On online wag recently noted that at Bell Labs -- one of the most productive, innovative places the world has ever seen -- the slogan was "Never Schedule Breakthroughs." A breakthrough is just that: a radical and unpredictable reorganization of understanding. Waiting for one is like trying to solve one of those elaborate circular garden mazes by assuming a teleporter to take you straight to the center.
We might well need some breakthroughs to survive the climate crisis, and it will be nice if we get them, but I'm much more impressed by things like this, a serious incremental step, than I am by the wondertoys we're so often told to ogle. The FLOX work is a great example of the trench warfare of science and technology. It can help buy us time to radically reduce our energy demands and switch off fossil fuel use entirely -- time to aggressively apply every off-the-shelf idea and practice we have now, without hypnotizing ourselves with the need for "breakthroughs."
Anyone who thinks we can afford to wait for breakthroughs to start radically changing paths has to answer this question: If you think we need breakthroughs to survive the climate crisis, why shouldn't the public just count on a better breakthrough, one that not only solves the current problem but also makes up for future inaction? If your personal hoped-for breakthrough is practical cellulosic ethanol at scale from wastestreams, then why shouldn't the next person say that the breakthrough he's waiting for is a cellulosic/terra preta process that both provides fuel and traps carbon? After all, breakthroughs are like miracle ponies -- no point in setting your sights too low, right?
Talking about breakthroughs means whispering a subtext: "All will be well, all will be well, all will be well."
Admiral Rickover, a cast-iron SOB but a very smart guy, used to talk about how the most dangerous thing when humans are running complex machines like submarines and nuclear reactors is precisely this -- the will to believe that "all is well," the human tendency to put the best possible interpretation on every sign that might suggest trouble. It's particularly true if responding to the signs as if they were trouble would involve lot of work that might turn out to be unnecessary.
Nearly all of Rickover's extraordinarily successful efforts to put nuclear reactors at sea safely boiled down to his ability to create a culture where people habitually shake off the "will to believe" and force themselves to consider each tiny stray problem ... a little water in a bilge, a random spurious alarm that never stays locked in, a slight change from an expected lab result ... to react to the data without subconsciously putting the "best face" on it. In other words, the Navy's ability to use high-school grads to run hundreds of nuclear reactors under difficult circumstances for decades without killing anybody depends on going against basic human nature and refusing to be lulled into thinking "all will be well" unless and until you put it well.
I submit that this is a challenge we Americans uniquely face -- we are steeped from birth in a culture precisely the opposite of the one Rickover created in the nuclear navy. In our world view, everything will be all right somehow, even if we screw off right up until the last moment. (Not for nothing was Bill Murray's Stripes a hit movie ... it's all about refusing to do the boring grunt work but saving the day through style and panache at the last minute.)
We need a cultural movement to say that, while breakthroughs are welcomed, they are far less important to our survival than our willingness to follow the disquieting data, even when it means work, and costs money, while telling ourselves that there will be no breakthroughs and that, if we're going to save this ship (and thus ourselves), it's through conscious reordering of our habits, not breakthroughs.
Comments
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onetwothree Posted 5:27 am
17 Apr 2008
Humans have been making ethanol out of wood for, I believe, at least a couple of thousand years - to drink.
Therefore, with the current price of gasoline, and the already developed processes that are being scaled up at Coskata and a few others, perhaps this is not an industry in need of breakthroughs as much as a follow through, i.e. the price of gasoline changes the breakeven point of cellulosic ethanol on the open market so these pilot project can now be scaled with a much wider margin regarding cost to market price per gallon.
Of course, breakthroughs in regards so more efficient enzymes, etc. would help even more.
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GreenEngineer Posted 6:08 am
17 Apr 2008
Wood alcohol is poisonous. Non-suicidal humans drink grain alcohol.
Yes, you can make alcohol (methanol) out of wood. You can even make ethanol out of wood, but it's quite a bit harder. That is not the question. The question is whether you can do so in an energy efficient fashion, at a scale sufficient to impact our fossil fuel use. The answer to that question at this time is "no". And there are reasons why that answer will likely remain the same, and the problems are not all related to the fermentation challenges. More here.
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Biodiversivist Posted 7:00 am
17 Apr 2008
What will change is trying to get millions of tons of hay bales to a refinery. An advantage of grain is that it is compact, and shares many characteristics of a liquid fuel. It flows out of storage tanks (silos) into rail cars or trucks and then flows out of them into a processor. Hay doesn't do that. It's fluffy and bulky.
Next we will flush out land issues. Will wild hay quickly be hybridized into a bloated mutant as happened to corn? Will farmers grow it on prime land instead of corn, using fertilizers and pesticides to maximize yeild? Why not just burn it instead of coal?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Pangolin Posted 7:18 am
17 Apr 2008
The people over at Eprida have already demonstrated that they can provide fuel and trap carbon. The process requires a small amount of input energy but that can be provided by solar or wind and the output includes bio-char and nitrate fertilizers in a slow release package.
