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Author Topic: Ethanol  (Read 10975 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: Ethanol
« Reply #30 on: January 31, 2016, 03:36:14 pm »
K-Dog is into assuming renewable energy is the same scam as fossil fuels  - SEE: FALSE EQUIVALENCE. K-Dog's technofix concerns are valid, but ONLY if he wishes to discuss ETHICAL considerations  (i.e. the CRIMES of the fossil fuel industry in comparison with any perceived Renewable energy technofix limitations), something he most certainly DOES NOT wish to discuss objectively, along with the champion of the Capitalist profit motive, Eddie   . Granted, Lovins is a Capitalist and he plays their game. BUT, he is trying to make a POSITIVE difference, not perpetuate profit over planet stupidity. To label that as "hopium" is sour grapes, not objectivity.

People here making false comparisons between clean energy technologies and dirty energy technologies in general, and defamatory remarks about a serious scientist like Amory Lovins in particular, who actually FORCED mechanical engineering textbooks to be rewritten with a new turbulent flow thermodynamics characteristics formula he discovered, with instruments he designed in the 1980's, is sour grapes and worthy of pity.

It is CLEAR that both Eddie and Palloy are SOLIDLY in agreement with the Bryce hit piece on biofuels. 


That is not a new revelation to me, of course. But it is refreshing to see them make their "there is no replacement for the 'high energy density' fossil fuels so civilization MUST collapse" positions clearer and clearer.  ;)

This interesting comment by Palloy is of note in the pretzelian logic of the status quo defenders:
Quote
I used to be a fan of Lovins, back when I thought solar panels were a good idea.  But when I realised what the ERoEI of solar panels is, and that the EI is all up front while the ER is a trickle over its lifetime, I stopped promoting solar, and started seeing Lovins as a Techno-Utopian.  He remains popular because Techno-Utopianism is a much more comforting meme to hold on to than Doomerism. 

Palloy is attempting to make a case that Lovins, more a champion of pipe airflow characteristics, building efficiency, pump redesign, grid efficiency, building insulation, Computer load balancing from PV, wind or any other source that is renewable (and so on) than all things photovoltaic (though he certainly DOES applaud their extensive use IN COOMBINATION with other renewable energy technologies.), somehow did not do the proper math on PV.

I will not again address the spurious, defamatory and baseless charge of "Techno-Utopian". That's all part of the MO the fossi lfuel industry has been using for at least 40 years with their "sounds wunerful but it ain't ready for prime time" PRoPi (profitable Return on Propaganda Invested     ). Name calling is lots of fun but, other than align Palloy with the fossil fuel tool Bryce in the biofuels hit piece above, doesn't prove a thing.

The really curious thing about Palloy's allegation that "Doomerism is a more realistic approach to responding to our present plight", is that HIS response to our plight it is to discount the value of proposed solutions by claiming they are "pie in the sky" even though many of these technologies, like wind and PV, already have an excellent record of causing demand destruction for fossil fuels poisoning our atmosphere. Any discussion of their effects when they are truly scaled up is simply not acceptable to Palloy because, uh, something about the PAY BACK TIME. 

Let's study WHY Palloy makes that claim. Palloy claims to be taiking about ERoEI. He says, "  I realised what the ERoEI of solar panels is, and that the EI is all up front while the ER is a trickle over its lifetime, I stopped promoting solar."

Well, the about statement is, when analyzed correctly, about MONEY returned on MONEY invested, not ENERGY returned on ENERGY invested. Palloy KNOWS that the MONEY you get BACK from the life cycle of fossil fuels (excluding externalizations like coerced subsidies from we-the-people, tax loop holes, flaring toxic gases, poisoned wildlife and sick poor kids living downwind of refineries, etc.     ) is FASTER with fossil fuels.

So, he pulls out his pay back time for an investment formula and plugs in PV panels.

Sounds like fossil fuels win, right?

Nope. WHY? Because the ORIGINAL premise is that this is about ERoEI, not MONEY return on MONEY invested. Of course fossil fuels looks fine and dandy due to the FACT that the laws are GAMED to make it so. The PITTANCE that PV gets in subsidies is something Palloy will claim to argue that since BOTH technologies get subsidies, it don't matter. The gargantuan difference in subsidies in not in Palloy's math, for some reason.

And here is the most salient error in Palloy's "logic" that led him to stop promoting solar. UNLIKE fossil fuels, the ENERGY harvested from the sun by a solar panel EXCEEDS ALL THE ENERGY used to mine the materials and manufacture that solar panel BY SEVERAL MULTIPLES. RE went nuts when I first pointed the Columbia University study that PROVED that.

And that was BEFORE the more efficient panels over the last two years!  :o   

Fossil fuels, as of this writing, ACTUALLY have ERoEI's BELOW 1:1. The only reason they are "profitable" is because of the corruption of the laws that regulate their extraction, refining and marketing.     

Let me be clear, so Palloy does not misinterpret me here. Discounting pollution costs, 50 years or more ago and earlier, gasoline DID have an EroEi above 1:1.

But TODAY, from the energy required to
explore for crude oil and
extract it somewhere
to transport to the refinery
to the pre-refining oxygen stripping
to drying
to the cracking towers refining
to the storage TEMPERATURE control
to the synthesis of and addition of 40% non hydrocarbon solvents
to the transportation to the gasoline station
to get one gallon of gasoline exploding in your combustion chamber, the KINETIC ENERGY your vehicle gets from that combustion is LESS than was INVESTED in all the above steps required to make it and get it to the combustion chamber, PERIOD.

