Earlier in the week British Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed a conference which took place under the climate change agreement reached at the recent meeting of the G8* in Gleneagles, Scotland. This weeks meeting included energy and environment ministers from the G8 and also Australia, China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa and senior official from United Nations organizations including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Tony Blair, once a champion of the Kyoto Protocol, seems to be increasingly acknowledging that the future lies less with the target-based approach to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and more with promoting economic growth and encouraging the private sector to develop low carbon technologies.
Amongst other things, the conference delegates discussed:
1. The need to promote wider access to cleaner energy technologies and accelerate deployment,
2. That there is no shortage of appropriate technologies… the challenge is to create the incentives for private sector investment, and
3. The need for appropriate frameworks to provide incentives in R&D for the next generation of clean energy technologies, and to overcome the “valley of death” in which promising new technologies fail to achieve their commercial potential.
The Guardian has suggested this “undermines more than 15 years of climate change negotiations” and the same newspaper quotes Tony Juniper from Friends of the Earth commenting that “His [Tony Blair] role is pivotal. He’s the only leader who’s pushing climate change as an issue that has to be dealt with. So what he says is going to carry particular weight and he’s basically just rewritten the history of climate change politics.”
Australia and the US have refused to ratify Kyoto on the basis it will be very damaging economically while achieving very little in terms of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels – China and India have ratified but are exempt.
Blair and the conference delegates appear to have really just built on the policy change articulated at the Gleneagles meeting held in Scotland early in July.
Interestingly this approach mirrors that proposed by the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate which was announced in Laos in late July at the Association of South East Asian Nations regional summit.
This group, comprising Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States – which together account for nearly half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – propose to:
1. Develop, deploy and transfer existing and emerging clean technology,
2. Explore technologies such as clean coal, nuclear power and carbon capture,
3. Involve the private sector.
The Clean Development Partnership group was to meet in Adelaide this month but the meeting has been postponed.
While the US and Australia have been ostracized for not signing Kyoto, it seems we may have been right all along to not go down that blind alley which is perhaps Kyoto.
…………
*The G8 has its roots in the 1973 oil crisis and subsequent global recession. In 1975, the French invited the heads of state of six major industralized democracies to a summit. The participants agreed to an annual meeting organized under a rotating presidency, forming what was dubbed the Group of Six (G6) consisting of France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. At the subsequent annual summit in Puerto Rico, it became the Group of Seven (G7) when Canada joined. In 1991, following the end of the Cold War, the USSR (now Russia) began meeting with the G7 after the main summit – making 8. (adapted from Wikipedia)
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Can’t you see that this is all just a big crok?
“Encourage the private sector”???
That’s ==exactly!!!== what Kyoto does! It creates a structure whereby the market has a clear, unambiguous signal that reducing CO2 can turn a profit. With this certainty, the private sector can go and do its thing, innovate, and produce better and better low carbon solutions.
All that Australia, the USA and now Tony Blair are doing are muddying the waters, and reducing the clarity of the message from govt to the private sector that the risk in investing in low carbon technologies is going down. Uncertainty is the absolute bane of innovation.
The so-called technology-based approach does NOT reduce uncertainty for any technology that is not on the ‘winners list’ of clean coal, carbon capture, nuclear.
This kind of winner-picking stifles innovation. Economists would be the first to argue against such an approach – they would say that govt is not the best at deciding which technologies are winners and which are losers – its better to set up a carbon market and technology-neutral targets, a la emissions trading and kyoto or something better, and let the market find the best solution.
Indeed, this was one of the main criticisms levelled at Australia’s renewable energy target legislation.
So lets not pretend that Australia/US/Tony Blair are about ‘involving the private sector’.
What they are about with this technology-approach is favouring coal and nuclear.
How does Kyoto involve the rapidly growing Chinese and Indian private sector’s?
Kyoto I obviously doesn’t, but you have to start somewhere. They can certainly be included in Kyoto II, abd I believe it was always the plan to involved developing countries down the track.
Its a thorny issue. China and India obviously produce a large and growing amount of emissions, but their per capita emissions are way way way below 1st world countries, and they are currently already doing plenty to develop low carbon solutions too.
PS. Did you know that both China and India do a lot more on renewable energy that Australia?
The point is that China has massive exports of low cost products and manufacturers in the US were naturally worried about being handicapped by Kyoto in terms of extra costs the Chinese don’t bear; this is a real problem that the US government cannot just wish away. Currently the EU’s way of dealing with this by trade barriers is not ideal and the US and Australia would not want to go down that path.
The whole economic issue is much bigger than an idealistic desire to tame atmospheric CO2 can address, and the fact that the EU isnt event meeting its own targets underlines this reality . There is no reason to believe a flawed international bunfight at Kyoto was the way to produce sound policy that radically reforms the global economic system. The constant defence of Kyoto “its only the first step” is pointless if it was a useless step in the wrong direction. Therein lies the problem, not hair-splitting over hockey sticks.
detribe – what is the right direction?
BTW I agree about the hockey sticks.
detribe – my worry is that Asia Pacific pact partners will develop technology to gasify coal for mobile fuels and that’s all … that’s perhaps geopolitically, militarily and economically smart but what about the CO2 ?
something doesn’t sit right with the Asia Pacific pact in my mind. (yes – totally un-peer reviewed gut comment based on past observations of human behaviour)…
for example http://www.peakoil.ie/
Newsletters 58 and 59 especially.
But it isn’t a useless step in the wrong direction. It is a small step in the right direction.
Also, I don’t think that the presense or absense of Kyoto (at least in the short term prior to China or india being included) would have made any significant difference to the manufacturing competitiveness of USA vs China. There is already a huge trend in US (or Australian) companies like Walmart outsourcing their production to China and India – Kyoto would have made little difference. They have a 3rd of the worlds population and they want to earn more money. What can you do? Surely you don’t think it is a good argument that 1st world countries should drop their labour protection/safety/environmental/other standards down to the level of China/India in order to compete?
Besides which, i’m not sure an economist would let ‘idealistic desires’ to protect local jobs get in the way of a free trade and labour market – what’s wrong with WalMart and others having all their products manufactured in China and sold in the USA?
And besides which, both China and India are doing huge things on renewable energy already.
It would be ironic if China ends up leading the world in renewables while we continue to burn coal.
Agree completely with Steve – Kyoto is a small step in the right direction. BTW China and India signed Kyoto they just have no commitments.
The only problem with 12 000km production lines is that sustaining that if/when oil becomes more expensive post peak. Also the outsourcing of industry destroyed the local manufacturing industry of middle America as it did here. Most of America’s industry is now servicing the housing bubble.
I think I must have nodded off and woken up in a “parrallel universe”;
*”Encourage the private sector”???
That’s ==exactly!!!== what Kyoto does!*
Kyoto penalises productive nations and demands that they make payment to non productive nations, Mugabe will soon be rolling in cash!!
Itsthe Marxist wealth (re) distribution all over again , the catch cry “what is yours is mine and what is mine is mine.”
The private sector will be encouraged….to protect their wealth not invest and grow.
Wake me up when we get to the real world please.
A good direction?: Almost everything that promotes rapid economic growth in China and India and other developing countries plus accelerated improvement by (R&D) and diffusion to different regions of cost effective energy related technologies (eg low cost hybrid cars maybe, Brazilian ethanol biofuel), provided that that they do not require subsidies to be put into use and which improve carbon emissions; similar accelerated use of agricultural practices such as no-till farming that are good for soils and reduce CO2 emissions.
PS. Removal of agricultural subsidies in EU, USA and Japan would invigorate economic growth in developing countries and prosperity in those developing countries gives them the economic platform for making an energy transition, similar to a demographic transition, to a carbon friendly energy economy. In short work by helping the developing world to prosperity rather than penalising the rich world, but encourage the rich world to invest in new carbon friendly technologies.
Yes detribe, and what exactly is the incentive to invest in carbon friendly technologies?
Do you think a transition – ie the mass adoption of carbon friendly technologies – will happen simple because enough people care?
Do you consider that there might be some chance that a market could fail to adequately account for all costs, esp. non economic ones?
What is the incentive for an individual to buy a low carbon technology when the impact on global warming would be tiny and they would not be able to notice any difference from that individual decision?
