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Fritz
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Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« on: 2008-02-25 19:42:34 »
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Thought this old chestnut was worth a post.

I don't profess to have any qualifications to critically assess the article.

Did the author get it right ?

Fritz

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/20/optimum_population_report/

Die for Gaia, save the planet?

By Tim Worstall 
Published Wednesday 20th February 2008 13:00 GMT

The enviroloonies seem to have found their way out of the asylum again: this time to tell us that 70 per cent of Britons should die for the sake of Gaia. That's not quite the way they put it, of course. Rather, the Optimum Population Trust (there's a pedantic part of me that wants to tell them it's Optimal) tells us that the maximum sustainable population of the UK is 17 million: given that there are north of 60 million currently, we can only avert the coming End Times if the extra pop their clogs soonest.
It's not bad for a paper on demography, economics, the environment and their interactions written by a physicist, that is, a paper written by someone with no knowledge of any of the three basic disciplines. The argument rests on two fundamental pieces of illogic.
The first is the use of the Commoner-Ehrlich equation which is that ecological Impact is equal to Population times Affluence times Technology or:
I = P x A x T
Paul Ehrlich, you might recall, is the man who in the 60s predicted hundreds of millions starving in India in the 70s and the US in the 80s. Then in the 70s predicted the same in the 80s and 90s and, in his latest book, Real Soon Now. The flaw in this equation is that technology is held to multiply the impact instead of, as is obvious to even the casual observer, divide it.
If you haven't spotted why yet, consider this. Are we using higher technology than hunter gatherers? Yes? Good, now, if there were 6 billion hunter gatherers around, would Gaia simply be, as at present, a bit grumpy, or even worse off? Correct, there wouldn't be any biosphere at all as that many humans with flints and spears alone would have eaten every thing on the planet and then each other. As, indeed, hunter gatherers did with the megafauna of every place they got to outside Africa, the Aborigines, the Clovis culture in North America, the Maori in New Zealand and so on. The equation should thus read:
I = (P x A)/T
For higher technology reduces the environmental impact. The effect of this upon the logic used in the paper is this. As the paper says, higher technology and increased affluence increase the pressure on the environment, and as none of us is prepared to give up the levels of both which we already have, the only thing we can do to save the planet is to have fewer people. But getting the equation the right way around removes this constraint: we can reduce the impact by having better technology and there's no need to go round slaughtering the chavs (well, OK, not this reason then). And most importantly, as we'll see, we can do this by creating technology which has lower carbon emissions.
The Footprint industry
The second conceptual error is that in their calculation of the permissible population level they use the concept of ecological footprints as calculated by Mathis Wackernagel. Now in one way I've got a lot of time for him: it's not everyone who manages to turn their Ph.D thesis into a thriving international business, so hats off, well done sir. On the other hand, that thesis is what is technically known in serious circles as horse manure. For example, when looking at the carbon emissions of nuclear power, the calculation is:
Nuclear power, about 4 per cent of global energy use, does not generate CO2. Its footprint is calculated as the area required to absorb the CO2 emitted by using the equivalent amount of energy from fossil fuels.
Mat bubba: over the cycle nuclear does have CO2 emissions, roughly the same as hydro or wind, less than half solar and a tiny fraction of coal. But our ecological footprint idea gets much worse than that. The essential idea is that we work out how much land a particular activity requires. Then we work out how many activites and how much of such there are and then look at how many hectares of land we need to be able to do all of them. This is what gives us our regular yearly (when Mathis and his boys release their annual update) cycle of we need "three more earths" if we're all going to carry on living like this.
Again there's a conceptual error about technology: thinking that the amount of land we need to do something is static, which it plainly isn't. We get more food off a hectare now than we did last year, as we have every year for at least a century (yields have been going up one per cent a year for at least that long) and so on. But wait, there's yet more.
Each piece of land is only allowed to count once. The land needed to recycle CO2 emissions is somehow different land from that needed to grow the food: that plants eat CO2 to turn it into my food gets missed.
Even given all of this exaggeration the actual end finding of the ecological footprints calculations is that we've got plenty of land to do everything except recycle our CO2 emissions, something which really isn't all that much of a surprise. We've had thousands of scientists labouring away for more than a decade to tell us that, they even wrote a great big report about it. And guess what the result of that report is? If we can invent a few more bright shiny new technologies that don't emit carbon then everything is just hunky dory.
Death cult
In the end this report is just another sad set of scribblings from people who would appear to have some deeper personal problems. Perhaps it's the thought of people having sex without a full body condom that does it, or perhaps they've come over all Fran Liebowitz ("Children don't smoke enough and I find that they're sticky, perhaps as a result of not smoking enough") but something is clearly wrong, when we read:
"It follows that if it is not possible to constrain affluence and technology, then the only parameter left to constrain and reduce is population."
Their sad misunderstanding about the effects of technology blinds them to the truth, that by not constraining technology we don't have to constrain either affluence or population. The late great Julian Simon once calculated that we had the resources for a permanently growing economy and population for the next 7 billion years. That might be a little Panglossian, to be honest, but it's more accurate than the insistence that there should be fewer, poorer people.
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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #1 on: 2008-02-25 22:22:55 »
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Prima facia both authors are horrendously wrong, but the physicist is less wrong. Even on something basic for which data is readily  available - like food production - Tim Worstall proves himself incorrect. Google for "world grain reserves" to see what I mean.

