Deforestation

I did not realize that Amazon deforestation had reached such critical levels. Interesting facts from the article linked below:

• Severe drought is returning to the Amazon for a second successive year.
• New research suggests that one further dry year beyond that could tip the whole vast forest into a cycle of destruction.
• Global warming and deforestation [are] pushing the entire enormous area towards a "tipping point", where it would start to die.
• The wet Amazon Basin would turn to dry savannah at best, desert at worst.
• In the long term, it could send global warming out of control, eventually making the world uninhabitable.
• This year [...] the water is draining away even faster than last year - and there are still more than three months of the dry season to go.
• Illegal cutting as reached far into the forest after the American multinational Cargill built a huge port for soya three years ago.
• Entrepreneurs [...] cut down trees to grow soya [...] destined to feed supermarket chickens in Europe.
• The destruction is unlikely to be brought under control, unless the world helps.
• Doing this would take US$60 billion year - less than a third of the cost of the Iraq war.
• About a fifth of the Amazonian rainforest has been razed completely. Another 22 per cent has been harmed by logging, allowing the sun to penetrate to the forest floor, drying it out.
• Read the article: A disaster to take everyone's breath away

To continue a theme, do you know what fuels this destruction? Right, the availability of cheap oil and the enormous power that it provides.

Welcome to Richistan

An excellent article observing the strange an excessive world of the ultra-rich.

Welcome to Richistan, USA

Economics of Conservation

Does it make sense for an electric company to want to sell you less electricity?

Of course not, they make less money that way, so why would they ever push for any more efficiency than mandated by the government?

Clearly this is a result of wrong-headed thinking about how to charge for services. Maryland is the fourth state in the nation to figure this out and apply it:

In a rate case ruling issued yesterday, the Maryland Public Service Commission endorsed an approach known as decoupling, which ensures that utilities do not lose revenue if customers use less electricity.

PSC officials and customer advocates said decoupling will not cut electricity demand by itself, but it will mean that utilities can provide incentives for conservation programs -- such as rewards for purchases of high-efficiency appliances -- without losing revenue.

Under decoupling plans, if customers cut energy use, the rate for distribution costs is increased in later months so that the utility can cover its fixed costs and maintain its wires, poles, substations and other infrastructure. Consumers would still save money on fuel costs, the largest component of their electric bills. Maryland Adopts Plan For Energy Efficiency

It's always remarkable to see any government agency do something that is both remarkable and correct. I'm pleased. Only 92% of the country to go.

Reply from Dave Heineman

I recently sent a letter to the Nebraska Governor expressing my displeasure in Nebraska's low ranking in the NRDC's survey of what states are doing to reduce their oil dependence.

Here is his reply:

Thanks for sharing with me the information from the National Resources Defense Council that ranks states on how they are reducing their oil dependence. You noted that the study found that Nebraska was one of "the 10 states doing the least to reduce their oil dependence."

In response, I would note that the evaluation that placed Nebraska in the bottom rung relied on seven benchmarks. Several of the benchmarks were mandates or increased spending on new programs:

• requiring renewable fuel in all gasoline
• limits on new vehicles available for sale
• growth policies that limit land use options
• increased mass transit spending
• hybrid vehicle tax incentives, and
• alternative fuel station tax incentives

While some of these efforts may be laudable, Nebraskans have generally opposed "government mandates" whether they come from the federal, state or local government. Increased spending or new and costly programs must compete with other uses for limited tax revenues. Since Nebraska is a large state with a small population some efforst such as mass transit or limiting growth options may not be economically supportable or prudent public policy.

Unfortunately, the study did not include a category for renewable energy production. If that had been included, I suspect the state would have ranked very high. We will likely produce a billion gallons of ethanol. Most of the ethanol produced is exported, making it possible for state to adopt renewable fuel standards using Nebraska-produced ethanol.

First, the fact that I got such a targeted reply suggest to me that somebody in the Governor's office already researched this in order to come up with these excuses. That's cool, nice to see they are on top of things.

I note that the posture of the reply is very defensive. It is saying, in a nutshell, that the criteria for the study don't apply to us because we are special. That certainly may be a valid criticism, so lets take the objections point by point.

"While some of these efforts may be laudable, Nebraskans have generally opposed 'government mandates'.

