Postscript with Wang and Khosla
Posted by Robert Rapier on September 3, 2006 - 8:51pm
Dear Tom, Dr. Wang, and Mr. Khosla:First of all, let me apologize for the offense you took at my usage of "sleight of hand." Never in my life have I considered that phrase insulting, but clearly you were insulted by it. I have used that term on many occasions, and had that term used against me. For me, it just means that things are not as they appear to be. So please do not presume that I was being intentionally insulting, because I was not.
Second, I have been stunned at the response from publishing our exchange. Between my R-Squared blog and The Oil Drum, the exchange received well over 400 responses to date, and I got around 200 e-mails. And while you may consider me combative and stubborn, I am also open-minded and very analytical. I engage in this discourse as much to learn as to convey information, and I was able to understand through those responses just why people are so confused about this issue of gasoline efficiency versus ethanol efficiency.
The reason I am engaged in this debate is that it is very important to me that we pursue the correct energy policy. While I have argued in favor of certain solutions, I have also spent a lot of time debunking certain claims. I don't believe we do ourselves any favors, nor do we help ourselves make educated decisions by allowing myths to persist.
I agree with Mr. Khosla that maybe there are other questions that are better asked. We can debate many different angles over whether or not we should be advocating ethanol from corn. But this particular point of contention is about whether the claim "the efficiency of producing ethanol is better than the efficiency of producing gasoline" is accurate. I have lost count of how many times I have heard some variation of this claim. Tom, in your initial response to me, you included an attachment which made the claim:
"As you can see, the fossil energy input per unit of ethanol is lower--0.74 million Btu fossil energy consumed for each 1 million Btu of ethanol delivered, compared to 1.23 million Btu of fossil energy consumed for each million Btu of gasoline delivered."
That is simply a false claim. Dr. Wang will probably acknowledge that this claim as written is incorrect, and yet it is derived from his work. That is why I say people are being misled as a result of his work. Perhaps it is unintentional, but when people make a claim such as the one above, they have misinterpreted what is being said, and used this misinterpretation to promote the ethanol agenda.
The real critical point when comparing the two processes is to make sure the boundaries are drawn in exactly the same place and definitions are consistent. When this is done it becomes clear why the above claim as written is incorrect. But please don't misinterpret this into thinking that I am trying to completely rebut all ethanol arguments. I am addressing a single issue.
Again, please accept my sincere apologies for offending you. That was not my intent.
Sincerely,
Robert Rapier
Dr. Wang responded:
Dear Mr. Rapier,Thank you for your email. Apparently, you know that I was pretty upset with your original way of characterizing my work and my character. Working in the scientific area, I am very careful in using language for characterizing others' work and personalities. I expect that others would do the same to me. Simply put, just like you with great intention of pursuing facts, I have been doing the same myself in my professional career. To characterize me of knowingly misleading the public in biofuel debates is simply wrong. I am gratified that you realized that I treat such mischaracterization seriously.
Getting into the technical discussion that you originated, we all agree that energy efficiency is defined as energy output divided by all energy input (including energy in the feedstock itself). That is, we will take into account Btus in gasoline, ethanol, and all process fuels consumed for producing gasoline and diesel in our accounting for energy input. The amount of process fuels is about 0.25 for each Btu of gasoline produced from 1 Btu in crude oil. Meanwhile, for each Btu of ethanol produced from corn, which is from solar energy during corn growth, about 0.75 Btu of energy are consumed. This amount includes fossil energy (namely, petroleum, natural gas, and coal) in fertilizer production, corn farming, ethanol production, among many other activities. With this definition of energy efficiency (as it is accepted by all of us), ethanol has worse energy conversion efficiency (1/(1+0.75)=58%) than gasoline (1/(1+0.25)=80%). Note that in both calculations, the one Btu in ethanol and gasoline is taken into account as energy input, since they are energy eventually from solar energy in the ethanol case and petroleum energy in the gasoline case. Now you can see that such efficiency calculations take all Btus into account (renewable or non-renewable). That is, the efficiency calculations treat all Btus the same. In reality, all Btus are not created equal. I will get back to this point later.
What has been debated about bioethanol is ENERGY BALANCE, not energy efficiency. Energy balance is defined as the energy in the fuel minus FOSSIL energy input to produce the fuel. Why only fossil energy? That is because to many, fossil is non-renewable. As long as we use it, it will be gone, and it takes millions of years to get it back, if ever. But anyway, we can debate whether energy balance is a right matrix to use for energy policy evaluations. I, together with Mr. Khosla and many others, maintain that energy balance is NOT a good matrix for energy policy debates. But energy balance for ethanol has been debated for more than 20 years and it seems that there is still no way near an ending of this debate.
Now if one thinks a little more about energy balance calculations, one realizes that the calculation excludes renewable energy in energy input accounting, which a small step to the right direction to differentiate different types of Btus. But it adds all three fossil energy types (petroleum, natural gas, and coal) together. The calculation treats all fossil Btus equal, which is still not accurate for energy policy debates. For example, the US has several hundred years of coal supply, while it may have only 10-20 years of oil supply. I do not think that both of us would disagree that the US should value petroleum Btus more than coal Btus. But energy balance calculations do not provide us results to differentiate these two different types of Btus. Mr. Khosla alluded you about the flaws of energy balance calculations in his email.
With the energy balance definition, fossil energy input for one Btu of ethanol produced is still 0.75 Btu. However, fossil energy input for one Btu of gasoline is 0.25 Btu of fossil process fuels consumed PLUS the one Btu in crude oil that is converted into gasoline. Now you may see that the difference between a fossil energy-based fuel (gasoline) and a renewable fuel (ethanol) lies in the Btu embedded in the fuel itself. If it was not this difference between fossil fuels and renewable fuels, we all would conclude without any calculations that renewable fuels could not compete with fossil fuels with respect to energy (that is, all Btus are taken in account with differentiation).
I have made arguments against energy balance comparisons among energy products because they can be less meaningful or misleading. In the past ten years, I have tried to steer the debate on energy products to meaningful issues such as petroleum reductions, fossil energy reductions, greenhouse gas emission reductions, and reductions in criteria pollutant emissions. My point has been that even though corn ethanol has a positive fossil energy balance value, such debates are not that meaningful. I elaborate this step by step in some of my conference presentations. If you read my publications, you would see the consistency in what I think is more important to debate.
I hope this clarifies my positions. By the way, you indicated that you have read some of my publications, I encourage you to take a look at of the report that I coauthored in May 2005 in which I discussed problems of energy accounting and presented well-to-pump energy efficiencies for many transportation fuels including gasoline and corn ethanol. The report is posted at http://greet.anl.gov.
Regards,
Michael Wang
I note in his response that he acknowledges that the efficiency of producing gasoline is indeed higher than for producing ethanol. But he also says the debate is about how much fossil energy is contained in the input. I disagree with this, because the claim I have been rebutting is "it is more energy efficient to produce ethanol than gasoline."
I responded:
Dear Dr. Wang,Thank you for the cordial response. It seems that we agree on two key issues. First, the claim that ethanol proponents often make - "it is more efficient to produce ethanol than gasoline" - is wrong. Second, the debate is about more than just this one claim. Furthermore, you touched on the very reason this debate means so much to me: Peak Oil.
I believe that oil production will peak in a few short years, and it will have very serious ramifications for society. Without a doubt, we need to seriously research every possible alternative. This is primarily the reason that I spent my graduate studies at Texas A&M University working on cellulosic ethanol.