To my thinking the critical parameters are energy, clean water and plant growth potential.

In that order, because with large energy resources water can be cleaned and plant growth stimulated. With clean water plants can be grown in a lot of places they currently are not. But cheap available energy - and with it the Ammonium Nitrates from Natural gas that has fertilized the green revolution is about to come to an end - at about the time that aquifers which we have been depleting at an average of 16% pa run dry. And of course, without high levels of plant growth and available fresh water - both of which need appropriate energy input, humankind is truly screwed.

If we had Space Solar already, or even a Space Elevator, I'd be more confident that we might be able to achieve Space Solar while we can still afford it. Which might persuade me that mankind has some potential future worth participating in.

Without space solar we are reliant on dwindling high-availability fossil fuel resources even though these have a massive impact on the climate - a change which massive and rapid change would still not affect for 20 to 50 years if at all. As high availability resources become less plentiful and rise in price (a process we are indisputably seeing) we will turn to more expensive resources and the increased difficulty in making them useful which will cause substantially more impact to the planet. Again, this will have a significant impact on the availability of food and water.

We are fairly sure that 2008 is the year when food riots will begin, driven by water shortages, fertilizer cost and biofuel competition for grains. Already farmers in the US and Canada are shooting livestock that at current feed prices will cost more to rear than the value of the stock. And globally we are down to 11 weeks of grain reserves, the lowest level ever at this time of the year. While 2 billion people are not going to get the protein they need to survive from the ocean this year. We have converted the most productive fishing grounds into jellyfish reserves. The fish won't be back without massive intervention on an impossible scale.

Looking at serious researchers, my estimation based on knowledge of current and historic farming practices, is that the 2 billion that the USDA estimates can be carried sustainably is massively optimistic. I think that the turn of the 20th century 1.2 billion would be more believable if we still had easily accessed coal, large scale deposits of nitrates and phosphates and 30 million year old aquifers to tap, but we don't. We have depleted and dispersed these resources and changed the composition of atmospheric gases to a point where some crop production decreases are attributable to thermal stress.

We have left taking sensible steps until it is very late if not too late even if we begin to implement solutions immediately. No matter what we do now large numbers of people will be very unhappy at not having food to eat, which doesn't speak well to the availability of either stability or rationality; both of which will be required to implement systems which will alleviate the pain of global downsizing. Part of the pain of which will be direectly attributable to the deadly alliance of the Catholic Church and American fundamentalists rejecting the effective control of population sizes to the detriment of all.

In summary, even if we move really rapidly I agree more with the physicist, and not entirely unsurprisingly with the USDoD. Refer e.g. http://www.smarterearth.org/now-the-pentagon-tells-bush-climate-change-will-destroy-us.

Regards

Hermit
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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #2 on: 2008-02-25 23:09:59 »
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Thank you Hermit for your feedback and the link as well.

[Hermit] <snip>and biofuel competition for grains<snip>
To underscore your point, 500 acres of land next to mine was clear cut last summer and will be planted in corn for the government subsidized ethanol plant opening next year. I also noted a great deal of tilled land was not crop rotated over the last several years just replanted in corn and heavily fertilized to sustain it and consequently I'm filtering and getting my well water tested more frequently.

Sleeping less well tonight, but planning a bigger vegetable garden this spring.

Fritz
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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #3 on: 2008-02-29 13:06:30 »
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Quote from: Fritz on 2008-02-25 23:09:59   

planning a bigger vegetable garden this spring.

[Blunderov] I may do a spot of gardening myself.

www.opednews.com crunch time

February 29, 2008 at 06:44:08

Headlined on 2/29/08:
Crunch Time on the Bread Line

by Michael Fox    Page 1 of 1 page(s)

http://www.opednews.com
   
Where will you be in the line?  In a column last week, I discussed the forthcoming risk of global famine.  Now the evidence is piling on, and there is every reason to expect - at the very least - astronomical inflation in food prices within the next year.  Most significantly, this problem is not confined to any one region of the world, and the ripple effect is mind-boggling.  Keep in mind that the dollar is falling on the world exchanges, and the food you buy is subject to the fluctuations of the currency exchanges.  Why?  Well, simply because it may be more lucrative for global agricultural corporations to sell to the highest bidder – no matter where they may be.

Think about the grocery products you buy that involve grains - and then think again.  Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is bread (which, by the way, keeps nicely in the freezer, but never the fridge!).  In the United States and Europe, we eat bread from wheat, but in Mexico, the more common equivalent is corn tortillas, and corn is already running short due in a large part to its (mis-) use for E-85 Ethanol production.  Consequently, the Mexican tortilla market is running short and prices are rising for that most basic staple – because American conglomerates are buying up too much of the corn for Ethanol.  The corn shortage is also causing the rapidly increasing prices for eggs and chickens, as they are, traditionally, corn-fed.

In Northern Europe, there is a shortage due to weather, of the hops and barley crops.  The shortages in wheat, compounded by barley and hops shortages, will cause soaring prices for beer, vodka and whiskey (the latter two, of course, can keep in storage, if they can stay stored).  The more you think about it, the sooner you realize how corn and wheat shortages will affect the entire food chain – all the way from cocktails to dessert.

