 'raging liberal' who proposed re-writing our environmental laws and giving away public lands to developers and drillers for profit-yeilding consumption. It wouldn't matter who it was that resorted to changing the rules which dictate how our environmental laws are enforced when they couldn't force the changes their pals wanted through congress by their slim majority alone- we would critisize them anyway. Because, no matter how many times you say 'oh you're just playing Partisan Politics', it doesn't change the fact that this administration has been the worst ever for environmental protection and conservation. Of course Democrats have no monopoly on concern for the environment, but how can you continue to support the party that consistently degrades our right to a clean, healthy environment?
True, we change our idea of what might be best for the future of Earth's ecosystem- as the science changes, so shall our policy choices. Is it better to cling to one dogma and give the appearance of 'consistency' when you are consistently wrong?
So please, stop blaming 'politics' when the real problem is greed, no matter which 'animal' it possesses. When Dem's are in control and make the wrong moves, PLEASE critisize them right out of office. We want change, who cares what color.
a liberal in redsville
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Tom Philpott Posted 9:08 am
04 Feb 2006
To clarify, ADM and Cargill don't grow corn; they buy it at a cut rate from heavily subsidized farmers. But the subsidies don't really help the farmers that much. For one, the great bulk of subsidies go a few mega-farms. For another, in many areas, the subsidies don't cover the losses farmers are incurring in growing corn (those losses are financed by off-farm income from spouses). ADM and Cargill are by far the biggest beneficiaries of the subsidy program; but their benefits are indirect. And that's my point.
If greens are going to mount an effective attack on this system, it's important to get the facts straight.
Cheers
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Drew Posted 9:27 am
04 Feb 2006
I thought this forum was supposed to be about the issues.
"Wherever I go, there's my bicycle."
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Biodiversivist Posted 10:47 am
04 Feb 2006
You would not waste money converting biomass into a liquid fuel just to burn it in a coal fired power plant. You would capture far more energy by just burning the grass and wood directly like we used to do in steam engines and fireplaces before we discovered coal. In fact, if we replace our coal with wooden logs, we could claim to be carbon neutral, but that would take a lot of logs. We already burned our forests up long ago and that is why we switched to coal. Just stupid.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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amazingdrx Posted 2:07 pm
04 Feb 2006
It's like you said before coal was discovered the forests were all cut down for fuel, as in modern day Haiti for instance. So in many areas with no trees, dung is the only fuel left.
But this plan goes way back to the source of dung for combustibles, grass. Hate to diss 'bama, but somehow it doesn't surprise me that this plan originated there.
Destroying public education in favor of religious acadamies fed on vouchers may have nothing to do with it.
But last I heard, Toyota or Honda will no longer build auto plants there because they have to supply workers with pictured instructions rather than written ones.
And the public health insurance in Canada, as well as excellent public schools has these new factories being built up there.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:07 pm
04 Feb 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:43 pm
04 Feb 2006
"This notion that we have to 'impose pain' some kind of government mandate, I think we would resist," Cheney told a radio interviewer.
Edmunton Journal
In other words, conservation and efficiency remain taboo. The party's still on!
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kewball Posted 2:42 am
05 Feb 2006
Instead of relying on common sense and ridicule, I suggest trying a little research first. Here's a good place to start:
http://biomass.ecria.com/technical~engineering.html
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Biodiversivist Posted 10:19 am
05 Feb 2006
Alliant Energy purchases the coal for OGS from out-of-state suppliers... Without incentives for buying switchgrass, purchasing coal will be significantly less costly to the power plant than switchgrass. If economic conditions allow project partners to pay farmers $45 per ton for the switchgrass, the project would result in up to $9 million of combined income for local farmers.
I wonder what happens if conditions don't pay $45 per ton. Is this an experiment that will be truncated if the idea ends up being economically uncompetitive, or will it continue anyway, relying on government assistance? I think I know the answer.
