OUT OF THE MOUTH of BABES

The following appeared as a letter to the editor, written by a 13 years old, in the Concord Monitor. Madeleine, bravo on your impeccable logic and clear thinking, know if we can only teach those elected to Congress to think like Madeleine. Nah, if they could think clearly then they would not have run for office in the first place :-)


ETHANOL IS STUPID

We have been polluting our world too much. Naturally, we have tried to do something about it. What we use to create energy is the big problem, so people have tried to come up with a new, renewable energy source that is easily obtained. We have already figured out several non-polluting techniques: wind, water and solar power. But another attempt is not working out so well: ethanol. The problems start at the very beginning.

Most ethanol is made from corn. However, that corn must be supplied in enormous quantities, and corn is used in much food for humans and animals. If we use corn for fuel, more will need to be grown, on huge farms receiving government subsidies. We are paying extra so that our food can be used for fuel.

The corn is grown using chemical fertilizer, which is awful for the environment. Most pesticides are made from petroleum, exactly what ethanol is supposed to be preventing the use of. Also, the machinery on big farms needs massive quantities of gas.

The next step is even worse. The corn, grown with petrochemicals, must be distilled in factories to become ethanol. These factories need to get their energy from somewhere, and that somewhere is fossil fuels. It takes about nine-tenths of a gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon of ethanol. Ethanol pollutes the environment about the same amount as if we just used fossil fuel.

To add insult to injury, ethanol is not as efficient as fossil fuel. In short, ethanol is stupid. It just doesn't do what it's supposed to do - namely, reduce our carbon footprint. Our government needs to start focusing its attention elsewhere. Wind, water and solar energy could use some boosting.

MADELEINE STEWART, age 13

Peak Oil. How We've Tied Economic Growth to Oil

The following collection of salient points regarding the energy crisis and Peak Oil were made by Charles Hall [Peak Oil: The End of Economic Growth?] a major authority on energy. He was the major force behind that great poster that I had added to this blog last week. Please read carefully each and every point that Dr. Hall makes. He is a national treasure of very important information that we need to become aware of.

1) We have constructed an entire civilization based on cheap oil (and gas), a finite resource.

2) Oil was and remains cheap (yes at $4 a gallon) because the energy return on energy invested (EROI--my thing) in getting it was very high and remains fairly high.

3) Nevertheless EROI is declining – this has many economic effects.

4) The EROI for any conceivable substitute to oil is far less than oil for the foreseeable future.

5) Hence there is no possible substitute, qualitatively and quantitatively, for oil.

6) We are using oil 4 to 5 times faster than we are finding it.

7) Therefore we are just using up our remaining oil reserves, faster or slower depending in part upon economic growth.

8) Increased drilling historically has NOT led to increased oil finding or production.

9) Food prices and availability, subprime mortgages and Wall Street are all tightly related to oil availability and price.

10) Discretionary income in the US is declining and is likely to virtually disappear in the future as more and more of the output of our society is dedicated to the dollars and energy that must be used to get the energy required to run the economy. We must plan for this.

11) Efficiency is important but over rated (long story). It is not a silver bullet.

12) Most oil exporting countries cannot lower prices much as their own population growth requires the oil revenues for public programs. The money does not go only for luxury.

13) All of these issues were laid out very clearly by geologists and ecologists more than 30 years ago but were suppressed by economists who believe too much in markets and technology. The world is finite, we must adjust accordingly.