Translation, some of these are good ideas, but we lack the balls to do anything about it.

People are stupid, especially in large groups, thats why we have a representative government rather than a direct democracy. We hired you guys to figure out how to get the right things done, not to do the stupid crap the unwashed masses think are good ideas. Sorry, does that sound elitist? Do I sound like a Republican? People, in general, don't plan for or think about the future. We swill down the hydrocarbons and drive around in pickup trucks, assuming that somebody will figure out how to keep it all going. That is why we have government. To govern. To control. To take the long view and direct the course of civilization.

"Since Nebraska is a large state with a small population, some efforts such as mass transit or limiting growth options may not be economically supportable or prudent public policy."

Translation, we are too busy to address critical issues with creative thinking, instead we'll trot out tried-and-true excuses instead of taking risks that might get me kicked out of office.

You know how you get people to ride the bus? Make it free. Make it widely available. Provide a way for people to take their bicycles with them. Make sure you have wide-area coverage, even if you can't give people door-step service in downtown. Advertise aggressively! Listen to people's concerns and then address them.

"If [a category for renewable energy production] had been included, I suspect the state would have ranked very high."

Maybe so. But using corn fields to turn natural gas and diesel fuel into ethanol isn't doing much to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels is it?

"We will likely produce a billion gallons of ethanol."

Oh, wow, a BILLION gallons. We consume over 900 billion gallons of gasoline each year. If you were budgeting your paycheck for a week, and you had 900 dollars, how excited would you get about finding out that you could spend 90 cents on the bus to go pick up an extra buck.

That's how ethanol works, you put 90 cents worth of the energy in the form of natural gas and diesel fuel in order to grow a bucks worth of ethanol. In the process you're probably using industrial cropping methods to degrade your topsoil, reducing your yields over time.

Of course, that fits with most people's idea of conservation anyway, they'll drive across town in a SUV, burning up three bucks worth of gasoline to 'save' 2 bucks on a 6 dollar item that they didn't need and wouldn't have bought at the regular price.

Here, expand your mind, watch Crude - the incredible journey of oil at least you'll know what the stuff is and why, two decades from now, you are doing manual labor on a farm and there are no more contrails.

Self-Centered Culture Experiment

New Scientist magazine recently published an article about an experiment that purports to demonstrate that when "putting yourself in the shoes of others, cultures that emphasise interdependence over individualism may have the upper hand."

I find this study fascinating, but not for the subject matter itself.

In a new psychological experiment, Chinese students outperformed their US counterparts when ask to infer another person's perspective. The researchers say the findings help explain how misunderstandings can occur in cross-cultural communication. In the experiment, psychologists Boaz Keysar and Shali Wu at the University of Chicago, Illinois, US, recruited 40 students. Half of the volunteers were non-Asians who had grown up in the US, and the other half were native Mandarin speakers who had very recently emigrated from various parts of China. The volunteers played a game in which they had to follow the instructions of a person sitting across the table from them, an individual known as the 'director'. Researchers placed a grid structure between the two people consisting of small compartments, some of which contained objects such as wood blocks, toy bunnies and sunglasses (see image, right). Some of the individual compartments were covered on one side with cardboard so that they were blocked from the view of the director - only the study subjects could see the objects inside. Off the charts The volunteers had to follow the instructions of the director and move named objects from one compartment to another. But – as a sneaky trick – the researchers sometimes placed two objects of the same kind in the grid. In this case, the subjects would have to consider the director’s view to know which object she was referring to. For example, the grid sometimes contained two wooden blocks, one of which sat in a compartment hidden to the director. The director would then ask the subject to "move the wooden block to a higher square in the grid". Chinese students would immediately understand which wooden block to move – the one visible to both them and the director. Their US counterparts, however, did not always catch on. "They would ask 'Which block?' or 'You mean the one on the right?", explains Keysar. "For me it was really stunning because all of the information is there. You don't need to ask," he adds. (Self-centered cultures narrow your viewpoint)

What I find fascinating here is not that the Chinese students 'outperformed' the American students, but that the researchers apparently believe that the assumptions made by the Chinese students are superior to those made by the American students.

Bias much?