By taking money out of the pockets of people in another state who make a living in the coal industry, and adding to it money from the pockets of taxpayers, you can then hand that money to people in another state who make a living growing switchgrass. $9,000,000/500 farmers =$18,000 for each farmer. So, from an economic perspective you end up benefiting one group of people at the expense of another group. Not being a member of either group, I don't see why one group deserves to be favored over another, but I do understand why groups form in the first place--to compete for resources with other groups. Washington State has similar plans to blow off the free market to grow biofuels to benefit local voters (the only ones that count).
...CRP lands for a lower cost to the farmer than if the switchgrass was grown on either pastureland or row cropland.
In other words, the farmers are already being paid a certain amount per acre by the government to let the land remain wild (CRP stands for Conservation Reserve Program). By changing the rules so that you can grow and harvest a crop on land you are also being paid not to grow crops on, you get to double dip. Sounds ridiculous. However, if I were a farmer in Iowa, I'd be OK with it.
... reduced sediment and chemical runoff into Rathbun Lake, improved local air quality, wildlife habitat improvement, and the potential participation of 500 local farmers.
If switchgrass is natural and grows wild, why isn't it already covering all of this conservation reserve land? Just curious.
The establishment period requires seeding, fertilization (with lime and nitrogen), and application of potassium, phosphorus, and herbicide.
Oh, I guess that answers my previous question.
The locally-grown switchgrass fuel would replace up to 5 percent of the coal used as fuel at OGS.
An environmental benefit is that combusting switchgrass will release less CO2 than coal, less local air pollution and, according to the literature, it also would enhance wildlife habitat. If that latter part is true, then the idea sounds environmentally positive. Certainly burning switchgrass instead of turning it into a liquid fuel will be more energy efficient. An environmental downside would be the planting and fertilizing of a monocrop (that is what the herbicides are for) on conservation reserve lands. Left alone, that land is going back to nature and much of it has become a carbon sink. Switchgrass sounds like a compromise between row crops and wild lands.
Which is the more environmentally sound choice? Allowing conservation land to remain wild and act as a natural carbon sink, or grow another monocrop on it to offset 5% of the coal burned in a single power plant? There is no way to replace the other 95% with switchgrass and our energy consumption grows about 5% every 4 years. Environmentally speaking, there are advantages and disadvantages. I honestly don't know which way the scale would tilt in this case. It looks like a rub. Economically speaking, it sounds like it is uncompetitive on the free market. We cannot replace our fossil fuels with biofuels. Being 95% short is for all practical purposes little different than being 100% short.
I do understand that if you can get twenty 5% solutions together you will have 100%. I just want to make sure none of those soulutions do more environmental harm than good while lining the pockets of individuals positioned to profit from one scheme or another. This one sounds much more environmentally benign than some others I am aware of. Between biodiesel, ethanol, and now this, will there be any room left for natural ecosystems? Are we going to convert every square inch of this planet into fuel crops?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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greenstork Posted 6:43 am
06 Feb 2006
According to David Bransby, from the NPR story, cellulosic ethanol has a 4 to 1 positive net energy balance. Meaning for an energy input of 1 unit (of petroleum, nuclear, coal, whatever), you receive 4 units of ethanol (depending on production methods). Moreover, because switchgrass absorbs CO2 throughout its life-span, the ethanol produced reduces net CO2 output by ~85% compared with gasoline. Switchgrass yields a tremendous amount of fuel per acre - 1000 gallons - and can be grown in a crop rotation with other food crops.
A concerted effort to grow more switchgrass on Conservation Reserve Land isn't necessarily a bad thing. Switchgrass is a carbon sink, and it commonly used to reduce erosion and improve water quality. In addition, it provides an excellent wildlife habitat according to NRDC. These are the goals of the Conservation Reserve Program - http://www.fsa.usda.gov/pas/publications/facts/html/crep03.htm. While CRP land may be acting as a carbon sink and wildlife habitat, growing switchgrass doesn't eliminate those benefits.
By all reports, and contrary to the false assertions made in the comments of this post, switchgrass does not use very much water, fertilizer or herbicide, and does not take much energy to produce. For those who say that cellulosic ethanol is not energy efficient, I say point us to your scientific sources, most environmentalists and scientists claim otherwise.
