John-Marc and all,

We should definitely discuss all of this in both working groups, however people that can't come to the meetings should also benefit from this exchange.

Below are my latest responses in three sections that will be a bit easier to wade through... :)

jmc@sfgreens.org wrote:

You can break the cellulose down into sugar, ferment the sugar, distill out the alcohol, and then recycle the leftovers back into the soil...If you're talking about inedible parts of crops we currently plant, a biofuel plant in proximity to the farm wouldn't result in any more mining than is currently taking place...

My reply:

Distilling out the alcohol takes energy -out- of the plant material in large amounts and turns it into a liquid fuel. All of that energy is then unable to be returned to the soil. Let's get to the heart of physics. Energy and matter are the same thing, and energy/matter is never lost or gained, it is simply moved from place to place, from one state to another. So, when you take large amounts of energy from a plant (in the form of alcohol or oil) and move that energy into the fuel lines of millions of vehicles, that energy is lost to the soil and transfered to the atmosphere. It has been moved to a different place and cannot strengthen the soil and build up within it. Remember, above and beyond nutrients, carbon itself is a key component of soil (plants don't solely depend on -atmospheric- carbon for their life cycle). And storing carbon in thick topsoil, keeps it -out- of the atmosphere.

There is a Science Daily article that gets right to the heart of what I am talking about (Trapping Carbon In Soil Key For Protecting Global Food Security, Dealing With Climate Change) at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/06/040614080953.htm

This same dynamic holds true for water grown algae. The algae -must- be fed a nutrient base, much of which will be transfered as energy into the fuel. And even if we develop an incredibly hyper efficient algae fuel process, think about what it is that we will be doing. We will be taking carbon dioxide out of the air, turning it into fuel, and returning it to the air, when -instead- and this is absolutely key, -most- of that CO2 could be taken out of the air and permanently stored in old growth ecosystems and their soils; and deep permacultural farmlands and -their- soils. By restoring old growth ecosystems and deep sustainable farmlands to the Earth in this way, we can pull a lot of the current excess CO2 -out- of the atmosphere and put it back down into the Earth and into cycling living systems where it belongs; and from which we have in fact unnaturally extracted it in the first place.

jmc@sfgreens.org wrote:

The two main sources [for biofuel algae supports] I've seen are power plants that spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and sewage from pig/cow farms (which do not necessarily contain heavy metals, unless you've been feeding them to the pigs).  Both are good places to build algae plants because the algae would break down the pollutants and at the same time produce usable energy.  This would be economical now, while the technology is developed to the point where you could run it just off of atmospheric level carbon dioxide.  I don't buy the argument that remediating a current source of pollution is somehow encouraging more of that pollution; the demand for pig meat has nothing to do with whether we might produce biofuels from pig poop.  Current methods of pig farming may turn out to be unsustainable in the long run even with bioremediation, but as
long as we have them, it's better to use the waste for biofuel rather than letting it pollute the environment.

My reply:

No actually it is not better, because doing so would obviously increase the profitability and utility of both fossil fuel power plants and pig farms, perpetuating them as a paradigm in our global economic, energy and food system; especially when you consider that mainstream media reports always portray such projects as a way we can have our cake and eat it too, with both, fossil fuel burning, and incredibly destructive meat agriculture. And of course, there are in fact massive toxic chemical inputs into both industries that will indeed still make their way into our air and water bodies. Far superior alternatives are, a) a massive switch immediately to non-carbon based energy like solar and wind, enabling the immediate -closure- of the power plants (instead of simply mitigating their wastes and CO2), and b) a mass education program to get people to realise the power of eating much lower on the food chain, thereby encouraging immediate large reductions (instead of dangerous co-dependent validations) of pig farming. Pig farming by the way, is one of the -most- polluting of all forms of animal agriculture.

jmc@sfgreens.org wrote:

Monsanto's current exploits have nothing to do with the argument over whether biofuels might be part of a sustainable energy solution or not...and then...
We're talking about [genetically engineered] biofuel plants on dry land (e.g., in a desert with lots of sunlight), with algae that need seawater to survive. Therefore, I'm not too worried about mutant algae escaping into the biosphere.  In most cases, I'm much less worried about genetically engineering microorganisms such as bacteria than I am about genetically engineering crops; the reasons why have to do with technical reasons that are outside the scope of this discussion, but I'd be happy to explain this another time.

My reply:

First, Monsanto will be intimately involved with biofuels, because the current gold rush is toward genetically engineered ultra-high-yield biofuel crops. The connection then, is obvious.
Second, it is actually genetically engineered microorganisms that are the -most- dangerous. Microorganisms reproduce rapidly and therefore mutate rapidly and so can very quickly adapt themselves to invade exactly the ecosystems that you are so sure they will not be able to spread out into... And this isn't even the worst danger. Bacteria and viruses can get into/consume genetically engineered microbes -and- plants & animals and quickly incorporate genetically engineered DNA into their -own- genetic structure. And, -then- in an even -more- disastrous synergy, bacteria that exchange information between eachother -both- sexually -and- by directly joining to eachother and directly exchanging genetic information, can, and often do, incorporate this genetically engineered DNA flying around in the viruses and other bacteria all over the place, and then rapidly pass it down, around and through their neighbors, creating an explosion in the invasion of genetically engineered DNA into both our bodies and the biosphere. This has definitively been shown in hard research. Samples taken from people and animals that have eaten genetically engineered foods have shown that the engineered DNA, partly due to this very process of exchanges of DNA between bacteria, and viruses, are winding up not being fully broken down in the stomach and instead, are making their way all the way into the tissue -and- DNA of the people and animals eating the food. (This process is begun in the very tough and resourceful gut bacteria in our stomachs and intestines.)