The American students recognized that the directions were ambiguous, then, rather than making an assumption about what the researcher wanted, they requested clarification. In some cases this clarification was stated in a way that suggested that the students were aware that the researcher was aware that there were two blocks "You mean the one on the right?". Not "There are two, which do you mean?".

The researcher states "all of the information is there. You don't need to ask". The American students are communicating more clearly, providing feedback that the instructions are ambiguous and that to complete the task with minimal chance of mistakes they should resolve the ambiguity. The Chinese students assume that the researcher is talking about the block they can see, but do not consider the possibility that the researcher is quite aware that there are two blocks, even though he cannot at present see both of them.

Obviously this sort of guessing game quickly results in death by iocane powder. We don't know what any of the students were inferring about who knew what, but the point is that the article consistently disses the American students for seeking to resolve the ambiguity explicitly. Both techniques have pros and cons, but it is clear that these researchers hate Americans. They are probably terrorists too.

Quit Your Meat Habit

Think you're environmentally conscious? If you
are still eating meat, think again. For every pound of beef you eat you
are directly resposible for the consumption of 10 pounds of dry grain.
Let's say you eat less beef the the average American, consuming only 52
pounds of beef per year, one pound a week. If you are very
conservative, using ground beef in cassoroles and such, that might be 4
or 5 meals. Now lets consider the grain that went into producing the
beef. How many meals would you get out of a 10 pound bag of, say,
beans. A 1.25 pound bag is good for about 14 servings, so your 10 pound
bag would get you about 112 meals.

Ok, now, that is assuming
that you eat things like bean soup which are about 90% beans and
cassorole, which is maybe 20% beef. What happens if you directly
replace your beef with grain, so that you are using about the same
proportion of other ingredients?

Those servings of beans are
pretty good-sized, so let's cut it in thirds for our estimate. Now
you're up to 336 meals. Being generous, that is about 65 meals with
grains for each meal with beef.

What about actual cost? Say
you're getting a pretty good deal on beef at $2.50 a pound. We're
saying that's worth about 10 pounds of grain, so what does 10 pounds of
bean soup cost you? If you buy 25lb bags (non-refrigerated dry goods,
keeps for years on the shelf!) you can get that 10 pounds for about 6
bucks. Ha! you say, that costs MORE than beef! Don't forget that that
10 pounds of grain is 336 meals, or 1.7 cents per meal, whereas the
beef is 50 cents per meal, or about 30 times the price.

A
kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and
other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights
on back home.

Producing a kilogram of beef leads to the emission
of greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent to 36.4
kilograms of carbon dioxide. It also releases fertilising compounds
equivalent to 340 grams of sulphur dioxide and 59 grams of phosphate,
and consumes 169 megajoules of energy.

In other words, a kilogram of beef is responsible for the equivalent of the amount of CO₂
emitted by the average European car every 250 kilometres, and burns
enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days. (Meat is murder on the environment)

So how about this. Instead of spending 50 to 100 bucks to replace all
your light bulbs with compact flourescent bulbs, cut the beef out of
your diet in favor of a variety of grains. Most stores have at least 10
different kinds, and if you go to Whole Foods or your local equivalent,
you'll find dozens more. You'll be healthier for it, you'll reduce your
environmental impact, and you'll probably open up a whole world of new
foods you never knew existed.

Sucker.

On a narrow, leafy street in Northwest Washington, where Prius hybrid cars and Volvos are the norm, one man bought a flashy gray Hummer that was too massive to fit in his garage.

So
he parked the seven-foot-tall behemoth on the street in front of his
house and smiled politely when his eco-friendly neighbors looked on in
disapproval at his "dream car."

It
lasted five days on the street before two masked men took a bat to
every window, a knife to each 38-inch tire and scratched into the body:
"FOR THE ENVIRON."

Hummer owner gets angry message - Washington Post - MSNBC.com

Excellent Interview

This is an excellent interview with David Strahan, author of The Last Oil Shock.

Six Important Problems

Six important problems that Americans need to address.

1: The never-ending war in Iraq
2: Our national oil addiction
3: The pressing need for campaign reform
4: America's broken healthcare system
5: Global warming
6: America's failing education system

A Citizen's Wake-Up Call: Six Problems We Can No Longer Afford to Ignore

To Representative Lee Terry

Rep. John Dingell is planning to introduce legislation that he says is what we really need to do to protect the environment. He is introducing it to show that Americans, when shown what it will really cost to protect the environment, will completely reject the measures.