NRDC believes that switchgrass is the bridge to ending our dependence on foreign oil. They believe that by 2050, the U.S. can produce 7.9 million gallons of oil per day from cellulosic ethanol, without impacting our current agricultural food needs. That's equal to half of our transportation fuel use and more than 3 times that which we import from the Middle East.
Read the report for yourselves, don't take my word for it:
http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/biofuels/biofuels.pdf
Just because George Bush likes switchgrass doesn't mean that it's bad for the environment. Just because Senator Sessions wants major cellulosic ethanol production in Alabama doesn't mean it's bad for the environment. In order to achieve renewable energy independence, a lot of politicians and multinational corporations are going to have to support sustainable U.S. biofuel production. Profiting off renewable fuels, produced sustainably, isn't a bad thing... just the opposite.
And it's important to note that this is only one solution for addressing global warming. Biofuels alone aren't a silver bullet and shouldn't be evaluated as such. Many different solutions --like improving land use, promoting conservation, promoting renewables, advocating for mass transportation and bike-friendly cities to name a few solutions -- will combine to address climate change. To simply say that because any one solution can't do everything and is therefore not worthy of supporting is cowardly and naive.
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sunflower Posted 8:57 am
06 Feb 2006
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greenstork Posted 9:16 am
06 Feb 2006
To be clear, I'm not advocating for a 100% switch to switchgrass ethanol, I think the benefits of many biofuels can be seen in 10,20, and 50% mixtures, which is entirely more attainable too.
The U.S. consumed roughly 150 billion gallons of gasoline in 2005. To replace every last drop, we would need to dedicate 150 million acres of cropland, roughly 1/3 of the arable land in the U.S.
When cars run on solar power and cost under $30,000, then I think you have an argument. There are plugin options out there right now and they are reserved for a fringe audience. It's still way too expensive to build solar power plants. Biofuels are much more practical for a mainstream audience, with existing infrastructure, and vehicles already in place. You can talk about the ideal scenario until you are blue in the face, but that doesn't mean you're going to impact change. When solar becomes financially viable, I'll be the biggest proponent out there but we live in a liquid fuel paradigm right now (for transportation), that's not changing anytime soon.
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greenstork Posted 9:23 am
06 Feb 2006
I forgot to mention that switchgrass can be grown in a rotation with food crops and solar energy collectors would essentially eliminate farmland for food.
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rawehage Posted 9:25 am
06 Feb 2006
There is no free lunch! Do we feed people or cars? The earth's remaining topsoil is barely able to sustain the world's population, and it does so only because of the massive amounts of oil and natural gas used to prop up its deteriorating condition. Too much of the soil's life-sustaining humas has already been lost. Most of our remaining productive land is used primarily as a medium to support the plants, whose roots draw sustenance from energy-intensive artificial fertilizers. Without these fertilizers, crop production will drop to a fraction of current levels, and the world will fall far short of producing enough food for the masses. Then we will see an epidemic of world famine, diseases, and unrest.
Well managed forests are an exception. It is possible to gradually remove the tree trunks and still maintain a decent amount of humas, but only if the remaining cellulosic material is left behind to feed the next generations. But there are "experts" who advocate stripping the hills and mountainsides bare to feed our cellulosic ethanol processing plants. Stripping the land bare is how civilized man turned The Land of Eden into a barren, rocky desert. Civilized man cannot strip straw or cornstalks or other life supporting materials from the land and not expect to see its precious topsoil deteriorate and wash into the sea, and deserts to follow.
So what is the solution? Conservation! Civilization must reverse its ever-increasing "addiction" to easy energy. It is a tragedy that the average American adult weight has been growing at a pound a year! Waist sizes have been growing faster than the national debt! We work harder to avoid exercising than we work! Even the starving population in this country is obese! World population is in equilibrium with world energy production. In the future, world population will still be in equilibrium with world energy production. And both will be well below today's level. And no one, especially any government official, wants to imagine that the road back to reduced energy dependence will be a rough and deadly one.
