Peak oil, peak coal, green house gasses

I simply wasn't. The green revolution increased food production 3x on 10% more land. Some of the land was different. That means yield increased about 175%. To feed more people we either need higher yield, or different sources. Less meat greatly increases yield per acre, some are talking about insects. You get the picture we can feed 9 billion people, it just may be a problem if they all want a car that is as inefficient as they are today.

I assume the environmental damage and high food prices from corn ethanol, meant that we don't need to calculate the fuel yield. If A is a bad idea, what difference does it make how bad of an idea it is. For cane from brazil, I measure it in gallons of ethanol per acre, and include other fuel inputs. So lets say around 650 gallons of ethanol per acre per year, with an EROEI of around 8.

Algea can produce about 10,000 gallons of oil per acre per year. That oil does cost a great deal more than cane based alcohol.

 

Since we were on the subject of corn ethanol, the congress may get the mandate amended. The next iowa primary is a long way away, so maybe some of the bad policy will be reduced.

Corn Falls as Ethanol Mandate May Be Cut; Soybeans, Wheat Drop - Bloomberg

The mandate in 2012 is twice as much as the ethanol used in 2007. Japan is the biggest importing country from the US corn. This year Mexico's corn crop is being hit hard and they will greatly increase imports for the United States.






Since I'm sure one of you will ask about yield, here are my guesstimates. Remember it is lower this year because of the drought. On average they say you get about 400 gallons of ethanol per acre of corn. The EROEI is only about 1.3 for corn ethanol, it will be less than 1 this year. When you include land use it produces about as much ghg as gasoline, although much of it is natural gas to make fertilizer and make the alcohol. That is substituting natural gas for gasoline. We have a much simpler process that doesn't take any land. You just make methanol from the natural gas directly. The problem is government and the vehicle fleet. Make those new cars able to do E25 and M25, in years like this we can use M15 instead of E10. It will replace a little more oil than the ethanol did, and produce only a tiny bit more ghg . The dead zone in the gulf might even start recovering if we do that enough years. Some refinery will make the money instead of ADM and Con Agra though, and that is a problem in congress.

 

I didn't realize the report was out
7,480 square kilometers is smaller but its still huge. The reason it shrank is not likely to keep it down, unless farm policies change.
http://www.gulfhypoxia.net/News/documents/PressReleaseVers27Jul12.pdf

Both parties seem to favor the ethanol lobby. The poor corn crop, along with general incompetence, does hurt incumbents more than challengers. The bad crop should hurt the ethanol lobby though in the non-corn states.

 

Any of the corn crop can be used to make ethanol. The corn crop planted for ethanol, is suitable for animal feed, which means lowering the mandate in drought years, reduces prices for feed, how this trickles down is anyone's guess. Sometimes high feed prices force farmers to slaughter more of the animals which can lower meat prices in the short term, other times its added to the price of milk and meat. Just having the mandate means farmers plant more acreage for corn, leaving less for other crops, and increasing the cost of food.

Absolutely agree that E85 engines can be very efficient when designed for the fuel. Flex fuel can also come from crops other than corn. I am in favor of flex fuel engines and IMHO we should be doing more like E25/M25 on all engines, and up to E100 on others as brazil does. That allows the fleet to use the best fuel.

There isn't a food shortage, just cost and allocation problems. I do not like factory farms because of the animal treatment/disease/hormone/antibiotic issues, but banning them won't produce more food.