I want you to support the legislation as Mr Dingell has written it.

We've already wasted too much time, we need legislation with teeth. Let's take this chance to show Americans and the world that we are committed to doing the right thing.

David Roberts: Dingell calls our bluff

Urine Collection as a Phosphorus Source?

It seems that world phosphorus sources, essential to farming and the 'green revolution', are going to be running out in about 50 years. As with oil this is probably a case of extraction cost. There's still lots of stuff in the ground, but all the cheaply accessible deposits will have been extracted and further extraction will cost more each year.

This article suggests that since the most concentrated source of phosphorus is urine (we manufacture artificial urine for farming) we should tap the primary source, us. This would involve replacing toilet facilities to handle dual waste streams and would save water, another essential and dwindling resource.

The biggest hurdle is not technical but psychological, people have irrational taboos about their toilet habits.

An Example: Fuel Shortages Halt Economies

Fuel makes the world go around. As an example, take a look at Zimbabwe, where fuel shortages have essentially paralyzed the country.

Fuel shortage brings Zimbabwe to halt

High Capacity Large Scale Electrical Power Storage

A long-time problem in electrical power systems has been efficient and cost-effective storage of electric power. This would allow demand peaks to be satisfied by electricity generated during off-peak times. This can reduce the infrastructure requirements of power systems and can make better use of wind power. Because strong winds often occur at night when demand is low, battery storage can make more power available from wind farms by storing it until it is needed.

In the past the problem has been in the cost or efficiency of very large batteries. They tend to wear out quickly and also only return a fraction of the energy put into them.

Sodium-Sulfur batteries may provide a solution to this problem.

American Electric Power (AEP),
one of the largest U.S. utilities, has been using a 1.2 megawatt NaS
battery in Charleston, W.Va., the past year and plans to install one
twice the size elsewhere in the state next year. Dozens of utilities
are considering the battery, says Dan Mears, a consultant for NGK
Insulators, the Japanese company that makes the devices.

"If you've got these batteries distributed in
the neighborhood, you have, in a sense, lots of little power plants,"
Walker says. "The difference between these and diesel generators is
these batteries don't need fuel" and don't pollute.(More)

Shell Says Conservation Won't Cut It

Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer, a man you expect to know something about the oil business, says that conservation of fuel is extremely important, but that it is not enough. Even with conservation demand is projected to double by 2050 (that is over 40 million barrels a day for the USA), at a time when conventional oil fields are already in decline (peak is projected to happen around 2015 or sooner).

If conservation won't do it, what will?

"In order to become a society that produces less CO2, there has to be a new mind-set. All the recent hype about renewables and about being "carbon neutral" doesn't change the reality of what we face, but it does help with short-term awareness. That's how it starts." (More)

Change starts with you. Make a difference.

Shell Says Conservation Won't Cut It

Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer, a man you expect to know something about the oil business, says that conservation of fuel is extremely important, but that it is not enough. Even with conservation demand is projected to double by 2050 (that is over 40 million barrels a day for the USA), at a time when conventional oil fields are already in decline (peak is projected to happen around 2015 or sooner).

If conservation won't do it, what will?

"In order to become a society that produces less CO2, there has to be a new mind-set. All the recent hype about renewables and about being "carbon neutral" doesn't change the reality of what we face, but it does help with short-term awareness. That's how it starts." (More)

Change starts with you. Make a difference.

Action Item: Write your Representative in Support of Railroads

An unauthorized reproduction of an ASPO-USA article published on 2007-July-9.

There are things we can do to reduce consumption of oil. A lot of it involves railroads.

Did you know that Warren Buffett is betting on railroads, with recent huge investments three different railroad companies? Railroads now constitute Berkshire Hathaway's 5th largest investment. Maybe Mr. Buffett knows something about energy supplies and transportation that you don't?

A 10% reduction in America's oil use in 10-12 years

by Alan Drake

A 10% reduction in America's oil consumption is not out of reach. There is an overlooked, practical, and affordable approach using technology available today that would allow the U.S. to achieve this goal in 2017. Here is a five step program outlining this approach.

