So the Wall Street Journal has a story today, “Ethanol Craze Cools As Doubts Multiply.”
In the span of one growing season, ethanol has gone from panacea to pariah in the eyes of some. The critics, which include industries hurt when the price of corn rises, blame ethanol for pushing up food prices, question its environmental bona fides and dispute how much it really helps reduce the need for oil.
Interesting. Even more so because I said many of these things in USA Today back in 2004. Did anyone listen?
Ethanol is a Bad Thing. It costs too much, environmentally, to produce (in terms of fertilizer and water, for starters). There’s not nearly enough arable land to grow the corn or sugar beets or whatever else would need to replace fossil fuels. And trying to grow a lot has jacked up the price of everything from tacos (hurting the Mexican economy and driving more people here) to beer, as the price of corn rises and pushes up the price of other crops. After all, why plant wheat if corn gets you more money?
I said once that electric cars weren’t a solution to our oil woes because of the dirty means of producing that electricity (coal, for the most part). I was wrong, at least partially.
If we’re going to get ourselves off oil, the way to do it is to move toward electric cars, but to produce that electricity using solar, wind, hydro, geothermal (perhaps my favorite), or some other clean way.
Gasoline was — is — great because it’s so portable; you can get energy into a moving vehicle simply. But we need to get our thinking out of the 19th century, where the only way to power a vehicle is via a liquid fuel in a tank. Those liquid fuels are becoming too costly in terms of cash and the environment.
Electricity is great because there are so many ways to produce it. If we can get ourselves away from burning coal to produce it, we can power our cars cleanly, end to end.
The Fray
Gnomic says:
Oh – and the fastest way to make a change – conserve!
And electric cars are a BAD answer for more people. Trading in your SUV for a Prius uses MORE energy, not less. They have to make a new car, and then your old SUV is sold to someone else, or the return on the investment of making it is wasted. Unless your current car is at the end of its lifecycle or a real oil burner (Hummer, Durango, etc) switching to an electric isn’t a smart choice – yet. And you are just as well off (or better) with a 40mpg Yaris or a nicer 40Mpg VW TDI Deisel.
Start by replacing your lightbulbs with CFLs. You don’t have to do ALL of them, just as many as you can stand. That way we avoid having to build new power plants longer.
And you never realized I was a treehugger, did ya?
John says:
I honestly don’t think there is a technological solution to the world’s energy situation.
In the USA, the solution is to thwart sprawl and encourage compact, public transit oriented communities.
Worldwide (including the USA), the best solution is to make birth control free and easy.
gnomic says:
If we don’t find a technological solution soon – including better use of scare resources, there will be a natural solution as systems fail: starvation, disease, war and a couple of other horsemen for bad measure. I’m not overstating the matter – as energy fails to support transportation and distribution system, food fails to get to people, they fight over scarce resources (using up the remaining resources in the process), and civilization collapses to 1920’s capabilities.
I’m not a survivalist – I’m a middle aged guy whose life depends on a steady supply of medicines. I don’t want to believe this either, but its a real possibility. And we can’t burn enough coal (forget clean coal) to generate enough electricity that hybrid cars save us.
This is what happens when dumb shit leaders don’t deal with reality and ignore science.
Bob Francis says:
Andrew, How right you are. Until/if we can produce ethanol, or better yet butanol, directly from cellulose, the overall costs are just too high.
It makes no sense to rob food suffs to produce fuel.
But ADM can only get richer, selling corn/grain.
Bob
gnomic says:
Bob,
Even if we can produce ethonol, we shouldn’t. It requires special handeling and can only be trucked – unless we want to build yet another pipeline infrastructure to ship the stuff. There are a number of other similar comounds that don’t chemicaly react with everything. Better yet – produce something with a higher energy density.
RagManX says:
If I might offer a modest proposal:
Burn babies for energy!
:) That is all.
Bob Francis says:
gnomic, I didn’t mean to promote ethanol, per se.
I was only reacting to Andrew’s remarks. However, butanol, is another matter. It has about the same energy density as gasoline, is not hydroscopic, can be transported in present pipelines, and will run in modern and older cars, pretty much as is. Can be produced from bio-mass.
Bob
Gnomic says:
RagManX,
Throw another Barbra on the pile? What a swift idea!
Leland says:
YOu can’t be driving up the price of corn. My Woodford Reserve will go up in price.
lionemom says:
I agree with Andrew and with Gnomic. I do what I can to use less energy every day. I have changed 90% of the lightbulbs in my house to CFL bulbs and actually noticed the change in my electric bill. My community has a very good recycle program that takes #1 and #2 plastics (that could be better), but also takes all glass, all tin and scrap metal and cardboard/paper goods out at my curb. PLUS, RI is one of the only states right now that collects those plastic shopping bags and recycles them into other things.
http://www.rirrc.org/main.cfm?sec_id=18&guid=2c11b124-8425-4a94-a65a-cef27b6b3f03
I think the governmental end of things needs to happen. But I also think a local, grassroots effort needs to happen. I think organizations need to be started with people literally going door-to-door giving out information on how to reduce energy usage and costs, and getting committments from people to use alternative sources and use less energy.
Education and awareness will be the biggest tools to effect change. Too many people just don’t pay attention or just don’t care enough about this subject – and that needs to change.
Thanks for this post Andrew!
Gnomic says:
One of my favorite topics! Thanks Andrew! (And I didn’t get you anything).
You are exactly right about ethanol; its energy density and costs make it one of the least best options. If you want an agrafuel, biodesiel or vegtable oil is the way to go, at least until we bioengineer a better fuel.
In the short term, there is NO solution that meets the energy growth needs of the world. Throw global warming and various heat trapping gases into the equation (CO2 is just one of many hydrocarbons) and the problem is much more constrained. Solar, Wind & waves (secondary solar), and nuclear are the best options. And if you ignore the nuclear waste (and the lack of safe storage)issue, here is a sobering fact from MIT (from http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/414/):
Right now humans globally require 13 trillion watts (or terawatts) of power. By 2050, we’ll need 28 terawatts. Nocera pokes holes in some hypothetical scenarios offered to achieve this objective. If you gave over every square inch of cropland on the face of the earth to biomass production, you’d only get 7 additional terawatts. Plus, “you couldn’t eat anymore.” You’d still need to add 8,000 nuclear power plants, by building a new plant every 1.6 days for the next 45 years; put wind turbines everywhere; and dam every available river, to approach the 28 terawatt goal.
Uh-Oh.
Solar is the only real option – its the only energy sourse the puts out “free” polution free energy. All we need to do is capture it. Unfortunately that technology isn’t efficient enough (the average solar cell is only 21% effecient, although newer technologies may double that) to keep up with demand.
Which brings us back to a multifuel approach to meet demand. The fastest way to a solution is to convert the shipping fleet to biodesiel as fast possible. This would result in a 20% drop in imported oil in 2-3 years. The next step is to invest in as much geothermal, wind, and solar as possible. Home furnaces and water heaters should go away as cogeneration becomes the norm.
Finally, we need a national man-on-the-moon scale program to address energy demand and use. America needs to regain its technological leadership and this is a cause with which we can rally Americans to a common cause.
For more good info, check out MIT. They are taking a real leadership position in this area.
http://web.mit.edu/mit_energy/programs/lectures/index.html
http://mitworld.mit.edu/act_vfinder.php?mode=bykey&VCat=8&VHost=&x=21&y=7
(No, I’m not a alumnus)