However, in my view the current national infatuation with ethanol hampers our preparations for a post-petroleum world. I have talked to many people who think that once the oil starts to run out, we will just switch over to ethanol. After all, they will say "E85 can lead us to energy independence." Or they will repeat some other ethanol myth. That kind of thinking, in my opinion, lulls the public into complacency and provides a fig leaf for politicians so they don't have to seriously address the key issue, which I believe is: We are going to have to learn to make do with a much lower per capita energy usage after oil production peaks.
On the one hand, I applaud Mr. Khosla's willingness to invest in cellulosic ethanol, because I think cellulosic ethanol can indeed make an impact, and I think it has great potential. But on the other hand, I am very concerned about the consistent message I hear from the public that there is really nothing to worry about since cellulosic ethanol will save us once oil production peaks. If Mr. Khosla's cellulosic ethanol ventures fail, it will be much more serious than a mere business failure. This has ramifications for the entire country. Failure will mean that we lost precious years in which we could have been making national preparations for Peak Oil. The fact that this threat is not being taking serious enough frightens me, and that is why I take this debate very seriously.
I hope that helps you better understand my position. And yes, incidentally I have read pretty much all of your publications, and I frequently run simulations with the GREET model.
Sincerely,
Robert Rapier
Dr. Wang responded, but in his response he just indicated that he had made a typo in his earlier response, and he thanked me for my e-mail. At this point, I thought the correspondence was finished, but Mr. Khosla weighed in with some final comments:
Robert, you should then stop talking about the irrelevant variable of "production efficiency" or even "energy balance" or "fossil energy balance" and change the debate to (a) petroleum reduction (since we have lots of coal fossil energy to produce corn ethanol and if you care about the environment also talk about (b) GHG reductions per mile driven. It is not what you say but how it is perceived/interpreted by the masses that is critical.I am optimistic that at some point increasing CAFE will be mandated to reduce energy used in passenger transportation. I am highly supportive of that. I am not trying to convince anybody that we shouldn't worry about reducing our energy use. Though I worry about peak oil, personally I think that the GHG problem is much more urgent. Market prices will address peak oil but if we have sufficient oil there is not market mechanism to reduce GHG emissions.
There are certainly some interesting points made in this correspondence, but I think it does vindicate my initial position. We can find metrics that favor ethanol, but energy efficiency of production is not one of them. What the proponents are saying is that for ethanol, we are going to count the captured solar energy from growing the corn. For oil, we are going to ignore the millions of years of captured solar energy. We are going to ignore that nature has already done the heavy lifting for us, that we are trying to replicate on an annual basis with ethanol. What you have is a metric, but it isn't an efficiency metric.
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Which is why I apologized. Some people are offended by things that don't offend others. I have had people accuse me of sleight of hand in a debate, and I didn't take that to mean I was being purposely deceitful. I take it to mean that they felt I made an invalid comparison. But since he was offended, I figured the right thing to do was apologize, regardless of whether I thought it was offensive. We probably all have things that we find personally offensive that others might not. So, I can understand where he is coming from.
I don't think a scientist can be indifferent to what conclusions the public draws from his work, especially not when it's research intitiated directly to inform decision makers and the public. He's no longer merely a scientist in that context, and he has additional responsibilities associated with communicating his results.
We are not going to run those cars. Depleting the aquifers and soils of the Great Plains to maintain the automotive status quo is exactly the same mistake the Easter Islanders made cutting the trees. We might as well face up to it now, before Nebraska becomes a desert.
I have enjoyed the ethanol debate. It's been interesting. Thanks to RR, I am convinced it's just a matter of time before that particular wheel falls off of our futuristic energy wagon. It won't matter whether ethanol remains subsidized or Khosla gets 500 distilleries built. We won't even offset Canterell's coming depletion with ethanol. The dog won't hunt.
I am finding myself increasingly frustrated--not just by the Khosla rhetoric, but by the lack of efficacy that everyone sees in a coordinated solution. The solution has to be massive--a magic silver bullet--in order to garner real investment it seems. I know most of us here at TOD know that it's going to take a bunch of magic silver BBs...
I've been working a lot on talking to folks behind the scenes of late at the state and federal level, and the more I talk with them, the more I see this approach in place. Everyone has their favorite solution (and, sure I knew this was the case, but I didn't think it would be SO MUCH SO), and that's all they know about--and those just the ones who think there's a problem.
Gah I say. Gah.
It is easy for technical folk to become cynical at this point, but that is the wrong conclusion.
It is important to deliver the information. Part of the reason that bad policy is adopted is that people with those interests, oil or ethanol subsidies, show up and talk to the politician's staff again and again. Hearing different information really does change what is possible.
But beyond the information, the key is to think about things from the politician's point of view, and consider what influences them. Then, assemble different forces of influence, so they hear the message from multiple perspectives that they care about.
I learned these things from doing some state level volunteer lobbying on a number of technology policy issues, with some good mentors, and having a surprising amount of impact.
Teachers.
Teachers influence tomorrow's politicians.
Al Gore had a college professor who warned him about Global Warming.
George W. Bush had a college professor who taught him that The Market always provides, that the sub-human techie nerds will find a way. Just wave an extra buck in front of their faces and watch them leap the extra mile for it.
Cantrell?
<------ oil field n00b
The bias is apparent in Wang's assertion that prices and market forces will take care of peak oil, but GHGs are more problematic. That alone will favor mining our soil for cellulose or whatever source will allow large-scale production of transport fuels.
Professor Goose says gah, I add a Bah Humbug.
A rose is a rose, is a rose, is a rose, and will still be a rose,when it's put in a vase.
as the old saying goes; " If you can't convence them with facts, baffel them with bull shit" and the good Doc. appeares to me to be an expert at the last half of that quote, as the facts he quotes don't make logical sence to me.
Actually there aren't ANY kind(s)... because Americans are the only nation left using them...
If I remember correctly... in my (British) physics lessons... we changed to metric in about 1966... first cgs (ergs anyone??) and then mks (SI)
So, perhaps it's time to rename them American Thermal units??
If I remember correctly... in my (British) physics lessons... we changed to metric in about 1966... first cgs (ergs anyone??) and then mks (SI)
Interesting. The world's largest cosumer seems to be out of step with the rest of the world. Why am I not suprised?
for survey work
I totally agree with this in principle.
You're picking up a straw man here.
However, I do not get how he deducts a big value of coal just because there still is a lot of it, ignoring its ecologic and climatic impact.
Cheers,
Davidyson
I have immense respect for pioneers like Wang and Khosla who, within their own spheres of influence, stick their necks out and challenge the status quo perceptions that have mired the renewable fuels industry for decades. If there wasn't a fuel price jump coupled by a the heinously centralized petroleum economy financing both sides of an increasingly volatile war, I am not sure that this crisis wouldn't abate and we would be stuck again with Peak Oil and no impetus to deal with it. We should be thankful that there is finally substantial public and political pressure.
Ethanol was perceived to be the fuel of the future 100 years ago before cheap fossil fuels took over. Now fossil fuels aren't so cheap - in price, pollution, and politics.
I believe in the future of biomass conversion technologies - hence my BioConversion Blog. Los Angeles has enacted a plan called "RENEW L.A." to divert its landfill waste to conversion technologies (CTs) that ferment gasified blended waste into ethanol while co-generating electricity. How about that - negative priced feedstock.
Wang's research is enabling CT businessmen to get a hearing. Khosla investments are making investors sit up and consider the opportunity and potential return. They are invaluable allies helping to deal with our Peak Oil crisis.
It's great to see another Drummer recognize that ethanol can be produced from non-corn feedstocks; moreover, that production is evolving on many fronts.
