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.) 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. If they are not, the soil will become much more heavily depleted of nutrients, requiring higher fossil fuel inputs for future fuel crop production, which will -increase- warming gases in the atmosphere because of releases of methane, as the fertilizers, et al. are created. This not to mention the fact that such petro-inputs of course, further deplete fossil fuels. 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. 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. I haven't the slightest idea what makes you think that most people will choose transit. All transportation infrastructure requires capital and subsidies. Every dollar that is put toward personal automobile infrastructure, is a dollar that cannot be used to build mass transit. 4) On collapse of civilization: The collapse will happen -far- more rapidly if we allow players like Bush and Kissinger Associates to launch their multi-billion dollar boom production of genetically engineered biofuel crops. One need only look at the devastation that has been wrought by the activities of Monsanto corporation to see the truth of this. Genetic biofuel production would dwarf Monsanto's current GE food exploits, which, even in their current rather limited scope, among other results, has helped trigger the suicides of tens of thousands of Indian farmers. 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. Solar and wind are already off the shelf technologies that are fully competitive with fossil fuels. 6) On physics, and in conclusion: You wrote, Which basic laws of physics are you referring to? Biofuels don't violate any of them any more than other energy sources that are ultimately solar powered. I am referring primarily to conservation of energy. My comment above about soil depletion is key to this point. In regards to algae, no matter how efficient the photosynthetic process, there must be massive inputs of growth medium (energy in, to get energy out). This is simply unavoidable. Solar power requires no such inputs because it is a process that only relies on sunlight flying in from space being directly converted to electricity, with no need to feed a living being (algae) to fuel the process. Other than the energy required to build the panels (which is quickly regained) all of the generated electricity is excess energy that would have dissipated or returned to space without being 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). 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. Bad, bad plan... cheers Eric B jmc@sfgreens.org wrote:

On Tue, Apr 03, 2007 at 02:01:58AM -0700, Eric Brooks wrote:

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We can't get around conservation of energy here. The algae has to be fed with something. The carbon has to come from somewhere. There is no free lunch. Hence anything that will give us massive amounts of burnable fuels, will have massive amounts of impact on the planetary ecosystem.

The energy is solar, and the carbon comes from carbon dioxide.

The cellulosic ethanol by itself won't be sufficient to replace our current oil needs, but every little bit might make the difference between a gradual "powerdown" in a peak oil scenario and total collapse. Cellulose (stalks) is essentially a free byproduct of growing food crops, and the energy we put into growing them already (for the food) is currently wasted. It's like the difference between letting the sunlight heat up your roof or putting on some solar panels to take advantage of it.

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And as my previous post noted, the players that are getting into this biofuels game are some of the most evil people on the planet.

In a total collapse of civilization, even evil folks wouldn't be able to enjoy their current lifestyle.

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They mentioned algae. They dovetailed it and all of the other crops with genetic engineering. This stuff is all bad news that must be stopped before it distracts us from taking real action to end the climate crisis, while we instead wait a precious, deadly, decade or two for some magic bullet that will allow us all to drive cars.

This is a false dichotomy; there's no reason we can't both build mass transit and also develop biofuels. The amount of money necessary for either project is tiny compared to the cost of the war. Biofuels aren't a "distraction" from building mass transit when the public barely knows about them. I think in a poll, the public would prefer mass transit.

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Why are we talking about convoluted esoteric ways to get liquid carbon fuels out of algae, when we could meet our energy and transportation needs with solar, wind, tidal, wave, etc. and electrified mass transit?

Liquid carbon fuels are convenient, and more technologically practical to develop than other high density fuel storage options such as hydrogen or high density batteries. Almost all our existing infrastructure is built on them, so the transition would be much cheaper.

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These are off the shelf, affordable technologies, that can be employed now; not speculative scientific processes which seek some sleight of hand with which to defy the basic laws of physics.

Which basic laws of physics are you referring to? Biofuels don't violate any of them any more than other energy sources that are ultimately solar powered.

JMC

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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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