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Guest Post: Biofuel Technology Rising To The Forefront
Submitted by John Daly of Oilprice.com
Biofuel Technology Rising to the Forefront
The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted key oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future global oil production. The Bush administration’s actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves have the potential to throw governments’ long-term planning into chaos.
Whatever the reality, rising long term global demands seem certain to outstrip production in the next decade, especially given the high and rising costs of developing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan’s offshore Kashagan and Brazil’s southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a scenario, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this technology to the forefront, one of the richest potential production areas has been totally overlooked by investors up to now – Central Asia. Formerly the USSR’s cotton “plantation,” the region is poised to become a major player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured largely from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is primarily distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is an indigenous plant, Camelina sativa.
Of the former Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have seen their economies boom because of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising producer of natural gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and relatively scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have largely inhibited their ability to cash in on rising global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their heightened need to generate winter electricity has led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn severely impacting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era legacy of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan’s and Turkmenistan case was largely directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev’s “Virgin Lands” programs, has become a major producer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian government officials, given the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser extent Astana for those hardy investors willing to bet on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the region has already proven itself in trials.
Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American companies already investigating how to produce it in commercial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian carrier to experiment with flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's operational performance capability and potential commercial viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend it. It has a high oil content low in saturated fat. In contrast to Central Asia's thirsty "king cotton," camelina is drought-resistant and immune to spring freezing, requires less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be used as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of particular interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia’s major wheat exporter. Another bonus of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown with camelina can produce up to 100 gallons of oil and when planted in rotation with wheat, camelina can increase wheat production by 15 percent. A ton (1000 kg) of camelina will contain 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant’s debris can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly fine livestock feed candidate that is just now gaining recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes well against weeds when an even crop is established. According to Britain’s Bangor University’s Centre for Alternative Land Use, “Camelina could be an ideal low-input crop suitable for bio-diesel production, due to its lower requirements for nitrogen fertilizer than oilseed rape.”
Camelina, a branch of the mustard family, is indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence indicates it has been cultivated in Europe for at least three millennia to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a wide range of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been determined to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds’ small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can create problems in germination to achieve an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential could allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the country's attempts at agrarian reform since achieving independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing textile industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also ordered by Moscow to sow cotton, Uzbekistan in particular was singled out to produce "white gold."
By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had become self-sufficient in cotton; five decades later it had become a major exporter of cotton, producing more than one-fifth of the world's production, concentrated in Uzbekistan, which produced 70 percent of the Soviet Union's output.
Try as it might to diversify, in the absence of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons annually, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the country's hard currency income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the region's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet planners to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the dramatic shrinkage of the rivers' final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century's worst ecological disasters.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina’s business model to Capital Press as: “At 1,400 pounds per acre at 16 cents a pound, camelina would bring in $224 per acre; 28-bushel white wheat at $8.23 per bushel would garner $230.”
Central Asia has the land, the farms, the irrigation infrastructure and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe – all that’s missing is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the cash and access to the expertise of America’s land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel’s market share will grow over time; less certain is who will reap the benefits of establishing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.
If the recent past is anything to go by it is unlikely to be American and European investors, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American investors have the academic expertise, if they are willing to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that lessens water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will receive most careful consideration from Central Asia’s governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not only much cheaper than pipelines, they can be built more quickly.
And jatropha’s biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
This article was submitted by www.OilPrice.com who focus on Fossil Fuels, Alternative Energy, Metals, Oil Prices and Geopolitics. To find out more visit their website at: http://www.oilprice.com
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In my opinion these are dead ends. Algae far outstrips the oil content of any cultivated plant and requires zero quality agricultural lands. However, I think there is a secondary market for biofuel feedstocks. Cattails are an extremely carb rich plant, while no where near the productivity of algae it has a secodary benefit. It grows in brackish sewage which it filters and converts into "energy". as of now were are dumping so much sewage into the Mississippi that were are greating dead zones in the gulf. Routing sewage through cattail fields, which require no additional water or pesticides could dramatically reduce filth and provide an economic byproduct. Further, cattail fields next to cattle dumps could provide a secondary source of income for beef producers who are currently the major obstacle to cornfuel.
I hate to break it to you, but the Department of Energy spent tens of millions on algae biofuel research in the 80's. It was abandoned. Without getting too far into this, it is nearly impossible to control with the proper strains for any given time in any given waste medium. Thus, it easy to start a waste remediation project with a certain strain, but very difficult to reach the end of the project with the same strain in control>>>and thus the desired lipid content of the biomass for efficient fuel production.