It's never going to fuel the happy motoring utopia but it will certainly feed some farm trucks and replace fossil fuel fertilizer inputs.
Also bio-char used as terra preta nova has already demonstrated it yields a net caloric yield while sequestering carbon on the hoe and shovel level of agriculture. In depleted soils such as are present in Africa and Australia that can make the difference between crop and no crop.
This isn't fantasy or speculation but science practiced on an international co-operative level. Much of the writings regarding Terra Preta are collected here.
Nobody has to wait for a miracle. Make some charcoal, grind it into grit, dig it in and plant something. I tried it, it works. If all it ever does is improve soil tilth and water retention then it's worth the effort to me.
Put the Carbon Back
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GreenEngineer Posted 7:43 am
17 Apr 2008
Meeting the challenges ahead of us will require a breakthrough, a cultural and social breakthorugh. We're going to have to dramatically raise our standards in a short period of time, and we're going to have to act on those changed expectations. Which means that, for people working in the relevant industries, the ideas of "business as usual" and "code compliant" are death itself. These attitudes must be challenged at every opportunity, and a new vision of how we create our built environment installed in their place.
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Pangolin Posted 7:46 am
17 Apr 2008
Actually this is a little bit about the carbon storage potential of rangelands but the principal is the same.
Restoring soil carbon can reverse global warming, desertification and biodiversity loss
mongabay.com_February 21, 2008
Determining how much carbon dioxide (CO2) can physically be consumed from the atmosphere?
As the planet has 7.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in circulation for each 1 ppm of atmospheric CO2, and there are 5 billion hectares of inappropriately managed or unmanaged, desertifying savannahs on the Earth (which on empirical evidence we contend to be the case), the question that should sensibly be asked is: How much carbon dioxide would be absorbed if policies were put in place (in Australia and elsewhere) that caused the focus of on-ground management to be deliberately directed towards the widespread consumption of cyclical GHGs within the currently under-utilised savannah lands?
<snip>
Converting global Soil Carbon capacity to ppm of atmospheric GHGs
Every 1% increase in retained SOM within the topmost 33.5 cm of the soil must capture and hold approximately 100 tonnes per hectare of atmospheric carbon dioxide (the variability in the equation being due only to the soil bulk density). We submit that under determined, appropriate management, that this is readily achievable within a very few years
For each 1% increase in SOM achieved on the 5 billion hectares there will be removed 64 ppm of carbon dioxide from atmospheric circulation (500,000,000,000 tonnes CO2 / 7,800,000,000 tonnes per ppm = 64 ppm).
Soil Organic Matter is the plant material released into the soil during the natural phases of plant growth. It includes root material sloughed off below the soil surface and plant litter carried into the soil by microbes, insects and rainfall
Soil Carbon is the elemental carbon contained within Soil Organic Matter (SOM).
One tonne of CO2 contains 12/44 units of carbon (ie 0.27 tonnes of carbon per tonne of CO2.). Therefore 27 tonnes of carbon sequesters 27/0.27 = 100 tonnes CO2 (rounded). NB Carbon atomic weight 12, oxygen atomic weight 16 ie CO2 = 12+(16+16) = 44
The global opportunity and numbers
It appears that the pre-industrial level of atmospheric carbon dioxide was 280ppm, and that globally we are now at 455ppm, and heading towards 550ppm. To get from 550ppm back to 280ppm, 270ppm must be removed. Globally, a 4.2% increase in SOM would potentially reverse the expected situation. In any case, any form of determined management will substantially reduce the now crippling legacy loadings in the atmosphere.
Meaning that provided the world decides that it doesn't want to destroy the majority of ecosystems we have a snowballs chance in hell of clawing back from this disaster as vs. the zero chance that prevails with the AGW "adapters," delayers, and deniers.
Put the Carbon Back
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onetwothree Posted 10:44 am
17 Apr 2008
Not that it matters regarding the point that I was trying to make, that is simply that I don't see that breakthroughs are needed to produce cellulosic ethanol. The growth of the cellulosic market seems to be entirely dependent on the price of gas and its possible alternatives.
Cellulosic ethanol was made in Romania during WWII when the petro industry was repeatedly bombed. So at some point, 3-4-5 dollar a gallon gas, or maybe if you're a skeptic 10 dollar gas, cellulosic ethanol needs no breakthroughs only efficient large scale production.
Now you may argue that it takes too much land, it's not as pure burning as hydrogen, etc, but it has to become economically viable at some point. Then we can debate the environmental factors.
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Biodiversivist Posted 11:25 am
17 Apr 2008
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/ethanolenergy.jpg
My point is that biofuels will consume what is left of the planet's biodiversity regardless of what they are made from. Plants convert solar energy very very slowly. Cars burn it very very fast. If American cellulosic is $4 a gallon and Brazilian cane is $2, what would you guess will be the end result?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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stumpydoo5 Posted 1:46 pm
17 Apr 2008
Combustion is a basic human function, after all.
