You can't eat oil
Friday June 13, 2008
Categories: Food
While thinking about the Midwest floods, give some attention to this from Stratfor.com: The world has been obsessed with oil prices. That's as it should be, but it is clearly time to make room for an additional obsession. Corn prices...
Filed Under: Food shortage
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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How about biofuels? Typical liberal play. Complain there's too many people on the planet for the food supply, worry about global warming, make food into fuel. Nice.
speaking of those floods, my city got hit pretty hard last night. I couldn't even get four blocks from my house because of the high water (up to thigh high at a few places). We're just lucky it all drained away. The upside is that the lake finally is back to its normal level. But indeed, the local farmers are going to have to take this one as a loss.
We have just enough wheat reserves to bak every american half a loaf of bread. Gotta take care of the infrastructure ASAP, first in the homes, then the nations.
Actually, most liberals have seen the push for ethanol as the tax giveaway to Big Ag that it really is, and have noted the bang for the buck (the amount of energy derived vs. the amount of energy it takes to create) is relatively low.
Its a sop tossed to the alternative fuel people to claim (with it being expected to fail) that 'well, we tried'.
Some of the best possibilities out there don't use anything people will want to eat. Or reusing it.
Yes, didn't you get the memo about Dubya's dream of seven years of failed crops? Shucks, where's Joseph and his stockpiles of grain when you need them?
Our catastrophic loss of faith has gone so far that in our vainglory, we have stopped stockpiling grain against crises such as these. Expect it to get much, much worse before it gets better.
I would say Miserere, but I think this calls for a nice Dies Irae instead...?
Some perspective, please.
A bushel of corn now costs $7. And how many pounds of corn are there in a bushel? 56. So the new price of corn is.....
Twelve and a half cents a pound.
But it takes two pounds of corn to produce a pound of chicken!!!!
OK, 25 cents a pound for chicken.
The problem with food prices isn't rising farm prices, unless you are among the very, very poor who live on the bag of unshelled corn or that 50-pound bag of rice they buy in the market. The problem, which can be solved, is distribution, distribution, distribution.
From Karen Brown: "Actually, most liberals have seen the push for ethanol as the tax giveaway to Big Ag that it really is...
Hear! Hear! And not a few of we conservative types either. Unfortunatly, we are not the usual ones to hold office. And didn't pretty much everyone on both sides of the aisle vote to pass that outrageous Farm Subsidy bill, which no one can afford.
Karen Brown again: "Some of the best possibilities out there don't use anything people will want to eat..."
Preach it! Say it with me now...Hydrogen fuel cells. Accept nothing less.
Um, where is the hydrogen for fuel cells going to come from? Plants are very good at turning sunlight into energy, hence plant-oil-based biodiesel, ethanol from sugar cane, corn stover, and switchgrass, and so on.
But hydrogen has to be manufactured. Right now it's manufactured from fossil fuels, namely natural gas. You can get it from water by electrolysis, but the process is highly inefficient.
Say it with me now... hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not a fuel.
"Actually, most liberals have seen the push for ethanol as the tax giveaway to Big Ag that it really is, and have noted the bang for the buck (the amount of energy derived vs. the amount of energy it takes to create) is relatively low."
I work in the alternative energy industry. I can tell you without a doubt that statement is not true, in the least. Liberal defense of all biofuels remains intense, with a small minority of intellectually honest people acknowledging that things aren't working out as they had hoped.
The idea that this was a SOP to the RE people is tin-foil grade delusional. Ethanol is pork-barrel politics, pure and simple, no other motivations from those you love to disdain was at all necessary.
Plants are very good at turning sunlight into energy, hence plant-oil-based biodiesel, ethanol from sugar cane, corn stover, and switchgrass, and so on.
Query: what are typical (gallon-per-acre) yields for any of these? Note that if they aren't terribly high, you still end up devoting hundreds of millions of acres to biofuel production...and choosing between food & fuel.
Not to mention the energy shortages that would ensue when weather, plant diseases, pests, etc. wipe out a goodly portion of your biofuel crop.
Biofuels, perhaps.
Ethanol AS the primary source of biofuel (particularly corn-based), no.
And everyone, lately, including corps like BP are claiming to be environmentalist.