Change will come painfully. First, our massive road infrastructure will deteriorate with the soaring cost of oil and energy-dependent maintenance and repair. Then our massive trucking industry will collapse, because truck axles will fail on our miserable roads. And our dismal rail system will be useless. And when our grocery shelves become empty... well, you can get the picture...
Anyone who understands the precarious nature of humanity and topsoil will conclude that converting biomass to oil or ethanol is a temporary solution, at best, and will become impractical as oil and natural gas start their inevitable decline. So we should be concentrating our efforts toward developing alternatives to our energy addiction rather than our oil addiction.
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greenstork Posted 9:59 am
06 Feb 2006
Not that I doubt you but I have never heard of anyone advocating that we "strip mountainsides bare" to grow cellulosic ethanol. This is, perhaps, a melodramatic exaggeration.
As much as I personally believe in conservation, I just don't believe that it's ever going to fly in a capitalist culture, the two concepts are diametrically opposed to each other.
Modern farming practices are ultimately unsustainable and whether or not we switch to biofuels doesn't change that fact. But according to the NRDC report that I cited, switchgrass is considerably better for the health of our soil than common food crops. From the article:
Nevertheless, the benefits of growing energy crops should be substantial. Switch- grass is a native perennial that should have significant environmental advantages in comparison to traditional row crops such as corn and soybeans:
Between one-half and one-eighth the nitrogen runoff,
Between 74 and 121 times less soil erosion,
An increase in soil carbon levels rather than depletion,
Additional habitat to at least twice as many and perhaps five times as many different species of birds.
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sunflower Posted 10:03 am
06 Feb 2006
It's like being stuck in a horrible science fiction story. You and I and Bush and Iran and Israel are all in this environmental fight for mutual survival. Global warming makes everything else no longer relevant. Suck it up, lock and load, we are in for one hell of a fight.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:29 pm
06 Feb 2006
Strawman argument No.1:
To simply say that because any one solution can't do everything and is therefore not worthy of supporting is cowardly and naive.
I was unable to find a post that said, "since this one solution can't do everything, it is therefore not worthy of supporting."
By the way, the words naïve (deficient in worldly wisdom or informed judgment), and cowardly (one who shows disgraceful fear or timidity) are not really appropriate to describe other posters discussing energy issues. Ironically, these words would be appropriate to describe someone who does not know better than to toss inflammatory adjectives at others while hiding behind the safety of their computer firewall.
I was also unable to find posters who held any of the following opinions you attest to them:
Strawman arguments No.2 and 3:
"... George Bush likes switchgrass, [that means] it's bad for the environment... Profiting off renewable fuels, produced sustainably, [is a] bad thing."
Strawman arguments No.4 and 5:
"By all reports, and contrary to the false assertions made in the comments of this post, switchgrass [uses] very much water, fertilizer or herbicide, and [takes] much energy to produce."
"...cellulosic ethanol is not energy efficient, I say point us to your scientific sources, most environmentalists and scientists claim otherwise."
Also:
They believe that by 2050, the U.S. can produce 7.9 million gallons of oil per day from cellulosic ethanol, without impacting our current agricultural food needs. That's equal to half of our transportation fuel use and more than 3 times that which we import from the Middle East.
A little further in they also said this:
"...in 2050 we could easily be using more than 30 million barrels of oil per day. Even with biofuels reducing this by nearly 8 million barrels per day, we would still be extremely vulnerable to the volatility of oil prices, the energy security risks of being so dependent on oil, and the environmental impacts of oil.
Maybe you did not read the posts or maybe you read them too fast and failed to comprehend them. My conclusion was:
An environmental benefit is that combusting switchgrass will release less CO2 than coal, less local air pollution and, according to the literature, it also would enhance wildlife habitat. If that latter part is true, then the idea sounds environmentally positive... Switchgrass sounds like a compromise between row crops and wild lands.
I do understand that if you can get twenty 5% solutions together you will have 100%. I just want to make sure none of those solutions do more environmental harm than good while lining the pockets of individuals positioned to profit from one scheme or another. This one sounds much more environmentally benign than some others I am aware of. Between biodiesel, ethanol, and now this, will there be any room left for natural ecosystems? Are we going to convert every square inch of this planet into fuel crops?