The Economist reports that this month, “Food prices also continued to rise. The price of wheat jumped by 25% in just one day after Kazakhstan, a big exporter [world’s 5th largest wheat exporter], moved to impose tariffs on grain leaving the country in an effort to curb inflation at home.”  The Kazakhs were in the position to do this because the bigger exporters, the US being the largest, are running short.

Bloomberg reports that “Volatility in U.S. wheat futures has surged as prices more than doubled in the past year on the Chicago Board of Trade, capped by unprecedented swings yesterday. Prices have been pushed up as the world's farmers have failed to keep pace with rising demand, eroding inventories. The rally fueled food inflation, leading to higher costs for Italian pasta, Japanese noodles, French baguettes and Kellogg Co. cereals.”  Separately, and more specifically, they reported a veritable panic on the commodities trading floors, as “on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, wheat for May delivery advanced $1.35, or 7.9 percent, to $18.4325 a bushel. The March contract, which has no limit because it is the closest to delivery, rose as high as $24.26 a bushel, after yesterday becoming the first U.S. wheat contract to top $20 a bushel.”  Last October, was trading at about $5.50 a bushel on the Minneapolis exchange.

Things have gotten so out of control that it was widely reported that this week, a “rogue employee” of a Bermuda-based firm (always pin a massive failure on one disposable member of the “team”) lost $141.5 million betting on the wheat market.

And how did this all happen?  It’s not due to natural shortages.  It is entirely to bad planning and gross mismanagement that goes all the way up to the Congress and President of the United States, as well as the last president of the United States, who enabled this crackpot plan to use corn – the least effective of the ethanol base grains – for fuel, even though its production takes more polluting coal-fired electricity to run the stills to produce can justify the clean-burning end-use fuel.  This madness was planned, and courtesy of our agricultural giants, our automakers pushing unconscionably low-mileage “flex-fuel” E-85 cars, and an economic model that puts the potential for exporting domestically needed grain for greater profits from foreign sale, we will be paying twice as much at the grocery store a year from now.  Twice as much. 

I have recommended growing food in your garden or on your balcony.  You’ll need it, whereas you certainly don’t need any more bushes in your backyard, nor do we (oh, the punchline is just too obvious…)

Michael Fox is a writer based in Los Angeles.



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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #4 on: 2008-03-03 18:26:12 »
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[Blunderov] I may do a spot of gardening myself.

www.opednews.com crunch time

It really is in our faces everywhere, yet no one around me is flinching yet. The most trouble some, is when I raise that the Corn to ethanol process is not viable as pointed out in the article; the bureaucrats have already charted their next career path with this folly and have too much invested to change gears. As in our case they have allowed the paving over of the best farm land because there is more short term profit in planting subdivisions and they under write the use of poorer and marginal farmland using funds that are diverted from education and health care, for example.

Each year the garden gets a little better but it is still 10 times the cost of buying the 3000 km shipped 'geneto-petro' food from California. There are some buy only grown within 100 km of where you live initiatives, but the frozen TV dinner kids are still driving away from that.

Sorry it took so long to answer,the flu-bug has taken us by storm and for 5 days your out of commission in every sense of the word ... yet another reminder that the 4 horsemen are never faraway.

Sneeze/snort ..... cough

Fritz
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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #5 on: 2008-03-19 21:37:12 »
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[Fritz]Finally found some numbers on the economics of Ethanol


http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3591 The Econmic of Corn Ethanol

http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3578  Ethanol Fuel is not so Green

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2615 Is corn-based Ethanol the solution?

The Economics of Corn Ethanol

Posted by Robert Rapier on February 6, 2008 - 11:30am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: corn prices, economics, ethanol, ethanol prices, natural gas (list all tags)

Someone e-mailed a few days ago and asked about the present economics of corn ethanol. I did a few calculations, and thought the results were interesting enough to share. This exercise should make it clear which factors have the biggest impact on corn ethanol profitability – and why corn ethanol producers are presently struggling.

Consider this a supplement to Stuart Staniford’s comprehensive essay Fermenting the Food Supply. Stuart’s essay goes into great detail on the factors underlying the economics. In my essay, I take a snapshot of a corn ethanol plant based on current prices for corn, natural gas, and by-products. (Note that because this is a snapshot, the numbers will change over time. But you should be able to use the methodology here to roughly calculate the economics at any point in time.)

I found multiple references for all of the numbers I am going to use, but I will only reference a single source. According to Ethanol Reshapes the Corn Market, one 56-pound bushel of corn will yield up to 2.7 gallons of ethanol and 17.4 pounds of distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS).

The current spot price of corn as of this writing is about $5/bushel, so each gallon of ethanol contains $5/2.7, or $1.85 of corn per gallon of ethanol (or if you prefer, 21 pounds of corn per gallon of ethanol). However, the DDGS can be sold, so a credit is applied for that. The current price of DDGS as of this writing is $170/ton, which is $0.085/lb. Given that a bushel of corn yields 17.4 pounds of DDGS, there is then a $1.48 credit, which spread over 2.7 gallons is equal to $0.55 gallon. This reduces our cost per gallon to $1.85 minus $0.55, or $1.30 for just the corn input. This also reduces our net corn input down to 14 pounds per gallon of ethanol produced. (Note that there is sometimes a credit for carbon dioxide sales, but it is very small relative to the other costs and credits).

