Going to answer out of order: On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 8:38 PM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > (did you ever read LORD OF LIGHT by Roger Zelazny? In that book, the > fit _literally_ hit the shan.)
One of my favorite Zelazny's as is Creatures of Light and Darkness. >The countervailing factors can and do shift the supply curve -- or the demand >curve. Neither has been happening. The Energy Return on Investment (EROI) for all fossil fuels has been rising. So have real costs for conventional fuels in general. The cost of extracting coal, oil, gas (plus uranium) has been steadily rising. At the same time demand response to rising prices still has low elasticity. Recently the response to oil prices doubling over eight years was a 21% per capital drop in demand. That is low a LONG TERM elasticity. And a lot of that demand drop may be due to the recession rather than just oil price rises (though of course the oil price increase may bear part of the responsibility for the recession/depression). Lastly you ask "why" in reply to my paragraph saying I think most biofuels are worse than oil and that oil will make the situation worse. I'm going to assume your "why"is addressed to both. In terms of biofuels. Corn alcohol ranges from being a net energy consumer to consuming around 90% of what its fuel value. (Fertilizer and pesticides and tractors and so on growing the corn, harvesting, distilling shipping and so on.) The only way you positive net energy is residue value fed to cattle which may also cause health problems. Given that a lot of distilling energy comes from coal, and soil erosion often associated with increase corn production even a small net energy return is negative in greenhouse gases (especially when affects of fertilizer on nitrogen cycle ore considered.) OK in the biofuels crowd corn alcohol is the one carrying around the kick me sign Rather look at the others fuel by fuel lets lump in palm oil, sugar cane alcohol, soy oil and so on together OK 1) Rainforest and wilderness dispalcement. Either direct or (as with sugar cane) the Sugar cane displaces food, and then wilderness is cleared to replace the food. 2) More intensive cultivation equals more soil erosion - plus fertilizer effect on Nitrogen cycle. 3) Net energy. Unlike corn, other biofuels all do produce net energy (though soy does not produce a whole lot of net energy). But they also do consume a much higher percent of their output in energy input. That multiplies problems 1 & 2. 4) Water - in some cases biofuels may be more water intensive than coal. Almost all are more water intensive than natural gas. Why peak oil is not good for progressives. Actually Eugene gave some good examples I thought But more generally, people tend to rally to authority in times of fear. Peak oil is scarier than global warming emotionally if not in reality because effects closer. Also if problem is oil rather than emissions then strong tendency to focus on coal, biofuels, and you know grabbing oil by force. OK - just found out my ride to Portland tomorrow has been canceled, So have to scramble for replacement. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