"The Roswell test site successfully completed a full year of operation with reasonable control of the algal species grown."
DOE program close-out executive summary. Please, pray continue.
Hi Jim. Yes it can work under very controlled conditions...however, to truly harness the technology and use waste substrates as resource recovery materials, it is nearly impossible due to the lack of control. Not to mention the millions of indigenous bacteria present in outdoor ponds competing for the same substrate. In order for this technology to become widespread and have any impact, a closed system bioreactor design with little control is going to very ineffective in most places, besides New Mexico.
Any scientist can tell you that lots of things go right under lab, or controlled conditions...and you are not even talking about cost.
I want to say one word to you, just one word.
Algae.
algae absolutely...but maybe there's more than one magic bullet?
"An acre sown with camelina can produce up to 100 gallons of oil ..."
Just as a point of comparison, the US produces around 2 billion barrels ayear of oil. In order to match 1% of that (20 million barrels) would take at least 200,000 acres. How many acres are available?
www.energysolution.us
It's worse than that. This is 100 gallons/acre and you're talking barrels. An oil barrel (unit) equals 42 gallons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_of_oil
It works out to 8.4M acres to produce 20 million barrels. 13,125 square miles. That's a lot of land. Though perhaps not out of the question. I don't see this ever scaling to a large proportion of current oil usage though.
A little less than the size of Kansas and Nebraska.
Actually more like 1/7 the size of either one alone. So you just need to find 14.3 new Kansas or Nebraska sized areas that are fertile and not being used for anything, and farm 100% of those areas without using a drop of oil in the process, and you'll have a replacement for current US oil consumption.
Easy, right?
I like to see all these alternative energy sources, but I have yet to see one that would let us continue our current level of energy consumption if petroleum becomes unavailable (economically or otherwise).
depends on how many acres of wheat there are...
from above: "and can be used as a rotation crop with wheat"
"The USDA reports that 2009 U.S. wheat production totaled 2.220 billion bushels, compared to August’s estimate of 2.184 billion bushels and the 2008 total of 2.499 billion bushels. The average yield for all wheat was 44.4 bushels per acre, compared to the 2008 average of 44.9 bushels per acre. 2009 planted area was reported at 59.133 million acres, compared to 63.193 million a year ago. Harvested area was pegged at 50.058 million acres, compared to 2008’s 55.699 million acres."
http://brownfieldagnews.com/2009/09/30/2009-u-s-wheat-crop-at-2-22-billi...
59 million * 100 / 42 = 140 million potential barrels of oil
not a bad dent. wonder how it does in diesels?
can the sativas help save america?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/22/AR200911...
Nuke Copenhagen Climate Summit on December 7th. Climate Gate is the big story. Only Alex Jones knows the magnitude of this story. Nuke GS and Soros for their participation in the biggest scientific fraud in history.
http://www.infowars.com/alex-runs-down-man-made-climate-change-hoax-exposed-in-cru-emails/
Ahh-December 7.
Let's not forget the thermodynamic truth.
Pu-lease.
Yeah, the reams of peer reviewed papers are all a conspiracy and a single source of leaked emails is reliable. I guess you need to believe what you need to believe dude.
Cap N Trade may be BS. That does not mean that climate change is.
nor is it limited to earth:
Mars Odyssey "is giving us indications of recent global climate change in Mars," said Jeffrey Plaut, project scientist for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in non-peer reviewed published work in 2003.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars#Evidence_for_recent_climati...
Correct tip e., global warming seems to be occurring on several, if not all of the other planets. I guess all those extra-terrestrials can't get enough of their SUV's either. Though I wonder if Mars is getting oil subsidies from the Saudis, and are oil prices still pegged to the dollar on Jupiter?
I will continue to hammer away at the ideas that most, for whatever reason, choose to ignore.
Here's an articles that says Danish scientists believe that Earth's magnetic field in conjunction with cosmic rays plays more of a role in weather patterns than anyone cares to admit, at least publicly.
"A team of more than 60 scientists from around the world are preparing to conduct a large-scale experiment using a particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland, to replicate the effect of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere." [CERN] - It appears that more than a few still consider the issue up for debate, and the EU was willing to put up 10+Bn Euro's to find out. Seems a little expensive for an exercise in futility, if the climate change experts are to be believed.
http://www.viewzone.com/magnetic.weather.html
There was an interesting analysis (unfortunately I don't have the link) I saw about a year ago, that looked at the Solar/Jupiter/Earth orbital relationships and long term global weather patterns, primarily on the assumption that the Sol/Jupiter dipole moments had a huge impact upon the shape and strength of earth's magnetic field (yielding not only the 11.7 year solar cycle but also correlating fairly strongly with sunspot activity).
