Here's a very good recent post about nuclear energy in France, and the potential gains from a nuclear energy renaissance (how appropriate!) in Italy.

The discussion thread is very very long - and makes for extremely interesting discussion.

If there's one thing they know about on The Oil Drum, it's EROEI:

"Reality continues to make a fool of van Leeuwen."

Numbers don’t lie. Only $10b of almost $40b in this bill is going towards the solution. What Congress is saying with this allocation is that renewables come in a distant second behind the already proven dangerous nuclear option.

What can be done to impress on Congress the need for real investment in real renewable energy? Focus the Nation teams have invited more than 140 members of the House and Senate to come to their campuses and discuss global warming solutions. That means about 400 of them still need to hear from you.

There’s another number of note here. Even if we generously assume that all the historical safety issues with nuclear reactors have been solved and that we can adequately secure them from terrorist attacks, nuclear power has a very low EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) ratio. Depending on whose numbers you use, nuclear plants may in fact take more energy to construct, maintain and deconstruct than they generate over their lifetimes, which is to say the EROEI is less than one.

Wind turbines have an EROEI between 18 and 25, and produce no emissions. Could it be any clearer?

Apparently it needs to be made a whole lot clearer to decision-makers in D.C. On Jan. 31, hundreds of local and state elected officials are already committed to engage with us on global warming solutions. It’s time to turn up the heat on Federal legislators and demand their attention.

The Hydrogen economy is that long hoped for world in which one day our cars will fill up at the corner hydrogen station, and combine that fuel with oxygen in the air, a process which will create electricity for the car's motor, and with the only emissions being water.  It all sounds wonderful, but to reach that nirvana of zero emissions, the hydrogen itself needs to be produced with non-emitting technology.  That is because, contrary to oversimplified hype from politicians, hydrogen is not an energy source, but rather an energy carrier.  Like a battery, it has to be produced (charged) before it can be used.

Dr. Turner's goal is to guide us to the hydrogen economy with as few missteps as possible, with missteps in his mind being the used of unsustainable technologies to get there.  Since he wrote his visionary 1999 article in Science, outlining a path to a "Renewable Energy Future" in which hydrogen serves as portable energy storage for an economy fueled solely by renewable sources of power.  The weak link in this chain is fuel cell technology.  Fuel cells are used to efficiently convert hydrogen and oxygen to electricity and water.  They have been around for well over a century, but are still too expensive for use in cars, although they are practical in some military and larger scale civilian operations.  A similar problem exists for hydrogen storage.

In contrast, hydrogen as a storage medium for electricity from intermittent power sources such as wind is a technology whose time has come. Norsk Hydro is currently doing a trial run of a wind/hydrogen combination system on a small Norwegian island, powering 10 homes.

What is most interesting to me about his presentation, is his unbiased comparison of different renewable technologies, along with nuclear, and Internal Gasification Coal Combustion (IGCC) with carbon sequestration.

He compares these technologies for robustness: the ability to meet our future energy needs; for expense, and for Energy Payback.  Energy payback and the related measure EREOI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) give us an idea of how much of our energy will have to be devoted to making more energy.

Here's the run-down (with some additions of my own):

(Items with links are from linked sources)

We'll need all these energy sources, but Wind and concentrating Solar (CSP) stand out as near-term, robust, economical solutions, while Energy Efficiency and Geothermal will give us the most bang for our buck as we try to get started down the road.

Först och främst borde jag tillägga att detta inte är ett försvarstal för etanolproduktion, utan mer som ett balanserande inlägg i en sur och snedvriden debatt. Min personliga ståndpunkt är att etanol är ett övergångsbränsle tillsammans med alla biobränslen som skall förbrännas i en förbränningsmotor. Förbränningsmotorn är inneffektiv och förhoppningsvis på väg bort i transportsammanhang. Den kanske har sin plats i tung trafik i framtiden, men knappast för persontransport.

Först och främst några generella synpunkter:

• Svält är inget nytt. Skäl till svält har oftare varit människans snålhet, asociala samhällen, krig, naturkatastrofer, tragedy of the common, forcerade migrationer pga andra naturresursers prioritering m.m.
• Av den totala jordbruksmarken i världen så är det inte så stor del som är till matproduktion som många tror. Vi producerar mycket annat som t.ex. kaffe, kakao, gummi, koka, kat, tobak, socker till godis, samt bambu och bomull etc etc. Alla dessa har sina problem och ineffektiva system, speciellt i utvecklingsländer. Både arbetsmiljömässiga och produktionsmässiga. Etanolen är inget undantag.
• Djurproduktionen tar upp en mycket stor del av jordbruksmarken och har varit det primära skälet till avskogning av regnskog i Sydamerika. För varje produktionssteg i animalieproduktion så tappas ca 90% av energin. Dvs av 100 km2 betesmark så blir endast energin från 10 km2 till animaliska produkter. Detta beror på att mycket av energin ett djur intar går till uppvärmning, rörelse, matsmältning, uppbyggnad och reparation mm. Och om vi sedan räknar ut hur mycket vi äter och använder av djurets produktionen (bortse från t.ex. hud, klövar och skelett mm) så inser vi snabbt att den siffran borde sänkas ytterligare. (Se vilken biologi eller fysiologibok som helst)
• Djur- och kraftfoder har idag ofta inslag animaliska produkter, från fiskmjöl till benmjöl från andra djur. Det betyder att för att skapa foder som endast 3-10% blir till livsmedel redan har tappat 90% av sin ursprungliga potentiella energi. Översätter man detta i åkerareal så blir resultatet tankeväckande.
• I Sverige är ca 27000 km2 (av 400000 km2) jordbruksmark. Av dessa ligger 10-12% i träda eller inte används. 34% av jordbruksmarken används till vall och grönfoder, vilket betyder att vi energimässigt kanske utnyttjar ca 48% av vår jordbruksmark. Se SCB. Hur det är i övriga världen vet jag inte men motsvarande siffror borde vara förväntade i Nord.