I still have to consider utilities (natural gas is a major cost), labor, enzyme and yeast costs, and depreciation. I have a spreadsheet from an actual ethanol plant, but there isn't much in the public domain that I could find on this. The closest thing to a source on these is the spreadsheet in the presentation Fossil Fuels and Ethanol Plant Economics (for a standard dry mill process). If you look at Page 16 of the presentation, you can see that all of the miscellaneous costs together total approximately as much as the corn inputs. If you take the spreadsheet on Page 24 and change the natural gas price to the current price of $8/MMBTU, you get an overall energy cost of $0.33/gal of ethanol [Note: Some have pointed out that the energy usage in that spreadsheet looks pretty low, and that the average energy usage for a plant is probably higher than that]. The sum of enzymes, yeast, and other chemicals comes out to be $0.14/gal, and labor, maintenance, and various miscellaneous expenses add another $0.23/gal.

On depreciation, I have several sources for capital costs that are pretty consistent. In the EIA's Energy Outlook 2006, capital costs per daily barrel of corn ethanol ranged from $20,000 to $30,000, depending on the size of the plant. This breaks down to between $1.30 and $1.95 per gallon of installed capacity. This is also consistent with A Guide for Evaluating the Requirements of Ethanol Plants, which states "Current capital cost per annual gallon of installed capacity for an ethanol plant ranges from $1.25 to $2.00." So let's be conservative and say that we want to build a big plant, so the capital costs are on the low end at $1.30/gallon. Depreciate that over 15 years and this portion amounts to about $0.08 per gallon (but is captured above already).

However, for biomass to liquids facilities - which would include the biomass gasification to ethanol that some are calling cellulosic ethanol - the capital costs in the EIA's Energy Outlook 2006 are listed at around 5 times that of a conventional corn ethanol plant. Thus, the capital depreciation portion is going to be around $0.40 per gallon of ethanol. (On the other hand, the feed costs should be much lower).

Summary

Times are tough for ethanol producers. They are in the same boat right now as refiners - enduring very poor margins. This is what the economics roughly look like at $5 per bushel of corn and $8/MMBTU of natural gas. To produce 1 gallon of ethanol today requires:

    * $1.85 of corn
    * $0.33 of energy
    * $0.14 of enzymes, yeast, etc.
    * $0.23 of labor, maintenance, and various miscellaneous expenses

There is a DDGS credit per gallon of ethanol of $0.55. Thus, the total cost to produce a gallon of ethanol today is $1.85 + $0.33 + $0.14 + $0.23 - $0.55, or exactly $2/gallon of ethanol. For reference, the February contract for ethanol in the Midwest as of this writing is $2.15. And $2/gallon is merely cost of production. It doesn't take into account any return on investment.

Also note that due to the lower energy content, this production cost is equivalent to a $3 per gallon production cost for gasoline - and that this production cost is a moving target: As long as the ethanol mandates are driving up the price of corn and increasing the demand for and cost of natural gas, corn ethanol producers must chase their tails in a vicious cycle. Producers are going to be hard-pressed to ever match the 2006 windfall that was given to them when the MTBE phaseout drove ethanol prices sky-high.

Anyway, this was a useful exercise for me to understand the magnitude of the various inputs (and the DDGS offset) in corn ethanol production. I hope you found it of some value. If you see errors or have suggestions, please let me know.


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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #6 on: 2008-03-20 02:03:15 »
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Water, in and out, is likely to be a significant issue that is not addressed here that I can see. An ethanol plant uses a lot of water. They also produce huge amounts of CO2. And if the energy they used for running the plant had to come from renewables they would be forced to shut down as the cost would exceed the retail price of gasoline. And some clowns think this is sustainable.

Meanwhile, as the fertilizer producers, who have all left the US already (meaning the fertilizer needed to cultivate the feedstock is imported, and with the collapsing dollar, imported at rapidly rising cost) learned, we are blowing through Canadian gas at 6 times the worst case projected rate; and when that is finished we will need to import natural gas in vast amounts just to keep the pipelines at operating pressure - even if usage stays constant (and it is still growing). Unfortunately this will undoubtedly be necessary within, at best, 3 to 5 years. Sooner if we have a really cold winter. We do know that we require at least another 7 import terminals to import enough gas to maintain pipeline pressure through a cold winter at current usage (although the emergency plan is to shut down industrial users - and then gas electric plants if the pressure drops to low - no matter what that will do to the economy and people who rely on electricity). Even more unfortunately, the most optimistic time table to build a natural gas terminal is 7 years. Assuming that you have a location. And as NG terminals are prime targets for all the friends America has made around the world in the last 7 years, nobody wants them in their backyard. So while a few locations have been identified, and other people are building terminals - and buying the available international capacity by signing long term supply contracts. America is doing neither. In my opinion, the consequences are unlikely to be pretty.

Speaking of fertilizer, I  talk a lot with very community oriented farming friends who tell me that (as I have predicted since 2003) 1/3 farmers around here can't afford Ammonium Nitrate this year, and the banks are being very difficult about loans. Without vast amounts of fertilizer, given the historic year-after-year focus on grains, yields will collapse, which will guarantee a lot more sales of land to factory megafarms. It seems likely that in order to protect their investments and maximize their income (given the huge government subsidies to corn farming for ethanol production) the Ethanol producers are going to be buying the farms. What this implies for food availability is not good, while the cattle and hog farmers (both of whom are massively impacted by the rapidly escalating transport costs throughout the life cycle) already regard it as a catastrophe.

Isn't it fun to live in interesting times.