Step One – Electrify US Freight Rail Lines and Shift Freight to Rail

Japanese and most European railroads are electrified. The Russians recently finished electrifying the Trans-Siberian Railroad, from Moscow to the Pacific, and to the Arctic port of Murmansk. So there are no technical limitations. Electrifying railroads and transferring half the truck ton-miles to rail should save 6.3% of US oil consumption.

Electrified railroads also expand rail capacity since they accelerate and brake faster.

Today’s diesel railroads are roughly eight times more energy-efficient than heavy diesel trucks. Railroads carried 27.8% of the ton-miles with 220,000 barrels/day while trucks carried 32.1% of the ton-miles with 2,070,000 b/day (2002 data).

When we convert trains to electricity, the rule of thumb is that 1 Btu of electricity will do the work of 2.5 Btus of diesel on rural plains, and 1 to 3 in mountainous and urban areas. Generating electricity back into the grid when braking is the difference.

These savings are multiplicative. Switch freight from truck to diesel rail (x8 savings) and electrify the railroad (x2.5 savings) and end-use goes from 20 BTUs of diesel to one BTU of electricity.

Faced with cheap oil and toll-free interstate highways for decades, US railroads reduced their capacity (often by tearing up one of two tracks) and ceded much cargo to trucking. Today, intermodal shipments (local trucking, long distance by rail via containers) are growing rapidly – but this trend must be accelerated.

USA railroads have pointed to property taxes as the reason that they have not electrified (no taxes on their diesel, property taxes on electrification infrastructure). Exempting any rail line that electrifies from property taxes under the Interstate Commerce clause would promote the rapid electrification of many rail lines. Expanding capacity would then be more economically attractive without the burden of property taxes. Removing property taxes on electrified rail lines would take the thumb off the scale in the economic competition between rail and trucks. Trucks pay no property taxes, directly or indirectly, on their right-of-way. Trains do. Local property tax losses above a certain percentage of total taxes could have the excess compensated by the Federal Government.

Step Two – Increase Urban Rail Federal Funding

Building the gas-saving equivalent of twelve DC Metros would save 4% of US oil use (6% of transportation oil use). New electric mass transit will benefit the USA much more than new highways.

In 1970, 4% of DC commuters used city buses to get to work. Today over 40% use public transit. The difference is the 106 miles of Washington Metro. Washington Metro saves between a half-billion and a billion gallons of gasoline per year; changes in urban and suburban development patterns contribute to these savings. Such savings will only increase over time.

Miami passed a sales tax to build a 103-mile system of elevated "Subway in the Sky".
www.miamidade.gov/trafficrelief/RailMap.htm [brown lines are 2016+]

Twenty-five years to build a system that will save billions of gallons of gasoline: why so long? Limited Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funding. Robust federal funding would result in an explosion of urban rail, from streetcars to light rail and rapid rail, combined with widespread commuter rail.

The Interstate Highway system was built with 90% federal funding; yet federal funding for new urban rail has been cut from 80% to de facto 30%.

The United States once built 500 electric streetcar systems in 20 years. Most towns of 25,000 and larger built a non-oil electrical transportation system. The USA did this with a population of less than one-third of today's, approximately 3% of today's GNP, and simple technology. We did it once; we can do it again!

Step Three – Promote Electric Trolley Buses

They require electrical infrastructure but electric trolley buses are cheaper and lighter, they last longer, they are pollution-free, and are quiet, smooth (much less jerky) and more attractive to passengers than fossil-fuel buses.

The FTA currently funds 80% of bus replacement costs on a twelve-year cycle; 15 years might be more appropriate. Perhaps FTA could fund fossil-fuel replacement buses on a 13.5-year cycle at 75% and trolley buses (with their electrical infrastructure) at 92%.

Step Four – Promote Transportation Bicycling

Only 0.4% of Americans commute by bike to work; 3.5% of Portland (OR) commuters use bicycles. Increasing the national average of bicycling commuting will have a measurable impact on oil consumption, and public health. Bicycling, like rail, has “Elasticity of Supply” in an emergency. Local steps plus national support, including making it patriotic to bicycle and walk, can help.