One of the points that was brought up in this, however, was that it was worth remembering that the galactic medium itself is far from uniform in density; it is well known that we are within about 1000 years of entering into the "visible" portion of an interstellar cloud, the remnants likely of a supernova shockwave that may be millions of years old. Such a cloud would have its own "frozen" magnetic fields, and as the solar system moves into these, the movement of Sol relative to this field generates electrical energy, which gets re-radiated as heat. Atmospheres (which are at least partially electrical in nature, as anyone in a thunderstorm can appreciated) are affected both by the electrical fields as they move through the ether and are also affected by the larger than normal magnetic fluxes induced by the Sol/Jupiter interactions with this field.
Are carbon emissions the culprit of global warming? I think they're a factor, but I think that they only account for about 30% of the total increase. There's also a 78 year cycle in weather patterns which reached a temperature minimum in the early 1970s and has just passed its temperature maximum in about 2005 or so, which implies that we'll be seeing a moderating influence over the next 35-40 years until we hit another local minimum in 2044 or so. If you then assume that galactic magnetic flux (either due to cosmic rays or due to an increase in the local density of the galactic medium) is increasing, this would account for the rest, and would also account for the apparent global warming on other planets that presumably aren't in the midst of over carbonization.
Any road, it's not good long term, because of it IS due to that last factor, then global warming is inevitable REGARDLESS of what we do.
There is plenty of natural gas in the US
I think it's interesting to note that Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower theoretically could have produced infinite amounts of energy, and when THE J.P. Morgan found out, he cut off funding. It's tough for a bank to continue their thieving practices without organized crisis.
Of course that technology is now under lock and key by the Federal Gov't. We can't let the peasants have something that is essentially free now can we.
"A Tesla Coil can receive electromagnetic impulses from atmospheric electricity and radiant energy, besides normal wireless transmissions. Radiant energy throws off with great velocity minute particles which are strongly electrified and other rays falling on the insulated-conductor connected to a condenser (i.e., a capacitor) can cause the condenser to indefinitely charge electrically."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower
Nikola Tesla : The Forgotten Wizard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt8Y93k0pB0
J.P. Morgan cut off funding after he had a chat with Bernard Barruch. Barruch had asked Morgan why he was investing in Tesla and Morgan replied that believed that Tesla was going to generate energy from ether and that he was going to own a monopoly on energy. Barruck then asked him how the hell did he think he could have a monopoly when people could just pick it up anywhere. It was after that discussion that Morgan pulled funding. But Tesla was no dummy, he know how he could control distribution. When IBM was developing the computer in the 1950s, it filed a patent for the binary code. Much to their surprise, the patent office came back and asked them whether they had done their research on prior art. IBM indicated that they had not, because what they were working on was so novel and new. The patent office referred them to a Telsa 1894 patent. Obviously Tesla believed that he could create a device that could be turned on or off. He was also responsible for the creation of Telex. So he probably knew what to do.
And yet Tesla died alone, penniless, and relegated to obscurity; while the greatest collection of his work remains hidden under the guise of National Security. Peculiar. I'm sure HAARP has nothing to do with it, and I'm sure it has nothing to do with using electromagnetics to alter weather patterns on Earth...or cause earthquakes...
p.s.
nice legs...
[edit] funny enough, this post appeared about 2 weeks before the "biblical proportional floods" in the UK.
"...After the [Chinese] Municipal Weather Modification Office said it had used artificial means to induce the [record setting] snowfall..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Keo9j7n_7Lk
All kings wish to demonstrate control over nature. Be it hanging gardens in the middle of the desert or HAARP weather control. It's all about demonstrating power and control.
I would suggest that H.A.R.P. has the potential to alter global weather patterns
HAARP -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkLTzesBxGE
This article is an example of people who prefer excitement to numbers. As the poster above just noted, it's 8.4 acres to produce 20 million barrels. That's a lot of tractor driving to plant, cultivate and harvest, with no mention of the cost of squeezing the oil from the seeds.
Algae has similar low to zero probability potential to scale within the necessary time period to avoid global starvation.