Did they push for it once? Sure.. like in the 70's-80's. But, as noted, it didn't perform as hoped. They haven't been pushing for it for about a decade.
Unless you're calling Archer-Midland 'liberals'. Its pork barrel, but who, precisely, is getting the pork?
The most rational discussion about these types of things that I have come across is in the Archdruid Report (don't be put off by the author's religious affiliation).
As I've said before, I think there are four basic scenarios, which I would estimate to be in this order of probability:
1. Stepwise decline to a nonindustrial dark age
2. Achievement of a stable, mainly coal- and nuclear-based industrial society, more or less socialist, and at a reduced standard of living (think modern Cuba, or 1940s UK)
3. Sudden collapse to a nonindustrial dark age
4. Achievement of a nonindustrial renewable-energy-based hippie/Catholic/Buddhist Shangri-La
The thing about some of these scenarios, and about no. 3 in particular, is that what people say is a poor guide to what they think. If I were convinced that 95%+ of the population is likely to die within a few years, with survivors being either those who hid in the mountains or on remote islands, eating rabbits and seaweed, or who emerged from gladiatorial combat in the cities, the last thing I would do would be to shout about it, so survivalist websites can be dismissed as masturbatory fantasies. On the other hand, the claims of oil executives can be dismissed for the same sorts of reasons - they may be lulling the masses into a false sense of security while preparing garrison-ranches in the Andes.
Rod seems to be thinking in terms of some combination of 1 and 4. However, it is much more difficult to know what to do to prepare for scenario 1. For scenario 2, it is probably wisest to try to get a government job, or a job in the coal or nuclear industries.
Can't reply to Dan Ohio because I still haven't gotten that stupid book from the library. It's called "Power to the People" by Vijay Vaithswarren or something close to that. Like I said, it's been a long time since I had that book out of the library. Please read it, Dan, because I am about as far from a rocket scientist as one can get and readily admit to not understanding the physics behind what I speak of.
But happily, this book was written in such a down to earth manner that I could understand a great deal of it. The author truly seemed to feel that the technology was there if we insisted on it. The problem being if you run a car on water, the government and oil people have no way of making any money. I suppose the next thing will be for the UN to take control of all water supplies and begin charging for it.
Just another side note, If there is such a frighteningly short supply of oil, shouldn't we begin insisting on a ban of all plastic packaging and disposable items. Can't remember if it was stefanie or elizabeth, but one regular poster here started her own household crusade against it, mostly for the sake of her families health. Not a bad reason, either.
Water, of course, is already becoming a scarce commodity. We who live in the Great Lakes states are essentially the Saudi Arabia of water, though we haven't started acting like it yet. My husband suspects strongly that the planet is actually losing water, perhaps through the holes in the ozone layer. There seems to be data consistent with this theory, but we have seen absolutely no scientific conjecture on it. But even if he's wrong, climate change is causing huge maldistribution of water, which is only going to get worse.
Responding to Dan, hydrogen can also be produced from H2O, the current supplied by solar power. There's at least one hydrogen car in New Mexico operating on "home-cracked" hydrogen made with the current from a solar cell.
Karen,
Defense from environmentalists of all bio-fuels, including corn-based ethanol remains strong, almost as strong as ever. Conspiracy theories abound as to why the usual evull suspects would want to thwart this noble pursuit. I don't know where you get your impressions, but I live within a sea of environmentalists and the delusion still runs rampant.
I agree that it's corporate welfare. Whenever our government gets involved in anything like this, that's the only guaranteed outcome regardless of which party is pushing it. I'm sure ADM donates heavily to both political parties, I wouldn't be surprised to see Democrats well ahead on their payroll in that regard. After all, the Republicans can be counted on to vote their interests, right?
Most that I know are not for ethanol, mostly because it is used as a sop to environmentalists, and as a give away to Big Ag. It is a show piece for how bad biofuels are, so that any other options are viewed dismissively.. well, as they just were.
There are a thousand options out there, and putting all our eggs in ANY one basket, even one touted as being environmental.
Rob, Karen: Of course hydrogen can be made from water by electrolysis. We all know that, don't we?