Kind Regards

Hermit

PS There are some biological processes that may allow reasonably efficient conversion of sugar cane to ethanol with much lower energy inputs, but the most hopeful of these is still having difficulty getting the production costs down to where it is worthwhile without massive government subsidies. Even with the competition at $100/bbl and gas at $4/gallon at the pumps.
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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #7 on: 2008-04-21 13:50:46 »
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So could it be a step in the right direction or what is the new misguided adventure driving this; I guess it is note worthy that an IT e-rage is posting it as news, in terms of public awareness.

Fritz


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/21/eu_biofuel_quota_coolness/

Biofuel backlash prompts Brussels back-pedal
Corn-based fuel becoming a hot potato
By Lewis Page &#8594; More by this author
Published Monday 21st April 2008 10:53 GMT


The ongoing backlash against biofuels continues to gather pace, with news out of Brussels that the European Union may postpone or even drop plans for biosource quotas in motor fuel.

The Guardian reported this weekend that officials in the European Commission are getting ready to backtrack on plans for ten per cent biofuel to be required in all European petrol and diesel by 2020.

"This is all very sensitive and fast-moving," an unnamed Commission bureaucrat told the Graun.

"There is now a lot of new evidence on biofuels and the commission has become a prisoner of this process."

Another official said that the ten per cent target "is now secondary", and that anyway it probably could no longer be met due to tough draft standards on sustainable production. This would seem to imply that most existing biofuel production wouldn't qualify under the draft Brussels rules.

At present most vehicle biofuel uses ethanol, ethyl alcohol, either as a percentage of normal fuel or exclusively in suitably adapted cars. So-called "flex-fuel" vehicles can run on any mixture of ethanol and regular fossil fuel.

But ethanol must currently be produced from food crops such as corn or sugar cane. The drive to ethanol - pushed, perhaps, as much by surging oil prices as environmental concerns - is seen by many as being behind recent food price rises and consequent hunger in some regions.

On top of that, many experts believe that ethanol biofuel doesn't reduce overall CO2 emissions as much as its proponents claim. In theory, the exhaust-pipe carbon is compensated for by the CO2 absorbed during photosynthesis in the growing plants used to make the fuel. But critics point out that intensively farmed crops draw carbon from artificial fertilisers, and that the process of turning the harvest into alcohol is also highly carbon-intensive.

Thus the actual reduction in CO2 emissions which can be claimed as a result of burning biofuel is the subject of much debate - the more so as this is critically important in the planned European carbon markets. The Graun reports that Brussels mandarins are hoping to gain acceptance for a figure of 35 per cent carbon reduction by burning agreed types of ethanol as compared to ordinary fossil fuels. In other words, if the whole transport industry could switch to using nothing but ethanol - no fossil fuel at all - the European Commission believe that overall transport-sector emissions would be down by about one-third.

There are alternative types of biofuel, such as methyl alcohol (wood alcohol) which can be made from non-food biomass or other sources. Lacking the support of powerful farm lobbies, however, methanol, biodiesel and the like have failed to gain widespread backing. Even if they did, the same criticisms of low or even notional carbon reduction, limited biomass availability etc might be levelled at them - though some would still pursue such plans on energy security grounds.

UK motor fuel is required to be 2.5 per cent biofuel already, and the plan is for this to rise to five per cent in two years. However, the British government may not press ahead - there is a Whitehall review underway. ® [Fritz] that must be good :-)
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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #8 on: 2008-04-21 15:04:50 »
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To a regrettably large extent this realization that things are actually interconnected is probably happening far too late to make a difference.

Europe effectively gave the green light to the Pacific Rim for a process of clear cutting valuable hardwood timber to be able to farm "biofuels".

So  tropical jungle and swamps throughout SE Asia have already been cleared to plant palms for oil harvesting to meet the projected demands for biodiesel seen over the last few years. This brutal land stripping is estimated to have released as much CO2 from decaying plants and dying soil bacteria (as it dries out) as we would have produced had we simply burned the equivalent energy in fossil fuels for the next 300 years - presuming the unlikely event that the fossil fuel were available. And, of course, the processing plants not only run on Natural Gas, but the palms, growing in the very poor soil left after stripping jungles and swamps, also compete with food producers for fertilizer - also made from Natural Gas. The combination of Natural Gas inputs and the dumping of CO2 has already contributed to the soaring cost of fertilizer while  dramatically increasing the burn rate for Natural Gas and its inevitable peak, while dramatically increasing CO2 release on that side of the planet as it slightly reduces CO2 releases in Europe.

Meanwhile the plants to process this oil have been built - at vast expense - using money provided by the enthusiastic supporters of this insanity; which suggests that it is going to continue. Only, there is another problem. Both the palm trees and the processing plants demand vast quantities of fresh water - for growing and processing - and the area which is already experiencing terrible droughts as a result of ongoing global climate change - and the clear cutting of jungles.

The answers lie elsewhere, but we have dealt a deadly blow to the Pacific Rim and possibly ourselves when the additional CO2 makes its presence known.
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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #9 on: 2008-04-23 13:10:20 »
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Hermit, you beat them them to the punch; hats off again; none the less an interesting take below and some new labels I hadn't considered.