NYC had 1 million ppl around 1900 and 300,000 horses to bring food in from the surrounding farmland and farmland storage (in winter). Each human eats about 1.5 pounds of food a day including packaging weight. That's 12 MILLION pounds of shipping a day to feed NYC. These pissant little 20 million barrel per year oil sources (the planet burns about 73 million barrels PER DAY) is a waste of time, interest and bytes.
Odds are very high very large % global population starvation scenarios are coming, soon.
read above, camelina & wheat can be companion planted in rotation to the benefit of both. and camelina can be planted where the earth is too fallow for other food crops.
this is not a zero-sum crop.
correction **** 8.4M acres
This article is an example of people who prefer excitement to numbers. As the poster above just noted, it's 8.4 acres to produce 20 million barrels. That's a lot of tractor driving to plant, cultivate and harvest, with no mention of the cost of squeezing the oil from the seeds.
Algae has similar low to zero probability potential to scale within the necessary time period to avoid global starvation.
NYC had 1 million ppl around 1900 and 300,000 horses to bring food in from the surrounding farmland and farmland storage (in winter). Each human eats about 1.5 pounds of food a day including packaging weight. That's 12 MILLION pounds of shipping a day to feed NYC. These pissant little 20 million barrel per year oil sources (the planet burns about 73 million barrels PER DAY) is a waste of time, interest and bytes.
Odds are very high very large % global population starvation scenarios are coming, soon.
Interesting article on Global warming (Are we being lied to) http://www.oilprice.com/article-global-warming-are-we-being-lied-to.html
Soylent Green will be remade around 2030, probably starring Tom Cruise's son... and will do no justice to the original short story or movie.
However the climactic scene will have this memorable line:
"Energy is People! "
As of now The Buffett family controls the future of biofuel energy in North America. thermal depolymerization . http://www.changingworldtech.com/
For the test phases they are using chicken offal, but soon enough we'll go full Hogan's Heroes and will use the corpses of Caucasian baby boomers to produce our biofuel oils.
Or as the line in A Boy and His Dog went, "You've been sentenced to the Farms!"
Algae biofuel is NOT carbon neutral... the Algae grabs carbon that would otherwise have been sequestered, and then after processing that carbon is burned and released into the atmosphere. However, I still think it's got potential, use it to decompose mafia hits instead of the pigs in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Even cliche mafia movie characters will be 'Green' in the future. No more twisted prion illnesses for the hapless customers of Satriale's. Or the GS/UN/NWO/IPCC mafia could use the method to silence the AGW sceptics in a Bond movie.
TDP looks very promising, but why is it so quiet right now? Is it actually moving to practicality?
Extra credit for the Boy and His Dog reference, though the line there was simply "Farm" as a command. Great bizarre movie.
LOL a boy and his dog. I guess he wasn'y a korean boy
Kind of the reverse, actually, but you'll have to watch the movie to find out.
George Will, Washington insider, in a recent column claims that oil/gas are abundant. Supposed future shortages are just the means to take money from the peasants and further confuse the easily confounded electorate.
What is really difficult to comprehend is how so many citizens can be so uninformed, when information is so easily obtainable. But if more people could think, Will would not be writing for a newspaper.
George Will has gone bonkers, didn't you know, he hangs out with cultists who believe aliens control the US government.
Like, he subsidizes the cult leaders.
He might be one of the cult leaders at this point.
He had a monumental downward spiral after Newsweek cancelled his contract.
ummmm Aliens DO control the gov't...
Yup.
Hmm. http://www.cwsx.org/21darts.pdf
I had written this article on Algae sometime back. May prove useful in analyzing biofuel potential of algae.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2531
Very interesting reading.
Knock yourself out.
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24190.pdf
328 pages of "this is impossible to control."
"The Roswell test site successfully completed a full year of operation with reasonable control of the algal species grown."
Is this the part you mean? Looks like they did just fine.
((repost)). Hi Jim. Yes it can work under very controlled conditions...however, to truly harness the technology and use waste substrates as resource recovery materials, it is nearly impossible due to the lack of control. Not to mention the millions of indigenous bacteria present in outdoor ponds competing for the same substrate. In order for this technology to become widespread and have any impact, a closed system bioreactor design with little control is going to very ineffective in most places, besides New Mexico.
Any scientist can tell you that lots of things go right under lab, or controlled conditions...and you are not even talking about cost.
http://www.globalbioenergy.org/uploads/media/0703_Altieri_Bravo_-_The_ec...
