http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?view=1395&list=BIOFUELS-BIZ
I was thinking about this post that Keith referenced and I'd like to revisit it. I think it was a good post and raised some thought-provoking ideas. I must have either missed it before, or not fully appreciated it. The reason it's on my mind in part is also in combination with this morning's post by Keith as to an interview with the Energy Investment banker who was raising such challenging issues as the peak of oil and gas production, but who seemed to offer a sort of industry-typical stumped answer, beyond the usual (more nuclear? drilling for coal in the rockies? Crossing fingers and hoping it doesn't get too hot tomorrow? [I love this last one.]) Part of what Keith said was: >As for what proportion of energy could be produced by biofuels, who >can say? >None of the figures make much sense. If you took it down to >micro-levels >(which sustainable agriculture automatically does do >anyway) local people >would exploit local niches which don't even get >counted now but might make a >major overall difference. On integrated >farms a lot of fuel can be produced >as a by-product.> >A more relevant question would be the extent that current levels >could be >reduced, and how much more efficiently energy could be >used. It's the kind of >stultifying, argument-killing question you >don't like, and neither do I - >it'll have to be done anyway, so >let's not delay any longer arguing about >rather meaningless >questions like that. In a later post (though higher up on the page) he said: >A bit more on this, following my previous post (relevant bits below).I said it >was a meaningless question whether we could grow "enough" biofuel, and that >the figures don't make a lot of sense.Consider it from another point of view, >for an idea of how little sense the "official" macro-level calculations make. Although his comments were directed to the specific repeated question of biofuels and what percentage of our energy needs could be filled with by them, I think his approach, his answer, applies to more than just biofuels. If his answer in part is that the question is mis-stated, over-simplistic and does not lend itself to the sorts of answers we will ultimately find realistic, then I think this response and our analysis should also be carried to the overall bigger question(s) concerning energy supply and demand, and finding a sustainable balance for ourselves on this planet. We have the Investment Banker, for example, dismissing wind and solar energy out of hand for example, and at first I want to say how stupid that is, but to go deeper, it doesn't matter what he says or what I say. We have real human needs going forward, so one way or another individuals are going to need energy, and they're going to find a small part of their diminished demand to be fullfillable by all manner of innovative technologies, including solar and wind. As Keith keeps emphasizing, these decisions are not necessarily going to take place from some grand dictatorial macro energy person. By the nature of our lives as human beings, they will be made in part by individuals at local levels trying to cope with whatever worldwide economic change and challenges may be presented in energy sourcing. This is not to predict the future. In a fascist society, as some are perhaps wont to create, there would be a styming of nascient local efforts. We have arguably seen much of this on many levels in many ways, whether it be with red tape stopping nascient local ethanol plant-building to homeowners stopped from getting any compensation for solar energy delivered to the grid, to EV leasors having vehicles ripped from their garages by Auto companies, to homeowners not allowed to consider electric vehicles and having a severely limited supply of diesels to choose from. There is a little irony I think, since the sorts of "capitalistic" folks who go on about property rights and individual rights don't seem to like this localized view of handling energy demand questions, and yet what is wrong with supporting individual and homeowner rights in a decent view of capitalism or freedom? Anyway, the recent posts we've had, raising the spectre of energy supply running out in some ways may, in hindsight, amount to some chicken-litteism, but if they're not, they cause us to give some thought to what the answers (if any) might be. And if at first the answers seem impossible, then we should perhaps restate the questions as Keith suggests. If there are to be some uphevals and price-spikes ahead, then we will be asked for "The Answer" but I don't think there's any such thing if the response set is confined to single Energy Technologies. The only way I see "An Overall Big Answer" is if it includes a *very* wide variety of energy technologies, with no dictatorial or pseudo-free-market limiting of choices, and *also* some change in how our societies do business, how individuals source and use their energy and waste disposal needs, how market forces are allowed to communicate scarcity and environmental concerns to those individuals, how environmental concerns are legally enforced both locally and internationally, and of what energy technologies those individuals are able to avail themselves. MM ------------------------ Yahoo! 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