Step Five – Create a Strategic Railcar Reserve (SRR) to Supplement the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)

One future scenario: The Islamic Republic of Arabia replaces the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the new Islamic Republic cuts exports to buy just essentials. The USA would face a severe and prolonged oil supply interruption.

The US government would immediately institute a variety of oil conservation measures and start draining the SPR. Demand would swamp the capacity of every urban rail system in the country. Freight railroads and Amtrak would be overwhelmed. Soon more severe oil demand restrictions would be required, such as rationing.

Every urban rail system will need more rolling stock. Rail cars are the first limiting factor. Freight railroads and Amtrak will need more cars as well.

More rolling stock will reduce USA oil demand and allow the SPR to last a few days longer. Once the SPR is exhausted, the SRR (and all the steps above) will still be benefiting the nation. Rail cars are made in the USA, their benefit will last much longer than barrels of oil, they can be used and not disappear in minor oil supply interruptions, and they are cheaper, per barrel saved, than $100+ oil in a prolonged emergency.

Urban rail systems should estimate demand in the case of an oil supply interruption and what would be required to handle this demand. Sometimes retired cars could be mothballed, but usually new cars would be required for the SRR.

Summary

Twenty BTUs of diesel fuel consumption replaced by one BTU of electricity is the energy trade by shifting from heavy trucks to electrified railroads. Replacing 2 million barrels/day of heavy truck diesel fuel would take just 1.4% of US electricity.

Transportation uses 0.19% of US electrical demand today. The gasoline-saving equivalent of a dozen new DC Metros would likely double that 0.19% figure.

These proposals would complement the widely discussed steps of higher CAFE, etc.. They are complementary and not mutually exclusive. And these steps can start immediately, they require no new technology, and they would have a significant impact in the medium term.

These steps would be faster than drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, would produce at least twice as much oil savings as ANWR would produce at its peak, and would never deplete (Prudhoe Bay is producing at 20% of its peak, Washington Metro hits a new peak in oil saved every year).

Sometimes good public policy is good politics. Reducing US oil consumption, reducing greenhouse gases, improving the US economy, reducing congestion, providing non-oil transportation alternatives, and reducing the number of 18-wheel trucks on the highways should be both good public policy and good politics!

Alan Drake is a consulting engineer and reformed accountant who has combined his interests in the iconic St. Charles streetcars 2.5 blocks from his home in New Orleans and Urban Rail in general, plus experience with engineering for efficiency. He is searching for economic solutions that address both global warming and post-peak oil issues.

(Note: Commentaries do not necessarily represent ASPO-USA’s positions; they are personal statements and observations by informed commentators.)

ASPO-USA is a nonpartisan, proactive effort to encourage prudent energy management, constructive community transformation, and cooperative initiatives during an era of depleting petroleum resources.

"Lookism"

A recent MSNBC article focused on "lookism", the common propensity for people to prefer attractive people over unattractive people and their tendency to believe that attractive people have superior qualities.

One research project gave teachers extensive student files to review.
These files contained student grades, work habits and attitudinal
information as well as a “student photo.” As it turns out, teachers can
be just as tuned in to “looksism” as are the children’s peers.
Physically cute boys and girls were assumed to be more intelligent and
able to get along better with peers than were plain or less attractive
kids. This held true even though the grades and attitudinal information
in the files of the less attractive children were exactly the same as
the more physically attractive students! (More)

Certainly it is good to teach kids that this sort of thinking is a problem in that the assumption is often wrong, but one must wonder if it is entirely cultural in nature. It is clear that people prefer to associate with people that they find attractive and that what is attractive follows some general rules across cultures (symmetrical, proportional, etc). Is trying to teach children not to assume that the fat kid is slow and dumb as silly as trying to teach them that they should prefer to watch ugly people on TV?

Elephant in the Room

Australia has admitted for the first time that securing oil resources
is a key motivator behind the presence of Australian troops in Iraq.

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The Great Corn Con

You would think that important people, like those leading our country, would make decisions that are technically achievable. Unfortunately politicians are, for the most part,not technically oriented, and so if enough people feed them plausible lines, they're likely to fall for it.

For example, it seems that many of them are convinced that ethanol is a good fuel and that it is possible to ramp up production of it to 36,000,000,000 gallons per year within 15 years. They also believe that this volume of fuel, equivalent to 1.54 million barrels of oil per day, would have a significant impact on our estimated consumption of 28 million barrels per day in 2022 (2% growth per year on the 21 million per day we use today).

