Letters to the Editor
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Tad Patzek an avuncular James Kunstler?
Seems to me Professor Patzek and James Howard Kunstler have much in common. Patzek says we need to be more energy efficient. Kunstler says the suburbs are doomed. Patzek says, biofuels will not replace black goo (oil). Kunstler, the suburbs are doomed.
Patzek travels the country sounding an alarm. So does Kunstler. You ride a bike. So does Kunstler. Patzek disarms with charm. Kunstler, not so much.
Cheers
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The issue IS in the details. We must tax waste, not work to solve problems with energy, resources and the environment.
As Leonard stated, the issue is in the details. We can gain much by accessing the tremendous amount of "low hanging fruit" of energy efficiency and resource conservation/preservation. However, our economy" is designed to prevent its efficient use. The solution is simple in concept, difficult in execution. We should tax waste (resource consumption) not work (income and payroll taxes).
Our current economy and political system is based on taxing humanpower and brainpower, which are the ultimate renewable resources. As with compound interest, this approach makes it very expensive to apply rational solutions, especially those developed by engineers, scientists, economists, welders, machinists, and others whose net tax rate approaches 50%. Other industries, such as recycling, work best with large supplies of low cost manual and semi-skilled labor -- near the source. The rolled up taxes make a big difference here, too - as wages must cover the rolled up taxes in housing and other areas.
During my 25 year career in energy industries (natural gas, petroleum refining, and electric power development) I have seen tremendous waste of resources because it was more expensive to fix leaks and process inefficiency than to let them continue. At the time I worked in the volatile refining industry, projects that were not vital to keeping the system operating needed a one year payback or a government mandate to get funded.
Our tax money should be paying engineers, environmental scientists, and environmental accountants to find the correct answers and balanced resource tax rates. Instead, we're wasting our wealth on IRS accountants, corporate tax accountants and CPAs.
The current system rewards those who control the resources. The rest of us pay the price for the collateral damage.
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Patzek's not too far off base-- there is no one magic bullet
It has actually been pretty much accepted by mainstream environmental organizations such as Environmental Defense that corn based ethanol doesn't have a carbon equation that is too much better than gasoline's. Corn ethanol isn't quite as polluting, but once you factor in how carbon intensive it is to grow and transport corn and the lower efficiency of ethanol as a fuel, it's not *that* much better. Finding a commercial technology to make cellulosic ethanol (i.e. made from corn stalks, switch grass and other less carbon intensive feedstocks) viable is where many people who are serious about finding solutions to global warming and energy independence are focused. As much as Archer Daniels Midland would like the answer to be more corn, even they realize it's corn for now, but cellulosic ethanol is coming down the pike (see the recent NYT article about ADM's new CEO and new strategy).
That being said, no kind of ethanol, whether high carbon or low carbon, will be enough to win complete energy independence or solve the global warming crisis. NRDC, Environmental Defense, even Al Gore, are embracing the so-called "wedge strategy", thusly named because each technologically and economically feasible solution can only take a fractional wedge out of the total reduction needed to get us back down to 1990 emissions levels. Increased efficiency can do a lot, as the state of California has already proven (and the gains will be even higher if our government would stop protecting the lazy-asses in Detroit and make them do what the Japanese have already proven is possible and profitable), but every option needs to be maxed out: efficiency, biofuels, more natural gas power plants and commercialized clean coal, wind energy, etc. Some include nuclear as a wedge, but many believe it can be left out. The point is, we can solve the problem without more oil and dirty coal, but only by pursuing all the options. In any case, there is no magic bullet.
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Magic fix, or...
As I like to refer to it, "silver bullet" or "magic bullet". This is an area that so many people seem to get lost on, and I'm glad is pointed out as a problem. There's a line in Jared Diamond's _Collapse_ that this makes me think of. When asked what he felt the biggest problem facing us as a species, his response was that we believe there is a *single* problem.
The above paraphrased, but I think the sentiment is correct. The basic idea is people want one-stop solutions - just take this pill and you'll be in perfect health - to any problem.
I don't know too much about Patzek's crusade, but I agree on the point that a portfolio solution seems needed. Maybe we resist the idea because that makes things complicated; maybe we resist because we can't see a way to monpolize a solution & make a bundle. Maybe it's something else - I don't know.
Regardless, that point, plus the general call to 'power down', hmm... again, I don't know enough about Patzek to know if the message is worth whatever he's doing. I doubt biofuels are completely out of our future, no matter what, but the amount they contribute to the solution seems like only a piece of the pie. That's still a piece, though.
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So the issue is which crop not whether to do it or not
Brazil has a successful biofuel industry specifically because they use cane not corn. Cane has a much higher thermal density than corn; e.g. you can squeeze more ergs out of it than corn. So if you accept that biofuel is a worthwhile proposition at all, then all you're arguing about is which fuel stock to use. Patzek is saying more or less that using corn to supplant OUR fuel needs now is a nonstarter because of the inefficiency of corn.
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biofuels
Brazil does have a viable biofuel industry. It is based upon sugar cane produced alcohol. This didn't happen overnight by any means but took decades. Sugar cane happens to be a good fit for growing conditions in the major growing regions of Brazil, so it makes sense to use that crop.
The US climate, on the other hand isn't suited to sugar cane production.....but it is suited for corn. While corn may not be as energy efficent a feed stock as sugar cane, it's probably the best crop we have to produce ethanol. A bushel, 56 lbs., of corn produces almost 3 gallons of ethanol and 18 lbs of animal feed. The average acre of Iowa corn will produce around 500 gallons of ethanol. One semi-truck load of corn will produce some 3000 gallons of ethanol. The amount of fuel used to grow, fertilize, harvest and transport that corn is infinitesimal compaired to the energy produced. After all, we're really harvesting solar energy here.