So I looked up whether Patzek includes algae in his opposition to biofuels. Indeed he does.
Here's his position on that along with some skeptical responses: http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2007/01/biodiesel-from-algae-event-in-san.html Notably: "The Second Law is not news to all of the other scientists that study energy balance of biofuels. Among all of these other scientists, a consensus has developed over the past decade that biofuels (even marginal ones like corn ethanol) have a positive energy balance. How can this possibly be? Are all of these other scientists ignoramuses? Is Prof. Patzek the sole voice of sanity within the scientific community? He is the sole voice with this view, with dozens of others in agreement with each other and in disagreement with him. Science is not a democracy, but extraordinary claims do demand extraordinary evidence. The studies that Prof. Patzek has been involved in have been refuted by the scientific community a long time ago, and he's come up with nothing new to justify dredging this up again now" I can't especially vouch for that as yet, but I can vouch for this: "There is no chance we will ever recover more than a tiny fraction of that [solar energy], but a tiny fraction is all that we need. Plants store a tiny fraction of this energy from the sun in the form of oil, starch and sugar. They've been perfecting this for the past 3.5 billion years. The energy they store does not come from petroleum - it comes from the sun. We're orders of magnitude from violating the Second Law." So have some rhubarb pie. Maybe things aren't as bad as you thought. mt --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
