More Deliberate Every Day

Whence Comes The Electric Car?

While it would be nice to believe that in some halcyonic future day we could be rid of automobiles altogether, the reality of the situation is that we have become a mobile culture, accustomed to jumping in the car and driving from, say, Memphis to Oxford, Mississippi on a Saturday morning to enjoy a day on the Square.  And while rising gas prices make that exercise somewhat more prohibitive, giving up that flexibility would be a difficult transition.  So instead of betting on a car-free America, we instead look with anticipation to that day when vehicles are actually incredibly efficient, require little to no fossil fuels, and still provide the ability for comfortable transport to and fro.

According to the New York Times, one version of this future is not far away.  Lawrence Ulrich writes that the era of the electric car is soon to be upon us, and with more than the original, 1970's era choices.

Experts say the cars’ arrival hinges on two make-or-break issues:

Developing safe, affordable lithium-ion batteries lasting 100,000 miles.

Overcoming a psychological barrier among people who can imagine the benefits — but who can also see themselves stranded with a dead battery and no place or time to recharge.

As for batteries, progress has been made, but more is needed. The EV1 started with old-school lead-acid batteries; today’s hybrids have more robust nickel-metal-hydride units. But the most efficient batteries are lithium-ion, the kind found in cellphones and laptops. These cells would double or triple the power of, say, a Toyota Prius battery pack, but at half the weight or size.

Prabhakar Patil is chief executive of Compact Power, a company vying to power a G.M. plug-in hybrid based on the Chevrolet Volt concept car — and to have them ready by 2010 or 2011. He was previously chief engineer for the Ford Escape Hybrid.

He is convinced that his company can bring in lithium-ion batteries on time and on budget — and that plug-in hybrids are the necessary bridge between gasoline and pure E.V.’s.

As for the other issue of whether people can make the jump to vehicles powered by electricity versus the stand-by internal combustion engine, Ulrich adds that even "after 10 years of sales and heavy publicity, hybrids have grabbed less than 2 percent of the market. And that’s for cars that don’t need to be plugged in."  So it would take a significant influx of these new vehicles in the market to make a go of it, and there would likely need to be financial incentives beyond affordability and incredible mileage to change the average consumer.

Regardless, changes need to come.  Whether it's newly managed urban design to facilitate biking in New York City or an influx of electric cars, going into the future the same way we've been living is not an option.  The only question is how the change will come, and how soon.

Biofuel Debate

I mentioned in an earlier post that we weren't convinced that biofuel is the end-all be-all answer to our planet's energy crisis.  And the reason why we're not convinced is the lack of evidence that any renewable fuel source can actually be sustainable in the short term.  You don't really think they are running the farm machinery on ethanol while they're harvesting the corn that will be converted into ethanol, do you?  Or that the tractor-trailers that ship the corn or the converted ethanol cross-country are running on ethanol?  In the short-term, meaning the next five to ten years, the ethanol boom is being built on the back of the same fossil fuel shortages it claims to be the salvation from.  Here's an excerpt from Daniel Imhoff's Food Fight:

It is seldom mentioned, for example, that on a per-gallon basis, corn-based ethanol delivers only two-thirds of the energy content of gasoline (and therefor just two-thirds the traveling power).  Meanwhile the decades-old debate is still raging about the amount of power you actually get out of ethanol for what's required to grow and refine it:  the "net energy balance."  When all of the "well to wheel" inputs of growing, fertilizing, irrigating, harvesting, drying, and processing are tallied, recent estimates reveal that at least two-thirds of a gallon of oil are needed to produce a gallon equivalent of ethanol (roughly a 30 percent net gain).  But long-time researcher David Pimentel of Cornell University claims the opposite:  ethanol production results in a 30 percent energy loss [emphasis mine].  Then there is the electricity needed to dry, process, and refine corn into biofuels.  Much of it currently comes from coal- or natural-gas fired power plants.

All of this reinforces the reason ethanol is always a major issue in the presidential election prior to the Iowa Caucus but becomes less of a forceful discussion after that early bellweather is complete.  Because for many years now experts have known that the ethanol solution is not as "pretty" as proponents would like.  And in addition to requiring significant "cheap oil" in the short term to support ethanol as a solution, the rise in demand for mass-produced corn also makes prices rise for staples like tortillas and milk globally.  So we're crushing people with price hikes in order to build out infrastructure on a solution that might not even work -- sound familiar?  But at least ethanol is better for the environment, right?  A bit more from Imhoff's book:

Depending on which life cycle assessment you read (there are dozens to ponder), the shift from hydrocarbon to carbohydrate-based fuels could either ease particulate emissions and global warming significantly or actually make things far worse.  In 2005, Dan Kamen of the University of California at Berkeley's Energy and Resources group reported a 10 to 15 percent per mile reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from corn-based ethanol.  On the same campus, Tad Patzak argues that in its present form, ethanol produces 50 percent more carbon dioxide and sulfur emissions (along with lung and eye irritants) than fossil fuels.

So maybe ethanol is not the silver bullet it's being made out to be.  Unfortunately, it is the only viable option on the table right now, outside of of significant energy-use reduction, which is the long-term goal at the Deliberately Homestead.