You NEED MORE ENERGY to get that gasoline to your combustion chamber than you get in the movement of your CAR!


And THAT does not even include the pollution costs!

I agree with Palloy that the upfront MONEY costs of PV are a barrier to scaling it up because the pay back (MONEYWISE- NOT ENERGYWISE) is slower than with fossil fuels powered plant and equipment. WHO'S FAULT IS THAT!!!? Corrupted Governments! Energy "density" or ERoEI has absolutely nothing to do with it.

The FACT that the ENERGY pay back of PV includes an ERoEI ALWAYS greater than 1:1, even if it does take 5 or six years for a panel that functions reliably for 25 PLUS years, is NOT an excuse to "stop supporting PV".  PV HAS an ERoEI HIGHER than 1:1, PERIOD!

The shorter time needed to extract the energy from gasoline (a product with an ERoEI BELOW 1:1) from the well to the combustion chamber does not justify continuing to use it.

Solar panels represent just ONE part of the DOABLE transition to 100% Renewable energy. After this post, I'll present a rebuttal to the "Biofuels are bad idea" hit piece attacking ethanol.

I'm still waiting for Palloy to tell me how much volume of flared gas is burned per barrel of crude or equivalent mass of fracked "natural" gas. I guess I'll have to dig up that embarrassing (for fossil fuelers)  info myself.   8)



Now for some DOOM news, along with the SOLUTION that the K-Dogs and Palloys of this world call "techno-Utopian".

Is Humanity On the Eve of Extinction? 
Jan. 21, 2016 1:23 pm By Thom Hartmann

According to NASA and NOAA scientists, 2015 was the warmest year ever for global land and ocean surfaces, dating all the way to 1880.

And it's not just American scientists who are reporting that last year was the warmest on record, British scientists reported that it was the warmest year since 1850, and Japanese scientists reported that it was the warmest year since 1891.

Keep in mind, 2014 had set the previous record for global surface temperatures, and 2015 just beat that record by a longshot.
 

Part of what's going has to do with an unusually warm Pacific Ocean due to an El Nino that's going on right now, but that doesn't explain it all.

As Dr. Michael Mann explained to the New York Times,  if the global climate weren't warming, the odds of setting two back-to-back record years would be about one chance in every 1,500 pairs of years.

He added though, that because the planet is warming, the odds of setting back-to-back record years is really closer to one in ten now.

The really scary part though, is that there's good evidence that this is nothing compared to what's to come.
Just as William F. Ruddiman argued in a paper from 2003, even though humans hadn't industrialized, we had already started having a major impact on the Earth's atmosphere and its natural cycles as far back as 8000 years ago.

And that makes sense, because 8000 years ago is about the time that early agriculture appeared in Eurasia and humans started clearing, and burning, forests to make more space for agriculture and human settlements.

In his research,  Ruddiman points out that based on the natural Earth's natural cycles for methane and carbon over the last 400,000 years, we should see a decrease in both gases starting roughly 11,000 years ago and continuing for another several thousand years.

Instead, we see that carbon dioxide and methane levels started to rise in the atmosphere starting about 8000 years ago, marking a sharp movement away from what had occurred for over 400,000 years of Earth history.

Recent research from the Anthropocene Working Group at the University of Leicester shows that humans have almost always had a noticeable impact on the planet's natural cycles, but our impact has been exceptional since the start of the industrial revolution.

In fact, the 24 co-authors argue that we've entered a new and distinct geological era, just within the last 50 years.

They call it the "Anthropocene era" from the greek word "Anthropos" meaning "man".

The authors argue that even though we've been having an impact on our planet for thousands of years, it's only been during the last 50 years that human activity became the main factor driving almost every single natural process on Earth.

And that brings us back to the relationship between global surface temperatures, methane, and carbon dioxide.

Because as these    charts     show, if atmospheric temperatures continue to follow the same sky-rocketing trend that methane and carbon dioxide have during the last century, we could very well be approaching the eve of extinction.

And none of this is taking into account the greenhouse gases that are trapped in the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which could be up to 21 quadrillion grams of organic carbon, and up to 400 billion tons of methane gases.

If we continue on this course, if we continue to spew methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the pursuit of cheap and short sighted economic growth, we can guarantee that our planet will continue to warm.

And, as the planet warms, the Antarctic Ice Sheet (Nature International Weekly Journal of Science:  Potential methane reservoirs beneath Antarctica )  will begin to rapidly melt, which means that up to 21 quadrillion grams of carbon, and up to 400 billion tonnes of methane would be released into the atmosphere.

At that point, if humans are even still around, there will be literally nothing that we can do to stop a planetary mass extinction and to save humanity.

More and more scientists agree that natural processes don't drive the climate anymore, human activity does.

And it's only human activity that can stop our march towards planetary extinction.

Which means we need to put a price on carbon.

And we need to aggressively convert our energy system to one that's 100% renewable, and we need to find carbon and methane-neutral ways of transporting our goods, building our infrastructure, and constructing our cities.

The technology to achieve all of those goals already exists, and we now face a choice as a global society.

We'll go extinct if we keep doing what's easy, and what's comfortable. 

But we can save the planet, if we make bold decisions and take immediate action to minimize human impact, and thus restore the planet's own natural processes and the balance that existed for hundreds of thousands of years before the first human settlements.   

http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2016/01/humanity-eve-extinction#sthash.FoBR5OHQ.dpuf
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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