Sedan skulle jag vilja gå på djupet med andra produktioner som jag snabbt nämnde ovan (ang svält och människans hälsa), och det är primärt tobak. Ok, jag har just slutat snusa själv (4 veckor nu), men hur många tragiska fall av fattiga människors pengar går till tobak framför mat (framför allt i Syd) har man inte sett, förutom de direkt skadliga effekterna av rökning och dess kostnader. Så... jag var tvungen att räkna lite, dock endast på arealen själva produktionen tar i anspråk. De privat- och nationalekonomiska- samt hälsoeffekterna lämnar jag till någon mer kunnig på det området:

I siffror från millenieskiftet producerar världen mellan 3,9 miljoner ton (1) och 6 miljoner ton tobak (2) (torrvikt) per år. Indien producerar ca 10% av detta på en yta av 4600 km2 (3), EU producerar ca 5% av detta på 1220 km2 (4), dvs lite mer intensiv produktion i EU. Den största producenten är Kina med 38% av världsproduktionen. Enligt FAOSTAT odlas tobak på ca 67000 km2 med en medelavkastning på ca 60 ton/km2. Och då räknar vi de som registreras. Det verkliga talet är säkert klart högre.

(1) FAOSTAT
(2) Rapport International Labour Office
(3) Indian Commodity Tobacco
(4) EUs Raw Tobacco Annex

Enligt rapporterna Sustainability of Brazilian Bio-ethanol och The Ethanol Experience så får man ut ca 7000 l etanol per hektar, dvs 700000 l/km2, samtidigt som man får ut energi av restprodukterna på ca 550000 kWh/km2 per år. Vilket leder oss till att på den ytan som används till tobaksproduktion så skulle man kunna producera ca 47 miljoner kubikmeter etanol och få ut nästan 37 TWh energi per år. Givetvis passar kanske inte tobaksland för sockerrör, men den passar nog för olika typer av matproduktion.

För jämförelse så produceras idag ca 1400 Mton sockerrör på ca 200000 km2 (ca halva Sveriges yta) och hur stor del av dessa som går direkt till etanolproduktion vet jag ej (någon?). Stimulanter (dvs lagliga sådana vilket innebär kaffe, kakao, te och mate), odlas på ca 210000km2. Sedan undrar man hur stor area opium, cannabis, kat, och koka odlas på... lite svårare att hitta sådan statistik ;-)

Jag skulle vilja gå vidare med att räkna ut hur mycket åkermark som är i träda och inte används i alla länder. Vidare hur mycket mark som produktion av ko, lama, häst, samt arealnyttjande av oljesand, dammar, dagbrott, samt övrig av oss förstörd (icke odlingsbar) mark står för. Inte för att värdera att viss produktion är viktigare än annan, utan bara för att få en referens till hur mycket och vad vi använder markerna till.

Så att säga att svälten beror på etanolproduktion när vi tillåter tobaksodlingar, krig och ökenutbredning är väldigt naivt i det stora hela. Så snälla media... angrip problemen där problemen finns. Och med det menar jag produktion av produkter som varken främjar hälsa eller ekonomi, och när vi ändå är på väg och vill diskutera arbetsförhållanden så kan vi väl ta med alla världens sweatshops och barnarbeten inom t.ex. mat, textil, leksaks och färginsdustrin, och i uträkningar av produkters miljöpåverkan för en gångs skull räkna med arealbehovet i livscykelanalyserna och värdera dom på ett ekonomisk riktigt sätt så att den produktionen verkligen får ta med sina externa kostnader i sammanhanget. Skulle det ske så skulle konsumenterna inte välja miljöfarliga produkter då de skulle bli för dyra. Sedan är det väl inte kul att veta att hälften av dina plagg du har på dig just nu har passerat ett barns händer samt har färgats med miljövidriga kemikalier som ofta släppts rakt ut i någon flod som flera människor lever av. Sånt säljer inte... Det vet kvällsblaskorna... och MRF följer okritiskt mediestormen!!!

Så... nu har jag skrivit av mig lite ;-)

Grafen som är tagen ur rapporten visar hur mycket utsläpp det blir per producerad kWh efter ett visst mönster, dvs soltimmar, solinstrålning och livslängd av solpanelen. Då skall vi dessutom tänka på att effektiviteten när det gäller att producera solceller fortfarande går mycket snabbt framåt. Hur som helst så ser man (om man läser rapporten) att denna energityp släpper ut 10-50 ggr mindre GHG än klassisk fossil elproduktion. Även kadmiumbaserade celler släpper ut mycket mindre kadmium i naturen är t.ex. vanlig kolkraft.

For example the emissions of Cd from the life cycle of CdTe PV are 90−300 times lower than those from coal power plants with optimally functioning particulate control devices. In fact, life-cycle Cd emissions are even lower in CdTe PV than in crystalline Si PV, because the former use less energy in their life cycle than the later. In general, thin-film photovoltaics require less energy in their manufacturing than crystalline Si photovoltaics, and this translates to lower emissions of heavy metals, SO_x, NO_x, PM, and CO₂.

I introduktionen av artikeln så ser man även att energin som behövts för att tillverka en solpanel betalar tillbaka sig (energy payback time, EPBT) på ca 3-6 år, vilket är 10-20% av panelens beräknade livslängd. Och även denna siffra lär minska klart i framtiden.

Vad det gäller vindkraftverk på 600 kW så är EPBT 3-4 månader (referens). Det känns ju som om den siffran borde vara mindre för större kraftverk, men å andra sidan så är livslängden så pass lång så att man får tillbaka energin flera ggr om, vilket vindkraftverksstorlek man än väljer.

(1)  Emissions from Photovoltaic Life Cycles
Vasilis M. Fthenakis, Hyung Chul Kim, and Erik Alsema
Environ. Sci. Technol., 2008, 42, (6), pp 2168–2174.

Following is a few bits and pieces of the RS article and, I can only imagine, my own commentary. "This is not just hype -- it's dangerous, delusional bullshit." Certainly my type of journalism.

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The first page of the article points out the current massive ethanol subsidies and how politicians - particularly Democratic presidential hopefuls - are climbing all over each other to make the biggest proclamation of future ethanol production. Second page starts by noting that "energy independence [has become] a universal political slogan." I predicted the growth in politicians whoring "energy independence" a years ago when it was a blip. Just keeping score; pessimistic futurism maintains a significant lead.

RS brings up the concept of energy returned on energy invested (EROEI), which I think is impressive:

Nor is all ethanol created equal. In Brazil, ethanol made from sugar cane has an energy balance of 8-to-1 -- that is, when you add up the fossil fuels used to irrigate, fertilize, grow, transport and refine sugar cane into ethanol, the energy output is eight times higher than the energy inputs. That's a better deal than gasoline, which has an energy balance of 5-to-1. In contrast, the energy balance of corn ethanol is only 1.3-to-1 - making it practically worthless as an energy source. "Corn ethanol is essentially a way of recycling natural gas," says Robert Rapier, an oil-industry engineer who runs the R-Squared Energy Blog.