As for your remarks to sunflower:
Sunflower makes a very good point. A solar panel is many times more efficient at collecting energy than a plant, requiring no water or fertilizer, or even fertile soil. Burning hay to make electricity is pretty damned inefficient.
To be clear, I'm not advocating for a 100% switch to switchgrass ethanol, I think the benefits of many biofuels can be seen in 10,20, and 50% mixtures, which is entirely more attainable too.
That wasn't very clear to me. Diluting it with other fuels also dilutes its benefits. One car using 100% biodiesel is equivalent to ten cars using 10%. How do you gain benefits by diluting it?
The following is a case of the pot calling the kettle black:
When cars run on solar power and cost under $30,000, then I think you have an argument. There are plugin options out there right now and they are reserved for a fringe audience. It's still way too expensive to build solar power plants.
Your remarks strike me as being overly confident, considering that not one economically viable drop of cellulosic ethanol has ever been produced, and is not expected to be produced for five or six more years. Think how far solar power and electric cars will have progressed in that same time frame, especially by 2050.
I forgot to mention that switchgrass can be grown in a rotation with food crops and solar energy collectors would essentially eliminate farmland for food.
I have yet to see any solar panels covering up farmland, and don't expect to. Most of our land cannot grow anything. It is arid semi-desert. Look down next time you fly coast to coast. There would be absolutely no reason to cover up crop or conservation reserve land. Also, a non-food rotation crop cuts food produced in half.
As much as I personally believe in conservation, I just don't believe that it's ever going to fly in a capitalist culture, the two concepts are diametrically opposed to each other.
I surely hope you are wrong in that assumption.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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greenstork Posted 3:10 am
07 Feb 2006
I take offense that you are labeling my arguments as strawman arguments. The sentiment on the post that sparked this conversation is a suspicion of Senator Sessions' motives. It is actually explicitly spelled out in the post itself:
Why might Sessions be so psyched about switchgrass?
My sense, and that of a couple of other commenters on this thread, is that there is a apprehension about switchgrass because it was mentioned by Bush, not because of some apprehension based in fact.
If someone is going to make claims that the production of cellulosic ethanol uses more energy than it emits or roughly the same and that argument is widely held to be false, I'd like to see some sources quoted. You want to call it a strawman argument, fine, I really just want to be convinced of what is fact. I would think that you would want to same for the readers of this blog, but instead you've seized this as an opportunity to discredit me by labeling my arguments strawman, unfortunate for one of the blog contributors.
BioD, you've labeled one of my strawman arguments about using very little water, herbicide, and fertilizer by completely misquoting me. I guess if you turn one of my assertions around completely, it's easy to say "strawman." I think this is more than a little irresponsible. To clarify, you implied in one of your comments that switchgrass uses a lot of water, herbicide, and fertilizer, which indeed it does not compared to conventional row crops. Here is your comment:
The establishment period requires seeding, fertilization (with lime and nitrogen), and application of potassium, phosphorus, and herbicide.
I just wanted to make sure that the readers knew the facts, that's all.
Regarding using biofuels in smaller mixtures like 10-50%. If you can't see the environmental and political benefits of reducing our reliance on imported fossil fuel by 1/3 to 1/2, I'm not sure I can really help explain it to you. We could potentially wean ourselves off middle eastern oil entirely. I mean, let's be realistic here, the benefits are apparent. If you could reduce CO2 emissions by 85% on half of our current petroleum consumption... do I have to spell it out for you?
My point addressing sunflower was that comparing solar energy collectors and liquid fuel is comparing apples and oranges at this point. With the exception of a very small fringe audience, cars do not run on electricity. Perhaps that will change by 2050, I sincerely hope that it does, but that does not preclude us from researching and advancing other positive solutions like cellulosic ethanol.
And this brings me back to what you label a my strawman argument #1. It's not just solar or just conservation that we should unify behind. I never said any one commenter on this thread was cowardly or naive but I do believe that if you think any one solution is the only solution, then naive is a term that certainly applies. To suggest that I was directing this at any one commenter is unfair, it twists my words and you know it.
