Additional comments on 'Impact of Oil Supplies on World Peace'

If the world oil consumption is 100 mbbl/d in the next 10 years or so, and, the US consumption is 25 mbbl/d, a 10% share generated by ethanol would require 2.5 mbbl/d of ethanol. Switchgrass, a carefully studied example of an ethanol crop, generates 5 tons per acre of biomass. A yield of 4bbls/acre of oil energy equivalent ethanol from switchgrass cultivation is currently achievable. Proponents say we can double that production. If the yield is conceded to be 8 bbls/acre, then supplying 10% of our 2015 oil consumption would require more than 25% of our entire US acreage of arable land. Inasmuch as world grain reserves have fallen more than 50% in the past 5 years and world population is rising, arable land will not likely be turned to energy production except to provide waste biomass for ethanol production. We should use all of it that is economically viable but supplanting 10% of our oil consumption may be an unrealistic hope. This argument is based on a competing demand on agricultural land to supply food that seems inevitably to increase. The alternative, a near-term decline in world population, is either a fairy tale or a horror too grave to contemplate. Barry Raleigh

The issue addressed here--the impact of oil supplies on world peace--is a vitally important one. I'm not sure how much can really be said about it in one 3000-word article, much less a short follow-up comment. Well, maybe a long comment..

I agree with the author that the comparative oil indepencence that Brazil has achieved is laudable. I don't know to what extent the financial cost of ethanol fuel from sugar cane is subsidized by the Brazilian government, but it is certainly the case that it is not subsidized by massive imports of oil. Brazil imports very little oil, in comparison to the amount of ethanol it produces, and only a small portion of what it does import goes to producing ethanol. It is successfully turning sunlight into liquid fuel for its transportation sector. That fact alone gives the lie to claims by skeptics that biofuel production ultimately consumes oil in amounts comparable to the amount of fuel produced.

The problem with Pimentel's studies is that they are based on current agricultural practices in the U.S. Those practices are shaped to maximize economic returns in the context of cheap petroleum products and a farm subsidy program. His studies have much to say about the dubious wisdom of an expanded ethanol fuel program in the current context, but little to say about how biofuels could work in a different context. There are ways to maintain soil fertility and achieve high yields of biofuel crops that don't involve profligate use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel-guzzling cultivators, dryers, and other farm machinery.

Having said that, I have to agree with Len that there is no way that biofuels will be able to replace oil at the rate we currently squander it. There just isn't enough arable land to grow biofuel crops on that scale. And even if there were, competition for land use between fuel and food would guarantee that both fuel and food would become very expensive.

The only realistic way we have to reduce our dependence on oil imports is to reinvent our transportation infrastructure. It's possible to do so: it's absurd that we routinely haul around 3000 pounds of metal to take us wherever we wish to go. It's not just unnecessary and wasteful, from an engineering perspective, it's inelegant. (Oh, and it also kills about 40,000 of us every year.)

Sadly, I think the chances are slim to zero that we will embrace the reinvention of our transportation infrastructure as the economic driver that it could be. Thinking big and boldly has been a declining fashion, ever since John Kennedy was assassinated. We'll stay wedded to big cars and trucks, and mile upon square mile of concrete and parking lots, for as long as we possibly can. And meanwhile, remaining oil supplies will become increasingly precious prizes over which the elites of nations contend. They call it "the Great Game". And that's what it is, to those whose children are not on the front line.

Roger Arnold
9.10.05

Roger,

The future isn't THAT gloomy! While I agree with you on the limits of bio-fuels, we have plenty of options waiting in the wings (and just around the corner), the best example of which being the plug-in hybrid car.

This technology is capable of reducing our oil consumption by a factor of 6 to 8 (per mile traveled), and may eventually evolve into pure electric car technology that can remove oil consumption entirely. Given the greatly reduced consumption of liquid fuel, a great fraction of that fuel could be provided by biomass sources, or perhaps by domestic synthetic fuel sources where hydrogen is added to carbon feedstocks (coal?, CO2?). (And hey, if we feel we must accomplish basically the same thing at a much higher cost and at less than half the well-to-wheel efficiency, there's always hydrogen!)

With the above technologies, we can primarily power our transportation needs with domestic energy sources that we have in abundance (coal, uranium, wind, sun, etc....), with biomass probably playing some significant role. These technologies will also result in a substantial increase in the efficiency of transportation, in terms of primary energy consumed per mile driven, as compared to today.

Personally, I'm skeptical that Americans will ever give up the convenience of the private automobile. We'll use the technologies above, and will even be willing to pay significantly more for transport, before we'll do anything to fundamentally alter our society, or how we get around. The bottom line is that, even now (and in the future), transport fuel costs are just not a high enough fraction of people's incomes to radically change their behavior.

James Hopf
9.11.05

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"Other expanding nations such as China and India have been smugly content to watch the U.S. protect the availability of the world’s oil supplies. They will let us spend our money and our lives to keep the oil flowing." - I've contended from the beginning that the "War on WMD / Regime Change" invasion of Iraq was simply a poorly thought out colonial adventure which will bite back hard. Given the number of times we Canadians have been vilified for not joining, i find it interesting to see this now in mainstream.

"The nations that surround China and have oil should be concerned." - Esp. given the Iraq precedent. On Ethanol: from study documented in article by David Pimental at http://www.energyjustice.net/ethanol/pimentel2003.pdf

1) "In the U.S. ethanol system, considerably more energy, including high-grade fossil fuel, is required to produce ethanol than is available in the energy-ethanol output. Specifically about 29% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy in a gallon of ethanol." - Other IMHO less believable studies have come up with barely positive figures. Why is this not part of the discussion?

2) "using Shapouri, Duffield, and Wang’s optimistic data, in order to substitute for a third of the gasoline used per automobile, Americans would require as much cropland as they need to feed themselves!"

3) "Until recently, Brazil had been the largest producer of ethanol in the world. Brazil used sugarcane to produce ethanol and sugarcane is a more efficient feedstock for ethanol than corn grain (Pimentel and Pimentel, 1996). However, the energy balance was negative and the Brazilian government subsidized the ethanol industry. There the government was selling ethanol to the public for 83c= per gallon that was costing them $1.25 per gallon to produce for sale (Pimentel and others, 1988). Because of serious economic problems in Brazil, the government has abandoned subsidizing ethanol (Spirits Low, 1999; Coelho and others, 2002), and without the subsidy, ethanol production is no longer economically feasible for the producers."

At minimum, I would need to see these addressed before considering ethanol further. Now, bio-diesel from biomass via enzymes, that makes sense.

Len Gould
9.8.05