Fritz

PS: those Brits love poking at us Americans; i still want  "...My Chevy at the levy' ..... and my piece of Pie"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/23/global_warming_yawn/

Wake me up when Global Warming's over
Pollution, conservation bigger worries than climate
By Andrew Orlowski &#8594; More by this author
Published Wednesday 23rd April 2008 13:02 GMT


It looks like Al Gore is going to need every cent of the $300m war chest he's amassed for climate persuasion. Americans polled by Gallup for 'Earth Day' value "traditional", bottom-up environmental issues such as pollution and conservation as being more worrying than Global Warming. Remarkably, the level of concern about greenhouse gas emissions has barely wavered in a generation. Recklessness, or Huck Finn-style American common sense?

A third of Americans think "Global Warming" is a serious concern - a figure that's effectively unchanged since 1990, when the question was first asked. Ominously for the climate doom-mongers, it ranks 10th on a list of 12 environmental issues. OK, so what are Americans worried about?

Water pollution issues are three of the top four areas of concern, with over 80 per cent of people registering serious concern. Waste contamination comes third, and the loss of natural habitat for wildlife fifth, with 77 per cent expressing concern. Then there's rainforests (69 per cent), bio-diversity (68 per cent). Greenhouse emissions come in 10th - above urban sprawl and acid rain.

And when's the last time you ever heard anyone mention acid rain?

(If you add up the "great deal" and "fair amount" worrywarts, then Global Warming comes even lower, 11th out of 12th prompted issues).
Public concern over greenhouse gas emissions 1990-now

An Inconvenient Flatline

Maybe Americans don't trust dodgy computer models, on which the predictions of global catastrophe are based? Or maybe polar bears just aren't cute enough? Either way, it can't be for lack of "awareness", as the mass media goes on about little else.
Top down vs Bottom up

But perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that traditional issues which affect one's children and family, such as pollution and conservation, are rated as more urgent. Grassroots, bottom-up environmental groups once built their support on bringing these issues into the media - before abandoning them in recent years for the "top-down" agenda of Global Warming. As Gallup shows, the groups have moved away from reflecting the everyday environmental concerns of citizens, onto an agenda largely been driven by a handful of scientists, expensively backed by powerful quangos. Perhaps if you're an NGO, this ensures a better Darwinian option for funding survival - but is this what citizens' groups are supposed to be about?
Google Earth Day logo

"And this is what it looked like before we built our data center..." Google gets into the Gaia spirit for Earth Day

Today's climate warrior will have performed a 180 degree turn from twenty years ago: rainforests are now being felled in the rush to create biofuels, a strategy which is causing the world's poorest people to go hungry, and toxic substances banned from the home are creeping back in. The justification for each move is CO2.

No wonder Greenpeace's co-founder Patrick Moore wrote recently that "the environmental movement I helped found has lost its objectivity, morality and humanity." Moore frowns on using the term "environmental" for the Global Warming campaigners. I can see his point.

Perhaps it's time hear from "traditional" environmentalism for a change, instead of its successor, the Carbon Cult?
 gallup_greenhouse_yawn.gif
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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #10 on: 2008-05-02 00:41:29 »
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Rising energy costs and the future of hospital work


[ Hermit : Need I observe that Americans, who already work harder, live shorter lives, have less savings and less disposable income compared to workers in other post-industrial economies are, due to greater suburbification and less effective mass transit, going to do far worse than those in other countries. The last people to realize this are likely to be Americans.]

Source: Energy Bulletin
Authors: Dan Bednarz, PhD
Dated: 2008-04-29

Related News:

Presented at the House of Delegates Meeting of the
Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses & Allied Professionals (Pasnap)

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
April 29, 2008


Hello, it’s nice to be with you today. My intent is to give you a realistic take on the future of your profession by explaining why healthcare and nursing will be transformed by rising energy costs. Is there danger ahead? You bet. It’s going to be difficult, probably life-changing for all Americans. Here’s why: the scale of our energy predicament is enormous, unprecedented and grossly misunderstood by institutional leaders and most of the media.

I know some of you may be wondering, Energy scarcity? That’s someone else’s problem; put this guy in touch with geologists and politicians.

So let’s step back for the big picture.


Overview

A few numbers to set the context:
  • The amount of crude oil pumped out of the ground has been on a bumpy plateau since May of 2005. Until then oil production was steadily increasing about 2% a year –with periodic declines - and the world had a daily surplus, or emergency cushion. That surplus is gone, everything produced, supply, is immediately purchased, demand. Whether or not the world has reached “peak oil” –the point at which yearly total worldwide extraction cannot be increased - this 3 year plateau indicates that the era of cheap energy is over.
  • Oil is now over $100.00 a barrel. It was $10.00 a barrel in November 1998.
  • Oil powers 90% of all transportation and it is essential to food production and distribution; it is the primary ingredient in many products –think plastics, petrochemicals, and clothing. It is fair to say that all our institutions, especially medicine, are dependent upon oil, the lynchpin resource that keeps the economy humming and allows it to grow.
  • And it’s not just oil that’s getting scarce. Natural gas in Pittsburgh went up 30% on April 1st, to $12.50 per MCF (thousand cubic feet); it was $2.50 in 2001. Typically, the cost of natural gas drops after the winter but here we are facing higher prices during the summer.
  • Coal is becoming scarce in many countries and more expensive here; its price has about doubled in the past year. It is our main source of electricity. In about 15 years the world may hit a peak in its production, and this combined with the fact that natural gas –the secondary source of electricity generation - simultaneously will be at or past its peak, poses a threat to our supply of electricity.
  • To put a human face on this, a polling agency found in December 2007 that 12% of Americans planned to put their winter energy bills on their credit card – no wonder Christmas spending was down. An article in this past Saturday’s New York Times details the rising number of people unable to pay their winter utility bills and now facing service cutoffs1. Many hospitals in California are on the verge of bankruptcy; rising energy costs – in tandem with other increasing costs - could be a breaking point for them. Further, we are merely at the beginning of what some of you recognize as Jim Kunstler’s poetic phrase “The Long Emergency.”
  • The total amount of energy the world gets from fossil fuels is predicted to peak in 2010, so we’ve probably got about two years before systemic disruptions and breakdowns become commonplace and then worsen. Even now we see the airlines struggling, food prices soaring, and we have a fiscal/financial crisis of unknown scope that is connected to the price of oil in numerous ways I cannot delve into today.