I have to question where they got those numbers; when I searched for a legitimate source, all I found were guesses and arguments. A cursory search for Brazilian ethanol EROEI shows that 8:1 is actually on the lower end of estimates. I appreciate the use of a conservative estimate, and it's still an impressive number. As long as Brazil can make enough to support their habit and are able to make the process sustainable, they have attained energy independence. I doubt this is fully reflected in the stock prices of corporations operating in Brazil, so if you're looking for a long-term hedge against increasing energy costs . . .

How energy-intensive it is to extract oil varies from location to location, which has geopolitical implications. I have long see numbers thrown around stating that the EROEI of Texan oil in the early stages of the boom was between 50:1 and 100:1. That number starts lower when extracting from less accessible sources and always drops as that source is depleted. Extraction operations cease not when the source of oil is fully exhausted, but when they are no longer profitable. Iraqi oil is desirable for reasons beyond massive estimated reserves. Iraqi crude is both high quality and largely untapped. If some people would just stop exploding everything, Iraq would produce some incredibly profitable oil.

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I conducted a brief Google search to verify that Iraqi oil was high quality and I found this seemingly well-researched report that expands on the reserves/quality/profitability of Iraqi oil. I also clicked on a Tripod link titled "Is It All About Oil? - The Iraq War as a Grab for Mineral Wealth" on a lark - the subject really brings out the crazy in conspiracy theorists. What's this? The site is maintained by a "doctor" who is trying to sell his books - now I know I'm in for a treat. His curriculum vitae lists his PhD in Philosophy from a paper mill, which is obvious since his previous college experience is only "a few semesters in the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa." I'm not sure if he thinks dropping out of school is an accomplishment, or if he's compulsively honest. After all, why not just lie about where you got your PhD like was taught when I got mine at Stanford. He also has a number of "certifications" from an online pre-hire employment testing agency. I'm not sure if "certified" means what he thinks it does.

Whenever I get frustrated by how crazy someone appears to be, I need to remind myself that they probably are crazy. This guy writes extensively on narcissistic personality disorder, presumably from experience. I think Dr. Shmuel (Sam) Vaknin's argument is that the war was not about oil (as we are not dependent on Middle Eastern oil), but a cover to eventually relocate our Persian Gulf military presence to Iraq. Weird guy., not sure if he understands energy.

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There are many factors that influence the EROEI of oil. The energy expended in transportation to markets and the construction of pipelines. Not just the running cost, but also the building cost of machinery required for extraction. How do you factor in the enormous energy usage of militaries worldwide? Even if you could determine total military energy use, it is impossible to divine the percentage of that number that is used to secure access to oil.

The fact that we expend so much of a consumable, limited resource to protect our access to it is... something. A paradox is "a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth." Despite perhaps sounding paradoxical, the proposition makes complete sense given the nature of the resource and thus is not absurd. It is a statement or proposition that seems paradoxical but in reality represents a logical, definite truth. This situation approximates to reverse dramatic irony: the players in this crude facade are aware of what's going on, but the audience is seemingly unaware.

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Rolling Stone also does a decent job of briefly explaining Archer Daniels Midland's role in the ethanol boom:

The ethanol boondoggle is largely a tribute to the political muscle of a single company: agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland. In the 1970s, looking for new ways to profit from corn, ADM began pushing ethanol as a fuel additive. By the early 1980s, ADM was producing 175 million gallons of ethanol a year. The company's then-chairman, Dwayne Andreas, struck up a close relationship with Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, a.k.a. "Senator Ethanol." During the 1992 election, ADM gave $1 million to Dole and his friends in the GOP (compared with $455,000 to the Democrats). In return, Dole helped the company secure billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks. In 1995, the conservative Cato Institute, estimating that nearly half of ADM's profits came from products either subsidized or protected by the federal government, called the company "the most prominent recipient of corporate welfare in recent U.S. history."

Today, ADM is the leading producer of ethanol, supplying more than 1 billion gallons of the fuel additive last year. Ethanol is propped up by more than 200 tax breaks and subsidies worth at least $5.5 billion a year. And ADM continues to give back: Since 2000, the company has contributed $3.7 million to state and federal politicians.

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I came across this article on Fark and had to browse the related thread. The good side of the thread is that everybody hates Rolling Stone, and as a result linked to better articles. The bad side is the extreme number of energy misconceptions that exist, even among people who have clearly done some research and consider themselves to be highly educated on the subject.

A number of people seem to believe that the backlash against US/corn-ethanol is the result of oil industry chicanery. Another argument is that ethanol must be worthwhile because corporations (that are getting rich off of it) are embracing it. People who know a little bit about the future of energy are starting to embrace very illogical positions. It's not hard to see why.

Trying to source a couple stats required a visit to my old oil stomping grounds. There are good resources for news and discussion like The Oil Drum and Energy Bulletin. There are cultic doomsday sites like Life After the Oil Crash and the message boards on Peakoil.com, and on the other side your garden variety "peak oil is a myth" sites.

There are quite a few people who are obsessed with constructing the most cataclysmic, apocalyptic die-off scenarios related to oil production peaking. There's no way out and we are all doomed! The attitude one adopts is deeply tied to psychology. The doomsday scenario will speak to certain people. Those that can't handle that will fall into the "ethanol will save us because it has to" trap.

When I went through my peak oil phase, it was a real struggle to keep away from extremes. Beyond that, it was a full time job educating myself on the background issues and then keeping up with energy news. In fact, there are many full time jobs in this field, and I'd have to assume there's a good future in the field. I briefly considered applying to get a master's through Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group before I realized they wouldn't accept someone with my "unique academic history." I've easily broken the 1000 man-hour mark researching these complex and intertwining topics, and it took hundreds of hours of fairly difficult work for anything to click meaningfully.

You could call me dense, but true understanding takes time. Admittedly, it is much easier to sleep at night when the government and/or free market are going to take care of everything for you. It's better to acknowledge that something is too complex to be reduced to a simple solution than it is to embrace that solution and drown out competing views.

And just think... oil and natural gas are formed from the remains of living things. We use them to grow our food and power every aspect of modern society. So like, dude, everything is totally interconnected. Trip out on that.