The fact of the matter biodiversivist, is that you've come after me because we've butted heads on biofuels in the past. I know you have a beef with imported biofuels but as it applies to switchgrass, it appears to be just dogma on your part. Is Conservation Reserve Land your only concern, or the cost of food competing with fuel crops. If the benefits of the CRP program remained, and the cost of food stayed the same, as the NRDC report suggests on both counts, would you stick to your dogma about biofuels? Because otherwise you're betraying your own beliefs about protecting biodiversity just to come after me, or to stick to your guns about biofuels.
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Tom Philpott Posted 4:01 am
07 Feb 2006
People mistakenly believe that soil is an unlimited resource; all one has to do is plant seeds in it and reap its bountiful harvests. That is very far from the truth. As Carter and Dale have shown, man has turned much of Earth's Eden into uninhabitable deserts, and is working hard to finish off the rest. It took 350 million years for living organisms to turn the earth's barren rocky surface into a lush, life-supporting humas layer. It took civilized man less than 5,000 years to turn much of that lush, life-supporting humas soil back to barren rocks and sand. Repetitive stripping of precious biomass from our remaining deteriorating lands to further pollute our atmosphere will only hasten its reversion back to barren rocks and sand.
I think you identify the fundamental problem with biofuel-as-panacea here. Thanks for saving me the trouble of posting.
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greenstork Posted 5:14 am
07 Feb 2006
Likewise, I think it's impossible to analyze solutions exclusively through the environmental lens. Some might say conservation is the perfect environmental solution and I wholeheartedly agree. To play devil's advocate, say the country took to heart conservation - buying less, driving less, using less energy. Couldn't this potentially have a detrimental effect on the economy (deflation, joblessness, etc.)? Solar & wind are excellent environmental solutions but cost will ultimately determine their success.
I'm all about going in to new ventures with open eyes, as long as you weigh the benefits with the shortcomings -- and by benefits I mean environmental, economical, political and otherwise.
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atreyger Posted 3:30 am
08 Feb 2006
Solar panels are a good idea, but the turnaround time to energetically pay off creation of a PV cell is on the order of 10 years. So, barring new commercial advances (since there have already been academic ones), in order to convert every source of non-renewable energy we would have to wait for at least ten years to see the benefits.
The global warming problem is now a positive feedback cycle: warming of soil pumps out more carbon (both dioxide and methane) due to decomposition. Lower snow cover through the year leads to more severe soil freeze-thaw cycles, which are known to pump out more N2O than at any other point during annual season cycle. Warmer temps lead to quicker drying of wetland soils, which promotes incomplete aerobic conversion of nitrate to N2, with a large residual of N2O. In case you were wondering, the rating of strength of greenhouse gases is the following: N2O>>CH4>CO2. Of course, it's the sheer bulk of CO2, which is why everyone focuses on it, but the other two should not be overlooked.
So while I would love to say that things are going to get better if we all switch to renewable sources of energy, I am afraid that at this point the cycle is irreversible, and the point of all of the PROPOSED actions are to dampen the severity of the effects.
Here's to continued snow and no global warming!
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birdboy Posted 12:41 pm
08 Feb 2006
It's bad enough we have to do this to grow (still insufficient) food for 6.5 billion people- must we do it MORE to provide fuel for private transportation? Is this really better than tapping a hole in the desert sand for oil?
Fertile soil is our most precious resource, the only thing that can feed us. Private transportation is a luxury of wealthy consumers whose lifestyles are supported by aggressive world domination.
Unless we carefully put back what we are taking from our soil, in the way that nature intended (with lots of active healthy germs), it will turn to dust. You'd think humanity would know this by now, but easy oil and technology have given us a way to fool ourselves into doing more harm, faster- we call this progress!.
Solar begins paying for itself immediately- while you make your payments for the system, it takes nothing from the Earth except light and heat. It does this for 30 years or more, not just paying off the investment, but saving resources that would otherwise have been used up. Every solar panel that covers a rooftop saves acres of fertile land for food production and you get to keep your damn car!
a liberal in redsville
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gman Posted 3:32 pm
06 Jul 2006
US corn production is the second largest crop on earth behind sugar.