Energy in Hospitals

Now let’s look at energy use in hospitals and then use the issue of record keeping, a biggie for nurses, as one small but significant example of how energy scarcity will shape the future of healthcare. Then we’ll close with some comments on where medicine is heading and my claim that nursing stands to become a force in reforming the healthcare system.

The EPA estimates that hospitals use twice as much energy per square foot as do office buildings. Until recently hospital administrators have not paid attention to the cost of energy because they think –mistakenly - that it represents less than 2% of their operating expenses. Therefore, they have considered rising energy costs a nuisance, not a threat. However, a few weeks ago a former AMA (American Medical Association) official told me hospital administrators are getting worried about energy costs because sharp increases are eating into profits. For example, all energy costs in the US rose 17% in 2007, with the cost of oil climbing 57%. The first quarter of 2008 shows no change in this trend. How many years can our society –and hospitals - absorb these increases?

We should look a bit closer at that alleged 2% because it ignores hidden oil-related costs - also, this percentage is from 2005, when oil was $48.00 a barrel. Virtually every item consumed in a hospital is to some extent connected to fossil fuels, primarily oil. In medicine petrochemicals are used to manufacture analgesics, antihistamines, antibiotics, antibacterials, rectal suppositories, cough syrups, lubricants, creams, ointments, salves, and many gels. Processed plastics made with oil are used in heart valves and other esoteric medical equipment. Petrochemicals are used in radiological dyes and films, intravenous tubing, syringes, and oxygen masks. This could be a much longer list.

Finally, as the cost of oil, natural gas and coal rise in tandem their impact is surpassing that 2% of operating expenses just mentioned.

Now let’s consider our example of how nursing will be changed.

Recently, I read a report which estimates the amount of paperwork (communication, medication administration, admission, discharge, transfer, supplies, equipment, and so on) is so burdensome that the average nurse devotes only 31% of the workday to direct care.

The American Academy of Nursing is pushing for fully electronic records. I won’t get into whether or not this will increase patient contact hours. What is salient is that this is a solution based on an increasing amount of energy flowing into hospitals. Indeed, all across our society planning takes for granted an ever increasing supply of cheap and uninterrupted energy. My colleague, Gail Tverberg, an actuary with a good deal of experience in the medical industry, has been studying the economic ramifications of peak oil and notes:
    ”I expect that electrical interruptions will become more common in the next 20 or 30 years. These may even become a problem early on, for a whole host of reasons, including lack of water for cooling, lack of fuel for power generation, and poor upkeep of the electrical grid. Healthcare providers would be wise to plan for the day when elevators and electronic records may not be available.”
      Wow. Imagine doing your work under these conditions. Needless to say, the healthcare professions have no inkling of - let alone are preparing for - this astonishing future. In fact, a recent study showed that the electricity used exclusively for medical records is rapidly increasing, by 400-800% in the past four years. Also, MRI usage is increasing, as are many technologies that rely on electricity. Add to this the inevitable shortages of other supplies and medicines that will simultaneously result from peak oil.

      I would not be surprised if some of you are now thinking, “this is crazy; this simply cannot happen.” To which I’d like to be confrontational and assert, Fossil fuel costs will continue to rise and eventually the healthcare system will be forced to downsize –just as the Baby Boomers and (possibly) climate change effects - inundate the system. Let me just mention our perilous national economic status and note that some commentators are claiming that the government has in effect nationalized Wall Street by bailing out Bear Stearns. Further, anyone who thinks the health sector is recession or nationalization-proof is confusing health-care, which is indispensable, with the current system, which is unsustainable.

      This is a lot to lay on you in a few minutes of exposition, and I’m tempted to apologize; however, nursing – unlike, say, public relations - is where the rubber meets the road. So let me make a few closing comments and then take your questions.


      Summary
        [1] I feel safe observing that the vast majority of insurance companies, medical associations, HMOs and other hospital associations will resist facing the stark consequences of peak oil because they are benefiting from the status quo. On the other hand, those hospitals with a mission for stewardship of the earth and charitable activity are likely to be among the first to recognize the need for radical change in medical care.
        [2] In the same vein, it’s obvious that nursing is not prospering even though it is in some ways the backbone of the system. Your profession’s main themes for reforming the healthcare system should center –I hate to use the word “should” - around radical resource conservation and efficiency, and the elimination of wasteful and environmentally harmful practices. In other words, reduce, reuse, recycle, and repair.
        [3] Simultaneously, there will be a political struggle for the soul of healthcare: We will look to other nations with decent health systems where three core values predominate:
          [3.1] no one goes bankrupt due to medical status;
          [3.2] no one is denied treatment for any reason, and
          [3.3] preventive and treatment medicine are integrated.
        This means one response to energy downturn leads to healthcare for all. The alternative to this is medicine becoming something for the wealthy few, with the rest of society receiving what amounts to triage – or, alternatively, home care or “folk medicine.” In some respects these alternatives represent the familiar themes of the Jeffersonian/egalitarian and Hamiltonian/elitist traditions.
        [4] By forming a coalition with public health and even some of the growing number of doctors2 who favor a “single-payer” system, nursing can shape the transformation of our healthcare system.
      Rather than elaborate, let me thank you and open the floor for discussion.