The Democrats hold at least two suspect truths to be self-evident. Most obviously, they think that politicians should micro-manage energy policy, encouraging some technologies and neglecting others. That ignores most of the lessons of economics, but it is decidedly well grounded compared with the Democrats’ other verity: that slowing global warming and reducing dependence on imported fuels go hand-in-hand. What sense does it make to give preference to American ethanol over the cheaper and more climate-friendly Brazilian sort? (Indeed, if you embrace the goal of “energy security”, bigger imports of Brazilian ethanol might help, by reducing America’s demand for oil from more hostile lands.)

Subsidies for U.S.-made ethanol are inefficient pork-barrel handouts to the Midwest. Tariffs on imported ethanol are even more bizarre: our goal is to reduce dependence on petroleum from unstable regions, but we’re pricing out inexpensive alternatives. Riiiiight. Several reports tied the increase in ethanol use in the U.S. to Mexico’s tortilla crisis. Others argued the U.S. had little to no impact; we use yellow corn for ethanol, Mexico uses white corn.

Who knows? All forms of alternative energy have their pros and cons, and the proponents of each do a great job of hiding the true costs. E85 (70-83% ethanol/17-30% gasoline) garners votes for politicians, makes people feel environmentally conscious, and saves them a chunk of change thanks to our collective tax dollars. Sticking corn in your engine has to be environmentally friendly, right?

One of the most important concepts in energy economics is EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) especially when oil or natural gas are being invested. Ethanol doesn’t magically get from farm to fuel. Farm machinery and distilleries need to be built and operated, which requires oil. Nitrogen in fertilizer is synthesized using the Haber-Bosch process which requires natural gas: “The production of ammonia currently consumes about 5% of global natural gas consumption, which is somewhat under 2% of world energy production. Natural gas is overwhelmingly used for the production of ammonia, but other energy sources, together with a hydrogen source, can be used for the production of nitrogen compounds suitable for fertilizers.” See, it's not all bad... we could just use hydrogen instead of natural gas. Problem solved.

The most “hidden” cost is water. In many areas, water is being pumped (uses energy) from aquifers faster than it is being replaced. Don't forget all the pesticides (require energy) that seep into the groundwater. We can always make clean water from dirty water. Guess what is required to make that happen? Agribusiness tends to treat the land poorly, losing topsoil year after year until farmland becomes barren. Brazil can use their water, their topsoil, and sell us their resulting ethanol for far cheaper than we can produce it domestically. Brazil creates ethanol from sugar (more efficient than corn) and has ideal growing climates for it. They have a competitive advantage in this area and, if we just allowed them to exercise it, we could save some of our own natural resources. Yes, this is my pragmatic outlook: let other countries destroy themselves to feed our habit. Clean water and arable land will only rise in value in the future, why not keep as much of it as we can now as a hedge? It makes a lot more sense than punishing ourselves for the sake of creating even greater market inefficiencies in our agricultural sector.

There's plenty of R&D to be done to make ethanol more efficient, such as in the field of cellulosic ethanol. Full force ahead, and I'd even support government funding. Unlike The Economist, I don't mind if politicians micro-manage energy policy - as long as they pick the right technologies to support. How do you know if a given technology is "right"? Research and education, mostly, although there exists a simple test: if Bush supports it, it's not the right technology. I assure you I don't BushBash without a reason. Bush loves ethanol subsidies. The potential downside of supporting ethanol is nothing compared to the danger of the "hydrogen economy".

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Say it with me, even if you don't know exactly what you're saying: hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source. Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source. Hydrogen is an energy CARRIER, not an energy SOURCE. Be right back.

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Zoolander has a strong cult following in my demographic. I will only admit to enjoying it if the person I am confessing to admits it is a bad movie. Once I got in a Zoolander conversation and decided to deconstruct it, claiming it was a fractured take on the absurdity of the fashion and modeling industries. Much in the way an art critic can look at a burning pile of tires and proclaim it a fractured look at the impacts of globalization on the poor in third-world nations. The rubber tire represents the rubber gathered by near-slave labor on rubber plantations. The fire symbolizes the pain and death that haunted the workers on these plantations. The fire makes the tire unusable, showing how we exploit the world's poor and then throw them out. But no, it's a message of hope. The Simpsons taught me that a tire fire burns eternal; we can never break the spirits of those we have exploited.

My understanding of art criticism is that as long as you use the word "fractured" and have some artistic clout or street cred, you can call anything art.

There's one line that makes Zoolander for me. The evil fashion designer Mugatu points out that Derek Zoolander only has one "look", but he's the only one that notices this blatant fact. I feel the same way whenever I read about energy policy. I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.

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Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source. You don't just grab hydrogen out of the ground, or sky - you have to produce it from another form of energy. Energy loss #1: you can't convert one energy to another without some loss. Hydrogen is a HORRIBLE energy carrier because it's an extremely light gas. You have to compress it (energy loss #2) to make it dense enough to be worthwhile transporting. The medium for storing hydrogen is unnecessarily expensive to produce (i.e. requires extra energy; energy loss #2.5) because compressed hydrogen is very cold and explosive, and it loves to escape. Hydrogen is very small and very light. One might say, if one's ever looked at an periodic table, it's the lightest. It's my understanding that despite all the measures taken to keep it in place (#2.5), it is currently impossible to sequester hydrogen without losing it at a steady rate (energy loss #3).

What form of "alternative energy" did Bush jump after 9/11 made it clear that relying on foreign oil wasn't a solid long-term strategy? Hydrogen, our "Freedom Fuel", would power the "Freedom Car" of the future. You can't make this stuff up. Not only is a hydrogen-based economy just a bad idea, the cost of building the required infrastructure is prohibitively expensive. It's interesting to note that both alternatives to petroleum (although neither truly is) that Bush has stood behind are inherently flawed. No conspiracy theories here... yet. There's a lot to be gained from purposely failing when you have a "well we gave it our best" fall-back position.

You could argue that he's doing it all to protect oil, but that's sort of silly. Assuming the government doesn't do too much to push our energy policy in a particular direction - and I honestly believe there's nothing government intervention could do to force a hydrogen economy - our eventual replacements for petroleum will be a hodgepodge of every available option. Who do you think is doing the most research in all of these fields? Who is best equipped to scratch and claw for every inch of competitive advantage in one energy form over another? The companies that control our energy today and are flush with cash because of it have every intention to remain leaders in the future of energy.

Here are a couple links on hydrogen.

I don't hate fuel cells. I still want a laptop powered by a tiny fuel cell that can go days without a recharge. I just don't want one in my car, thanks.