Thxs for all your efforts to elevate the ethanol discussion, not only here on TOD, but with influential shakers and movers like Vinod Kosla and others.
I think taxpayers should demand the maximum return for their ethanol subsidy buck by requiring, as much as possible, that all equipment used in this process be required to run on ethanol itself to simply the future analysis and minimize the confusion. This has been mentioned before by some other TODers, so it is not original on my part, but if the ethanol process can justify itself as profitably self-sustaining, no matter how big the resulting infrastructure grows: the taxpayers can then remove the subsidy in the next year or so. This should also be the same requirement for any for-profit energy producer. Taxpayer dollars for basic research is almost always justified, but using taxfunds for energy infrastructure growth is never justified--the investment market is a better mechanism to achieve this end, IMO.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I take it from this and similar arguments, that lots of people think that the government should be run like a business and only do those things that are profitable and self sustaining.
I find this idea repulsive. It seems fascist in nature, and rapacious of resources.
The government should have the welfare of the nation at heart and it should care for the welfare of my grandchildren and their grandchildren, and profitability should be a long view.
But I think you are exactly right that our government is being run like a business and that is mostly why we are in such trouble today with peak oil. This is why Bush must go to war for oil and can not propose conservation. Because no one will accept anything less than maximum profits, and as soon as a politician puts on a cardigan, he's out.
Of course ethanol requires subsidies. It is all new infrastructure, of which even if we only replace 5% of the oil production will be a great aid. Who else but the American people who will benefit from it should shoulder the startup costs? What single company will ante up when the costs are spread across so many industries? Without legislation the status quo doesn't change.
We will effectively suck the last drop of oil out of the ground within the next 9 years and murder our children and grandchildren because that is the most profitable thing to do.
Secondly they are all ignoring climate change. All the alternative fuels they mention will only accelerate CO2 emissions making global warming worse.
You cannot regard alternative fuels, alternative energy and climate change seperately. To fix one and ignore the others is sheer folly. The only real alternative transport that addresses all these issues is battery electric cars and/or pluggable hybrids couple with renewable power. These form a transport/energy system that integrates storage with CO2 free power systems and addresses all the problems of transport, energy and climate change.
To many? Errr how many humans are willing to wait for fossil oil to re-gen?
GHG reductions per mile driven.
Errr, and if more GHG is generated via burning coal, fermentation, then burning ethyl alcohol VS than just burning the damn oil....how can GHG be 'sold' as an advantage?
petroleum reduction
Such an argument works for CAFE standards, so why not keep selling more of the same?
http://www.ethanolacrossamerica.net/issues.html
Though I worry about peak oil, personally I think that the GHG problem is much more urgent.
VS the economic effects of the end of cheap oil? The effects on the economy are going to slap about Khosla and his staff before GHG or the oil runs out for them.
we are going to count the captured solar energy from growing the corn.
And over at
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/mtv_and_chevy_t.php
"By the way, if you put solar panels in a field you would get 100x more energy out of it per unit area than you would out of corn."
Photons captured by a PV panel VS the chance your captured photons can be lost in crop failure.
IF the nanosolar people are right and $0.37 a watt panels can come into existance, the transportation talk will be about batteries, not booze.
Beyond PV's supply/demand future, as oil supply slims out, mining for coal, uranium, silicon, platinum, copper, etc gets that much pricier as all energy costs will be shooting up, even super-efficient PV panels (especially?) will still be a stretch to afford (IMO). But how many other purchases can you make today that will be still paying you back in 25 years, long after they've justified their original price?
absolutely right on. The Ethanol economy, like the stillborn hydrogen economy, is IMHO, being promoted simply because it represents (to them) an avenue by which Big Capital can continue to generate the returns they need in the energy business. Unfortunately the chemistry, mass balance and medium-range soil preservation just don't work. It is a diversion.
If we can get genuine, substantial conservation, and get that breakthrough in electrical storage, then an electric future is clearly the way we will end up going. It is just simpler. The BTUs can be recovered from waste biomatter by burning it and driving turbines, 50cents/wp solar power will help too - there is a lot of desert out there !
Focus on electricity as the future, with multiple, distributed generation modes, along with distributed, relatively inexpensive storage, and we see the likley future Powerdown to sustainability unfold.....
regards to all
Second, neither ethanol nor hydrogen are still born. Over-hyped perhaps in case of the latter (and corn ethanol) but definately not stillborn. Science and the future applications thereof, are the result of trial by error.
But, I have a problem with one of your numbers: $70 for 1.2 kWh deep cycle? Yellow Tops are about $225 per kWh; Trojan Golf Cart batteries approx $180. Both are at least three times your figure of $58 (ie $70/1.2). Has inflation been that bad these past two years?
I expect that a lot of that difference would disappear if the volume of spiral-wound AGM cells got close to the number of plate-type cells currently built.
And we are ALL so proud of you.
Do you want a medal or a chest to pin it on?
Hungry world set to become hungrier as our larder empties
"Just a single fill of ethanol for a four-wheel-drive SUV, says Brown, uses enough grain to feed one person for an entire year. This year the amount of US corn going to make the fuel will equal what it sells abroad; traditionally its exports have helped feed 100 - mostly poor - countries.
From next year, the amount used to run American cars will exceed exports, and soon it is likely to reduce what is available to help feed poor people overseas. The number of ethanol plants built or planned in the corn-belt state of Iowa will use virtually all the state's crop.
This will not only cut food supplies, but drive up the processing of grain, making hungry people compete with the owners of gas-guzzlers. Already spending 70 per cent of their meagre incomes on food, they simply cannot afford to do so."
No kiwis involved, sorry.
Ethanol from sugarcane may be a real winner but are we doing that? I was under the impression that most of the ethanol was produced from corn in this country which would really be dumb considering its poor return. The same land could be better used to produce biodiesel, yes?
I live in Thailand and, yes, we are doing that.
As I have noted elsewhere, people are so riled up with righteous anger over the US corn ethanol program that they can't see straight.
Nine states produced 79% of US corn production. That's 41 states without significant corn production, whose politicians are backscratching rather than strong proponents of corn subsidies.
http://www.ethanol-gec.org/netenergy/NEYShapouri.htm
The "Farm Bill" is coming up in congress in the 2007 session. That an opportunity to have the debate about the ADM giveaway.
In past years, ADM has gotten what it asked for. But in past years the "farm bill" was seen as something that affected the very small percentage of Americans who are involved in farming, rather than the very large percentage of Americans who eat and who drive.
In a chemistry lab, it is clear that no energy can come out of a process that wasn't put into the process and that conversion of energy from one form to another consumes energy. It is also clear that ethanol is less efficient at conversion than oil to gas.
But Dr. Wang is right that "What has been debated about bioethanol is ENERGY BALANCE, not energy efficiency."
In reality, we don't always get to draw the borders. In Thailand, sugar-cane derived ethanol has an energy balance of 1:8.5 or more. The main inputs seem to be fertilizer, transportation and the inputs to creating machinery. Thailand does not have oil and can not invest energy in oil production.
Thailand either buys one BTU of oil and runs it through a refinery, or buys one BTU equivalent of fertilizer and machinery content. From the oil they get .8 gallons of gas. This is done daily. From the one BTU that goes into ethanol, they get 8.5 or more BTUs of ethanol.
The total energy that went into producing the 8.5 BTUs is obviously more than 8.5 BTUs. Since the conversion is less efficient than gasoline, the energy that went into producing the 8.5 BTUs is obviously more than 10 BTUs.
