The bottom line is that NRDC and other ethanomaniacs are kidding themselves if they think we can stay married to the infernal combustion engine (and have hundreds of thousands more shack up with one every year) and NOT reach coal-to-liquids before long.  

In other words, anyone pushing agrofuels is pushing coal-to-liquids, sooner or later -- because if we squander all the available energy here at Peak trying to make fuels out of low-energy-intensity crops, just imagine what we'll do once we're down the other side of peak oil a few years and we still haven't managed to limit the spread of the auto, tractor trailer, and jet airplane.  We'll turn to coal, period.

If you can't kick cigarettes (liquid fuels) now when you're smoking a little more than a "pack a day" (21 million barrels of oil used in the US daily), what makes you think you can kick it later when you're daily use has climbed and you've created a whole industry around the notion that we can keep carburbia going??

The 5% Project

It's kind of schizophrenic how NRDC says Coal-to-Liquids is bad, but at the same time takes up a cheerleader role for Cellulosics.

When those are basically the same thing.

_

It's time for NRDC to stop kidding themselves that a supplyside approach is the answer to our climate/oil problems.

_

Hell, it's time for NRDC to realize that photosynthesis is Pathetic! when it comes to turning solar energy into motive energy.

Thus, the solar energy-to-ethanol conversion efficiency is 0.13%."

For comparison, the solar-to-electricity conversion efficiency of a Stirling dish is around 30%. Thus it takes 230 times as much land to produce energy in the form of sugar cane ethanol as it does to produce it in the form of electricity.

Of course, ethanol energy cannot be used as efficiently as electrical energy to power transportation. That factor of 230 could easily become two or four times greater if that is factored in.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=20902939&postID=4397606035214891954

"I would however disagree that it's well documented that all biofuels are worse for the climate than oil"

Note that the commenter never used the word "all." Greene added that word to build a strawman he could knock down. It has been well documented that all biofuels being produced in commercial quantities are worse for oil except those made from waste grease, and to be honest with you, if someone were to study waste grease, they would probably find that the usurpation of that recyclable source by biofuels is forcing other users of that waste grease to turn to virgin vegetable oils.

The New York times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofue ...

Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975, ...

Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/110636

Science magazine:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/317/5840/902.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1151861v1.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1152747v1.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/318/5857/1721b.pdf

The Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics:

http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/389/2008/acp-8-389-2008. ...

The Swiss Federal Institute for Materials Science: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2976

Journal of Conservation Biology: http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1004-biodiesel.html

Cellulosic ethanol does not exist in commercial format. Using a biofuel that does not exist (that has never been proven economically or environmentally viable) to support mandates and subsidization of biofuels is disingenuous. Here are a couple of common sense graphics for those without subscriptions to Science:

http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/biodiesel/bob.html
http://gristmill.grist.org/images/admin/crayon2.JPG

And then there is this :

"... we cannot afford to just say no [to biofuel mandates and subsidization]."

That's an unsubstantiated opinion. The above links argue that we cannot afford to let this continue. The NRDC's embrace of what has proven to be an unprecedented environmental and food debacle, combined with ongoing efforts to sugarcoat this gaff in judgement in the face of so much science  is ... well, pick you own word.


In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

That was sort of in opposition to George W. Bush's state-of-the-union-address thing about hydrogen-fueled cars.  And Al Gore was certainly not inscribing anything in granite.

It is rather sweet to see our own Tom Philpott and Ron Steenblik cavorting in another website.

And as for JMG, I always love his school-just-let-out sense of sheer fun and delight: "If you can't kick cigarettes," and "keeping carburbia going," and so forth.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I appreciate the work that NRDC does,
But I really wish NRDC's focus for GlobalWarming/PeakOil was on Results, rather than Specific Methods.

BioFuels, Hydrogen, are Carbon Capture are largely indefensible.
And seem to utterly replace a focus on things like Fuel Economy, Electrification, Solar, Geothermal, Hydro, Grid Transmission, and Electricity Storage.

Even the blunt focus on "Energy Independence" seems to force Global Warming to be percieved as a small secondary concern.
(Much less Deforrestation, or Ocean Acidification)

_

Anyways, onto my critique:

Dr. Pimentel has made a name for himself by repeating old data that is out of line with the peer-reviewed literature. (Check out Alex Farrell's EBAMM and the supporting materials from the related Science article to get a sense of where Pimentel's data an outlier.) The only news here is that Pimentel seems to have finally acknowledged that corn ethanol has a positive return of fossil fuel investment.

Who cares about "Positive Energy Return"?
Coal-to-Liquids has a Positive Energy Return.
Tar-Sands has a Positive Energy Return.

Whats important is Greenhouse emissions.