Just Listen to What the Experts Say

Alice Friedemann has written a very clear exposition regarding why ethanol is not an answer to the looming energy crisis in America over at Energy Bulletin.  Her contention is that ethanol is a good-old-fashioned bait-and-switch, and that by following that path we are simply trading one unsustainable decision for another.  And her principle concern, expressed with robust supporting analysis, is that this time the resource we will be depleting is our topsoil:

On over half of America’s best crop land, the erosion rate is 27 times the natural rate, 11,000 pounds per acre (NCRS 2006). The natural, geological erosion rate is about 400 pounds of soil per acre per year (Troeh 2005). Some is due to farmers not being paid enough to conserve their land, but most is due to investors who farm for profit. Erosion control cuts into profits.

Erosion is happening ten to twenty times faster than the rate topsoil can be formed by natural processes (Pimentel 2006). That might make the average person concerned. But not the USDA -- they’ve defined erosion as the average soil loss that could occur without causing a decline in long term productivity.

Troeh (2005) believes that the tolerable soil loss (T) value is set too high, because it's based only on the upper layers -- how long it takes subsoil to be converted into topsoil. T ought to be based on deeper layers – the time for subsoil to develop from parent material or parent material from rock. If he’s right, erosion is even worse than NCRS figures.

And this is the method that the federal government, specifically the Department of Energy, plans to use to replace 30% of our oil consumption by 2030.  What concerns Friedemann most, however, is the complete absence of the soil erosion element in the public debate concerning ethanol.  So she reached out to 35 scientists to ask the question why is topsoil not a part of the biofuels debate?  Here is a sampling of the responses she received:

"Biomass production is not sustainable. Only business men and women in the refinery business believe it is."

"Should we be using our best crop land to grow gasohol and contribute further to global warming? What will our children grow their food on?"

"As agricultural scientists, we are programmed to make farmers profitable, and therefore profits are at the top of the list, and not soil, family, or environmental sustainability".

"Government policy since WWII has been to encourage overproduction to keep food prices down (people with full bellies don't revolt or object too much). It's hard to make a living farming commodities when the selling price is always at or below the break even point. Farmers have had to get bigger and bigger to make ends meet since the margins keep getting thinner and thinner. We have sacrificed our family farms in the name of cheap food. When farmers stand to make few bucks (as with biofuels) agricultural scientists tend to look the other way".

"You are quite correct in your concern that soil science should be factored into decisions about biofuel production. Unfortunately, we soil scientists have missed the boat on the importance of soil management to the sustainability of biomass production, and the long-term impact for soil productivity."

Friedemann's lengthy article clearly articulates the critical weaknesses in the biofuel effort.  You can and should read the whole article here.

Fuel, Food. . . Whatever

So, you find yourself running low on oil production.  International sources are running dry because you've already used it all up.  You start to survey the possibilities with the frustrated determination that whatever the alternative, it's got to be renewable so you don't find yourself in the same situation again.  Right?  But you don't really think too deeply about actually working to change behavior so the demand is modified, instead you focus purely on how to switch the supply side of things and you base all your investigations on what alternative energy source is both renewable AND can support existing (translate:  unmodified) needs.  And you end up exactly where the food industry ended up after WWII:  CORN!  You make up some ethanol out of corn to power the SUV, run the lights at the mall. . . hell, you can even get corn to keep the tractors going to grow more corn to keep the tractors going -- oh, I'm sure you get it. 

But did you ever think about the long-range impacts of this decision not to spend time and energy modifying behavior and instead to simply replace your problem?  According to an article in Foreign Affairs, there are once again unintended consequences.  Authors C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Seneaur discuss those consequences:

The enormous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending shock waves through the food system. (The United States accounts for some 40 percent of the world's total corn production and over half of all corn exports.) In March 2007, corn futures rose to over $4.38 a bushel, the highest level in ten years. Wheat and rice prices have also surged to decade highs, because even as those grains are increasingly being used as substitutes for corn, farmers are planting more acres with corn and fewer acres with other crops.

This might sound like nirvana to corn producers, but it is hardly that for consumers, especially in poor developing countries, who will be hit with a double shock if both food prices and oil prices stay high. The World Bank has estimated that in 2001, 2.7 billion people in the world were living on the equivalent of less than $2 a day; to them, even marginal increases in the cost of staple grains could be devastating. filling the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn -- which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year. By putting pressure on global supplies of edible crops, the surge in ethanol production will translate into higher prices for both processed and staple foods around the world. Biofuels have tied oil and food prices together in ways that could profoundly upset the relationships between food producers, consumers, and nations in the years ahead, with potentially devastating implications for both global poverty and food security.

At some point it would be prudent to recognize that a government that by definition is only accountable for a short term (4 years, 8 years, etc.) is likely to, in self-interest as well as perceived public interest, make decisions that are completely short-sighted.  Democrats and Republicans alike suffer the same shortcomings.  And when we recognize this to be the case, we need to change the rules to ensure that when the sweeping policy changes occur there is a safety net in the process designed to ensure that our children, or at least some people 12-15 years down the road, won't be ruined by the consequences.

You can read the whole, interesting article here.  (Thanks Ethicurean)