But I am not interested in theoretical BTUs. I am interested in people getting energy that doesn't relay on dwindling oil reserves and is less damaging to the climate. This ethanol contributes over 80% less carbon emissions that the equivalent quantity of gasoline. So, Thailand put in one BTU and got back 8.5. Now, I agree that God or Mother Nature had to put in more than nine. But Thais are putting BTUs into their tanks that otherwise would have sat in the ground.
It is certainly ironic that on a website dedicated to peak oil, ethanol is doomed because oil is a better option. The most negative can argue one minute that we will all die because oil is running out and the next minute that ethanol will fail because there is so much more oil to be found.
Again, I am not arguing that ethanol is a huge or permanent solution to mankind's coming energy crisis. Corn-based ethanol in the US is a subsidy play and seems doomed to fail. I acknowledge that there are resource considerations. But, tropical countries are getting BTUs out of ethanol that they didn't put in. This, combined with the massive climate benefits of sugar-based ethanol, make it a viable small scale stop gap solution for these countries.
I commend Robert for debating this issue. I think he is right to point out that there is an scientific framework which can not be disputed. However, just because Roger is right, doesn't mean the other side is wrong. At the end of the day, there are two different arguments being made and each one is right, they are just arguing different things. Those that will be benefit the most from this conversation will be those who pay attention to all contributers and see that there are valid points being made all around.
:)
You should check with RR on this, but it looks like in your Thailand example you are not factoring in getting the oil out of the ground and transported to Thailand. I believe RR uses a 17 to 1 EROEI for the extraction step. If you start at the same place RR does in his gasoline calculations, your 8.5 result is going to be reduced.
Didn't they have to shut down ethanol plants in Thailand last year in the face of drought? They had to make a choice between food and fuel.
How much fuel and fertlizer,and electricity are required to grow and process enough corn for one gallon of ethanol?
and
How much electricity and oil are required to process and get
one gallon of gasoline?
At least for me, part of my bashing of corn ethanol and other sexy abstractions, is because I think its going to be really unlikely that we will be able to continue our current way of life with all its bells and whistles - the sooner we accept that its not sustainable the more we can make changes on the demand side instead of beating our heads on changing supply.
Yes, we will need wind, solar, biomass, and a scaled up electricity grid - but the more we can reduce peoples footprints and make wise long term choices now the more and better options we will have once depletion sets in hard.
I would also like to see changes on the demand side, however I struggle to find a mechanism beyond price that can make them happen. I don't believe a purely voluntary/planned reduction is possible unless their are external incentives. Do you?
My fear is that oil supplies fall off so fast that we get demand reduction signal, but too late. This could result in a crash, which I, oddly it seems, find undesirable.
I see ethanol as a partial stop gap that will mitigate the pain of high oil prices in poor tropical countries and buffer them somewhat in a crash. I live in a country that may have the largest exposure to oil prices of any place in the world and is positioned to follow the Brazil model. Would you honestly tell Thailand to ignore sugar cane based ethanol?
I know it is not a permanent solution. But do you turn down a sweater in a snowstorm because it is not a heated five bedroom house with an indoor pool?
Take a break. Ethanol is not going away. Come back rested and ready. Maybe it is just about debating points. Nobody can deny your skill. Anybody who reads all of what you have written would understand.
I've almost got your Hendrix CDs ready.
There is a huge amount of information in these studies about the entire production cycle including climate impacts. I have posted these several times, yet many posters remain ignorant of the facts. I have to assume they are willful.
1) FO Licht presentation to METI,
http://www.meti.go.jp/report/downloadfiles/g30819b40j.pdf
EROEI Calcs: Page 20
2) IEA Automotive Fuels for the Future
http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/1990/autofuel99.pdf
3) IEA: Biofuels for Transport
http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2004/biofuels2004.pdf
EROEI calcs: page 60
4) Worldwatch Institute & Government of Germany: Biofuels for Transport (Link to register - study is free)
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4078
EROEI Calcs (for 12 fuel types): Page 17
5) Potential for Biofuels for Transport in Developing Countries
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2006/01/05/000090341_20060105 161036/Rendered/PDF/ESM3120PAPER0Biofuels.pdf
Yikes
Always liked the guy. But this didn't catch me as a surprise. Rest in Peace, brother.
A self-feeding gasoline economy is never sustainable, as we all know. A self-feeding ethanol economy could be, if less industrial methods of crop production would be used to grow the energy crops in order to reduce water use and soil degradation.
However, this would reduce the yield/hectare and would much reduce the potential for ethanol to replace a big chunk of our liquid fuel needs.
This brings me to my 6-point "limits for peak oil solutions" litany (in an attempt of logical order):
- A solution must lie within the laws of physics.
- A solution must lie within the limits of engineering realities (particularly taking into account the law of diminishing returns).
- A solution must lie within the contraints of this planet's natural resources (both stocks and flows).
- A solution must be ecologically sustainable.
- A solution must be socially and morally implementable. (Like, I rate the proposal to actively or negligently kill 50% of Earth's population as beyond this limit.)
- A solution must be implementable in time.
(additions, anyone?)So whatever someone proposes as a solution, he and we should immediately check if any of the conditions are violated. According to Liebig's law, a system is imited by the least available essential resource.
So for each proposed solution, let's find out what is the most limiting factor. Some limits render a solution entirely pointless, others just limit their scope (such as the availability of arable land).
Wouldn't that be a nice new main thread on TOD, a targeted discussion of proposed solutions and their most limiting aspects?
Cheers,
Davidyson
Get away from terms like "vindicate." Let your audience decide stuff like that.
This post was obviously a Tour de Force. Well done. The enemy is still shaking in their bunkers. Rock'n'Roll. Shake'n'Bake. or whatever. Why don't you take a vacation. You've earned it.
But I actually agree with Khosla : the energy-efficiency question is not a critical factor WRT biofuels. Key metrics are :
See my links on sugar cane above. Sugar cane cultivation to a certain level seems to be sustainable. The cane is not irrigated and does not require huge amounts of chemicals.
In the case of sugar cane, the climate impacts are huge and could help save the ice caps if the hot air generated by this discussion hasn't melted them already.
Grown on less than 1% of the country's available farmland, it is one of the best crops of the Americas for soil and it's environ.
It is fallacious to believe that this industry is supported solely by poor agrarian field workers.
Mechanization i.e. special cane harvesters and haulers are increasingly the norm.
There are NO government subsidies.
Thailand either buys one BTU of oil and runs it through a refinery, or buys one BTU equivalent of fertilizer and machinery content. From the oil they get .8 gallons of gas. This is done daily. From the one BTU that goes into ethanol, they get 8.5 or more BTUs of ethanol. "
You seem to me to have a fundamental misunderstanding of EROI and how it applies to ethanol. First of all I have yet to see a proper accounting of the energy return of sugar cane. You think that ethanol is leveraging the fossil fuel inputs to produce ethanol. The problem is that the comparison you have done is not comparing the same things. If the people from Thailand took the one unit of oil and used it to do work they can get out of it 15 or 20 units more than they used to get it. The fact that Thailand has or does not have oil is irrelevant. The energy has to be expended somewhere to get that oil out of the ground. Now that 20 units of work can include growing ethanol however the high yield of ethanol is a function of the large energy return of fossil fuels.
Now if you expend the same amount of energy, 1 unit, to grow ethanol you get only 8 units back. This is clearly less than oil's EROI.
You are trying to say that 1 unit of oil expended to make ethanol gets you 8 units of energy in return. This is not correct as I understand it. The oil that you are using (1 unit) has an embodied energy of 20 units or more of potential work. You are using that 20 units to generate a resource that has a embodied energy return of only 8. This is where I think you have made the mistake. It would be far better from an energy point of view just to use the oil in the first place.