Better to kill off all life on Earth, and to use all of our food sources to make us go! go! go! than to actually feed ourselves and our fellow people.
biodiversivist, where are your priorities?
ecosystems, shmecosystems.
Fuel is dead. Let's get over it.
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JMG Posted 3:25 pm
17 Apr 2008
Save your community: Cut greenhouse gas emissions 5% per year.
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Delay And Deny Posted 4:00 pm
17 Apr 2008
Solar cells at 30 percent.
Wind farms with batteries installed in Ireland.
Nuclear cells that can convert radiation to electricity with 40 percent efficiency.
Ammonia solids that can capture hydrogen for lightweight storage.
We've got breakthroughs out the wazzu!
As noted solar cells have been around since the 1960s.
What are we waiting for?
How about Brown's Gas?
J. Bailo
Participant
Texeme.Construct()
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trock Posted 8:06 pm
17 Apr 2008
You had a great article. What might happen sometimes is the articles are so good, complete and reasonable that there is nothing to criticize. Then somebody makes a post that does offer criticism and the comment posts trail after that.
I had heard about Rickover (well yah, I was around when he was in the news), but it was interesting to hear how he ran the Navy's nuclear program and how to avoid the serious problems. If only more people would think about the planet that way.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:18 am
18 Apr 2008
But then of course idiots got a hold of his reactor design and planted them all over the country. And submariners are deafening and destroying whales and other marine life with their sonar. Can't blame that on Rickover though.
In fact, someone just like Rickover is needed right now. To push solutions through the mess o america to solve GHG climate disaster.
As far as high school graduates running nuclear subs? That would take an understanding of the how the system operates. It's simple really. A radioactive boiler and a steam turbine. They got their nuclear engineering "degrees" on the job.
As far as the idea that: 'the will to believe that "all is well," the human tendency to put the best possible interpretation on every sign that might suggest trouble.' The idea that this is central to our climate problems? It would seem to be the case as far as the mass media culture.
But for activists trying to discover the solutions ("wondertoys?", I bet Rickover heard that critique daily) it's a matter of discriminating between boobdoggles like ethanol (cellulosic, cane, corn, whatever) and real solutions like renewable electric powered transportation.
That FLOX thing? For many year many people have been burning various fuels in high temperature, high pressure, oxygen rich, and oxygen free vessels then claiming big breakthroughs by measuring what comes out. So now they restrict the oxygen? "All will be well" they say, if you just fund our "wondertoy". But it's still just combustion.
You were right in the first place though. No breakthroughs needed. Just go with what we have that has already been proven to produce the power we need without combustion or nuclear fission.
Renewables and conservation built out on a massive scale to replace the old system. Rickover could do it, why can't we?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Dragutin Dimitrijevic Posted 11:38 am
20 Apr 2008
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Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for $1 a Gallon, and Without Corn
24 January 2008
A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn't interfere with food supplies, company officials said.
....May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, says Coskata's ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even after accounting for the energy needed to produce and transport the feedstock. It also generates 7.7 times more energy than is required to produce it. Corn ethanol typically generates 1.3 times more energy than is used producing it.
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New Method Rapidly Produces Low-Cost Biofuels from Wood, Grass
09 Apr 2008
George Huber of the University of Massachusetts Amherst....is making biofuels from cellulose, the non-edible portion of plant biomass and a major component of grasses and wood. At $10 to $30 per barrel of oil energy equivalent, cellulosic biomass is significantly cheaper than crude oil.
The U.S. could potentially produce 1.3 billion dry tons of cellulosic biomass per year, which has the energy content of four billion barrels of crude oil. That's more than half of the seven billion barrels of crude oil consumed in our country each year. What's more, biomass as an energy crop could increase the national farm income by $3 to $6 billion per year.
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Mascoma: Why all the different ethanol plants?
24 September 2007
.....That's three manufacturing facilities in three states [Tennessee, New York, Michigan] for a company that's not actually producing anything right now. These plants will also represent a drop in the bucket of America's fuel consumption. The U.S. consumes about 400 million gallons of liquid fuel a day. Mascoma's annual output from these plants is thus equal to about 40 minutes of the national daily fuel budget.
Eventually, the plants will be expanded. Plans call for the Tennessee facility to grow to 10 times the 5-million-gallon level and the same applies to Michigan. Still, why build in different locations?
The reason is that the company wants to experiment with different feedstocks, according to a spokesperson. The Michigan plant will concentrate on making ethanol from wood chips leftover from timber operations, while the Tennessee plant will experiment with making it out of switchgrass. Switchgrass requires little fertilizer or water. The plant in that state will be capable of consuming 170 million tons of switchgrass a day.
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Dragutin Dimitrijevic Posted 11:44 am
20 Apr 2008
Ah, I don't think so. That's 1700 aircraft carrier size loads every 24 hrs.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:42 pm
20 Apr 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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