Gary Dikkers’s Recent Comments

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  "Connect the output to the input"

  Almost everyone has long known that whether or not a study concludes corn ethanol has a positive or negative EROEI depends solely on how big a circle the studier chooses to draw around the process. The smaller the circle the fewer the energy inputs and the better the EROEI of ethanol; draw a bigger circle for the study (as does Pimental), the greater the energy inputs and the less favorable the EROEI.

  The truth is that all along there has been a simple way to test the claim of agribusiness and the ethanol industry that they produce more energy than they consume.

  The US Patent Office Test

  Since its inception, the US Patent Office (USPO) has received a steady stream of patent applications for perpetual motion machines -- machines that theri inventors claim will produce more energy than it consumes.

  As part of their patent review process, the USPO sometmes asks a board of esteemed scientists to evaluate claims for inventions that sound too good to be true. Very early in its history, those scientists recommended to the USPO a simple test for all of the perpetual motion machine patent applications:  Ask the inventor to connect the output of the machine to the input and see if it keeps running.

  So that's what the USPO did. Ever since, when they receive an application for a supposed perpetual motion machine, they ask the inventor to, "Please connect the output to the input and let's see if it keeps running."

  The inventors who understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics turn and walk away knowing they can't pass the test.  Others who are more naive, do as the USPO asks, and then walk away after their machines sputter to a stop and the USPO patent reviewer smiles and waves goodbye.

  To this day, the USPO has issued no patents for a perpetual motion machine.

  A Question and a Proposal

  That raised my curiosity: Why has no one in a position of power to hand out tax credits, subsidies, mandates, and pass protective tariffs ever asked the ethanol industry to pass the "Please connect the output to the input and let's see how long it keeps running." test?  

  Wouldn't it be nice if before Congress passes the next Farm and Energy Bills they asked agribusiness and the ethanol industry to step up to the plate and demonstrate they can connect the output of the ethanol production cycle to the input and keep running?  

  WHy has no one asked the ethanol industry to show they can provide all the energy an industrial corn farm and ethanol plant needs, using only the ethanol the plant produces?  (When I say all, I mean all:  Everything from powering all farm equipment; to supplying the energy to grow and harvest the seed corn; to using ethanol as the feedstock and energy source for the nitrogen fertilizers they need; to using ethanol as the feedstock for for the pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides essential to industrial corn farming; to providing the energy for cultivation, harvesting, and transporting the corn; using ethanol to dry the corn if necessary; and of course using ethanol as the sole energy source at the ethanol plant to mill, ferment, and distill the corn and reform it into ethanol.)

  I certainly don't propose that as a working business model -- we all know ethanol is too expensive for farmers and ethanol plants to use routinely as their energy source.  But if the energy studies the ethanol industry likes to cite are true, they should be able to do it as a demonstration.

  Making the ethanol industry perform that test by asking them that simple question would settle the three decades long debate of whether making ethanol consumes more energy than it consumes.

  What I'd like to ask the ethanol industry is why they have never done their own demonstration to prove they can connect the output to the input?"

  If the ethanol barons really felt deep in their hearts they could pass that test, wouldn't they have done that long ago just to silence the naysayers?  (Of course they would have.)

  I can tell you my suspicions on why they will never voluntarily attemp the connect the output to the input test:  They know if they tried and it failed, their industry would be turned on its head, and I suspect they must secretly understand they couldn't pass.

  Instead, they would rather wave around paper studies from the USDA and the Argonne National Lab.  Studies that may or may not be correct, but that they are afraid to try and substantiate.

  Write your Congressperson

  Please take the time to write your representative and senator and ask them to make agribusiness and the ethanol industry pass the USPO test before sending any more money their way:

  Please connect the output to the input and let's see how long it keeps running. On Is ethanol skeptic Pimentel right after all? posted 2 years, 9 months ago 11 Responses

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  Keep it green, folks.

  Bob at ALAMN said, Till then, keep it green, folks.

  That's a nice sentiment Bob, but the problem with corn-based ethanol is it is neither renewable nor green.

  Despite the public's general perception (and massive propaganda from corn ethanol lobbyists and agribusiness) there is nothing green about growing industrial corn as a feedstock for ethanol fuels.

  • Ethanol from corn farming would not be possible without synthetic nitrogen fertilizers made from natural gas feedstock.  

  • It would not be possible without herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides made from petroleum feedstock.  

  • It would not be possible without farmers and truckers burning diesel fuel to cultivate and harvest the corn and haul it to an ethanol plant.

