Pork and politics energise the biofuel delusion

Re: an inconvenient truth

To Jim -

No, this is not a self-fulfilling prophecy. I am not saying "Don't research renewables". I am saying "Don't build out renewables until they become cost-effective without subsidy."

By the way, the Oozlum bird is not involved. Under current technologies, it is not logically possible for renewables to get >50%. Given that renewables consume more than they produce, something has to produce the net energy consumption. Renewables will reach a maximum of about 30% when the entire world economy is harnessed to burning fuel to support the renewables bandwagon. At that point, everyone will be starving and cold, as the resource usage of everything else in the world drops to zero.

Subsidising renewables in the belief that it is eco-friendly, is actually eco-vandalism. Furthermore, the process of build-out, in the current crisis situation where the amount of oil left is small, is extremely dangerous. I actually believe that a sustained research program can solve the technical problems.

But at the moment, vanity is causing us to waste our resources in order to look as if we are doing something. It is now entirely likely that the cupboard will be bare when it comes to actually building the solution. We will be like Easter Islanders who've finally figured out how to build a boat, but have used all the trees to make paper for discussion documents about whether foreign travel is morally right. Dead. Which is what actually happened to them, pretty much.

The point about coal vs. oil is a good example though. There is nothing in principle to stop us converting coal kWh to a fuel to power cars. Again, in practice, why don't we? Because it costs. Why? Because the practical technology means the overall energy conversion efficiency to a portable power source is low. Cf "what is the cost per kWh when I buy a battery". Hundreds of dollars !

For extra credit, repeat the above exercise for a rechargeable battery, including the production cost of the battery divided by the number of recharges. And then consider why only specialised devices come with rechargeables.

What is wrong with the sunflower oil idea? Nothing, so long as the sums add up. In fact, I absolutely encourage people to make this a business. It would be fantastic if someone could prove this works, by the simple expedient of selling sunflower oil, for fuel, for a profit. That's all it takes to make it a goer. Just don't ask for subsidy.

Pope's on sticks

@Mark "This shit keeps appearing."

Awkward facts keep appearing. Such as: the earth has been cooling for ten years.

So first off, there's no need for the public to panic, and no justification for "climate scientists" who can't do basic science to keep getting taxpayers money.

You're only out by 20,000 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ice_Age_Temperature.png

An inconvenient truth

Not everyone may know the history of how the Easter Islanders disappeared.

They cut down every tree on the island, and when the natural resources were gone, they starved to death. Why did they cut down the trees - after all they weren't stupid, they must have known?

Well, as far as we can reconstruct, yes they did know. The trees were cut down to make offerings to the Gods. The reason why they felt they had to do this, was because they could see they were running out of resources, and only supernatural intervention could save them. The more they cut down, the less rain they got, the worse their harvests, the more they had to offer to the Gods to save themselves. We know it was this way round, because we can see the exponential increase in logging in the tree-rings, along with the rainfall record.

Funnily enough, there is another interesting history to over-logging. Why did the Industrial Revolution start in Britain? One version is that the British Navy used up all the available oak in the country. The price of oak trebled in under a decade. The only way to survive was to invent the age of the ironclad. So we did.

Two histories, two outcomes. The parallels are clear.