PEAK OIL - EPOCHAL EVENT OF OUR LIVES

[sumisu]

By Brian Marsden, Tue, 08 Aug 2006

Global warming and scarce energy supplies seriously threaten our future. Corn growers, ethanol producers, carmakers, politicians and some environmentalists promote ethanol as a clean, green fuel that reduces energy dependence on foreign sources. This is a tragic mistake. It creates the illusion of positive action while actually making matters much worse.

Fossil fuels, which supply almost 90%1 of our energy, are stores of ancient solar energy, accumulated over millions of years. They are finite and non-renewable. The world uses “more prehistoric plant matter in a day than [it] produces in a year”.2 Plants receive energy directly from the sun. Animals, including humans, get their energy from plants and other animals. For most of human existence, all our food was derived from sunlight.3 In the 20th century, tractors replaced draft animals and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers replaced natural sources, significantly increasing world grain production.

According to the most definitive study I know, more fossil energy is consumed growing corn and making ethanol from it than the ethanol produces and greenhouse gas emissions are 50 percent higher than those from gasoline. Corn uses 40% of all nitrogen fertilizer, made from natural gas. Corn cultivation, like the rest of fossil-based agriculture, is not sustainable and ethanol from corn is not sustainable. Ethanol yields only 68 percent as much energy as the same volume of gasoline.4

Even using a more optimistic analysis that estimates a small net energy gain for corn ethanol, the entire US corn crop could replace only two percent of our annual gasoline demand.5 Corn production receives $4.1 billion per year in federal subsidies and ethanol gets another 51 cents per gallon. One of the worst aspects of the ethanol boondoggle is promotion of E85 (85% ethanol) fuel and flexible fuel vehicles, which burn E85 or straight gasoline. Corporate Average Fuel Economy mileage for light trucks (SUVs, pickups and minivans) is increasing to a level that most of them cannot meet on gasoline. Their E85 mileage is even lower by about 25 percent. But the government, with a little mathematical trickery, calculates an inflated CAFE rating more than 50 percent above the measured gasoline-only number. As a result, auto manufacturers have greatly increased their flex-fuel vehicle production at the expense of genuine fuel efficiency.6

We should make better use of our solar energy income. Available low-efficiency solar cells could produce, annually, about 100 times more electrical energy than corn ethanol could deliver in a hypothetical 60 percent efficient fuel cell. Solar cells don’t need prime agricultural land.7

The most expedient way to reduce dependence on fossil fuels is conservation and increased efficiency. Our present life style is enormously wasteful. We live in one place, drive, mostly alone, to a distant workplace, and shop in dozens of other places. Most of what is consumed in any region is imported and most of what is produced is exported. Greater local self-sufficiency is essential. We must buy local products where feasible and convince government at all levels that growth and trade are not unmitigated benefits.

-------------------

References:

1. Energy Information Administration/Monthly Energy Review, July 2006, Table 1.3 Energy Consumption by Source
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec1_7.pdf

2. Jeffrey S. Dukes*, Department of Biology, University of Utah, 2003: Burning Buried Sunshine: Human Consumption of Ancient Solar Energy
* Dukes is now at Dept. of Biology, University of Massachusetts, Boston
http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf

3. Dale Allen Pfeiffer, From the Wilderness Publications, 2004: Eating Fossil Fuels
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
Pimental, David and Pimental, Marcia, Focus, Spring 1991: Land, Energy and Water: the constraints governing Ideal US Population Size
http://dieoff.org/page136.htm

4. Tad W. Patzek, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, June 25, 2006: Thermodynamics of the Corn-Ethanol Biofuel Cycle
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS416-Patzek-Web.pdf
Patzek, July 11, 2006: The Real Biofuel Cycles
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Materials/RealFuelCycles-Web.pdf

5. Robert Rapier, Energy Bulletin, May 24’ 2006: E85: Spinning our Wheels http://www.energybulletin.net/16400.htm

6. Patrick Bedard, Car and Driver Magazine, July 2006: Tech Stuff: Ethanol Promises: Farm-Raising our own energy independence: Could it happen? http://www.caranddriver.com/features/11174/tech-stuff-ethanol-promises.html
Henry Payne, Detroit News Online, June 8, 2006: Loophole fuels Detroit’s ethanol fixation
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060608/OPINION03/606080306/1008/OPINION01
Tara Baukus Mello, Edmunds.com, 02-07-06: Fueling up with Ethanol: Are flexible fuel vehicles the answer to out oil addiction
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/fueleconomy/articles/109194/article.html
Sharon Silke Carty, USA Today, 6/30/2006: Ford backs away from its hybrid auto sales target
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2006-06-29-ford_x.htm

7. See reference 4

Bibliography:

Howard T. Odum 1970, Environment Power and Society
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen 1971, The entropy Law and the Economic Process
Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, William H. Behrens III 1972: The Limits to Growth
Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows 2004, Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
Herman E. Daly 1973, Toward a Steady-State Economy
Jeremy Rifkin 1980, Entropy: A New World View
Jeremy Rifkin 2002, The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth
Hazel Henderson 1981, The Politics of the Solar Age: Alternatives to Economics
C.J. Campbell 1988, The coming Oil Crisis
James M. Day 1988, What Every American Should Know About The Mid East and Oil
Daniel Yergin 1991, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power
Vaclav Smil 1991, General Energetics: Energy in the Biosphere and Civilization
Vaclav Smil 1999, Energies: An Illustrated Guide to the Biosphere and Civilization
Vaclav Smil 2002, The Earth’s Biosphere: evolution, dynamics, and change
Vaclav Smil 2003, Energy at the Crossroads: Global Perspectives and Uncertainties
Walter Youngquist 1997, GeoDestinies: The inevitable control of Earth resources over nations and individuals
Thom Hartmann 1998, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking up to a Personal and Global Transformation
Michael Economides and Ronald Oligney 2000. The Color of Oil: The History, the Money and the Politics of the World’s Biggest Business
Kenneth S. Deffeyes 2001, Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage
Kenneth S. Deffeyes 2005, Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak
Michael T. Klare 2002, Resource wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict
Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran 2003, Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives and Maybe Even Save the Planet
Richard Heinberg 2003, The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies
Julian Darley 2004, High noon for Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis
Paul Roberts 2004, The end of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World
Richard Heinberg 2004, Power Down: Option and Actions for a Post-Carbon World
Matthew R, Simmons 2005, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy
Al Gore 2006, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It