Such microbial exchange of engineered DNA, is precisely why there is NO SUCH THING as a safe genetically engineered organism. They are inherently extremely dangerous, and should be abolished, because their artificial genetic material can make its way into every single corner of the planet and into every single living organism.

and to genetically engineer very small, rapidly reproducing organisms, is to increase this danger exponentially...

And on that happy note..

cheers

Eric

I think this would benefit from an in-person discussion, possibly
at the next Transpo or Sustainability meeting.  Writing all this in
email is too slow, and I can't keep up:
 
On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 01:05:08AM -0700, Eric Brooks wrote:

1) On algae: It will take massive inputs of other nutrients besides 
solar rays and atmospheric carbon to grow algae in sufficient quantities 
to meet liquid fuel needs. (See point 6 below.)


Depends how fast you want them to grow.  I'm talking about net input;
of course you need some seawater or other medium for them to grow
in.  But you can then recycle most of that; if the only thing you're taking
out of the system is hydrocarbon, the only necessary inputs that you
can't recycle are carbon (from the air) and water (from seawater).

At this time, the technology is still immature, so it makes sense
to develop it under conditions that make it easier, so the resulting
oil will cost less.  I'll respond to your point 6 below.

2) On cellulosic ethanol: There is no such thing as a 'free byproduct' 
in nature and agriculture. Those plant stalks need to be returned to 
(composted back into) the soil from which they came.


Both you and Sue have a misconception that using the stalks to produce
cellulosic ethanol somehow prevents you from doing that.  You can
break the cellulose down into sugar, ferment the sugar, distill out the
alcohol, and then recycle the leftovers back into the soil.  This
is currently done with leftovers from brewers and distillers; the most
important nutrients, such as phosphate, are not destroyed in the
process.

Taking plant matter away from soil in this way is known as 'mining' 
soil. Currently, through industrial agricultural practices begun in the 
false 'green' revolution, this is causing such a collapse in land 
quality all over the planet, that we will soon be producing less food 
per capita on the Earth, than is needed for adequate nutrition. Piling 
biofuel soil mining on top of this already growing catastrophe would be 
insane.


If you're talking about inedible parts of crops we currently plant,
a biofuel plant in proximity to the farm wouldn't result in any more
mining than is currently taking place.  If we were to harvest crops
specifically for biofuels (e.g., switchgrass), this is a valid concern
to take into account.

3) On the conflict between biofuels and transit: My argument is crystal 
clear. If the general public is given any shred of hope to cling to, 
that enables them to believe they can continue to drive their personal 
automobiles, they will, hands down, choose personal automobiles over 
mass transit.


Studies have shown that transit ridership rises if it's cheap and/or
convenient (e.g., in Europe, Japan, and on Spare the Air days in SF).
If you're arguing that "general public" mean everybody would have to
prefer cars, that's just a strawman.  It is impractical to bring mass
transit to the current suburbs, and biofuels will not become cheap
enough for those people to sustain their lifestyle either--economics
will eventually force them to move (as in "End of Suburbia").

As I said before, the amount we're investing in mass transit, and in
biofuels, are each so small that it makes no sense to pretend spending
on one precludes the other.

One need only look at the devastation that has been 
wrought by the activities of Monsanto corporation to see the truth of 
this.


Monsanto's current exploits have nothing to do with the argument over
whether biofuels might be part of a sustainable energy solution or not.

5) On fuel density: There is enough solar, wind, wave and tidal capacity 
(if built) to run a global electrified mass transit system. Under such a 
scenario,  the pursuit of liquid fuel density is simply unnecessary and 
therefore extremely wasteful.


You still need liquid fuel for some applications (e.g., airplanes).

I am referring primarily to conservation of energy.


OK, look up how much energy you get from sunlight (e.g., per square
foot), look at the conversion efficiency of algae, and the energy
density of the resulting oil.  The numbers work out.  See the slashdot
reference I gave you before for some calculations.

used. A quick search on the internet showed me that the inputs being 
considered for algal fuel production are fossil fuel power plant wastes 
('nuff said), and sewage wastes (imagine the toxins, heavy metals, etc, 
that would end up in the algae oil from this latter process, later to be 
burned into the air we breathe).


The two main sources I've seen are power plants that spew carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere and sewage from pig/cow farms (which do
not necessarily contain heavy metals, unless you've been feeding them
to the pigs).  Both are good places to build algae plants because the
algae would break down the pollutants and at the same time produce
usable energy.  This would be economical now, while the technology is
developed to the point where you could run it just off of atmoshperic
level carbon dioxide.  I don't buy the argument that remediating a
current source of pollution is somehow encouraging more of that pollution;
the demand for pig meat has nothing to do with whether we might produce
biofuels from pig poop.  Current methods of pig farming may turn out
to be unsustainable in the long run even with bioremediation, but as
long as we have them, it's better to use the waste for biofuel rather
than letting it pollute the environment.

Another ominous note that I saw sounded 
out there, is that biofuel algae will be genetically engineered to 
greatly increase yield. Imagine massive amounts of genetically 
engineered biofuel algae released into the biosphere.


We're talking about biofuel plants on dry land (e.g., in a desert with
lots of sunlight), with algae that need seawater to survive.
Therefore, I'm not too worried about mutant algae escaping into the
biosphere.  In most cases, I'm much less worried about genetically
engineering microorganisms such as bacteria than I am about genetically
engineering crops; the reasons why have to do with technical reasons
that are outside the scope of this discussion, but I'd be happy to
explain this another time.

JMC