I just uploaded this
Glenn Beck on "Climate Gate" Man-Made Global Warming Climate Scam-Actual Proven Conspiracy 11-23-09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA_Szcmtxvs
COMMON... are you serious? GLENN F*CKING BECK... Fox "NEWS" is a damm joke and Glenn Beck is the biggest joker of them all...
http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2009/11/22/oils_expanding_frontiers
This is an article by George F. Will. He may be wrong but he is a very intelligent man. I think we cannot not assume that oil is at peak yet until we have allowing drilling and exploration everywhere. The Atlantic continental shelf has not been explored. Oil will get more expensive because the easy oil has already been pumped. However, changes in technology has made natural gas much more abundant in the US than we had thought (100 year supply currently available). Technology can solve many of our problems--if we implement the best available tech. Nuclear could make electricity plentiful (albeit not free). However, it costs a fraction of wind or solar which cannot provide a significant fraction of demand unless we rebuilt our grid (at a cost of trillions just for the grid upgrades, not counting the cost of solar cells or windmills).
We have solutions for our most pressing problems--if we will find the will to be science driven not religion driven--i.e. Anthropogenic Global Warming is a religion, not science.
When I give talks on Peak Oil, one thing I stress is not that there aren't oil sources out there, only that the energy return on energy investment (EROEI) makes getting to that oil an increasingly expensive proposition from here on out, and the competition for what does come out will continue to drive prices upward in shorter and shorter boom bust cycles. Much of our current credit-based economy system has its foundation on long term reliable oil availability. This is why every oil price peak and collapse is followed by a recession within 18 months or so.
Alt.energy doesn't solve large scale national energy needs, though ironically it does work very well for smaller scaled local energy needs, but only if the mechanism exists for those energy generators to feed into at least the local energy grid. My personal belief is that a lot of the US is about to "go dark" over the course of the next decade, as those places that don't have some kind of alt.energy solution are faced with energy droughts when the traditional petroleum based operating system fails to delivery energy to them. Biofuels will help in those areas where oil is indispensible (localized trucking, primarily), but they won't be able to power the transportation grid at current levels.
One other point that's worth considering. Algae is an oleaginous plant, yes, but oil has the power that it does because much of the energy that goes into catalyzing the hydrocarbons was applied through natural processes over the course of millions of years. The EI cost for oil consists primarily of pumping it up, digging it out or otherwise extracting it from the earth, whereas for algae and any other biofuel, the actual production of that biofuel has to be added into the EI, meaning that the EROEI for any biofuel will be far below that of petroleum until the point where the extraction costs become too formidable.
This is why biofuels should be seen as local alternatives that can sustain a local economy at a considerably lower level (perhaps that of pre-World War II America) unless 1) the transportation grid moves to some combination of non-petroleum based electrical energy production, 2) we rebuild our cities to better take into account a shrinking commuting footprint, and 3) more intelligence is integrated into the grid itself, making it possible to create a plug-and-play grid for both energy consumption and energy production.
http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2009/11/22/oils_expanding_frontiers
This is an article by George F. Will. He may be wrong but he is a very intelligent man. I think we cannot not assume that oil is at peak yet until we have allowing drilling and exploration everywhere. The Atlantic continental shelf has not been explored. Oil will get more expensive because the easy oil has already been pumped. However, changes in technology has made natural gas much more abundant in the US than we had thought (100 year supply currently available). Technology can solve many of our problems--if we implement the best available tech. Nuclear could make electricity plentiful (albeit not free). However, it costs a fraction of wind or solar which cannot provide a significant fraction of demand unless we rebuilt our grid (at a cost of trillions just for the grid upgrades, not counting the cost of solar cells or windmills).
We have solutions for our most pressing problems--if we will find the will to be science driven not religion driven--i.e. Anthropogenic Global Warming is a religion, not science.
The statement "Anthropogenic Global Warming is a religion, not science" is itself more of a religious / belief based statement.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is theory with an awful lot of good eveidence behind it. That is not to say it cannot be proven wrong.
"an awful lot of good (eveidence)" - what is eveidence? And are you referring to false positives having watched Al Gore's inconvenient falsehood?
Apparently you missed the big news on the scam that the data was changed to make the last 20 years appear to be increasing temperatures (the clean info actually shows a decline in temperatures - fits our current record cold temperatures). I am sorry to let you know that you have been brainwashed into believing a lie, even if those promulgating this had good intensions the science is wrong. You might be surprised to know that the polar ice caps are expanding - it's a fact much to the dismay of the socialists doing the "good work" in bringing in world government. You have a choice to do some more research or continue believing the lies, thinking you are wise, and continue disseminating falsehoods yourself until you lose all credibility - might does not make right.