This is also why a lot of Peak Oil people are not in favour of ethanol. To me it is only a desperate attempt to keep the fossil fuel industry afloat and is actually hindering the adoption of what I consider a much better solution.
OK. So you agree that right now Thailand is importing barrels of oil. What they are doing with them is running them through refineries. This produces a set of products one of which is gasoline. One ton of sugar cane produces the energy equivalent to a barrel of oil in the form of ethanol. At this point, the two outputs are roughly comparable.
Is your claim that more than a barrel of oil was used in producing the ton of sugar cane? This seems impossible as Brazil has run an unsubsized ethanol industry for years and manufactures with a profit motive willingly divert over half of sugar production to ethanol.
Can you explain why Brazil is able to do this profitably if there is more oil going in than out?
However, ethanol is not starting with oil. The inputs are less useful products. My argument is that the inputs to ethanol may be .2 units of coal. .2 units of natural gas and 10 units of energy in biomass. The efficiency of converting them may be less than that of converting gasoline, but it does allow us to access energy that would otherwise lay dormant.
I suspect thast your starting point is opposition to ethanol in the US, which forced you to believe it is the same everywhere. How can ethanol be a plan to keep the fossil fuel industry alive when it is sugar companies pushing fossil fuel companies out of the market?
And despite Jack's numerous links on sugarcane ethanol EROEI, you refute it.
Can you please post 1 link to 1 study that you have read that confirms a lower EROEI for sugarcane->ethanol?
That is not quite correct. The oil is run through a refinery first in both. The diesel that is used to transport and harvest the crop and cultivate the grain came from a refinery not the crude oil imported. So ethanol production starts with refined oil products. It is not really the same at all.
Brazil runs ethanol production profitably by destroying the rainforest. There is not a true accounting of the energy used and most ethanol production is just a farm subsidy. There are areas where a combination of high rainfall and warm weather can result in high sugar yields. To expect this to be true of all places is wrong. Climate change may well make barzil rethink its policy in the future as all the parameters that resuly in a high sugar cane harvest may change.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825265.400&feedId=online-news_rss20
But, clearly the diesel input has to be a small part of overall input. Diesel costs more to purchase than ethanol does to produce. In Thailand ethanol can be produced for 15 baht per liter while diesel costs 25 baht. This ethanol cost is not subsidized, rather it is artificially high since cane prices are supported by the government.
- Brazil is not cutting down rainforest to produce ethanol. I suggest you provide a citation or stop circulting this canard. The cane growing regions are not the same as the rainforest regions. Plans to ramp up sugar-cane production consider unused agricultural land. I agree that the palm oil plans that you link to are horribly destructive and are a net negative to mankind. In Thailand, ethanol will first be produced from molasses, a sugar byproduct. If additional land or input stock is needed it will be from land that is currently used for cassava or other crops.
- Ethanol from sugar cane is a huge net plus for climate change and Brazil should be credited for it. According to the Worldwatch Institute, ethanol reduces lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by between 87 and 95% per kilometer driven. On climate considerations alone, we should be cheering for sugar cane derived ethanol.
Thank you for a good reply. I especially appreciate your point about the post refinery diesel input (and by implication post refinery input of fertilizer), which does need to be taken into account.With all due respect, that is nonsense. The only way to "get out of it" more than is in it is to use it to get more oil out of the ground. At some point we want to use it for other purposes too. There is no 15-fold multiplier then. And at some point there will be no more oil left in the ground (that is practically extractable). If we start with X amount of extractable oil in the ground, we can burn it directly and get X useful work, or we can use it to make biofuels or windmills or whatever, which may give us 1.3*X (corn) or 8*X (sugarcane) or 20*X (windmills) useful work, because these methods capture additional solar energy. Alas the externalities (loss of soil and water) of the biofuel production may outweigh the benefits. There are other options: use that X more efficiently, so that "X amount of useful work" (measured in BTUs) actually does us more good (measured in human welfare). And finally, eventually, we'll have to do with less, like it or not, and the issue is to distinguish needs from wants. As a comment below says, "we cannot continue with business as usual". The obsession with keeping the 200 million automobiles in the USA running is missing the true usefulness (e.g., mobility) for lack of imagination (as if trains don't move people). The lack of imagination also misses that any "solution" based on growth will only make things worse. E.g., if Thailand continues to increase its use of cars, for a while, thanks to sugarcane. Alas, solutions based on intentional powerdown do not make money for capital. The real problem is the socio-economic structure.
If Thailand has a bucket of oil and wants more energy, one thing it can do is to send it back to Arabia and have them use it and send back 20 buckets of oil, or 16 buckets of gasoline.
Another option is to use it to grow sugar cane and distill it to 8 buckets of fuel.
As a last option, I propose to use it to build a nice high purity silicium factory, that will give the equivalent of tens of buckets of gasoline in electricity.
The first option has the huge drawback of peak oil and global warming. The second option has the smaller drawback of peak soil. The third option has the drawback that it cannot be used in current cars, but it can be used to reliably (although not constantly, but very important, with a very regular inconstancy) free a lot of other buckets of oil from their use to generate electricity, and make them available to move cars (and buckets of coal and buckets of uranium so they can stay in the ground where they belong, and buckets of water in high places, and buckets of moving air from their current uses). Waiting for the moment when the electricity can be used to move cars.
:)
Also, use conservation so that you don't demand so many end-use buckets !
regards
I'm not in the Energy business in any way shape or form, but I can't believe how those pushing ethanol cannot seem to see the obvious current drawbacks with trying to replace petroleum with ethanol. It must be very frutrating for Robert.
I don't often join web sites like this, but I felt compelled to join this one to share a diagram that I have created that would demonstrate my understanding of the ethanol issue. I have emailed the diagram to Robert and I hope he will post it on this site so that others may comment.
Thank you TOD for opening my eyes.
Russell Dodd.
I see the petroleum in the ground as an energy input. So you are not just consuming the 1 BTU but also the 10 BTUs of oil that were pumped from the ground and used to to make the 8 BTUs of gasoline. So I can't help but seeing that gasoline is consuming more enregy resources than ethanol. So using your numbers:
for gasoline:
1 BTU + 10 BTUs of petroleum gives 8 BTUs of gasoline.
8/11 = 73%
for ethanol:
1 BTU of energy give 1.3 BTUs of ethanol
1.3/1 = 130%
If the argument is the oil in the ground is not an energy input, well then I continue to disagree. I think the argument has to consider the oil that is depleted. It is a real energy resource that once we use it, is gone, and no amount of BTUs that you throw at the process will produce gasoline after that.
Also your use of "unlimited" as input resources is ok for a first approximation, but is not very accurate; not for gasoline or ethanol.
I prefer to think of the crude as a raw material rather than an energy source and agree that once it's gone, it's gone. There is a finite limit to crude in the ground. But also, at the same time, water is a raw material of finite supply ... and arable land is also not limitless.
My use of 'unlimited' was deliberate - as soon as one argues that one process has limited inputs, that can be countered by pointing out the limited inputs on the other process.
I am not an ethanol proponent, although I do think that it can be a useful stop gap solution for tropical countries as long as it doesn't involve chopping down forests.
The economics of sugar cane in the tropics is far better than solar panels. In fact, government support for solar where I live is greater than for ethanol.
Depending on one's view point and the purposes of the analysis, different definitions do make sense. Sometimes there is life outside of the chemistry lab.