And the real news is that Alex Farrell NOW agrees that Corn Ethanol is worse than liquid coal.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/01/23/more ...

And he points out that land-use is not nearly covered enough in these sorts of policy discussions. (Or his previous models)
http://greyfalcon.net/landuse.pdf
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-corn-ethanol- ...

_

Additionally, Coskata's CEO, now admits that there is absolutely no difference between the technology used for coal-to-liquids, and cellulosic ethanol.
http://greyfalcon.net/coskata
http://greyfalcon.net/cellulosics.pdf

And considering there's not going to be enough raw biomass to support any meaningful cellulosic process.
http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits.png
http://greyfalcon.net/perlack
What you'd be building is gigantic 30 year loan projects which have no choice but to file for bankrupcy, or produce liquid coal.
http://greyfalcon.net/fossilenergy.png

_

Now certainly, we could pray that Algae will come to the rescue, and for that, I say good luck.
http://greyfalcon.net/algae4
http://greyfalcon.net/algae
But even if they figured that out, it'd still be kneecapped by a scarcity of phosporous.
http://greyfalcon.net/algae5

Considering there's more heat in all the $1 bills invested in algae, than the algae itself;
I'd say thats a rather weak assumption to base the fate of the world on.

_

When it all comes down to it, photosynthesis is a big loser when it comes to converting solar energy into a liquid fuel.
When you include the ineffeciencies of combustion engines, we're looking at nearly a 1000-to-1 difference in the conversion of solar energy into torque.
(Compared to SolarThermal + Electric Cars)
http://greyfalcon.net/sugarsolar

_

And while we're at it Smog:
Ozone makes Smog
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/ ...
N2O makes Smog
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/03/researchers-f-1.h ...
Smog Melts the Artic
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/tr ...
And ethanol has since been removed as federal blending requirements due to a lawsuit filed by California over concerns about Smog.
http://feinstein.senate.gov/news-corn0611.html
http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-AIR/2006/May/Day-08/a4252 ...

_

And back onto your comment about Farrell's study, and "peer review":

Of the four articles that showed a positive net energy for ethanol in Farrells 2006 Science article, three were not peer reviewed (i.e. the Ones by the USDA/DOE). The only positive peer-reviewed article (Dias De Oliveira, 2005) states "The use of ethanol as a substitute for gasoline proved to be neither a sustainable nor an environmentally friendly option" and the "environmental impacts outweigh its benefits". Dias De Oliveria concluded there'd be a tremendous loss of biodiversity, and if all vehicles ran on E85 and their numbers grew by 4% per year, by 2048, the entire country, except for cities, would be covered with corn.

Could you perhaps do us a favor, and assume that studies by the USDA/DOE/Khosla don't exist.
And then base your policy rhetoric on that?

Or at very least admit that conventional biofuels do significantly more harm than good.

What kills me is how these guys continue to poo poo the latest science when there was no real science to support them from the start. The DOE and USDA started this biodiesel debacle with their famous report showing soy biodiesel to be 78% carbon neutral. This whole mess has been largely propagated by government bureaucrats in scientist's clothing. Oops, forgot to include land displacement effects. Snap!

And you are right. The energy balance of corn ethanol has little to do with anything. The government supported it for the decades when it was assumed to be energy negative (before the energy credit for corn mash was concieved of a few years back).


In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

That's wonderful, and I imagine true!

These are only my personal opinions.

Anyways, that blog doesn't entirely dump on Algae.
It does say that it can be economical.
http://algae-thermodynamics.blogspot.com/2008/03/algae-op ...

Just not viable due to the phosphorous scarcity.
http://algae-thermodynamics.blogspot.com/2008/02/peak-pho ...

And oh yeah, looks like the inventor of GreenFuels quit the company, and left the country.
http://algae-thermodynamics.blogspot.com/2008/03/berzin-b ...
_

It's a rather nice blog.  Just thought I was citing it too much in one blog post ;D

Your cellulosics.pdf link is down by the way.

_

But yeah, frankly I'm surprised NRDC hasn't backed off to atleast "Well conventional may be horrible, but maybe biomass/algae is okay!!!"

I still think thats wrong, but atleast the evidence against it isn't so entirely unanimous yet.
_

Heh, the other issue in that line of reasoning.

Lets say Corn ethanol gets removed from the RFS requirement.

Even if all of those Cellulosic Ethanol plants come online, what are the chances of meeting the RFS if that happens?

_

And as for holding back, I didn't think Nathaneel needed to see this issue just yet. What I posted already was a bit much to swallow.
http://www.worldpress.org/print_article.cfm?article_id=29 ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6266712.stm
http://valleywag.com/373570/vinod-khoslas-brazilian-ethan ...
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jeHsuoT1eKJDwq3l2kU9Gq ...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0309-08.htm

There's a reason Brazilian Ethanol is cheap.  And it's not pretty.