US grows 42% of the worlds corn.
in 2004 the US grew enough corn to feed the entire population of China.
75% of that corn goes to feed livestock in factory style meat buisness.
19% is high fructose corn syrup.
nitrate runnoff from the mid west discharges between 2000 and 10000 tonns of nitrates per day into the gulf of mexico producing a large dead zone.
half of the topsoil in Iowa is gone.
corn production depends on fossil fuel through big agrobuisness chemicals and fertilizers. Think of it as oil laundering for our taxpayer money.
and oil laundering is all it is.
mindless energy consumption period.
oh yea the corn is genetically engineered also and is a patented life form grown only under contract with the seed company.
corn prices are subsidized by the american taxpayer by a factor of 50%.
American farmers spend more than they produce to agrobuisness in this tax money for oil laundering scheem.
over the last 10 years alone US taxpayers payed 144 billion dollars in farm subsidies.
on top of that we will also subsidise ethonol.
energy cost equivalent to the US taxpayer for a gallon of ethonol is around 7 dollars a gallon real costs.
in terms of cellulose ethonol it doesn't exist yet.
100% of US corn production diverted to ethonol will give us about 2% of our gasoline consumption
or about what we would get in oil savings if we all kept our tires properly inflated.
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Watts Posted 7:46 am
17 Oct 2006
I am in whole hearted agreement that conservation is our best bet to start with. Every kilowatt saved is one which does not have to be produced. Virtually NO sacrifice is required here. We just need to eliminate the senseless waste of energy to gain an amazing reduction in our dependence on foreign energy sources as well as greenhouse emissions. I see this energy problem being tackled on multiple fronts with conservation leading the charge. If government mandates are necessary to wein ourselves off our love of energy wastefulness, so be it. Americans are for the most part, wasteful and uncaring..thinking it's someone else's problem to solve. I'm really sick of that.
About switchgrass. For those of you that are ridiculeing this technolgy...knock it off. No poster has suggested that we bulldoze our forests and till up every square inch of land to plant switchgrass. No one has suggested that it must entirely meet all our liquid fuel requirements. It can help...even if it's only a proverbial drop in the bucket. About the soil depletion, Amercica generates something like 40 million tons of sewage sludge each year. We used to dump it into the ocean where it tainted the waters and was spoiling the seas. Now, about 60% is land applied, much of that onto food crops. Yeah...I know...gross. Thing is...about 30+% is landfilled, where in concentrations it is dangerous. My solution: cultivate as much as can be sustainably produced using the available 15 million tons or so of sewage sludge that is landfilled each year. I'd rather produce crops for ethanol with it than canteloupes for my table. A tremendous amount of acreage can be sustainbly grown with 15 million tons of nitrogen rich sludge. The soil will be improved...not depleted under proper management. Don't even start with the enviromental issues surrounding land application of sewage sludge...were gonna have it no matter what. Land application has proven the safest method of disposal. Let's turn it into a positive thing.
Solar is a great and very promising technology. For those of you who are not familiar with advances made and current research I urge you to read up on it. It can and will be a huge contributer to our energy needs.
Small scale hydro and run of river hydro technolgy can contribute an awesome amout of energy with minimal enviromental impact. The D.O.E. has already identified 227 practical and feasible sites within the U.S.
Wind power right now is producing energy in some sites CHEAPER than is being produced by fossil fuel fired boilers in power stations. In other less "ideal" sites it remains competitive, especially when you consider the enviromental issues and the cost savings of wars fought for oil and hush money sent to our oil supplying nations.
Geothermal energy is another area worth a look..there are viable sites for this too within the U.S.
It will be a gradual process in gaining more and more energy indepence, but it can arrive much faster than one might expect. It takes dedication to it, and the more naysayers out there (like many of these posters), the longer it will take.
Jeff Keiling, Cumberland, MD. USA
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Watts Posted 2:19 pm
17 Nov 2006
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aejordan Posted 1:13 pm
23 Feb 2007
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