This is exactly why I felt the need to create my diagram (as simple as it is) ... in order to start at a place that we could all (hopefully) agree on and then move forward.
I am not an ethanol proponent, although I do think that it can be a useful stop gap solution for tropical countries as long as it doesn't involve chopping down forests.
I had no intention of labelling you or anyone else into a particular group - I could almost as easily said 'they'. I really don't know enough about what is actually involved in the production process, so I am perfectly happy to take your word for it that ethanol in the tropics would work well.
However, what may work well in the tropics may be a complete non-starter for where I live (the UK). Would the tropics be able to produce enough ethanol to supply the whole planet? I don't have the faintest idea what the answer to that is. However, if big money/politics is misled into believing that ethanol is the silver bullet that will work on a global scale, then we are potentially setting ourselves up for a big fall.
We need to look at all the inputs into the production processes (for petroleum as well as ethanol) and make sure that we are making best use of those inputs. And I think (hope he doesn't mind me using his name) that may be one of Robert's big concerns here. Under-utilization of our 'inputs'.
There are, of course, other factors to consider such as latitude and/or altitude at which the crops need to be grown in order to get good return on EROI, and whether the ethanol crops would end up replacing much needed food crops.
I must admit that I find myself in total support of the sentiments of those wishing to create an ethanol based economy, but am also concerned that the implementation may not live up to expectations (and requirements). Then we could be in a much more exposed and volatile position.
If it was private businesses investing in competing technologies, it would be no big deal, some investors would and others would lose.
Where does the INITIAL BTU comes from?
-
Assuming we are "all oil" it comes fom oil, for the next production cycle you must SET ASIDE 1 BTU from the output and are left with 7 BTUs of usable energy.
- Assuming we are "all ethanol" it comes fom ethanol, for the next production cycle you must SET ASIDE 1 BTU from the output and are left with .3 BTUs of usable energy.
About 23 times MORE per cycle, which COST per cycle?The ethanol "production" mostly have to feed ITSELF.
Does everybody understand now why RR is a "bit upset" and why Khosla & als are crooks and liars?
P.S. Preemptive strike on nitpickers, tweaking the EROEI values "a bit" around the initial 8 an 1.3 does not really change the picture.
Only boosting the ethanol EROEI toward or even above the oil EROEI can make a difference but this requires outstanding mendacity.
I nevertheless think than it can be reached (the mendacity, not the EROEI).
But you do raise a very good point that I had not really focused upon whilst creating my simple diagram. The resultant BTUs are not all for our consumption, and some must be used for the next production cycle. WOW!
For the amount of $$$, arable land use, water use and maybe pollution, is it really worth putting that original single BTU into ethanol. Would it not just be better to give it to the consumer and put those inputs to other uses?
Thanks Kevem.
However, with sugar cane-based ethanol's energy balance to mankind at 1:8.5 plus, the story is different.
If you think that climate change is a threat, you must see that the 85-95% per mile reduction in lifecycle greenhouse gases that you get from sugar cane-based ethanol would offset the arable land question. Ethanol refineries are less polluting, sugar cane does not use external water sources and the costs are far, far less than oil refineries - so your other points are questionable.
As I have noted elsewhere in this discussion, Brazil has run a sugar to ethanol industry for decades. They produce ethanol at a cost of as low as $.16 per liter (or $.61 per gallon), without subsidized energy inputs. It is fundamentally impossible to produce ethanol at a cost of near $26 per barrel equivalent if it is using anything like the level of energy that you claim.
Thailand has more favorable grid regulations so local sugar mills are investing in heavier boilers and will sell electricity back to the grid, so the balance should be better.
I don't think it is fair to compare ethanol's energy balance to the refinery conversion efficiency of .8 since much of the input to ethanol is post "refinery" or post processing. But it is fair to compare it to gasoline (on a BTU basis) at one.
*
I fully accept that with regard to greenhouse gasses and other pollutants, ethanol is way, way better than oil. If for no other reason than that, money should be spent on ethanol (and other bio-fuels) R&D, production, infrastructure, etc. I also do not argue with the fact that other crops can be more productive (in bio-fuel BTU terms) than corn. That's all good stuff.
But I don't believe that an ethanol solution alone will be good enough to cope with a peak oil crisis.
I think at this point in time, I am more concerned with peak oil then climate change. Dealing effectively with peak oil will help considerably with dealing with climate change. I'm not totally sure that the reverse is true.
While I do think sugar cane, which needs far less subsidies, is a viable and beneficial piece of the solution, I certainly agree that ethanol alone won't be good enough to cope with peak oil. But I don't think it needs to be in order to be worthwhile.
My claim is that for developing countries in the tropics, particularly those that import oil, ethanol is a partial solution. Thailand may have more exposure to oil than any other country in the world. By this I mean oil import costs as a portion of GDP are higher. Given the fact that oil supllies are waning and prices are rising, Thailand would be mad not to promote ethanol use.
I think here in the UK we should be spending our money on tidal and wind energy R&D on an industrial scale, and government subsidies to encourage micro-generation on the domestic level.
This indicates we cannot continue with business as usual using ethanol.
2. Ethanol is EROEI positive.
Even if this is true from sugar cane. The amount of sugar cane we can produce is very limited and will not make a significant contribution to our transport needs. Cellulosic ethanol is at best, just barely EROEI positive, and it too, will not make a significant contribution.
- Like it or not: Nuclear Power will produce significant energy gain (high energy density), like the one we currently get from Oil and Natural Gas. Renewables tend to have lower (marginal) energy densities.
- Producing liquid fuels for combusion in internal combustion engines is hugely energy negative, and we need to improve efficency of vehicles (electric motors) and move more directly to electricity as a form of fuel/energy.
- Coal to Liquids.
Like Ethonol, issues with scale, investment etc.- No one wants to hear it, but a near term peak means moving to public transport. The country least well equiped to do this is the USA. Electric vehicles are the only other option, but we do not have the time, and we have a huge investment in internal combusion engines and our existing infrastructure.
- If you don't accept peak oil, you may not see the need to change, if you are a doomer, good luck to you (it won't be pleasent). I see the need to improve public transport, even if the status quo was an option, and as the only effective mitigation in the face of peak oil (along with nuclear power as an alternative energy source). Conservation and renewables have a minor role to play.
- Your views will be influenced by how steep you see the post peak decline. The shallower the decline, the easier the transition. Nuclear power and Public Transport, are the two most effective mitigation options. Conservation will be enforced through scarcity which is not desirable.
Mitigation in anticipation of the peak will be the most effective.- Markets operate best in oversupply, not scarcity of supply (unsatisfied demand) and do not effectively make investments in anticipation of shortages of supply.
- Ethanol
Stop trying to sell a niche solutions as if they will scale.They won't! (Not even collectively).
Sure this may be niche, but it is not negligible. I predict that the percentage of vehicle fuel from ethanol will grow over the next few years until it peaks somewhere below 10% (vehicle transportation BTUs). Then, if everything works out, better ways of converting solar power to useable energy will repace it. However, it works now with current technology and in certain places is a temporary and valuable bridging solution.
Sugarcane->ethanol EROEI is positive. Just like corn->ethanol EROEI is positive. Ok?
Next, you should note that currently in the U.S., there is approx. 2 million acres devoted to sugarcane and sugarbeet cultivation. That's a lot of ethanol should someone decide to actually produce it.
Your comment on cellulosic ethanol is uninformed to say the least and I would encourage you to learn more about the topic before posting such nonsense.