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So whatever did happen to the electric car? Never got around to watching the documentary since I already knew the answer. To take a step back from the automaker/oil conspiracy, I think it's absolutely true that the vast majority Americans wouldn't want a car with an 80-mile range that needs six hours to charge. However, there are a damn lot of very uneducated opinions on electric cars that must have come from somewhere, i.e. someone was purposely spreading misinformation. Batteries are prohibitively expensive! They have to be replaced all the time! They're made out of toxic components that destroy the environment when they're thrown out! Unless you're charging from solar panels, you're using electricity from coal/oil/gas fired plants which is horrible on the environment! And so on.

Batteries aren't prohibitively expensive. Of the batteries used in this most recent round of electric cars, such as the Toyota Rav4 EV, the batteries have proven to have incredible lasting power. Incidentally, this battery argument is used against buying hybrids - but has anyone heard of an epidemic of batteries having to be replaced? Battery technology grows all the time thanks to laptops and cell phones; by the time you have to replace batteries in an electric car, you could get better ones for cheaper. Old batteries aren't tossed into the dump, they're recycled part-by-part more thoroughly than an aluminum can. Powering an EV from your own solar panels is the dream, but even if you're getting your electricity from a fossil fuel plant the environment is winning.

Energy is not immune to economies of scale. An internal combustion engine (ICE) is very inefficient compared to a massive power plant. They pollute more per equal amount of energy than the power plant. Meanwhile, electric motors are much more efficient than an ICE. You're charging from energy coming from a more efficient source, and putting it into a vehicle that can make more efficient use of that energy. Oh, and electric motors require far fewer moving parts than an ICE which means much higher life-spans and drastically reduced maintenance costs. Between these savings and the massive savings on fuel, it might just balance out those alleged battery costs.

If it isn't clear, I want an electric car. I don't know the current state of battery technology, but I'm willing to bet we're getting damn close to the possibility of 200-300 mile range with 2-5 minute charges. If Honda and Toyota joined forces and put a lot of work into it, I'm fairly certain that would be doable within 2 years. Just intuition. Unless it's a flex-fuel car that can also use gasoline, such a vehicle can't take long trips without carefully placed recharge stations along the way. People like me, who don't take long trips, would be willing to put up with that lack of flexibility.

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Many of my arguments about politics end up with me asserting that a moral dictatorship is the greatest form of government. Give me a team of energy experts/assorted geniuses and authoritarian control over energy policy. I'm pretty sure we could pound out something a lot better than what the House and Senate are working on. We wouldn't have to deal with an asshole like Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), the automakers' whore.

Since this post has made numerous references to market efficiencies, it's important to note that there are also many flaws inherent in a system where short-term (quarterly) results are given precedence over long-term planning. Energy is too important to be left solely in the hands of corporations that need to meet quarterly expectations and maximize value for shareholders.

For example, there is an ongoing silicon shortage (recent article) that has led to novel cooperation between chip and solar panel makers. The cooperation is an example of market efficiency, but the shortage that led to it isn't. The market would eventually work it out, but the problem is that dependence on oil is a problem now that will only become more severe in the future. However, you can't just build a silicon factory, solar panel factory, and use those panels to build a massive solar power plant overnight. Solar should be a massive component of our energy policy. Oil may once again drop to the mid-$50s to low-$60s for some inconsequential period of time, but over the long run the cost of oil will go up.

Solar panels produce energy for an extended period of time. Oil is used and it's gone - and we have to use it, or some other replacement, to build the panels in the first place. Knowing that the price of oil and natural gas will continue to rise in the future makes building solar now a guaranteed long-term winner even if it isn't cost-effective today. Unless we discover that cold fusion thing, or the Rapture comes. Always gotta watch out for that Rapture. There's plenty of research being done on making solar panels more cost effective. Once the breakthrough comes that lowers the cost of production by half, or possibly an order of magnitude, it would be nice to know we'd have the infrastructure to put that in place as soon as possible.

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I have no big finish, just a homework assignment for anyone who made it this far. I keep hearing conspiracy theories that Big Oil is hoarding all manner of alternative energy patents and not utilizing them to protect their market share. Sounds fishy, in the "not true" sort of way. Could someone find out for me? If it is true, I have no problem with the government stepping in and loosening intellectual property laws related to energy-specific patents. If Bush Jr. is willing to vomit on the Constitution in a manner his father reserved for the Japanese, I don't see why we couldn't get that done.

I also went on a little rant about the typical measures of Energy Payback and Energy Return on Energy Investment (ERoEI) often used in the industry.  These measures are often used to criticize ethanol, but it is a weak criticism, because they do not take into account the time value of energy: namely that a kWh of electricity today is a lot more useful than a kWh produced 30 years from now.  We should instead be thinking in terms not only of how much energy we have to use to get energy out, but also in terms of how soon we get that energy.

I propose a couple measures, of Energy Net Present Value (ENPV) and Energy Internal Rate of Return (EIRR) which I think would give us a clearer view of the undying energy economics (and hence the potential economic profitability) of various energy production technologies.  But that is a column for another week.

This week, here are my thoughts on competition in the corn Ethanol industry, and how it might affect your investments.

If you have a subscription, there's also an excellent article in the NYTimes on ethanol in Hawaii.  I think it ties in well to this one, and the one I wrote last July about renewable energy in Maui.

Andrew Nikiforuk
From the February 12, 2007 issue of Canadian Business magazine

Within 10 years, Alberta's tarsands could become the single largest source of new oil in the world. Given rising political unrest or aggressive state capitalism in Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela and the Middle East, the tarsands have simply become the globe's safest oil investment. Even a U.S. congressional committee recently called the oilsands "a new force in the world oil market" and concluded that they offered two investment rarities: large volumes and "secure access."

Boasting reserves (174-billion barrels) second only in size to Saudi Arabia, the tarsands have placed Canada in the remarkable position of holding nearly 60% of the investable oil reserves in the world. This explains why Imperial, ExxonMobil, Shell, Total and other energy multinationals have committed nearly $100 billion in a feverish rush to build as many as 51 projects in the sands over the next decade. Not surprisingly, stocks in 10 major firms with key tarsand investments gained a whopping 370% in value between July 2003 and April 2006. "In the big picture, deepwater oil and the oilsands are the only game left in town," says CIBC chief economist Jeffrey Rubin.