Great reference to one of Don Johnson's cult classics - A boy and his dog.
I vote we elect the dog from the movie as our next president!
The debate for alternative fuel is stupid as is the peak oil theory. Anyone who believes demand is anywhere near the level of the past few years,(due to US and China buying like mad to fill up strategic reserves at peak prices, by the way) is a crack pot and anybody who says oil at this price point is justified is smoking the wacky tobaccy. No attention has been paid to a B6 page article in the WSJ over the weekend where the refinery at Valero in Delaware City was closed down, plans are to close the refineries in Paulsboro, NJ and Aruba; this on the back of Sunoco closing the Eagle Point refinery with more closures to follow by other refiners. The next time I hear one of those bobble-heads on CNBC say oil is up because a refining unit is down, I am going to flip.
Oil is plentiful, demand is crap and we're being robbed by a bunch of clowns perpetuating a flawed science.
EOM
which is all the more reason to disengage our exposure to the clowns and their sheiky friends
increased cafe standards, lower speed limits, fleets to natural gas and viola!
As I have noted on ZH before, we will burn all the oil no matter what gizmos and juices are developed. It's just too cheap to be able to ship halfway around the world for less than bottled water. In other words oil's cheap at twice the price. Sadly this will leave us in a vulnerable situation vis-a-vis Central Asia for at least the balance of our lifetimes. I suggest peaceful relations (ducks).
For global warming the key is leaving a lot of coal in the ground. Personally I am a lot more interested in biomass for electric power than for liquid fuels. The same types of technology used for coal gasification work for biomass (given some painfully missing R&D), allowing the use of the most efficient thermal conversion system we have: combined cycle, coupling front-end aeroderivative turbines with back-end steam turbines. That technology takes advantage of all the defense and aerospace R&D as the turbines are essentially jet engines. It's what's fueled the natural gas revolution in electric power. USE THAT. It's International Energy Agency Task 33, 'Thermal Gasification of Biomass', for anyone who's interested. Look for the meeting presentations for the good stuff.
http://www.gastechnology.org/webroot/app/xn/xd.aspx?it=enweb&xd=iea/homepage.xml
I am sorry for the pseudo-scientific among my fellow readers, but the 10,000 emails from Mann and those dudes only show that professionals going about their work can be callous jerks at least some sliver of the time. Especially when corporate junk science purveyors make a good living being bigger jerks. Or didn't you ever watch M*A*S*H? I would even buy the idea that some people were out to cherry pick their data. But all of it has been gone over again and again and again in peer review. Seriously. It's like saying 'hey that song sucked' when listening to Zeppelin studio sessions...that's why it never was released to the public! The published science, taken as a whole, can easily withstand this look into the sausage factory.
Tempest in a teacup is what it is. I appreciate ZH for it's edge of conspiracy theory vibe but joining the skeptic party on this (even though Mish Shedlock has too) will make you all look silly. Much sillier than tungsten and weaponised swine flu.
Now, cold fusion anyone? That's got science in it. It even happens in a jar with wires coming out!
+11
Mike Mann is actually a pretty decent guy, Phil Jones is a complete twit however.
the figures for peak oil, could very well be distorted, but the research started long ago, and the fact that its costing more per barrel is not contestable. the fact that mature fields are in decline is not contestable. maybe we have enough to last longer than reported. developing the canada tar sands now says the abundance of more profitable sources, are diminishing. lets hope we can transition to alternatives in an orderly fashion.part of the deal is denying cheap fuel to a potential competing superpower, not just aquiring it for domestic/military use its a finite resource. it will run out someday, better to prepare early rather than react late.
A voice of reason. The uncertainty about the exact peak and exactly how much oil is remaining, or how much it will cost to recover, does not diminish the larger truth.
this is a BS article. There is enough fossil fuel in the ground to last for a hundred years.
What is stupid is giving so many biofuels and renewable energy so much article space, since only a small percentage of them have any legitimacy.
Why does a petroleum replacement strategy have to scale like petroleum? I have a vehicle that runs on gas and propane, in Brazil many cars can run on ethanol or gas, gas/electric hybrids, etc. Wouldn't dual fuel vehicles based on local availability of second source fuel be at least a partial solution? Petroleum isn't going to fail overnight; it will raise in price over decades with periodic shocks. Rather then let Government researchers pick a single solution, which may not exist or cost trillions to find and develop, let incentives provision the fleets and heating industries with hybrids to lessen the shocks and see which ones the invisible hand picks.