I'm a little tired at the moment so I might be off my rocker a bit...but to run ethanol on itself, you'd be taking something with an energy conversion efficiency of 58% and feeding it back through itself at 58% so total efficiency of the process running on it's own output is somewhere about 20%. If you wanted to go further, you'd have to note that it'd be run in an engine that gets what? 35% efficiency?...so your field to wheels is now like...7%? Hopefully someone out there awake can fix my fallacies.
"I, together with Mr. Khosla and many others, maintain that energy balance is NOT a good matrix for energy policy debates."
This is what is known as a "deal breaker." That he doesn't (or won't) understand what EROEI means, or dismisses it offhand means that he doesn't get the severity of the situation. It means that he's made assumption that there is an unlimited amount of energy somewhere that's just waiting to be converted to useful form, which is far from true.
"Now if one thinks a little more about energy balance calculations, one realizes that the calculation excludes renewable energy in energy input accounting, which a small step to the right direction to differentiate different types of Btus."
"My kingdom for a horse!" So if he's talking about just the solar input into the crop, he can validly get away with ignoring it if he just looks at what other things went in and what comes out...the difference will be the solar input into the crop. If he's talking about other renewable energy being put into the production...he's on shaky ground, and may be giving up a "kingdom for a horse." That is, if renewable electricity is being used then it's terrible, because that could be put into an electric car with 4X the efficiency of ethanol and skip the whole ya know, destroying the soil and environment thing.
"For example, the US has several hundred years of coal supply, while it may have only 10-20 years of oil supply."
He must have been having a blonde moment, obviously those "several hundred years of coal" are at current use levels. To start using them for everything would deplete them rediculously quickly, leaving not only another looming problem that will undoubtedly go unaddresed until too late but also represent on helluva GHG emissions fest.
"Robert, you should then stop talking about the irrelevant variable of "production efficiency" or even "energy balance" or "fossil energy balance" and change the debate to (a) petroleum reduction (since we have lots of coal fossil energy to produce corn ethanol and if you care about the environment also talk about (b) GHG reductions per mile driven. It is not what you say but how it is perceived/interpreted by the masses that is critical."
Then Vinod chimes in with his babble...yeah Robert, stop all of your bullshit "facts" and join me in wonderland where the laws of physics are a suggestion. First I'll make a resonable sounding statement about reducing petroleum usage because we can use coal, then I'll immediately contradict myself by talking about GHG reductions after just talking about using coal which emits gaggles GHG's than petroleum ever though about. Then I'll accidently let on to my real agenda that it's all about how it's percieved and interpreted by the masses that is critical...if we all think it's true, it will be! Click the heals of your ruby slippers three times!
"Though I worry about peak oil, personally I think that the GHG problem is much more urgent."
If this is what he really thinks, then his whole premise of using coal above is completely moot. Coal would be off the table and unusable if he really believes this. I know there are some people on here who think this same thing, but IMO peak oil is much more urgent. The reduction of energy availabilty can bring our house of cards down in an instant, and you only need to look at the oil crises of the past for the preview. It's about to be on top of us now. With "climate change" if we have enough energy we can to some extent adjust or buy the time to adjust.
Vinod Khosla is playing a different game. And in that game, the above statement is correct.
Vinod's game is making money for himself, of course. And persuading the public to chip in to subsidize his ethanol investments.
For folks who disagree and prefer other solutions, it's not enough to persuade Vinod. Arguing Vinod Khosla down isn't totally pointless. It's good for him to know that someone knows that the math on ethanol doesn't work. But from the point of view of the end result -- ethanol subsidy -- it has no effect.
He doesn't care as long as the scenario makes him money. The people to persuade are the decisionmakers who subsidize ethanol, and the groups that influence them.
This is a difficult case, since the backers of ethanol include the ADM lobby, and for the last few decades, what ADM wants ADM has gotten. I think one route is to follow the "Fast Food Nation" / Omnivore's Dilemma argument and demonize the corn subsidy at its root, for making us sick and degrading the environment.
Another parallel route is to advocate public transit on its merits now. Local/regional transit and transit-oriented development are a lot more popular than they were was a decade ago. The points of leverage on regional transit are local and regional, not national. There is pull for national money, but that comes from local politicians seeking pork, and then secondarily, those politicians working together. So, advocate locally/regionally for better transit.
The third route is to contribute to energy efficiency, plugin hybrids/EVs, and decentralized generation. OK, so ethanol is a boondoggle. Invest privately and publicly in competitors.
My summary of Khosla is he saw a fabulous money making opportunity in corn to ethanol. He convinced himself it was also good for the country. This also helped him sell the idea to keep those government subsidies rolling. He can't understand basic thermodynamics because he doesn't want to understand. It would undermine how he felt about his investments and all the pshycic energy he put into personally promoting them.
From that perspective, it's not different from policies like the "million solar roofs" bill in California which subsidizes household solar energy. One of the goals of the subsidy is to jump-start mass production to bring prices down.
Khosla is arguing for policy that will jumpstart the ethanol market while more efficient technology is being developed.
I just think it's helpful to model his mindset. I think he's using the bad math, not because he doesn't know any better, but because he thinks it will foster his investments, and he probably does believe that developing the ethanol market will help society. He's a sales guy, and he probably believes the ends justifies the means.
Fortunately the nice picture that shows less energy return from corn is simple to understand. Now, how to get that in the media. How to get somebody on the talking head circuit?
Hmmmmm.... one really good trajectory is from the print media to tv and radio. Does anyone here keep a list of the print journalists who've written the less-bad pieces on peak oil, and send an email when there's a particularly telling post? When you do that, they call you for the quote, and when they do the he-said/she-said journalism, you get your side of the story out there. The tv and radio then pick their experts from the folks quoted in print.
Like your idea of go to people for the media.
Is this overly simplistic?
Re: sleight of hand
Almost everyone would find that insulting, especially a scientist. That you don't, Robert, is bewildering to me. Similarly, I guessed that Robert Esser's testimony before the House energy committee that the reported 175 Gb in reserves growth came from the tar sands. It did not, as Dr. Ken Chew of IHS Energy told me. His analysis was the origin of the number. I was fooled because 1) the data were not transparent and 2) an unlikely coincidence arose -- the tar sands OGJ addition = 174.4 Gb. After a fairly hostile initial e-mail to me, we subsequently had a friendly informative exchange of information. I had called Esser's testimony misleading. I still think it was but for different reasons. However, my use of this apparently loaded word was not taken kindly.
The dilemma as I see it is to argue your case forcefully without using emotion-laden descriptive terms. That's easier said than done, especially with so much at stake. The fundamental problem is that opponents in energy debates often are misleading the public, engaging in sleight of hand by exaggerating benefits and mininizing costs.
Because what that meant when I used it was: You are showing people one thing, but they see something else. You mentioned "misleading" above. Maybe that would have been a better word to use, because this comparison is definitely misleading. Incidentally, I also don't find "misleading" offensive.
I have mentioned before that I have debated Creationists for many years. That "sleight of hand" charge has been hurled at me by Creationists many times. I did not take offense, but rather explained exactly why my claim means exactly what it means, and is not misleading. Maybe my skin has been thickened against usage of the term, because I have heard the term so many times.
Creationist Fred Williams and I have a very long history of debates. Here is an article that Fred wrote, that I have debated with him many times:
Exposing the Evolutionist's Sleight-of-Hand With the Fossil Record
That may help explain why I didn't find it offensive. I have just heard it so many times. Note that in the article Fred mentions "the magic behind the illusion". I just don't find that offensive. I just go on to explain why there is no illusion.
By the way, why would you bother debating creationists?