As a consequence, this powerful industry now produces nearly half of the nation's oil supply, provides the U.S. with nearly 16% of its oil imports--and will soon crown Canada as the world's fifth- or even fourth-largest oil producer. In the process, the tarsands will generate nearly $51 billion in income for the federal government and $44 billion for the province of Alberta between 2000 and 2020. No wonder Prime Minister Stephen Harper happily refers to Canada as an "energy superpower" and U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Badham contentedly reports that "the hour of the oilsands has come."

But how long will that hour last? Certainly, the world's largest capital project will not only alter the course of Canada's economy, but will dominate business news for years to come. And yet, as global interest in the resource heightens, investors and taxpayers alike have begun to ask hard questions about costs, carbon emissions, infrastructure and other hidden liabilities. The following key issues may dramatically alter or slow the pace and scale of the tarsands.

The World's Most Expensive Oil

Although industry marketers prefer the term oilsands, bitumen is not oil. This heavy, viscous hydrocarbon, which according to the Book of Genesis helped glue the Tower of Babel together, is really tar trapped in sand and clay. As a heavy chain of carbon-rich atoms that are high in sulphur content, bitumen takes a lot of money and energy to upgrade to synthetic oil. In fact, raw bitumen can't even be moved in pipelines without using expensive light oils as a transport fuel. "You know you are at the bottom of the ninth when you have to schlep a tonne of sand to get a barrel of oil," says the CIBC's Rubin.

The cost of extracting the gooey stuff continues to unsettle rational economic minds. Neil Carmata, Petro-Canada's senior vice-president for oilsands, recently opined that the price tag for an open pit mine plus an upgrader climbed from $25,000 to between $90,000 and $110,000 per barrel in the past decade. Given that investors used to spend no more than $1,000 on infrastructure to remove a barrel of conventional oil a day, Houston-based energy investment banker Matthew Simmons of Simmons & Co. International observes that "energy's pricing committee" has truly flunked in the tarsands.

Chronic labour shortages combined with persistent government failure to sequence projects, has led to staggering cost overruns. When Shell Canada admitted last July that its $7.3-billion expansion plans for its Athabasca project (it currently produces 155,000 barrels a day) could swell to $12.8 billion, U.S. energy analyst Bob Gillon of John S. Herold, Inc. responded with a "My Lord in Heaven....we are getting these things back to where the economics...are going to get skinny in a hurry." Estimates for Petro-Canada's Fort Hill's project--a planned 170,000-barrel-a-day mine plus an upgrader--now range as high as $19 billion. Given that the richest tarsands leases are already being exploited, the Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada, a Calgary-based research group, warned last year that declining quality of the resource means "capital intensity is likely to continue to increase."

Yet cost overruns (like carbon intensity) define the character of unconventional oil. Rubin even advises investors to get used to persistent markups. He argues that the development of non-conventional oil just means spending more money. (Gulf of Mexico drilling comes with 400% increases, for example.) "What investors have to remember is that in a world of depleting conventional supply, higher costs and delays simply equate to higher crude prices," he says.

The Infrastructure Deficit

The Alberta government has approved one tarsands project after another with nary a thought about public infrastructure in the past decade. As a result, the city of Fort McMurray and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (RMWB) face an alarming $1.9-billion infrastructure deficit. The region not only reports a dangerously critical shortage of health care and police services, but also unaffordable housing, rampant social problems and water-treatment woes. Rents are so high that most hospital staff require subsidized housing. "Our quality of life is deteriorating," Bill Newell, RMWB regional manager, reported to the oilsands Multi-stakeholder Committee, a government-appointed group examining policy options for the oilsands, last fall. While former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed calls the social chaos "a mess," John Lau, CEO of Husky Energy Inc., has repeatedly warned that the infrastructure deficit has become an impediment to further investment. "The government has not really put a thinking cap on how and what they are going to do," Lau told the Calgary Herald.

Short of a moratorium, a recession or staggered project approvals, the region's infrastructure crisis will simply accelerate. After approving another $4-billion project last December, Alberta's Energy and Utilities Board, the industry regulator and the government of Canada warned that "growing demands and the absence of sustainable long-term solutions must weigh more heavily" in future decision-making.

Production Hype

Just about everybody, from Uncle Sam to the Chinese, has bet on the tarsands to offset conventional declines. On its energy website, the Alberta government even highlights an optimistic Time magazine article boasting that the oilsands "could satisfy the world's demand for petroleum for the next century." Cold reality, however, does not support such claims.

Consider a series of popular production forecasts now being seriously hampered by the region's infrastructure backlog. Canada's National Energy Board predicts that oilsands production could jump from 1.1 million barrels a day to three million barrels a day by 2015. Prime Minister Harper is even more bullish and predicts "nearly four million" by 2015, while some Alberta groups are talking about three times that amount--or 12-million-a-day output by 2030. Both the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Canadian Energy Research Institute believe four million barrels a day might be possible by 2020 if environmental and labour challenges don't tar up the works. That's still only 4% of the world's forecasted oil supply in 2025.

At a recent Boston meeting on peak oil, Dave Hughes, a Calgary-based energy specialist with Natural Resources Canada, argued that none of these forecasts will live up to the hype due to the complex and energy-draining process of turning tar into oil. He defined the big stumbling block as a delivery problem. While noting that the oilsands are a "Great White Hope of a panacea to support business as usual," he added that "forecasts do not live up to the hype."

Given existing investment levels of $90 billion, Hughes told Canadian Business that he'd be very surprised if oilsands production could exceed 2.8 million barrels a day. To reach four million barrels a day would likely require an additional $110 billion in investment. "The oilsands should be viewed as a marginal interim supply that serves as a bridge to prepare for a less energy-intensive future," warns Hughes.

Since 1850, the world's population has increased fivefold, while per-capita energy use has increased eight times, says Hughes. The world now uses 43 times the energy used in 1850, and nearly 90% of it comes from non-renewable sources, such as oil, gas, coal and uranium. "Those levels can't continue," says Hughes.

Even the U.S. Congress has its doubts. In its 2006 report on the tarsands, chaired by Jim Saxton (Republican, New Jersey), it acknowledged that the resource can't be developed rapidly enough to achieve real energy independence for North America. Just to replace Persian Gulf imports alone would require sucking up all of Canada's projected crude production by 2016: 3.8 million barrels. "North American energy independence thus would require a dramatic ramp-up in oilsands production far beyond any of the current projections," concluded the report. Yet last January, an oilsands Experts Group Workshop directed by Natural Resources Canada and the U.S. Department of Energy supported a "fivefold expansion" of the oilsands within a "relatively short time."