The question is where you get the energy from. As far as I can see, the only sources that can satisfy more than, say, 5% of current demands are oil, coal, nuclear, and maybe hydroelectricity.
It looks to me that the scenarios are (i) shabby socialism and rationing, (ii) eco-utopia, and (iii) the dark age.
Well, I don't know about any 'topia' options. I do know that, no matter who's taking the tally, sooner or later (with not one suggesting it will last out the century), we're going to run out of petroleum.
So we're going to HAVE to find something else, or highly change the way we live on a global scale. I mean beyond Amish because, you know what? Last I checked, the Amish have no mines, no factories, and yet they still have windows in their houses, and use metal tools. They are somewhat dependent on the technology used elsewhere too.
Coal? It isn't renewable either. (Not talking about environmentalism here. I'm talking about.. we can't make no mo'. When its gone, its gone.) That could boost us another couple of hundred years, perhaps. Still not any sort of long term answer on a societal or species scale, but hell, we're humans. Heaven forbid we use our brains to concern ourselves with needs beyond the next generation or so. That's gonna be their problem.
Nuclear power? If we can find an honest, currently useable (if we want to currently use it, after all) to dispose of the waste that is both physically safe, and safe in a national security sense. There is vitrification (because I know someone is gonna bring it up). It does make the waste more stable. It doesn't make it any less radioactive. So, while less likely to eat through the thing it is stored in, it doesn't change that you gotta store it in something, and you got to put the thing you store it in.. somewhere.
And you don't have to be a tree-hugger to get really 'NIMBY' about radioactive waste storage. Anyone here personally willing to have people store radioactive waste within 200 feet of their property, or anywhere they, or their children, will walk? And, again, the waste also doesn't go away. It doesn't decay, and it will take a LOOONG time for it to become safe. So, if using it on a national level, there's also a simple case of running out of storage space for the waste, even if it was harmless. We're running out of landfill space as it is, and that stuff isn't radioactive. (Despite the smell.)
Hydroelectric is nice, though very location specific.
Personally, I think the answer might be.. all of the above and more. Despite the call to find a catch-all substance to replace oil, even OIL was never a catch-all, and we've always used a multitude of substances to run things, long before environmentalism. Coal, hydro, thermal, solar, natural gas, nuclear.
The big question seems to be not how to heat the homes (that's where you get the variety pack). Its what do we run our cars on. And most of those suggestions.. well, you can't exactly put them in your tank and go driving.
Nuclear Waste...Besides vitrification, there's also reprocessing (at least for plutonium). Or we could stick the spent fuel in a specially-designed reactor to burn off the "hottest" and longest-lived portion of nuclear waste (i.e., the actinides), and then vitrify the remainder.
Karen: "The big question seems to be not how to heat the homes (that's where you get the variety pack). Its what do we run our cars on. And most of those suggestions.. well, you can't exactly put them in your tank and go driving."
Maybe you don't quite see the seriousness of the situation. I think the issue is how to heat homes (and run factories, etc.). Cars are a relatively minor issue, because people can live without cars quite easily. Furthermore, once you accept that oil is running out, and crop ethanol is a non-starter, that only leaves hydrogen obtained from water by electrolysis, which brings you back to the need for electricity, and thus to the same issue as heating homes and running factories.
To repeat, I see these scenarios:
(i) Green dream: everyone cycles, consumes very little, grows their own food, and is happy meditating when not mending their rooftop wind generators
(ii) Shabby state socialism: Somewhat like Cuba today or the UK in the 1940s, everything is rationed, belts are tightened, and power is expensive, provided mainly by coal and nuclear
(iii) Dark age: Reversion to a nonindustrial age, perhaps literally stone age or perhaps more like mediaeval, by quick collapse, slow decline, or massive wars
Cars account for 65 percent of fuel usage. Not transportation, just cars.
Convincing a group that barely manages to resist buying personal Hummers for personal use that they can go without cars would be a neat trick.
If we COULD do that, our remaining fuel could last a whole lot longer.
But highly unlikely.
Nuclear waste - for now, find a federally owned spot in the middle of a desert Out West and park it.
In a hundred years or less, that 'waste' will be the feedstock for some industrial process that uses the radioactive elements.
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