  • And it would not be possible without ethanol plants consuming more fossil fuels (coal and natural gas) to reform the corn feedstock into ethanol.

  Bob, I know your main concern is clean air, and that's a valid concern.  But you have never addressed the question of the synergistic adverse effect industrial corn farming has on our environment.  

  You need to look at the entire picture of the adverse effect of corn and ethanol production and their consumption of irreplaceable resources, not just at what comes out the tailpipe of an ICE-driven vehicle.

  Corn-derived ethanol made from irreplaceable resources is not a renewable fuel -- even though proving highly profitable to Corn Belt farmers and politicians.

  Cordially,

  Gary DikkersOn Let's wonk it out posted 2 years, 9 months ago 28 Responses

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  Sea level and isostasy

  Actually, even if all of the polar ice sheets were to melt, we would not see a dramatic rise in sea level.  The reason is isostasy. (A term from geology and geodesy.)

  In short, when the ice sheets formed, the earth's crust sank.  As the ice sheets melt, the crust will rebound.

  The formation of ice-sheets can cause the Earth's surface to sink. Conversely, isostatic post-glacial rebound is observed in areas once covered by ice-sheets which have now melted, such as around the Baltic Sea and Hudson Bay. As the ice retreats, the load on the lithosphere and asthenosphere is reduced and they rebound back towards their equilibrium levels. In this way, it is possible to find former sea-cliffs and associated wave-cut platforms hundreds of metres above present-day sea-level. The rebound movements are so slow that the uplift caused by the ending of the last Ice Age is still continuing.

  On A review of Joe Romm's new book posted 2 years, 9 months ago 34 Responses

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  The smart move

  David Roberts said,

  Seems to me the smart move would be to push aggressively for hybrids that can burn biofuels (when they need to burn anything). That can hold us over until battery and auto technology create a mass marketable fully electric car. Then we can leave liquid transportation fuel behind -- that should be our ultimate goal.

  Ethanol can be used appropriately on a local basis, perhaps to power farm machinery. But talking about it as a viable way to substantially reduce oil use in the U.S. is a pipe dream.

  I agree David.  I was addressing my comments to Bob at ALAMN who is what some might call an E85 evangelist.

  He and others want a nationwide E85 infrastructure because of their concern about clean air. (A valid concern -- without question) But since there will never be enough ethanol to make all motor fuels an E85 blend, their pursuit of that goal is wrong-headed.

  I also think E85 evangelists such as Bob are so focused on tailpipe emissions, they have ignored the total effect the production of corn-derived ethanol has on the environment.

  Some E85 evangelists even want the U.S. an state governments to use our tax money to pay for the infrastructure fuel wholesalers and retailers would need for E85. In my view that would be a poor investment since there would never be enough ethanol to make widespread use of that infrastructure, and my advice to Bob would be to push for E12 or E15 instead, since no infrastructure is needed, nor any modification to the millions of cars now on the road.

  Regards,

  Gary DikkersOn Let's wonk it out posted 2 years, 9 months ago 28 Responses

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  The future is plug-in

  Plug-in Prius, Chevy Volt... the paradigm is substitution of electricity for liquid fuels where possible and most efficient use where it is not.

  Maybe, maybe not.   Everybody who is talking about plug-ins and hybrids is talking about using lithium-ion battery packs.

  Plug-ins sound great as a way of making use of energy, but what if lithium is as much a limiting factor in that direction as fossil fuels are for ICEs?

  Right now lithium production capacity and demand are just about balanced, and there is not much evidence the lithium mining and extraction industry has the capacity to substantially increase production. In fact, it seems the rapidly growing demand for small lithium-ion batteries in consumer electronics is already putting stress on the lithium industry.

  If General Motors and other major car makers (Renault has also committed to a plug-in hybrid using lithium-ion) suddenly expect to be selling hundreds of thousands of cars with heavy-duty, battery packs that may each use several hundred pounds of lithium, what will that demand do to the price of lithium? Will there even be enough lithium to supply all the companies that want to build and sell plug-ins and hybrids using lithium-ion batteries?

  At present most of the world's lithium comes from Chile and Argentina, and apparently Brazil also has some reserves.  (If I were GM and serious about the Volt, I would already have dispatched teams of people to Chile and Argentina to secretly buy up lithium mines.)

  Could there be a day when Chile, Argentina, and Brazil form an Organization of Lithium Exporting Countries (OLEC) that is just as much a thorn in our sides as OPEC?  On Let's wonk it out posted 2 years, 9 months ago 28 Responses