The Natural Gas Pit

At one time, the oilpatch used one barrel of conventional oil to find 100 more--a tidy energy profit ratio. The tarsands, a thoroughly unconventional product, make a mockery of such accounting and boast a net energy intensity two to three times that of conventional heavy oil. As a consequence, it now takes the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil to create two barrels of oil from the tarsands.

Much of this energy comes from natural gas, a relatively clean fuel used to

steam up

the tar or upgrade the carbon-heavy pitch into a marketable product. According to a 2005 report by the Pembina Institute, the industry daily consumes more than half a billion cubic feet of natural gas, or "enough to heat 3.2 million Canadian homes per day." (In 2006, industry consumption actually surpassed a billion cubic feet daily and partly accounted for falling gas exports to the U.S.) By 2012, the tarsands will burn enough natural gas each day to heat every home in Canada.

Given that experts say Canada has only a nine-year supply of proven natural gas reserves left (undiscovered and unconventional reserves might extend that timeline, but with large environmental costs), former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed has described the natural gas addiction in the tarsands as a waste of a "valuable resource." Houston investment banker Simmons, author of Twilight In The Desert (a look at Saudi Arabia's dwindling oil reserves) is even more blunt: "If I were a Canadian, I'd make it illegal to use precious natural gas and potable freshwater to turn gold into lead in the tarsands." His recommendations for policy-makers are equally stark: go slow, charge for water, cap tarsands production and "find some other way to produce this atrocious resource other than using scarce natural gas....To get more addicted to the tarsands doesn't make any sense to me."

Although alternative sources of energy are being developed (such as burning bitumen or coke to create gas as a fuel source), most are more carbon-intensive, with the exception of nuclear energy. To replace natural gas use in the tarsands with nuclear power would require nearly a decade of planning, hellish political controversy and as many as 16 Candu 6 reactors. Yet Gary Lewis, a tarsands engineer and member of Fort McMurray-based Environmentalists for Nuclear Power, argues that such a change would "reduce CO¸ emissions in accordance with Kyoto and not harm gas and oil production in Alberta."

(See the full article at Canadian Business)

- This might be one of the reasons that USA might want the oil price to be high so that it will be economical to extract those precious oil from Canada...if oil price goes way up...those money invested might reap huge returns but at a huge cost and limited production capabilities in Oil Sands.

My personal opinion, investment should go to old oil fields that have proven reserve but abandoned due to it's size (Small oil fields that big oil companies don't bother to extract).

 .....by Gazzatrone

Energy Returned Over Energy Invested.

Is the answer to the question. Yet what is mind numbingly depressing about EROEI is this. Unlike Peak Oil, where we just end up paying through the nose, and handing over and arm and a leg for our fuel, yet still having a flow of oil. EROEI can leave us with the depressing reality that when EROEI hits 1:1 and for instance 500 billion barrels of oil remain in the ground, that’s where it would stay. As economically you can’t sell what you will have to burn in order to get the next barrel out. We would have to burn 500 billion barrels for nothing. And at present consumption rates, that’s around 15 years of consumption. Now EROEI won’t hit every oil field at the same time, but as each field declines, the greater the pressure is put on other fields. Forcing the other fields to decline at a faster rate. In returning to my analogous story. When the secondary cancers took hold of my Grandfathers, the effect was devastating. Both died within two days as a result of the secondary cancer. Such was its ferocity. Likewise with EROEI. The little chart above is the best you illustration of how serious EROEI is, and if you follow the trend, as our consumption increases many will warn of Peak Oil being the killer, but when that 3:1 becomes 1:1 its game over. Using that chart as a source of data it would appear we have less time than Peak Oil alone would have us believe. One thing is certain, at our present growing rates of consumption we will arrive at 1:1 much sooner than anticipated and noone will have seen it coming. Except us that is. And basing an assumption of those EROEI rates, is within a decade a fantasy? I don't think so. Yes Peak Oil is a serious issue but one I think we have been wrong in assuming is the clear threat to our way of life.

.......by gego

One thing I immediately noticed was that the EROEI numbers you presented were halving every 20 years (3.5% decline rate) until the last number which just fell off the chart. This raises a red flag, which has nothing to do with the thrust of your thinking, but which either means bad data or something really significant happening. Had the 20 year halving period held up, then it would not be until after 2050 that we reached 1:1. In the long run, this would be quibbling over pennies, as we are headed to 1:1, but the sudden drop is alarming, and needs some explanation.

There will be a reachback effect on the economy as we approach 1:1 for production. We do not need to reach 1:1 for the suffering to begin. We are in the early stages of this reachback effect now. As energy becomes more costly, more and more economic activity will become uneconomical and cease; for example, one does not mine metal if the cost is more than the selling price, and even today some mines with low grades and high costs are shutting down.

- Are we going into trouble times ahead?....you decide!

Give yourself a half hour to read the whole article.  It's worth it.

( Terra Preta: I got a comment from Erich J Knight on terra preta here that went into a lot of depth, but I deleted it by mistake.  Forturnately, he says pretty much the same thing in his blog.  I first heard about terra preta from Ron Larson, chair of the American Solar Energy Society, who is very active in the local (Denver) renewable energy scene.  If you haven't heard about terra preta, and are concerned about globabl warming or soil fertility without fertilizers from fossil fuels, it's worth looking into.)

Aside on why I don't usually crunch my own numbers:

I'm a recovering mathematician. When I left the world of math for the real(er) world of the stock market, I found that all my data contained so many uncertainties feeding into my calculations that I couldn't really calculate anything... all I had was educated guesses.  When your data is a bunch of ball park estimates, there's no point in crunching numbers when you can just eyeball a ball park estimate for your result.   I've come to feel (especially when analyzing stocks) that too much precision can lead to overconfidence... it's better to use estimates that you know are estimates.

 Two quotes:

"It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong." - Warren Buffett

"Economists like to use a decimal point in their forcasts to prove they have a sense of humor."  (old joke)

 But enough of that... Engineers rightly have more confidence in their data than financial analysts and poets, so head on over to the Ergosphere and read the article I wish I had written.)

E3 Biofuels is doing just that with a 25 million gallon "closed loop" ethanol plant in Mead Nebraska.  The distiller's grain byproduct of the ethanol production is fed to cattle at an adjacent feedlot.  This saves energy by avoiding having to dry the grain and transport it to where the cattle are.  The manure from the feedlot is passed into an anaerobic digester which not only produces 100% of the energy necessary for the ethanol distillation process in the form of methane, but it also helps solve the nasty environmental problems caused by the massive supply of manure feedlots produce.  It was runoff from cattle manure that caused the problems with our spinach supply recently.