Because they were using politics to get their agenda into the classrooms. I take science education very seriously, and I view them and their tactics as a serious threat. But, after several years of beating my head against that brick wall, I decided to go down a less controversial route: Peak Oil and energy policy.
It's pointless to talk directly to the creationists who are not going to change their minds. It is valuable to take the debate to the community. In places like Dover, Pennsylvania and Kansas, voters recently choose to vote the creationists out.
Similarly, Khosla is probably not going to change his mind, he's going to advocate policies that subsidize his investments. But for the broader public, it's important to get the word out that Ethanol is a subsidy and a hoax.
Yeah, like me, you took the easy way out.
In any thermodynamic process some of the energy from the fuel source is not converted to usable energy. It is rejected as waste heat. In most coal fired power plants using pulverized coal the waste heat is 60% of the coal's energy. Some of this goes up the stack with the CO2, H2O and fine ash, while the rest of the waste heat goes into the cooling water (from a river or large lake) or into the atmosphere. (This rejection of heat cools the saturated steam into water to keep the pressure low on the exhaust side of the steam turbine, thus improving its efficiency).
If some of this waste heat were captured and used for industrial processes such as distillation of ethanol brew (corn, cane, beats, whatever), then the ethanol EROEI would increase, at least from a fossil fuel input basis.
The processes exist for capturing this waste heat, such as a large scale heat pump that uses ammonia as the heat transfer media. Locate ethanol plants that use sugar cane or sugar beats next to the power plant and the EROEI rises even higher.
Bruce E. Dale: Biofuel investment is huge opportunity
Interestingly, before Dr. Dale went to Michigan State, he taught at Texas A&M. His biomass lab was adjacent to mine.
I knew he was enthusiastic, but those claims go far beyond enthusiasm. He claims under Myth No. 1 are just flat out false.
If corn-ethanol production in the USA ramps up then the DEMAND for corn goes up, and the PRICE of corn goes up as well, not to mention the price of the entire food supply.
If the ethanol proponents are right, that is, if their techniques permit a stabilization of the cost of transport fuel, so what? How does it profit us if the cost of our driving flat-lines, while the cost of our eating goes up?
In other words, ethanol doesn't solve our problem, it simply shifts it somewhere else.
In my opinion, this matter of shifting is the question of true interest. It ain't neutral --- rest well assured -- but highly political. The farmers and the Arthur-Daniels-Midlands types, with their good lobbying talents, have gotten off the mark quickly, setting themselves up to make a pretty penny, or at least they think they have.
I personally don't believe for a second that ethanol production will in any way seriously affect the cost of transport fuel. But I do believe that the games played by farmers, connected insiders, and politicos stand a good chance of blowing through the roof the cost of food.
Reality: Dr. Dale is clearly making big bucks by reversing myth and reality.
My 6-point "limits for peak oil solutions" litany (in an attempt of logical order):
- A solution must lie within the laws of physics.
- A solution must lie within the limits of engineering realities (particularly taking into account the law of diminishing returns).
- A solution must lie within the contraints of this planet's natural resources (both stocks and flows).
- A solution must be ecologically sustainable.
- A solution must be socially and morally implementable. (Like, I rate the proposal to actively or negligently kill 50% [or any other percentage] of Earth's population as beyond this limit.)
- A solution must be implementable in time.
(Additions, anyone?)So whatever someone proposes as a solution, he and we should immediately check if any of the conditions are violated. According to Liebig's law, a system is imited by the least available essential resource.
So for each proposed solution, let's find out what is the most limiting factor. Some limits render a solution entirely pointless, others just limit their scope (such as the availability of arable land).
Wouldn't that be a nice new main thread on TOD, a targeted discussion of proposed solutions and their most limiting aspects?
Davidyson
I agree. Limiting factors drive the bus. And I'd add: knowing how much CO2 goes along with the various scenarios of "BTUs out" wouldn't hurt either.
I rather liked BlobofOil's schematic. Assumptions like unlimited arable land, unlimited water are important distinctions when calculating: BTUs in and BTUs out. When Ogalalla's gone the in/out ethanol paradigm will change pretty radically.... as will a lot of other things.
Funny you mention that. I was just out fishing with my kids, and there was a lot of algae in the lake. That made me think about biodiesel from algae, and I thought "We need a thread on TOD where we just brainstorm solutions." Of course then we would need to find a way of getting them implemented.
When I see references to algae or nanosolar I start to think 'here we go again'. However the debate is improving to the point that technologies like windpower and biofuels are ascribed a niche rather than being outright condemned or eulogised. I think we need to use a more standardised set of criteria in discussing solutions. Some criteria were covered in an earlier post but could include long term prospects, monetary winners and losers, environmental costs, inter-industry connections, technological breakthroughs needed and ways to implement.
I'm saying TOD is the melting pot from which the MSM, politicians and marketers can figure what the informed public thinks.
I like this aspect, too, in describing a solution proposal. Nuclear fusion would probably match most of "my" criteria except for the engineering realities - so what would be the engineering obstacles to be overcome for, say, a successfull fusion plant? (For instance, my father recently told me that such a plant needs huge amounts of super-pure rare elements that so far have only been produced in gram amounts at extremely high prices.)
So, any volunteers to support such a series of articles? Hey, moderators, what are the conditions to publish such stuff on TOD?
Best,
Daniel
Much of the confusion and controversy over the EROEI of ethanol vs gasoline appears to stem from a difference of opinion as to where to draw the envelope for the energy input/output analysis. There are a number of different ways one can do this, including:
A) If you draw the envelope of analysis just around the OIL REFINERY, you get one number (typically 0.8)
B) If you draw the envelope of analysis around the [OIL REFINERY + THE OIL EXTRACTION INFRASTRUCTUE], then you will get a different and much larger number(roughly 5 to 8, or thereabouts).
C) If for ethanol you draw the envelope of analysis around the entire corn growing operation plus the ethanol plant, AND if you also include an energy credit for the byproduct distiller's dry grain plus solubles (DDGS), then the generally accepted number appears to be 1.3 (or slightly better under certain conditions).
D) But if for ethanol you do not take a credit for the energy expended in producing the DDGS, then the number is probably much closer to 1.0.
Regarding the taking of an energy credit for DDGS, I have some doubts about the legitimacy of do so.
The rationale behind taking that credit appears to go something like this: DDGS is going to be made by someone somewhere; making DDGS consumes a certain amount of energy; so being that we're making DDGS anyway, lets take an energy credit for it.
Let us consider a plain ol distillery that is fermenting corn just to make booze instead of auto fuel. This distillery takes the wet slops from the stills and makes it into DDGS solely for the purpose of deriving a revenue stream from what would otherwise be a waste material. While it's a prudent business practice, it is done to save money not energy.
A certain amount of energy is required to grow the corn and then convert it into booze. That amount of energy PLUS an additional amount of energy is required if the distillery also chooses to make DDGS. Thus, while making DDGS may increase the distillery's profits, it also increases the distillery's energy expenditure, i.e., it results in more BTUs per fifth of Jack Daniels or whatever.
Therefore, I don't see how the distillery can consider the energy expended in making DDGS as an energy credit. The only difference between the distillery and the ethanol plant is that you drink what comes out of the distillery but put what comes out of the ethanol plant into your car. The role of the DDGS is the same in both cases.
To properly take the DDGS into consideration, one should probably compare the energy consumption in making DDGS with that of making conventional livestock feed. If making DDGS consumes less energy, then the difference is an energy credit, but if it consumes more energy, then the difference is an energy debit.
Perhaps I'm missing something here, but in my opinion the DDGS energy credit appears just a bit dodgy.