And this doesn't even consider that the production of the ethanol fuel will require consumption of diesel fuel to plant, harvest and transport it as well as natural gas and coal to process it.

The Senate's preposterous new ethanol bill.

So what is the real answer? Obviously, cut your fuel usage. Don't make economic rationalizations of trip costs (it will only cost me $1 in gasoline to drive to the store) make it consumption based (it will cost a third of a gallon to drive to the store), and then minimize your consumption.

Eliminate your meat consumption. Each pound of beef requires about 10 pounds of grain, and thus 10 times the fuel to produce. Eat a variety of grains and vegetables instead, it will reduce the fuel embodied in the food you eat and you'll be healthier for it. All the better if you can eat locally produced foods that haven't been carted across the country.

Quit buying stuff. Sure, it's fun, it makes you feel all fuzzy and warm. That is because you haven't learned to look at that shiny new thing and see the environmental destruction behind it. Think of the vast economy required to produce that thing in a vast city-factory in China, load it on a boat with 50,000 more just like it, and ship it halfway around the world, then truck it across the country just so you can feel all warm and fuzzy for 20 minutes before you put it on the shelf and move on to the next warm fuzzy.

Picture how that vast economy providing you with your retail buyer fix has to strip mine resources to process that goodie. Imagine the acres of tropical rain forest that were cut down to grow palm oil trees to supply the biodiesel you bought so you could get your fix and be 'green' at the same time.

Look at the layers and layers of packaging wrapped around that little nugget of consumer bliss. Fancy goodie nestled in a hermetically sealed foil package encased in brightly printed cardboard wrapped in heavy plastic blister pack riding around with advertising pages in a filmy plastic bag. Pitch the bag and the advertising, strip the plastic, toss the cardboard, peel the foil and *poof* it disappears into the trash and you have your bauble to sooth your urges for a quarter hour.

Imagine that plastic package you just dropped into the trash. It was probably created less than a month or so ago from chemicals produced from a barrel of oil pumped out of the ground in the past 6 months. Prior to that it spent a few 10's of millions of years just lying there, aging and gradually improving over the ages, kind of like a very slow fine wine. Before that it was decaying plant material, hundreds or thousands of years worth of plant growth compressed into a black slick. Think about that. A resource, derived of ancient sunlight, 10 million years in the making, extracted, processed and discarded by you. Was it really worth it?

Oh sure, you need some of that stuff. Kids have to be educated, people have to be fed and clothed. There are a lot of things that have to be done and many that are harmless. But, really, how much of your consumption is necessary to be happy and healthy, and how much is just because you want to do things the easy way, the way everybody else does, thinking that that is what will make you happy?

Are You a Believer Yet?

Call it what you will, peak oil, energy security or oil addiction, officials around the world are rapidly awakening to the threat of oil depletion. Given the usual sloth-like reaction times of political networks the rate at which official awareness is growing is almost shocking. Here's hoping that the growth is, like oil consumption rates, exponential.

In a stunning interview [...] Fatih Birol, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency (i.e. the intergovernmental body created after the oil shocks of the 70s to coordinate the West's reaction to energy crises) effectively says that peak oil is just around the corner, and that without Iraqi oil, we'll be in deep trouble by 2015:

If Iraqi production does not rise exponentially by 2015, we have a very big problem, even if Saudi Arabia fulfills all its promises. The numbers are very simple, there's no need to be an expert.

Within 5 to 10 years, non-OPEP production will reach a peak and begin to decline, as reserves run out. There are new proofs of that fact every day. At the same we'll see the peak of China's economic growth. The two events will coincide: the explosion of Chinese growth, and the fall in non-OPEP oil production. Will the oil world manage to face that twin shock is an open question.(More)

Whatever you thought were the pressing issues in your life, take a few minutes to weigh them against this future, just a few years off, and see if they don't shrink. There is important work to be done, think deeply about how you fit into it.

What To Do?

Simple and reasonable things that should be done soon, but won't be:

Most of our oil use and much of greenhouse gas emissions come from road
transport. Commercial road usage certainly needs review, but the
easiest and most effective changes would occur in general motoring.