Steve
The incentive I was focussing on is market price. And a transition from the botton up rather than top down mandated change can be self driven. The demographic transition is one model for this.
“Do you consider that there might be some chance that a market could fail to adequately account for all costs, esp. non economic ones?”.
Do we need to use sarcastic overkill to imply I’m a complete dunderhead as part of a civilised discussion?
Perhaps you could rephrase the question and state what you really mean.
“But it isn’t a useless step in the wrong direction. It is a small step in the right direction. Also, I don’t think that the presense or absense of Kyoto (at least in the short term PRIOR TO China or india being included)”.
What this overlooks is that there was NEVER any prospect that China or India would agree to a treaty that imposed mandatory caps on their emissions (read the evidence of Ambassador for the Environment Chris Langman to the Senate Committee Inquiry into the Kyoto Ratification Bill 2003). The proposition that “Kyoto is a small BUT ESSENTIAL first step” was a political slogan promulgated by 17 of the world’s scientific academies (led by the Royal Society) in 2001, The argument that Kyoto was a step in the wrong direction has been powerfully argued at length in a number of studies, including books by two Australians (Warwick McKibbin & Aynsley Kellow) in co-authorship with overseas experts.
It is a considerable step forward that Blair now recognises the force of the argument, The all-Party House of Lords Committee Report was almost certainly a major contributing factor to his change in thinking.
There is now a prospect that the UK can play a pivotal role in bringing about a wider recognition that approaches involving mandatory and unenforceable caps on GHG emissions are irrational and ineffective.
OK guys – don’t do as I do – be nice and we might learn something.
Phil, Can you give me an electronic link to the Victoria University study that projects CO2 emissions rising from 6.5 million tons in 2002 to 10 million tons in 2010 – seems extraordinary to me.
Sorry Phil, I posted this inquiry to the wrong thread. I’d already asked you for this link on the thread where you raised it.
Sorry detribe, did not mean to offend, nor to imply that you are a complete dunderhead. Maybe something got lost in the typing.
I prefer to phrase my responses as questions like this to indicate my level of confidence in what I am saying, and to try and be less offensive that just saying ‘you are wrong and a dunderhead!’
Anyways, to rephrase: I don’t see how a market can ‘self drive’ a push to low carbon technologies.
It isn’t irrational Ian. It is perfectly rational to try and set up an artificial market to seek out the most effective means of achieving a goal, ie reducing carbon intensity. This is much better than govt or a series of experts trying to pick winners.
I agree that Kyoto is less than effective, though my opinion on why this is the case has more to do with a lack of participation from the major greenhouse polluter, and less to do with inherent weaknesses in the approach.
Steve,
Thanks for your nice words. As far as “self driving” fuels are concerned, and their transitions, liquid fuels have already (famously) made several transitions to greater and greater hydrogen content (ie coal—->natural gas)driven by marker forces over the last 200 years.(for more Google Cesare Marchetti, Jessie Ausubel for example)
In 2002 Brazilian biofuel (ethanol)became cheaper than gasoline, and it is currently kept out of the US and Australia by tarif barriers, else there would be even more massive expansion of Brazilian ethanol fuel exports as a commodity in world trade than there currently is. The main factor slowing more rapid Greenhouse beneficial changes in CO2 emissions from the wider use of this biofuel is trade protectionism.
Brazilian ethanol car fuel can probably achieve a further 50% cost reduction in real terms with technologies that are demonstrably feasible already , and these same technologies can, by allowing, cane bagasse (straw) to be converted to liquid fuel in addition to cane sugar, make very large impact on atmopheric carbon emissions. Similar technologies are being implemented in Europe for wheat straw conversion to ethanol fuel.These fuels take ALL their carbon FROM the atmosphere. They are cheap and will become progressively cheaper over a 2-5 year time span. Within about five years they should start substantially changing global emmissions. The technology involved is a combination of US, Canadian, Brazilian, Scandinavian and Spanish high tech innovation.
In the 1970s doomsayers like Paul Erhlich told us that massive famines would kill millions of people in the 1980s. They were completely wrong because they didnt understand the potential for technological innovation in growing food. India, now exports cereals, but Erhlich regarded India a lost cause that should have been allowed to starve in the 1970s by being denied food aid.
Today, similar technological pessimism pervades the mindset of those who created the Kyoto agreement. You’d think they’d learn from Paul Erhlichs debacle. Paul Erhlich doesn’t even appear to have learnt from that mistake, and that’s an indication of where the problem lies.
I predict in ten years time it will become obvious the anti technology movements will have made three massive blunders in understanding how to manage the environment and human welfare, and anti-technology propaganda will start to lose credibility. (Those blunders are 1. Paul Ernlich’s famine errors. 2. Greenpeace’s current unethical sabotage of Golden Rice. 3. Underestimation of the role of technology in carbon emission management )
PS. No I dont think markets are a solution to everything, but if you can harness a market based mechanism, it does have very nice self managing characteristics that drive change automatically and minimise waste, incompetance and corruption, so its a shame to carelessly mock them.
In glancing through a document writtemn by Ian Castles that is sitting on my hard drive I relised that Id misspelt a name from memory.
Anyhow here’s the section that gave me the correct spelling:
Quoting Ian C.
The reason for choosing 1970 as one of the comparator years is that this was the year of publication of Population, Resources, Environment, by Paul and Anne Ehrlich. In this influential book, the Ehrlichs asserted that most “underdeveloped” countries “will never, in any conceivable circumstances, be ‘developed’ in the sense in which the United States is today.” They argued that these countries “could quite accurately be called ‘never to be developed countries” (p. 7).
A very illuminating posting, detribe. The only point I’m doubtful about is your prediction that anti-technology propaganda will start to lose credibility in ten years time. Paul Ehrlich’s failure to learn from past mistakes seems to be symptomatic of the anti-technology movement generally.
Steve, the goal of Kyoto is not to reduce carbon INTENSITY – it’s to reduce the absolute levels of GHGs. In his new book “Climate Change: Turning up the Heat” (CSIRO Publishing), Barrie Pittock says: “However, the US has withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol process, and Bush’s commitment is only to reduce its greenhouse gas INTENSITY (that is emissions per unit GDP” (EMPHASIS in original). Under Kyoto-type agreements the countries with the best chance of achieving their targets are those with poorly performing economies and/or declining populations,
detribe – also you are neglecting that that agriculteral revolution is almost entirely based on fossil fuelled fertilisers and machinery. Basically modern factory farms are just places to turn oil into food.
Quite apart from the CO2 emissions at some time, as oil and natural gas become scarce, Mr Ehrlichs predictions might be a bit closer to the mark that at first thought.
None of us are anti-technology as you seem to assume. I see a bright future for advanced, renewable and emission free technology that does not leave nasty legacies for future generations and does not cause us to fight wars in other countries.
Ender,
Can I suggest that you check experimental data and recent evidence before making a comment . Current energy ratio for cane based ethanol are very high
Output Enegy/Input average =8.3 in practice in Brazil, high value=10;
(Macedo,I;Leal,M.R.L.V., 2004)
and can be much higherwith further innovation. Also be aware that earlier negative comments in papers by David Pimental on corn based ethanol re energy efficiency are probably in error and that corn based energy ratios are about 1.3 at the moment. With straw conversion, now practical the biofuel, energy output ratio would rise by a factor of about 2 with both corn and sugar cane. Also plant breeding to reduce the energy content of inputs is already occuring. In any case oil isnt absolutely needed for making ammonium fertiliser, the hydrogen could come from other sources- eg nuclar electricity for water hydrolysis.
In short I think your remarks are misleading, and fail to appreciate the potential for innovation.
PS. Sorry, didn’t intend to say you were anti-tech Ender, and don’t think I did really- nice to know you’re an optimist in fact :0)
One more correction of your statment Ender, modern farming depends about 50% on genetics for high yield. (Source Studies by R. Evenson at Yale).
Its highly relevant to mention the genetics because thats the key tool being used to tweak ethanol yields. The new can varieties in Brazil are specially developed to suit ethanol yields, and the same will go for new corn varieties.
Alright Ian, I must ‘fess up. My three predictions arnt totally serious, but its my turn to lighten up so I thought I’d act fake pompous and self important.