Other benefits are that by running the manure through the digester, odor is reduced, and methane from the manure decomposition does not escape into the atmosphere.  Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than is CO2.

If you believe the promoters that "This plant will make ethanol more than twice as energy-efficient as any other method of producing ethanol or gasoline," I estimate that the well-to-wheels EROEI is between 2 and 4 (probably closer to 2.)  It's not the great EROEI's we get from Wind and geothermal, but it's a liquid fuel we can use in our existing vehicle fleet (either as E85 in Flex-Fuel vehicles, or as E10 or E20 in standard gasoline engines.)

Without liquid fuel, we're in great danger of economic disruption due to peak oil, but unless we get that liquid fuel in a manner less carbon intensive than conventional corn ethanol, we'll be up to our ears in melted icecaps.

Obviously, what we really need is much more energy-efficient cellulosic ethanol which does not compete with our food supply for feedstock, and it will be great if that process is powered by renewable heat (methane form digesters, or solar thermal) but given that we're unlikely to stop eating beef anytime soon, this is an elegant, closed process.

It's received wisdom that ethanol from corn has an energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of somewhere between 0.8 and 1.0; i.e. you get less out than you put in.  The persistence of this idea is possibly due to some great cartoons.  I'm probably going to undermine my whole argument here, by including this one...

Then again, I expect that my audience is highly intelligent, and not easily distracted.  If you weren't, you probably wouldn't still be reading my extremely dense and often-tortured prose.  You deserve a good cartoon every now and then...

Back in the world of ethanol, times have changed.

Even though cellulosic ethanol is still very much in its technological infancy, a lot of companies and people are doing a lot of interesting things with corn ethanol to make the process more efficient, and, get those energy inputs in the form of "free" waste heat from some other process, or from renewable sources such as cow manure or landfill gas.

I've been educating myself a lot about this reading C. Scott Miller's Bioconversion blog.  I admit I'm having to do a lot of catch up on this, because I was one of those people who believed ethanol was a total government subsidized boondoggle until recently.

All that said, even at an EROEI of 1.25 to 1.8, ethanol is not much of an energy "source."  Sure, we're getting a little energy out of the process, but one way to think about EROEI is how much effort it takes to get our energy. 

As a rough illustration, at an EREOI of 2, there has to be one person working to get energy for every person doing something else.  So if civilization were to exist one out of every 2 people would have to be employed in the energy sector... the other 50% would then have the energy they needed to do other useful things, like be doctors, politicians, soldiers, engineers, builders, investment advisers, bloggers, artists, manufacturers, scientists, psychologists, food farmers (as opposed to energy farmers), talk show hosts, etc.

 You might argue that some of those professions aren't very useful (investment advisors and politicians perhaps), but even if we eliminate all those "useless" professions, I think the more useful professions like talk show hosts and artists might start finding themselves a little squeezed.

There is a reason that the human race was 95%+ farmers or hunter gatherers for most of of our history: the energy sources we were using were not powerful enough, with too low EROEI to sustain higher forms of civilization, such as talk show hosts.

If you don't believe me, read this great article on "Peak Wood," the cause of the iron age.

Back to ethanol: it's not going to solve our world energy problem.  It's a useful way to turn non-liquid fuels (manure, biogas, or coal) into something you can put in your car, but if we in the U.S. are  looking for a domestic source of energy that will wean us off the Middle Eastern oil teat, we can do it, only if we want to be a nation of farmers, witha much smaller population and lower standard of living than we have now.

Ethanol is big business these days, and it will make a tiny dent in our oil addiction, so all the investment is probably doing some good.  I predict that the biggest beneficiaries will be the farmers, and considering how hard farming is, that's not a bad thing.  It's probably better than out-and-out farming subsidies.

Basically, I'm no longer worked up about ethanol subsidies and mandates.  There are a ton of better ways we could be spending the money, but it's hardly the stupidest thing our government does with our money.   I'd even be happy about it if they'd simply replace the money spent on all farm subsidies with subsidies for farm based energy.

I just don't want it to distract from the important work we have to do to deal with the twin probems of peak oil and global warming:

1. Improve energy efficiency (especially of our vehicle fleet.)
2. Develop high ERoEI energy technologies: Wind, Solar concentrating, Geothermal.  PV will probably make it on this list as the technology improves.
3. Displace some of that oil in transport with renewable electricity, via plug-in hybrids.  (Economic fuel cells are still too far away to make hydrogen a viable transportation fuel in the next 20 years)

The results are no surprise to any of us who follow the industry: corn ethanol yields 25% more energy than it takes to produce it; while soy biodiesel yields 93% more.

The numbers for ethanol ar not new: people have been arguing about the EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) for ethanol for years, and the numbers have slowly risen with improving technology from about -10% to today’s 25%.  What are new, are the EREOI numbers for soy biodiesel.  I had only heard one number for the EREOI of “biodiesel” before - and no mention of the feedstock was made, nor was I able to trace it back to a reputable source… I suspect it was a back of the envelope calculation by a biodiesel advocate.  That number was a 220% return, quoted to me twice, once by management at Blue Sun Biodiesel, and once by the person manning the booth for the International Center for Appropriate and Sustainable Technology, both of whom do good work, but who have an incentive to believe this highest number they hear.  Disclaimer: I too have an incentive to believe the highest number I hear because I have a Jeep that I use biodiesel in to minimize my carbon emissions.   Using the new numbers, my Jeep Liberty has about the same carbon footprint as my 2002 Prius, when running on B100.  On B20, which I use in the winter, the Prius still looks much better.   I’m pining for a plug-in hybrid diesel.

But I’m very happy to see reality injected into the whole biofuels debate.  Neither ethanol not biodiesel (nor both together) is going to save the US from having to import petroleum: if our entire corn and soybean output were shifted to these biofuels, that would only replace about 12% of gasoline demand, and 6% of diesel demand… are we ready to start talking about massively investing in increasing the efficiency of our vehicles yet?

One other new note in the article, which I like given my affection for biodiesel, is that soy is a much less fertiliser intensive crop than corn, and so growing it has fewer local environmental impacts. I hope these authors continue their work, and expand the study to include other feedstocks for both ethanol (sugarcane, cellulostic) and biodiesel (canola, algae, recycled oil).