To this end, there are two simple things governments should do
immediately: the first is to cut speed limits; the second is to get
unnecessary, big, four-wheel-drive cars (4WDs) off the roads.(More)

What is Biodiesel Made From?

What is that Earth-friendly biodiesel made from? Why, it's made from rain forests!

This year the Indonesian Government will officially hold a new Guinness World Record - the fastest pace of deforestation. They must be so proud. Between 2000 and 2005 Indonesia lost two percent of its forest each year, representing an area of wildlife rich tropical forest the size of Wales. That’s three hundred football pitches of forest per hour. (More)

Please accept my apologies if you've heard it before, but you can't consume your way to environmental sustainability. The only way to stop it is to stop consuming. The only way to win is not to play. If you save your money in the bank rather than spending it the bank will loan it out 3 times over (see Fractional Reserve Banking), allowing it to consume three times the resources it would have if you had simply spent it.

Global Energy Hogs

An interesting article:

Human greed takes lion's share of solar energy - Environment - smh.com.au

It seems that we humans are consuming so much of the solar energy collected by plants that we are cutting into what is available for other species. Given the often razor-thin margins that define species survival I cannot see how this would not, in the long term, affect changes in natural species survival.

The solution is quite obvious and one we practice regularly within our own species. When someone competes with you for the resources you'd like to waste for yourself, you simply kill them off. We've got this project well under way, no need to worry.

Fuel Shortages Continue

Not log ago I posted an article about fuel shortages in North Dakota resulting in fuel tanker lines as well as shortages in Kansas forcing farms to truck in fuel from other states. Recent reports indicate that the shortage continues (or maybe that news source is just very slow?)

Add to that a flooded Kansas refinery that probably won't return to service for weeks at a minimum, and more likely months.

A major fuel supplier, the 108,000-barrel-a-day Coffeyville, Kan., plant shut down late Saturday as the nearby Verdigris River overflowed its banks. Floodwaters have shut the refinery, terminal and rack, or truckloading facility.(More)

It seems that fuel supplies in the Midwest could be very tight, particularly during the fall as harvest activities place pressure on supplies.

Bioengineering the Future

If I were entering college today I would plan on working in biological engineering. Way back in 7th grade one of my teachers asked me what profession I wanted to go into. My answer was genetics engineering. I loved the idea of taking natural biology and modifying it to perform directed tasks. Living machines seem to me the ultimate in technology, combining the best features of technology and biology.

The U.S. Department of Energy has committed $125 million to an aggressive effort called Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI, pronounced Jay Bay), that will develop fuels from plant material.(Wired Science - Wired Blogs)

If I had gone into bioengineering I would be excited to work on biofuel production. While most of the current work in this area is focused on industrial processes, trucking of stuff to vats where it can be processed, then trucked somewhere else, I have a different vision of what would be useful.

I don't believe that the future will be like today. The reduced availability of fuel will require us to use drastically less fuel and energy in general, so a centralized fuel infrastructure will be less efficient than a distributed system. Rather than huge plants producing thousands of gallons a day we'll see local communities producing small quantities for their own use. To that end I'd be interested in working on modifying tree crops to produce oils that can be used in fuel production. Perhaps something that could be tapped like a sugar maple or that produces large oil-bearing seeds that would be pressed for oils. An ideal solution might be something like a coconut tree that produces very large nuts that contain a fine oil that is used by the nut to quickly grow new trees, or that can be harvested and used directly as fuel with no further processing.

To Representative Lee Terry

In a recent report the National Resources Defense Council reports that "the 10 states doing the least to reduce their oil dependence are Wyoming, West
Virginia, Mississippi, South Dakota, *Nebraska*, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Alabama,
Texas, and Ohio."

This is shameful.

How long do you suppose we should wait before we start taking *meaningful* action? Ethanol is nice, but without dramatically cutting our fuel consumption it won't matter in the least.

It is imperative that we consume less. That means we can't focus on solutions that 'create jobs' and stimulate the economy. It is the economy, our consumption, that is the problem. Success is not increased ethanol production, but reduced gasoline and coal and natural gas consumption.

Again, only reducing consumption matters, not increasing ethanol production.

*Help us cut our fuel consumption!*

NRDC Report