;0)
Thanks for quoting me on the Ehrlichs, detribe. It;s worth noting that, according to Maddison’s estimates, GDP per capita in South Korea was about one-eighth of the US level in 1970. Now it’s well above the US lev of 1970 (though only about one-half the PRESENT US level).
If we are going to talk about biofuels and agriculture, I agree, Ender, we need to research the topic, but can I suggest trying the following links showing where we should start, rather than the flawed opinions of Professor Ehrlich and off the cuff inaccuracies about efficiency of agriculture:
Science. 2004 Aug 13;305(5686):968-72.
Stabilization wedges: solving the climate problem for the next 50 years with
current technologies.
Pacala S, Socolow R.
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton,
NJ 08544, USA. pacala@princeton.edu
Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial
know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century. A
portfolio of technologies now exists to meet the world’s energy needs over the
next 50 years and limit atmospheric CO2 to a trajectory that avoids a doubling
of the preindustrial concentration. Every element in this portfolio has passed
beyond the laboratory bench and demonstration project; many are already
implemented somewhere at full industrial scale. Although no element is a
credible candidate for doing the entire job (or even half the job) by itself,
the portfolio as a whole is large enough that not every element has to be used.
http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/artspdf/nov0505.pdf
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/44/15739
http://www.bbibiofuels.com/worldsummit/files/Carvalho-WSET.pdf
http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/article_view.php?article_id=538
The point about focussing on Ehrlich’s mistakes is that so many people, who have grown up thing he’s some kind of messiah, have failed to analyse why he is in error – they insist instead that one day (in Jeruselem?) he will emerge vindicated.
The point about focussing on Golden Rice is that it shows too many people can be whipped by clever propaganda into even ignoring a potential crime against humanity (involving deaths of thousands of people a day), and it is an ethical imperative we should question such a situation.
The point about focussing on the errors of Kyoto is that is teaches us that international agreements based on good intentions don’t necessarily do good, and may even be part of the problem – some eye popping issues have already surfaced in these threads to demonstrate that. Not for the first time, bans on technology created by Green politians are actually a cause of harm – “what, nuclear power slowed down and indeed illegal when it may be needed to “save the planet” why on earth was that put in place? What drove such a decision?”
What is even more worrying is that it’s extremely hard to get reasoned self-critical discussion of these serious issues with the political activists that drove them – I wonder why? Whatever the reason, it shows the weaknesses of using politics to drive outcomes when the science is rapidly evolving. Maybe we should pause, sip our tea’s and bex, and do a little more soul searching rather than crusading for the glorious better utopia ahead, given the circumstances. While we do this, there is plenty of history to learn from.
Thanks detribe. Excellent. Re-reading your piece in Quadrant reminded me to ask whether you know, or can tell me where I can find, the names of the 12 US scientists who wrote to Cambridge University Press in mid-2000 with a series of complaints about The Skeptical Environmentalist? They called on CUP to insert errata slips drawing attention to all of its alleged errors (in fact there were very few, for a sole authored book of 600 pages).
I ‘m interested in checking the names of these sticklers for accuracy against the writing teams for the IPCC reports. The IPCC claims that review comments on Report chapters are held in an open archive for at least five years. I wrote to the Secretariat last July asking where I could find the comments on a particular chapter of the Third Assessment Report (in which I’d found more errors in a few pages than a hostile scientific community have yet identified in Lomborg’s entire book). I never got a reply.
I continue to be irritated over the use of the term “fossil”
fuels, since thermodynamically these hydrocarbons cannot be formed from bilogical qand vegetable detritus at the temperatures and pressures found in deep sedimentary basins.
Petroleum is often associated with helium and iridium which cannot be derived from fossils.
http://WWW.gasresources.net has copies of the scientific literature explaining this in either highly technical or lay terms.
Until this most basic of facts is comphrended, little progress is expected in the GH debate.
Oil and bituminous coal are hydrocarbon deposits derived from the earth’s mantle. The peat or lignite beds mere act as traps for these mantle hydrocarbons.
Ian,
PAPER PREPARED FOR AAAS SYMPOSIUM ‘THE POLITICISATION OF SCIENCE’ DENVER 14TH FEBRUARY, 2003, by Chris Harrison, Publishing Director (Social Sciences)CUP is a key public discussion of the ethics of THE Skeptical Environmentalist. Chris kindley shared his draft MS for this with me. I have never verified whether it is published, but I will privately share it with you as Chris won’t mind now, and it also has his contact details.
Detribe,
I don’t mock market based mechanisms. I fully support market-based mechanisms. Kyoto is a market based mechanism. IT establishes provides the framework for a market in carbon trading.
This is preferred to a carbon tax, or worse, the government picking and mandating particular technological approaches.
Detribe, don’t know too much about ethanol, but what you say re Brazil and trade barriers is fascinating.
I’d be keen to know what govt involvement there has been in the creation of an ethanol for fuel drive in Brazil.
Wonder if it is similar to the renewable energy drives in both India and China, which are driven by a government desire for some self sufficiency and independence from international fuel prices.
Ian, I’ve been thinking more about your comments.
I remember when Warwick McKibben began publicising his alternative to Kyoto. I remember being frustrated by this, because it seemed like economics flying in the face of practical political realities.
I’m willing to accept that there are great advantages in approaches such as put forward by WM compared to Kyoto. However, what is the value in one or even a handful of people putting up new, better approaches, when we haven’t implemented the first approach (Kyoto) yet, and:
1. Kyoto is not some random idea made up by a few McKibbens. It has been discussed and negotiated and agreed to by the governments of the world over the better part of a decade. Both Australia and the US were involved in building it.
2. For someone like WM to – after all that – come out and say ‘here’s a better way’ ignores the practical realities of political negotiation. In fact, I’m tempted to argue that it is an arrogant spanner in the works right at the time when the world was working hard to secure the last stages of agreement.
3. In some sense, I think it extremely poor form for countries like Australia to waste the time and resources of the whole world by spending a decade participating in negotiation and obtaining concessions, and then opt out at the very end. In saying that, I also recognise that it must be very difficult to negotiate with the entire world in a way that will suit your national interest.
Kyoto has been the best attempt yet to secure widespread commitment to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Its a lot of work – POLITICAL WORK – down the drain for the US and Australia to contribute to scuttling it. I think it is very optimistic to assume that a better approach is going to materialise out of the vacuum left over any time soon.
Steve, quick reponses to keep the ball rolling:
Kyoto is a market based mechanism. IT establishes provides the framework for a market in carbon trading.
>Personally I’m favourably disposed to carbon trading but I reserve judgement on whether the Kyoto scheme is effective and not susceptible to corruption.
This is preferred to a carbon tax, or worse, the government picking and mandating particular technological approaches.
>I agree
Detribe, don’t know too much about ethanol, but what you say re Brazil and trade barriers is fascinating.
I’d be keen to know what govt involvement there has been in the creation of an ethanol for fuel drive in Brazil.
> Heavy and lengthy over 30 years, with periods in the 80-90s where they got out of it as much as possible because of the heavy costs to the agricultural budgets (this actually did good as productivity gains acellerrated); google Jose Goldemberg), and in my opinion the cost burdens have not been fully accounted for and are underestimated by the enthusiastics. There have been many indirect costs of the program. The investment may at last be starting to give very good recent returns.
Wonder if it is similar to the renewable energy drives in both India and China, which are driven by a government desire for some self sufficiency and independence from international fuel prices.
> India and China are completely different to Brazil as arable land is very limited: Competition with food demand means the very best of cutting edge technologies are needed. The Green anti-Biotech zealots need to rethink their absurd “worlds got plenty of food cry” because they cannot advocate biomass liquid fuels in China or India without reversing their (shortsighted) opposition to agriculturasl biotechnology. In any case biotech techniques are crucial for straw hydrolysis prior to fermentation to make ethanol.
2. For someone like WM to – after all that – come out and say ‘here’s a better way’ ignores the practical realities of political negotiation. In fact, I’m tempted to argue that it is an arrogant spanner in the works right at the time when the world was working hard to secure the last stages of agreement.
> Having seen in action the mindless lack of principle in Groups like Greepeace and their Australian counterparts, and knowing their participation Kyoto politics, my attidude is so what, thats the way life is sometimes-change is difficult.
Second, why is there a need for to exempt Kyoto from revision and critiques?.Third, with democracy we have a choice to vote our current Government out. Where’s the analogue for international agreements? For international agreement there is not house of review or voice for many who dindt have a seat at the table.
3. In some sense, I think it extremely poor form for countries like Australia to waste the time and resources of the whole world by spending a decade participating in negotiation and obtaining concessions, and then opt out at the very end. In saying that, I also recognise that it must be very difficult to negotiate with the entire world in a way that will suit your national interest.
> Its also very poor form for the same activist organisation to waste the efforts of others in the community with all their politicals stunts, burt thats reality for you. The activist dont accept liability for this damage either.Neither do they always represent “the whole world” or “the community” just because they claim that themselves. Greenpeace dont represent the poor in Africa and Asia who are dying from vitamin A deficiency, for example.
Kyoto has been the best attempt yet to secure widespread commitment to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Its a lot of work – POLITICAL WORK – down the drain for the US and Australia to contribute to scuttling it. I think it is very optimistic to assume that a better approach is going to materialise out of the vacuum left over any time soon.
> One problem is assuming that change has to come top down from and over arching mandated authoritarian law. The alternative approach of local dynamic change might be better: to coin a phrase, think globally BUT ACT LOCALLY.
detribe – I am sure that Barazilian sugar cane can get to 8:1 EROI however I was more talking about NO fertilizer. Modern fertilizers are made from natural gas and nitrogen from the air. No natural gas – no fertiliser. Also the trucks and farm machinery all use fossil fuels at present. If you fuelled them with alcohol then your 8:1 EROI is reduced to 2:1 as IC engines are less than 20% efficient. Throw in all the other processes and you are very close to not breaking even without fossil fuels. What then? You still have to grow food so where do you put the remaining fertiliser on the fuel crops or the food crops. You cannot exist on sugar alone so all the crops displaced to grow fuel will have to be replanted with food crops as international trade becomes more expensive and it stops being economic to import basic food from outside.
Technology as wonderful as it is cannot get around physical laws and energy return. The situation is much worse in Australia. I calculated that the yield of Australian crops is 670 litres of ethanol being produced from 1 hectare of land.
Climate change is not the only challenge that humanity will face there is also Peak Oil to worry about. It is fortunate that efforts to mitigate climate change will also get us off our Oil addiction as well.
Just on the bio-fuel story (and I am interested) we need to do the full energy calculation – what goes in: fertiliser, tractor , fuel, harvest etc. and what comes out.
And with all bio-fuel system – if you remove all the organic matter you will reduce soil carbon with assocaited problems. (e.g. converted all wheat straw) to ethanol.
But in the end someone needs to do the calculation – how much nett solr energy do we harvest in litres of ethanol/methanol – do it add up to be enough, and how argicultural land do we alienate to do it … is there enough left over for food and export income.
We haven’t discovered Jack’s beanstalk.
And on hydrogen – unless it’s nuclear sourced it will still produce carbon. And then we have the problems of storage (stuff leaks like crazy) and distribution – like WHAT infrastructure – there is none (all non trivial), and the issue that it probably affected the ozone layer.
I’m very interested in other energy sources but worry they don’t add up !! or are technologically still beyond our reach …
Steve, Just a few facts about Kyoto that you obviously don’t know about.
First, I was a member of the Organising Committee for a Conference on Greenhouse convened by the National Academies Forum in May 1997, six months BEFORE Kyoto. The six-member Committee was chaired by Professor Stuart Harris of the ANU, one of Australia’s leading economists, former head of the Centre for Research and Environmental Studies (CRES) at the ANU and former Secretary (Chief Executive) of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs.
The Conference was opened by Senator Robert Hill, then Minister for the Environment, who told us all how valuable it would be for the government to have the advice of experts from the Learned Academies before the forthcoming meeting of the COP in Kyoto. The two most substantive presentations were by Aynsley Kellow and Warwick McKibbin. Aynsley Kellow explained why an agreement along the lines being considered would not only be ineffective but would set back the prospect of achieving effective arrangements in the future (I haven’t got his paper in front of me but I’m confident of the substance). I think Warwick’s paper was also sceptical about the sort of approach that was eventually adopted, but I won’t attempt to capture just what he said. It certainly made a lot of sense to me.
Both McKibbin and Kellow have subsequently co-authored major books about Kyoto. As well as being Professor of Economics at ANU, Warwick is a Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, one of the world’s leading research institutions. His book on Kyoto with Peter Wilcoxen carries a foreword from the President of Brookings saying that they’re proud to be associated with the work. To say that Warwick’s work is peer-reviewed is something of an understatement. Aynsley’s book is co-authored with Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen of the University of Hull, a geographer who is most well-known for her editorship of Energy & Environement. Sonja gets a lot of abuse from global warming activists for having published Castles & Henderson, McIntyre & McKitrick,etc. etc. They seem to forget that E&E is the only journal in which responses from IPCC authors to Castles and Henderson have been published.
Secondly, I couldn’t disagree more with your comment that “For someone like WM to – after all that – come out and say ‘here’s a better way’ ignores the practical realities of political negotiation.” He was warning against the agreement years before it was signed. At some stage in the late 1990s, Kim Beazley urged in the Federal Parliament that Warwick’s proposals be thoroughly investigated. Was Warwick meant to say, oh no, don’t consider my ideas, they ignore the realities of political negotiation? It’s just a pity that the Australian Academy of Science didn’t seek the advice of people like Stuart Harris and me, who HAVE had some experience in political negotiation, before agreeing to sign the statement organised by Lord May, President of the Royal Society, that was published in “Science” in May 2001. Among other things the statement said that “Kyoto is a small BUT ESSENTIAL first step…” (The all-party House of Lords Committee that reported this year doesn’t think so. I’d back them to know a little more about the practical realities of political negotiation than the Royal Society or the AAS).
Thirdly, there was much unhappiness in the environmental lobby at the time that Kyoto was agreed. Professor Ian Lowe, now President of the ACF and a strong Kyoto supporter, was present at Kyoto, and on his return wrote as follows:
“The issue is far more complicated than might be expected by hurried judgements and from agreements hammered out in the middle of the night by non-scientists at international conferences. Generally, science took a back seat at Kyoto. Economic considerations predominated (“New Scientist, 3 January 1998, p. 45).
If science took a back seat and it was far more complicated than non-scientists seem to think, why did the AAS go out on a limb to support it the moment that the Royal Society cracked the whip (Lord May actually told “Science” that the statement was prompted by US and Australian reluctance to get on board. This sort of “political science” is doing enormous damage to genuine science).
Fourthly, there was never the slightest possibility that the US would agree to a Kyoto-type agreement (there was a Senate vote against it, 97-0 in 1997). Instructing the US Delegation to sign the agreement was a cynical political stunt by former Vice President Al Gore in the full knowledge that it could never be ratified (this requires a two-thirds majority I think).
Australia and the US didn’t “opt out at the very end”. They made their position clear years before, while countries like Canada signed up and then joined the queue to win more and more concessions. It’s my understanding that they are nowhere meeting their targets. Alberta passed legislation to over-rule the Federal legislation. The automobile industry was exempted from the provisions applying to other industries. It’s all political posturing: Canada’s GHGs have increased just as much as Australia’s since 1990.
But I shouldn’t pick on Canada in particular: the Europeans are the worst villains and ended up blackmailing Russia into ratifying (against the best judgment of most of their leading economists AND scientists) by threatening to block Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organisation.
A better approach is already emerging, thanks in part to the US-China-India-Japan-Korea-Australia agreement and the likelihood that the UK, spurred on by the Lords Committee Report, will be instrumental in convincing the Europeans to stop flogging a dead horse.
I’m not suggesting that everything that now comes under the rubric of Kyoto is bad. But it would have been possible to have the good things anyway, without the albatross of mandatory but unenforceable caps on emissions that might turn out to cost x or 2x or 5x. Politicians who give such agreements their informed consent are being irresponsible, although it is true that most of them can be trusted to break their promises.
detribe, You’ll be glad to learn that Chris Harrison’s paper was published, in 2004 in the journal “Environmental Science and Policy” (I think I have the title right, and it’s Elsevier)> You’ll be even more glad to know that there was a paper in the succeeding issue by the Managing Editor (or whatever the title is) of Princeton University Press, strongly supporting Cambridge and saying that it was clear that CUP published TSE not in spite of but because of peer review.
I picked up the reference to the letter from the 12, but Chris didn’t name them & didn’t give a reference. And I googled unsuccessfully.
Ian – so having softened up each other philosophical position’s with a spot of rhetorical shelling … (and we won’t hold you forever to any position is as it’s blog for the purposes of facilitating a dialectic)
Would you consider to give your brief road map for the future …
what would your recommend to the Asia Pacific Pact (given we distrust the IPCC) as way forward on:
(a) climate science
(b) construction of future emission scenarios
(c) technological investment direction in energy sciences
(e) size of the climate threat and thresholds for action
(d) use of nuclear power
(f) dealing with any developing inequity between climate winners and losers
Not a trap – just asking ! I’ve always been looking for an opportunity to advance a forward path vis a vis defending whether the greenhouse effect actually even exists …
The only one of the six in which I’m qualified to provide input is (b), although my input wouldn’t be central. In a “proposal for a special meeting that could be held with the aim of reviewing the kinds of projections of economic change that enter into the scenario work of the IPCC” that David Henderson sent to Dr. Pachauri on 14 January 2003 and released publicly on 6 February 2003, David nominated me as a possible speaker on “the basis for international comparisons”. Other suggested speakers were Nicholas Crafts (reviewing and building on the past: a historical perspective); Shankar Acharya (projecting growth in poor countries and rich); Paul David (the interactions of economic and technical change) (possibly some help for your (c); William Nordaus (the uses and limits of model-based scenarios); Angus Maddison (Ways ahead: methods and ways of thinking); and an IPCC speaker (Ways ahead: participants and procedures).
Dr Pachauri was initially receptive to the concept and wrote to David and me, promising that he’d be in touch again. But then he was nabbed by the SRES authors who weren’t about to agree to anything that might threaten their monopoly position (see title of David Henderson’s paper).
We’ve now lost three years because of the IPCC’s intransigence, but there’s no reason why the sort of examination that David proposed could not now be subsumed into a report by the Team B arrangement that David has now also proposed.
The only one of the six experts nominated by David who has attended any of the subsequent IPCC Expert Meetings was Professor Nordhaus of Yale who, as stated in the Lords Report (para. 65) told the assembled IPCC Experts at a meeeting last January that using MERs (as the IPCC Report did) is categorically the wrong procedure for aggregating world incomes, and that “estimates of output or income at MER are simply wrong – they are constructed on an economically incorrect basis.”
In his book just released by CSIRO Publishing (Climate Change: Turning Up the Heat), Barrie Pittock (Honorary Fellow, CSIRO Atmospheric Research) doesnt get round to mentioning Nordhaus’ paper (which the Lords Committee said was especially important). The Lords Committee also said that ‘We found no support for the use of MER in such exercises [emissions scenarios] other than from Dr Nakicenovic of the IPCC. Dr. Pittock doesnt mention that either. However, in Supplementary Reference and Notes published with the book by CSIRO Publishing and available at http.www.publish.csiro.au/pid/4992.htm , he tells his readers that Pant and Fisher, from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, conclude in a 2004 paper PPP versus MER: Comparison of real in comes across nations that ‘The use of MER by IPCC … remains valid and the critique by Castles and Henderson cannot be sustained. This paper is published by ABARE, of which Brian Fisher is Director. Brian is also Coordinating Lead Author of the chapter in the IPCCs AR4 which is to review the criticisms of the SRES. His paper (with Hom Pant) was presented at an Energy Modeling Forum workshop on PPP vs MER at Stanford University which was sponsored by the Australian Greenhouse Office & the US Environmental Protection Administration in February 2004. No statisticians were invited: what would they know about how to measure GDP? (I suggested in my first letter to Dr Pachauri in August 2002 that national accounts accounts statisticians should be involved in the scenarios work for the next assessment. Not a single national accounts statistician was included in the selected team , though I know that some were nominated by national governments. It is obvious that the IPCC is determined to exclude experts from this area,
So far as I know, the Fisher and Pant paper has not been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. On the other hand, a paper on the same subject by Ian Castles and David Henderson (International Comparisons of GDP: Issues of Theory and Practice) was published in the leading peer-reviewed journal World Economics (Jan-Mar 2005: 55-84). It has been published by ANU Eprints Repository and is available free online. (This is an unusual procedure because World Economics has to cover its costs somehow: the Editor told me he was giving permission because he thought the paper was of such importance). Barrie Pittock doesn’t mention the Castles and Henderson paper either, nor does he mention the paper published in Energy & Environment by the eminent economic statistician Jacob Ryten, who evaluated the International Comparisons Programme (ICP) for the United Nations Statistical Office, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. As David Henderson mentioned in his evidence to the Lords Committee (p. 43), Jacob Ryten said ‘I cannot help being shocked by the contrast between the [IPCC] scenario team’s bold assertions and peremptory dismissal of the arguments of Castles and Henderson and their manifest ignorance of the conceptual and practical issues involved in developing and using inter-country measures of economic product.
Jacob Ryten is a member of the Executive Board of the ICP, which is chaired by the Australian Statistician, Dennis Trewin. From memory the cost of the current round is about $40 million, which is small beer compared with the funds governments fork out for climate change research. But much research on impacts analysis is useless because of the dogged insistence of the IPCC on using the wrong GDP measure when it suits them.
To me, getting the world to use the right statistical measures is the highest priority: the wrong measures are routinely used by the World Bank, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the United Nations Environment Program, etc. This is a extremely time consuming task, and I dont have the time, expertise or presumption to give my brief road map for the future. Sorry. (Incidentally Steve McIntyre has just published a Road Map of his site at http://www.climateaudit.org/ Those who think the site is a one-person site dealing with one paper should spend a few minutes on the map and go off on a few side roads.
Thanks Ian for input. Will read roadmap.
Ender, again and again I get responses from you based on assumptions that are totally wrong. The energy ratio I am referring takes full account of all the energy in the inputs. Also you are transferring your assumptions about American corn over to Brazilian cane. Where also did you get the assuption that Brazil uses much synthetic fertiliser on their cane?
more later
d
Steve:
RE: Just on the bio-fuel story (and I am interested) we need to do the full energy calculation – what goes in: fertiliser, tractor , fuel, harvest etc. and what comes out.
> YEs, such accounting is important, but this is just the data I have been quoting you FUEL OUT over Total Energy in. That why I supplied it, why dont you follow the link I supplied. I know this literature pretty well, and have a complete library on it on my hard drive.There plenty of available internet comments on this from Brazilian Bioengineers, starting from the link I posted. The waste streams from cane are used very efficiently in Brazil. Also Ender doesnt appreciate that fertiliser input is minimal too, as fertiliser is costly in Brazil. The Brazilians have had 30 years to fine tune their system, and now get 5500 litre /ha. Enders out by an order of magnetude for insight into the best yields.
Ender
RE:”Also the trucks and farm machinery all use fossil fuels at present. If you fuelled them with alcohol then your 8:1 EROI is reduced to 2:1 as IC engines are less than 20% efficient.”
>The efficiency difference BETWEEN ETHANOL and GASOLINE as an input fuel on tractors is a difference of about 30%, ie a multiplier factor of about 1.3. Your numbers here are just wrong and your logic muddled. Gasoline also is used inefficiently in tractor IC engines and the relevant factor is how much gasoline and ethanol differ from ONE ANOTHER.
We will never run out of synthetic fertiliser.
Alarmism about supply of natural gas for fertiliser production is fallacious: currently fertiliser production only uses about 2-3% of total global liquid fuels and is in fact unlikely to grow much more. And I repeat the point I made before – no hydrocarbon is theoretically needed, only H2 to make ammonia. Hydrogen can be made from coal and steam. Or electrolysis.
Read Vaclav Smil’s Enriching the Earth MIT Press 2001, or Arvin R Mosier’s recent Agriculture and the Nitrogen Cycle, Island Press 2004, both of which I have here on my desk.
Thanks Ian,
You did fill me in on a lot I didn’t know, and I guess I was harsh on W. McKibbin with my ‘arrogant’ comment, and withdraw it.
Thanks for all your feedback. It all made a lot of sense, and again helsp to show how difficult it is for a country to negotiate with the world community in a way that achieves something while serving its national interest. Worldwide agreement is difficult.
I think you are being optimistic in thinking that Asia-Pacific Pact is shaping up into something better than Kyoto. There is no detail yet, and I’m a little skeptical about it, and can’t see any reason why both Australia and the US aren’t going to indulge in some technology favouring, but time will tell.
I think it will be difficult to provide a technology-neutral approach that allows favour to go to the ‘best’ technology without having some form of cap – some way of pricing carbon. Pumping millions and billions into a particular technology like clean coal or even nuclear could end up wasting a lot of money.
Detribe, I think you attributed a comment to me that wasn’t mine re biofuels.
Steve, sorry for my carelessness (and poor spelling at a keyboard), I got confused between Steve and Phil, and the huge number of postings!.
Also I can add one further correction to my previous posts : the differences beween ethanol and gasoline energy efficiency on an unit energy content basis are probable even smaller that 30%. The 30% figure is based (using my memory) on volumes of fuel used in cars, and the knowledge ethanol and gasoline have different densities (g/cc). This correction makes my argument with Ender (where I affirm the High energy ratio of Brazilian biofuel ethanol) even stronger.
detribe – they certainly do:
Energy in 1 l petrol 9.5 KWHrs/litre
Energy in 1 l Ethanol 6.5 KWHrs/litre
Ethanol is quite a bit less. It does however burn a bit more efficiently however in practice the difference is not that great. In a normal IC engine that is maintained to normal use standards 20% is pretty generous and 15% would be the average.
So we will NEVER run out of artificial fertilisers – thats a big call. What about water? What about insecticides?
So perhaps Ian can tell us what happens to a finite resource that is in huge demand. Natural gas is burnt to make electricity, burnt to heat houses, burnt to heat water, and used in huge amounts to make fertiliser and other industrial processes. Also people want to split it up to make hydrogen for fuel-cell cars and heat the ground to refine shale oils and tar sands, heat extra heavy crude and sour heavy crudes to make petrol. As the supply peaks, the price soars making fertiliser more and more expensive. Eventually however the natural gas will get depleted as there is a finite amount of it.
So detribe we need hydrogen to make ammonia – where does that come from? You can split water however that takes energy – where does the energy come from? This leads to your 8:1 EROI getting less and less.
So you make H2 from coal and steam. Great – this is a hydrocarbon, so hydrocarbons are needed, so how do you make the steam? You can burn the coal however then biofuels are not carbon neutral.
So where are my numbers wrong and logic muddled?
The Haber Process (also Haber-Bosch process) is the reaction of nitrogen and hydrogen to produce ammonia.
The nitrogen and hydrogen are reacted over an iron catalyst under conditions of 200 atmospheres, 450°C:
How important this is in the overall relativities of the biofuel debate I’m not sure. But certainly the manufacture of ammonia to make fertiliser – anhydrous ammonia, ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulphate, urea etc seems energy intensive. I imagine this energy would typically come from fossil fuels and emit carbon. How important it is overall – again I’m not sure.
detribe – they certainly do:
Energy in 1 l petrol 9.5 KWHrs/litre
Energy in 1 l Ethanol 6.5 KWHrs/litre
Ethanol is quite a bit less. It does however burn a bit more efficiently however in practice the difference is not that great. In a normal IC engine that is maintained to normal use standards 20% is pretty generous and 15% would be the average.
>Are you claiming then that GASOLOINE IS 100% efficient.
You seem to miss the point that the energy RATIO I quote already takes into account the inefficiency of the IC engine as part of its data.The input is fuel energy used.
So we will NEVER run out of artificial fertilisers – thats a big call. What about water? What about insecticides?
> What is water to do with limitations in supply?. Where do insecticides come into calculations of ammonia production?
So detribe we need hydrogen to make ammonia – where does that come from? You can split water however that takes energy – where does the energy come from? This leads to your 8:1 EROI getting less and less.
> NO it doesnt the ENergy Ration accounts starts from adding up all the energy INPUTS into fertiliser suythesis. I have already said this about three times.
So you make H2 from coal and steam. Great – this is a hydrocarbon, so hydrocarbons are needed, so how do you make the steam? You can burn the coal however then biofuels are not carbon neutral.
> The point is the annual need of H2 is so low as a percentage of total use now that even if oil ran out tommorow, coal could supply H2 nedds for hundreds of tyears, and after that it could be made from water and electrolysis. The CO2 release from coal for ferilisers would only be 3% of current releases from liquid fuels, no big deal
detribe – I am sorry but the figure you quoted is not the final well to wheels ratio. It is simply the energy required to grow the feedstock, including all the inputs, and turn it into ethanol. The EROI of petrol is over 15:1. All these EROI are ALWAYS quoted before it gets converted to mechanical energy.
Fertiliser is not the only constraint on growing plants. Insecticides are also made and distributed with fossil fuels.
“> NO it doesnt the ENergy Ration accounts starts from adding up all the energy INPUTS into fertiliser suythesis. I have already said this about three times.”
If you have to make the hydrogen instead of digging it up from the ground then the amount of energy required to make the fertiliser is higher. This affect the energy inputs to the EROI ratio making the EROI lower. And you can say it as many times as you like – you are still wrong.
“> The point is the annual need of H2 is so low as a percentage of total use now that even if oil ran out tommorow, coal could supply H2 nedds for hundreds of tyears, and after that it could be made from water and electrolysis. The CO2 release from coal for ferilisers would only be 3% of current releases from liquid fuels, no big deal”
OK so this is the coal that now has to run most of our power, supply all our liquid fuels and now supply all our fertilisers and supply the energy to make the feedstock for the fertiliser.
“World ammonia capacity grew from 119 million tonnes in 1980 to a peak of 141 million tonnes in 1989. Virtually all the growth in capacity occurred in the FSU and Asia. From 1990 to 1995 capacity remained relatively flat, with increases in Asia being off-set by closures in Europe and the FSU. From 2000 to 2005 some 45 per cent of the anticipated increase in ammonia capacity will be in Asia, 25 per cent in North and South America and 15 per cent in the Middle East, these regions accounting for 85 per cent of the world total increase.”
and
“Produced in capital-intensive operations, natural gas typically represents 55 per cent of the cash cost of production (ie. before interest and depreciation costs). As such it is one of the most feedstock- (or energy-) cost sensitive petrochemicals produced. A world-scale ammonia/urea plant (1,000 tonnes of ammonia per day or 1,700 tonnes of urea per day) uses 35 million cubic feet of natural gas per day (37.8 gigajoules per tonne of ammonia). In other words, the competitiveness of ammonia plants is as sensitive to construction and distribution costs as simply feedstock costs. Further, the world fertiliser market is complex and influenced by producer and consumer subsidies and other market distortions that often undermine the normal market price underpinned investment decisions in many regions.”
So you are saying that this production could just be turned to coal.
141 million tons of ammonia requires 37.8 GJ * 141E6 = 5 329 800 000 GJ of natural gas.
The world uses 2292.6 billion cubic meters of gas
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9003068&contentId=7005909
lets take 40MJ per cubic meter so the fertiliser production gas requirement is:
5 329 800 000 000 MJ / 40 = 133 245 000 000 cubic meters. 133.245 billion cubic meters is about 5.8% of world natural gas production which is quite a significant part.
Now you propose that we make our liquid fuels from this finite resource increasing demand for fertilisers to keep yields high. Switching to coal would make this worse as coal would be needed to make fertiliser and still more coal needed to make the ethanol.
Bio-ethanol alone cannot replace fossil fuels.
Phil
“How important this is in the overall relativities of the biofuel debate I’m not sure. But certainly the manufacture of ammonia to make fertiliser – anhydrous ammonia, ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulphate, urea etc seems energy intensive. I imagine this energy would typically come from fossil fuels and emit carbon. How important it is overall – again I’m not sure.”
> Yes Phil this is all relevant and is part of the process of doing an accounting of all energy inputs. Its part of the reason that current corn (USA ) energy ratios are pretty low. The investigators who calculate the energy ratio I mention are very much aware of this ; thats why they carefully assessed those values. Thats why they calculate how much energy is used in all the inputs. Eg energy for any fertiliser, fuel, trasnsport and so on.
I didnt explain this explicitly when I put up the key energy ratio because I assumed you guys were so up to speed it was so obvious, and that you’d know that I was addressing that important point with key energy accounting data. I’m sorry now that I didnt review that first.
Ender still thinks tha gasoline is 5 times more efficicient than ethanol as a IC fuel for a unit of energy in the original fuel. If that were so biofuel ethanol would be going nowhere commercially.
His Energy numbers/litre are fully consistent with my off the cuff figure of 30% (factor 1.3) given earlier.
Again if as I claim fertiliser hydrocarbon input use today is 3% of tranport liquid fuel energy, the Greenhouse gas impact of continued hydrocarbon or coal use for ferltiliser is trivial. It only 3% or less of total load.
Think for a moment – why do I remember this number confidently without needing to check with V. Smil’s books?
Chartered accountants are useful for getting a sense of perpective on numbers , I’d say.
detribe – I am sorry but the figure you quoted is not the final well to wheels ratio.
> I see your point here Ender, but the energy in the fuel for tractors in the ratio I use can be replaced with ethanol. Its this replacement (kind of carbon recycling) thats relevant to checking if biofuel makes energy sense. Ethanol Has an Energy ratio of at least 8, often 10, so only a minor part of the output is need to provide liquid fuel for inputs into tractors.
If you have to make the hydrogen instead of digging it up from the ground then the amount of energy required to make the fertiliser is higher.
>We could go round and round in circles,on this, BUT LET ME ASK AGAIN why is fertilizer relevant to Brazilian cane – they dont use it much.
But even though its a side issue to viability of Brazilian ethanol I’m still willing to debate your fertiliser energy interpretations, but I repeat its a side issue as far as Brazilian biofuel is concerned).
No Ender, the energy need to produce fertiliser DO NOT NECESSARLY INCREASE above the current values as we current still include a value for the energy used to make fertiliser from natural gas- the question is whether the engrgy needed using other ways of producing H2 is much greater than the current amount, and you dont establish that. I assume it will be approximately the same, but its still not relvant if the Baazilian dont use fertilser on their cane.
As such it is one of the most feedstock- (or energy-) cost sensitive petrochemicals produced. A world-scale ammonia/urea plant (1,000 tonnes of ammonia per day or 1,700 tonnes of urea per day) uses 35 million cubic feet of natural gas per day (37.8 gigajoules per tonne of ammonia).
141 million tons of ammonia requires 37.8 GJ * 141E6 = 5 329 800 000 GJ of natural gas.
133.245 billion cubic meters is about 5.8% of world natural gas production which is quite a significant part.
> Thanks again Ender for finding figures to confirm my statement that energy needs for synthetic fertilizer are about 3% of total current liquid fuel hydrocarbons.
Now you propose that we make our liquid fuels from this finite resource increasing demand for fertilisers to keep yields high.
> yes I do, because about 2 billion people in the world depend on it for their food, and it would be wrong to radically disrupt this. Further more, food security has high priority over transport needs, and allocation of hydrocarbons for this over the next three decades, with coal use after that is feasible for some time, as coal reserves are large. At the moment about half the Nitrogen in the worlds food comes from synthetic fertilisers and if we didnt have high yields it allows, farm areas would have to expand massively, so it would be foolish to discontinue using synthetic fertilisers to clear the Brazilian rain forrest and all other areas of wilderness to provide the new farmland.
Bio-ethanol alone cannot replace fossil fuels.
> Well no (and Ive never claimed that) , but if say 10-15% of our liquid fuels were met with biofuel IT WOULD REDUCE CARBON EMISSIONS BY ABOUT 10-15% which is a significant contribution to the objectives of this discussion, to coin a phrase A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.
ITS A SUSTAINABILITY WEDGE (see link to Socolow’s PNAS paper I gave before.)
detribe – yes you can replace the diesel fuel with alchohol but that lowers the final energy yield as some of the output is used in the manufacture.
Only Brazillian sugar cane has an EROI of 8:1 most other regions are much much lower than this. In a previous thread Rick’s research indicated a very high 5:1 for mallee and that was about as high as you can get in Australia with its lower rainfall and less fertile soil. I calculated the 4 times the current area devoted to wheat would be required to grow enough biomass to produce ethanol for Australia. You can see my calculations at stevegloor.typepad.com. Use the search bar for ethanol.
You estimated 3% and the figure could be nearly 6% so you were wrong by a factor of 2. This is before you propose to make liquid fuels!!!! Also your linear reduction of 10 or 15% would be forther eroded by CO2 release in manufacture.
Why not a sustainablity wedge of wind powered electric cars or solar panels on roofs or programs to increase energy efficiency. I have an idea why not make mandatory targets so that there will be incentive to implement the sustainablity wedges to reduce CO2 output.
Oh wait – that would not work at all would it.
Ender,
Please read carefully the actual words I use before putting your own words in my mouth
You mentioned natural gas. I mentioned total liquid fuel hydrocarbons – by this I mean gasoline plus natural gas. I now assert gasoline is approx equal to natural gas global quantities. That brings your figure for 6% close to my figure of about 3%. I AN NOT WRONG ON THIS DESPITE YOU ASSERTIONS I AM.
Either way fertiliser demand for hydrogen equivalents are a small fraction of total current demand. THATS MY POINT which you dont challenge with your data – your number in fact affirms my original statement.THE RELEVANCE of THIS FRACTION (3 to 6%) IS THAT Hydrocarbon for fertiliser CAN CONTINUE WITH UNSETTLING CARBON EMISSIONS management.
I assume you last words about wind power are some kind of sarcastic rhetorical jibe to again put opinions into my mouth that I have never uttered. It suggests that you are treating me as some kind of political characature. You are apparently unaware that such a ploy only undermines your own credibility.
I in fact, have no problems with other sustainability wedges – so solar and wind power- go for it mate. Thats the whole point of the PNAS paper, multiple strategies are needed and can be complementary.
May I suggest that several of your reponses are examples of a common social debate problem: imagining that those who disagree with you are obviously unethical and deviously manipulative, only interested in false propaganda to achieve political stale mate. Lets try and move beyound that and argue professionally about the evidence in the real world.
Forgive me if I am misinterpreting your remarks, but the pointless introduction of Andrew Bolt into this thread from someone who insists that others rely only on peer-reviewed science rather annoyed me.
detribe – yes you can replace the diesel fuel with alchohol but that lowers the final energy yield as some of the output is used in the manufactur.
> It doesnt alter the enegy ratio. The net yield per season of liquid fuel high and viable
INPUT -> OUTPUT
Solar energy plus
tractor fuel 8 parts
NET
Solar -> Ethanol >7 parts
WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT ENDER, you assured me that you’re a techno optimist.
But as far as making biofuel in the Mallee, I’m not arguing for that here. I’m trying to demonstrate Brazilian ethanol makes sense. I would assume similar arguments would apply in Australia sugar regions though.
detribe – except that my figure is soley for the natural gas component of ammonia production. It excludes transportation energy. It also excludes liquid fuels for the mechanical farming of sugar cane or other biomass. The total energy bill would be much higher and even 6% is not an insignificant amount. As natural gas is used for more and more things its price will spike as it has in the USA where it has trebled in cost. Shouting at me will not make it correct. The EROI of biofuels is too low to replace even a small fraction of fossil fuels. This is basic physics and will not change no matter how loud you get. The agricultural revolution is entirely based on the massive energy return of oil. It started at 100:1 and now is at least 20:1. No combination of biofuels or otherwise can replace it. If we do not realise this and soon then a lot of people will starve.
“I assume you last words about wind power are some kind of sarcastic rhetorical jib”
No actually I was just suggesting what I think are better “sustainablity wedges”. Biofuels in my opionion are not the easiest, cheapest or most effective way to reduce CO2. Energy efficiency is the easist and cheapest way to reduce CO2 emissions and should always be done first before trying to replace fossil fuels with biofuels. Often such biofuels are championed because they are different way to subsidise the rural lobby rather than for their emmision reduction potential. Solar panels on roofs are another way as their EROI is about 8:1 now and improving, they have no moving parts and avoid large losses in transmission. Simple things like mandatory solar hot water heating are all much better alternatives. Battery electric cars are vastly more efficient (up to 90%) than IC cars and can charge directly from the renewable grid avoiding expensive transformations.
I introduced Andrew Bolt into another thread because that was relevent there. I see M&Ms work being used an anti-AGW wedge. It has been so effective that it now shows up in ill-informed commentary as the smoking gun to disprove AGW. It is relevant to that other thread. This is where its real damage is done.
And yes you are misinterpreting my remarks.
Ender
I’m glad my guesses about your comments are wrong.
I absolutely agree that biofuels are at least partly championed because they amount to a rural subsidy. It was part of the reason that Brazil adopted them. Its the main reason corn is converted to fuel in the US. It the main force behind biofuel in Australia. Its the driving force in Europe.
Also although you are to a degree right about biofuel from grains and certainly have useful arguments about Australian drylands, but it is important to also realise practicable straw hydrolysis changes the energy ratio by about 2 fold, and enzymatic straw hydrolysis is now economic (Google NREL, Novozymes, Genencor). Thus within about 5 years, the corn energy ratio will change from 1.3 to about 2.6. I have an open mind about whether that gets grains to an enegetically useful efficiency. Certainly it makes energy ratio’s for cane biofuel of about 20 achievable in theory, which is another reason why your pessimism about Brazilian ethanol seems wrong to me.
Thus your remarks about fertilser have much truth whwen it comes to corn at the moment (2005), but as I mentioned before breeding technology can enable energy inputs with fertiliser to be reduced significantly (as argued in one of my links). Thus by 2010 the economics and energetics of biofuels will have evolved substantially.
I continue think your energy arguments about Brazilian ethanol are wrong and I note that you havent challenged key statements I have made. With energy ratio’s in the range 8 to 20 there is plenty of room for it to be energetically viable independantly of fossil fuel, and your arguments that this high ratio will drop way back from other factors I find unconvincing. As I dont think we’ll make any more progress on this so lets just agree to differ.
Your argument that other methods are more energy efficient is fine. Lets see how they pan out in practice. As far as biofuels, I certainly dont imagine that they will ever be a major part of the global transport fuel economy, and their use may be transient, paving the way for different forms of transport energy such as hydrogen fuel cells. But its also possible, if not likely, that their beneficial impact on CO2 emissions might drive their adoption more than we expect. Whether or not I personally think that’s a good idea (ie scientifically rational)is beside the point, I think it has a lot of political momentum, and I thus judge it to be quite a likely scenario for the medium term for political reasons, for example in the EU where, as we type, they are building fuel factories in Spain to convert wheat straw into biofuel, to open 2006 (Google Abengoa).
detribe – thank you for your reasonable reply. I guess we will see what happens in the future.
FYI http://www.iccfglobal.org/pdf/Country-reports-overview.pdf new report on the cost of Kyoto to several European economics.
This is one indicator of a future for biomass energy use other than ethanol, including a hydrogen stream that would allow reduction of energy input in synthetic fertiliser and thus provide the technical potential for higher Energy return ratios (EROI)
Farming that improves the environment
November 8, 2005
Iowa State University
All those dried up stalks, husks and cobs left in corn fields after every fall’s harvest could be a key to enhancing the environment, say Iowa State University researchers.
They say partially burning some of the residue left in corn fields produces products that can be used to improve soil fertility, boost in-soil storage of greenhouse gases and reduce the amount of natural gas used to produce anhydrous ammonia fertilizer.
Robert C. Brown, Iowa State’s Bergles Professor in Thermal Science, will lead a team of researchers studying the idea. The team includes Randy Killorn, an Iowa State professor of soil science, plus government researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Energy and industry researchers from Cargill Inc., Eprida and iPrismGlobal.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns recently announced the three-year project will be supported by $1.85 million from the Biomass Research and Development Initiative, a joint project of the U.S. agriculture and energy departments. More than 670 research teams applied for initiative funding. Eleven of them won grants. Final details of the grants are expected to be set by early next year.
“This cooperative conservation partnership benefits our nation with enhanced energy security, a cleaner environment and revitalized rural economies,” Johanns said in the statement announcing the grants. “The selected projects support President Bush’s goal to enhance renewable energy supplies. The grants will help to develop additional renewable energy resources and expand markets for agricultural products.”
Brown’s research team will focus on this process:
Corn stover will be harvested from fields and partially burned to create charcoal and a bio-oil about as thick as motor oil. The bio-oil will be reacted with steam to produce hydrogen. That hydrogen will replace the natural gas typically burned to make anhydrous ammonia fertilizer. The fertilizer and charcoal will be incorporated into the soil.
Brown said there should be three significant results: Farmers producing their own renewable energy to manufacture fertilizer for their fields. Farming that improves soils because the added charcoal supports soil organisms. And the charcoal sequestering carbon in the soil, thus reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Brown estimates a 640-acre farm could sequester the equivalent of 1,800 tons of carbon dioxide in the soil. That’s the annual emissions created by about 340 cars.
Brown uses the phrase reinventing agriculture when he talks about the process.
“The conventional goal of good land stewardship is to minimize soil degradation and the amount of carbon released from the soil,” he said. “This new approach to agriculture has the goal of actually improving soils.”
He said the practice of improving soil by adding charcoal has been traced back to the Amazon basin in the days before Christopher Columbus. People there created dark and productive soils (know as “terra preta,” or “dark earth” soils) by adding charcoal mixed with manure. Those soils are still more productive than surrounding soils that weren’t treated with charcoal.
Killorn, who will study soil fertility as part of the research project, said putting corn stover to work for the environment shows a lot of potential.
“It looks pretty slick, taking these corn stalks and turning them into bio-oil and charcoal,” he said. “If everything works the way we think it will, this looks like a good deal.”
detribe – which is basically saying that organic type farming is actually better. This sort of thing has been done for centuries before industrial fertilisers.
Again it emphasises stewardship of the land and a move away from factory farming.
Oh, so Ender are you saying that the chemical technology envisaged by Iowa State would be accepted by the organic farmers- I very much doubt it, because for a start they wouldnt accept synthetic fertiliser derived from from the H2 stream.
Techniques to build up soil carbon are widely used in modern no-till farming: it not the exclusive property of the organic movement.
English is not my language and I do not master it, but even so I have some critical aspects on CO2 and climate change.
You are sugesting that increased CO2-koncentration will rise the temperature of the earth. Do you have any proof whatsoever that this is true.
How much will the temperature rise if the CO2 koncentration will be (1)doubled (2) twenty times bigger (3) fivehundred times bigger?
The theoretical temperature impact of rising CO2-koncentration on climate can be mesured by FT-IR-spectrofotometers and calculated by Lambert-Beers law. It has been done and the result has been tested. Result: A rising concentration has neglictebal influenses on the temperature of the troposphere.
The IPCC started saying that if the CO2-koncentration doubbeld, then the temperature might be 7,2 degrees higher. This figure has been cut down to 6, to 5 to 3 and now 1 degree.
This has been nescesery becouse the reality has not met up to IPCC:s expectations.
You do not want to dicuss the hockey-stick. Then you may look at http://www.sepp.org/glwarm/majordeception.htlm It is clear that you have better bee critical to the IPCC and the UN.
Goran Tullberg, Sweden
Goran
Your Swiss colleagues using pyranometers wouldn’t agree with you. Also how CO2 absorbs in test tube in a spectrophotometer is not how it reacts in the atmosphere – again references below. The saturation argument has been long dispensed with.
Background on CO2 absorption bands and CO2 physics follows ..
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=168 see comments 19 – 26…
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 31, L03202, doi:10.1029/2003GL018765, 2004
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2003GL018765.shtml
Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the
increasing greenhouse effect
Rolf Philipona,1 Bruno Du¨rr,1 Christoph Marty,1 Atsumu Ohmura,2 and Martin Wild
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2004GL020937.shtml
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 31, L22208, doi:10.1029/2004GL020937, 2004
Greenhouse forcing outweighs decreasing solar radiation driving rapid temperature rise over land
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL023624.shtml
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L19809, doi:10.1029/2005GL023624, 2005
Anthropogenic greenhouse forcing and strong water vapor feedback increase temperature in Europe