      Notes

      1 Eckholm, Erik. “Cutoffs and pleas for aid rise with heat costs.” New York Times, April 26, 2008.
      2 Cocco, Marie “More Doctors Prefer Single Payer As Health Care Worsens.” AlterNet, April 3, 2008. (digg).
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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #11 on: 2008-05-05 13:34:37 »
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NOTE:Bill C-33 passed in Canada last week and will mandate Ethanol content in all fuel.

I was out at the local Maple Sugar Bush for pancakes last Sunday and got into a discussion on the new ethanol plant just near by with a few farmers and got quite a lecture on how good it was and how the corm just has the sugars removed and is repackaged as feed for the cattle, so there is as much food as there ever was and the plant matter is used for BioDiesel and and the ^(^*$%$&#& do gooders in the city should butt out ..... it was sobering to say the least and disturbing at the same time, so much for enjoying pancakes and maple syrup out in the bush enjoying the beautiful spring weather.

The Economist ran an interesting article on an ethanol plant to open in Florida that will use as much fresh water as the whole town they are located in and that has caused a few concerns; further reading in Nebraska http://www.ethanolacrossamerica.net point out that the new plants use 50% less water, clearly another issue to add to the pile.

So my conclusion is we still on the road to oblivion .... "please, sir can I have some more ?" .... "it is the best of time and the worst of times" ... sigh 


Fritz

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2008/04/29/5417701-sun.html

Corn-fuel bill will worsen hunger, critics say
By PETER ZIMONJIC, NATIONAL BUREAU
The Toronto Sun

Food will be turned into fuel and people will go hungry if Parliament passes a new bill demanding greater use of corn-fuels like ethanol, critics say.

Bill C-33, an amendment to the Environmental Protection Act, has the support of both the Conservatives and Liberals and is poised to pass in the House of Commons.

If passed, it will give the government the power to implement regulations requiring 5% of all fuel to come from biofuels, such as ethanol, by 2010. Making the switch, says the government, would have the environmental effect of taking one million cars off the road.

But critics of ethanol say that the billions in subsidies given to producers in the U.S. and Canada is driving up the price of corn. The rising price, they say, has made it almost impossible for the billion people living on less than a dollar a day to afford to eat.

'CLIMATE CHANGE WORSE'

"Demand for biofuels like ethanol are not only a major cause of increasing prices, but research suggests they may make climate change worse," Robert Fox, executive director of Oxfam Canada, said in a statement.

The UN's World Food Programme says ethanol is only one factor driving up food prices. The leading causes are rising prices of oil, drought in Australia, and increasing demand for food from India and China.

Concerned about the widening food shortage, the NDP has introduced an amendment seeking to have Bill C-33 sent back to committee where issues such as food scarcity can be considered.

"We need to take a breath here and think about this," Nathan Cullen, NDP environment critic, said.


[Fritz]And the US version

American grocers, farmers face off over ethanol subsidies
http://news.therecord.com/Wire/News_Wire/Agriculture/article/343441

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/080425/us/politics_usa_agriculture_farmbill_dc
 ethenol_IssueBrief.zip
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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #12 on: 2008-05-06 19:25:55 »
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This site is worth a look. The excel speadsheets and data, plus the PFD offering up the book.

It is at least a primer with a lot to go through in one place. Now if we could get politicians to read and it ... maybe teachers to get this in front of people/students.

http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm

Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization

by Lester R. Brown 



Cheers

Fritz

PS:[Hermit] & [MoEnzyme] I did it ! ... and I'm much more relaxed now :-o

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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #13 on: 2008-05-13 10:17:17 »
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I don't buy all this talk about how the world is about to end.

People have been calling for the end of the world for centuries (peak oil, cooling, warming, martians, food distribution, economics, Jesus' 2nd coming, younameit).  They use to wear cardboard panels, now they put up websites and show up as "experts" on CNN.

100 years from now, the world will be more populous *AND* better fed.  With a little bit of luck, many of us will still be there to witness it too.
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Re:Parameter left to constrain and reduce is Population
« Reply #14 on: 2008-05-13 14:02:09 »
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Quote:
[duxua]<snip>I don't buy all this talk about how the world is about to end.<snip>

<snip>100 years from now, the world will be more populous *AND* better fed.  With a little bit of luck, many of us will still be there to witness it too.<snip>

My take isn't the world coming to an "End", but certainly a different world from the present. Unfortunately we are not actively making the transition any easier on ourselves. I think our kids will not have as easy time of it. Specifically North America is culturally not well positioned to make the slip into a different energy model.

Cheers

Fritz

Note: Plague, Comet Impact, and Nuclear War would also fly in the face of your statement.
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