EU Commission's Joint Research Centre 2008
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/leaked-jrc-work.h ...

UK Royal Society - John Pickett 2008
http://www.celsias.com/2008/01/15/biofuels-can-do-more-da ...

Dutch Report to European Parliament Recommends Reconsidering 10% Biofuels Target for Transport Sector
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/03/dutch-report-to.h ...

And a few others
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/03/for-europe-a-se.h ...
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/uk-transport-se.h ...
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/uk-environmenta.h ...

Proof:  in the very next post to the one at issue here, he is discussing a new venture by an oil company to try and work around the failings of water-absorbing alcohol fuels.  He writes this astounding statement:

"Second, we need to resist any calls to hold off on developing ethanol infrastructure while oil companies and startups work on these new molecules. The threat of having to invest in this infrastructure is one of main reasons that most oil companies will consider real investments in the biofuels sector.

This is after admitting in his bio that

I have just enough science, engineering, and economics to be dangerous and use this training to translate the cutting edge energy technology developments into policy recommendations.

I really can't add to that.  I think he has described himself perfectly, and the only question is why people don't recognize that NRDC (like the Institute for Local Self-Reliance before it) has sold out to the agrofuels lobby.  

That "Switchboard" shows that we really need to understand what NRDC has become. How about

NRDC

= Not really defending conservation
= Naturally Republican, donning cover
= Natives restless, devour capital
= Never rest, defend carburbia!

The 5% Project

Artificial vehicle fuels free of fossil carbon
will moot the biofuels debate.  See Los Alamos Labs project "GREEN FREEDOM".

Lol, thats H2Car program all over again with a new label.
http://greyfalcon.net/h2car

This time of course, instead of trillions of dollars of solar panels, it's trillions of dollars of nuclear power plants.

See, different!

March 29, 2008 - Chief UK scientist revolts over biofuel legislation
Could biofuels do more damage to the climate than the fossil fuels they replace? That's the fear casting doubt on the wisdom of a law that from next month will require a certain proportion of vehicle fuel to come from biological sources.

On Monday, Bob Watson, chief scientist at the UK's Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs, called into question the idea of switching to biofuels. This follows the publication of studies showing that more carbon is emitted in producing some biofuels than is saved by burning them in place of fossil fuels. Former UK chief scientist David King also denounced biofuels that displace food crops and tropical rainforests.

The UK government is awaiting a report in June from its Renewable Fuels Agency before considering a change in policy. In the meantime, the UK must comply with European legislation. That means from 15 April, fuel suppliers must ensure that biofuels account for at least 2.5 per cent fuel in the pumps, rising to 10 per cent by 2020.

Nice one DrX:

"...living soil and plants that removed CO2 and sequestered it, before chemical ag left it an inert chemical growing media."

No translation needed.

I can only imagine that Greene is working up some kind of rebuttal. Question is, which blog will air it?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/04/germany-cancels.h ...

I've discovered triple GHG savings from biodigestion and organic ag.  Replacing fossil and mined fertilizer, big GHG cuts.  Reviving the carbon sink activity of soil, big GHG sucked out of the atmosphere and stored.  Preventing manure and chemical fertilizer run off, big savings of methane, super GHG, released from wetlands.

Don't burn the biomass, save the biomass! (dan akroyd/julia childe voice)  Put it in the biodigestor.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Cheers,
N-

The thing is that if a plugin covers the average daily trip length between charging opportunities(about 21 miles I believe), and most do go 40 to 60 miles on plugin power alone, then the liquid fuel savings are more like 80 or even 90%.

As battery technology gets better that range can be 100 miles or more, then the savings goes up over 90%.  With those kinds of reductions oil will last for a few decades.  And GHG reductions will cure the climate disaster.

This would be set to kick in over a couple of decades, of course no total solution will happen overnight.  Cellulosic ethanol would take years to roll out too, according to recent studies.

In 15 or 20 years as batteries approach the energy density of liquid fuel (even 1/5 the density would be equal to liquid fuel burned at 14% in a gas guzzling internal combustion engine, since electric motors are 5 times that efficent), and charge tmes drop to 5 to 10 minutes, no liquid fuel will be needed.

Any molecule that serves as liquid fuel will do, that's true enough, but it has to actually be carbon neutral to be part of the solution to gHG disaster.  Ethanol from cellulose, sugar cane, or corn is not carbon neutral.  Sorry.

Join us and come on in for the big win Nathanial.  And bring NRDC with you.  Plugin hybrids plugged into a renewable smart grid is the way to go.

I'm putting this over on your blog too.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog