BioFuels and Global Warming

Surplus corn was seen across the Midwest in recent years, due to the US dependence on the grain. In 2007 it reached all time highs as farmers cashed in on the biofuel opportunities. But what was that all about anyway?

Anyone who drove through the Midwest last year couldn't help but to see that corn was growing everywhere. Acres were devoted to it far from the corn belt up near Traverse City, it was on every available acre that anyone could sow. The price was up and people were feeling good about helping global warming and the fuel, dare I say, crisis?

But what was going on here? It seems that everyone I spoke to who knew anything about corn, fuel, and the politics of biofuel, said the same thing. NO GO. And now the research is saying the same. Despite some supportive analysis, people are finding that those who knew what they were talking about, really did know. There are several interrelated issues with depending on corn for our future fuel.

For example, have you noticed the price of food lately? Have you any idea how much of our food is dependent on corn? (Read The Omnivore's Dilemma for a great analysis) More corn (27% in 2007, versus 20% in 2006) is being used to create ethanol. That means less is available, and supply and demand dictates that the price of corn will rise, as it did, and so did our food.

But there are now several references (this is the link to the Science article) to that fact that ethanol is not helping one of the main reasons we are moving in that direction - global warming is not reduced by using ethanol. Land use changes have released more carbon dioxide into the air. Unbroken soil is a great sequester of CO2. Oh yes, and since corn is a thirsty crop, it is straining already tenuous water supplies.

One of the new studies, however, found that due to the impact of plowing up new fields, corn-based ethanol nearly doubles greenhouse-gas emissions compared to gasoline and that fuels made from switchgrass increase emissions by about 50 percent. Not all biofuels were net losers, though. The study authors suggested that producing biofuels from waste products still makes sense. (Grist)

The studies continue on saying that there are better ways to convert fields to biofuel, better crops, and maybe even using less water. Corn uses a lot of water, and the varieties grown today are hybrids, dependent on fossil fuel based fertilizers.

But how did we get into this crazed mode last year when everything was coming up corn? Politics, in a word. Agriculture and farmers have been suffering over the past few decades, and anything that looks like profit will be followed by those who depend on subsidies in order to break even. The agricultural lobby LOVED the idea of more corn, and high prices, and pushed it on the farmers, and they bit without analyzing the economic and environmental costs. As it turned out it ended up costing the consumers higher food prices, and the environment with more global warming. Subjectively the farmers are always looking for something, anything, to make a profit. Agriculture is a rough and tumble industry. Farmers are played by the political forces, and objectivity (what is actually good for the people) is never really broached.

When will we learn to be objective? I thought that was what science was supposed to be all about. It is time to leave politics behind and begin find the best form of energy, and to learn conservation too. There are ways to be energy rich and be efficient too. We just have to buckle down and work. We are not entitled, we are responsible.

PS I am adding this on March 29. Just saw the new Time Magazine and corn and biofuels are on the cover. The clean energy myth.

Michigan elevates its wind power

A wind farm in the thumb has delivered the first large scale alternative energy to the state.

Thirty-two wind turbines now provide power to Pigeon, a community of 14,000. After years of talk the state—the 14th windiest in the nation thanks to its Great lake frontage—has finally entered the alternative energy race. These turbines join the 4 or 5 others in the state, and change the wind energy ranking from 30th to 22nd. Still only 3% of all Michigan's power is renewable, (60% is non-renewable coal) but growth has been steadily increasing. Twenty other wind projects are proposed across the state. Michigan has the ability to produce 267 times the current wind power.

Governor Jennifer Granholm has been vying for additional additional alternative energy sources, 10% by 2015, and if she succeeds Michigan would join the 28 other states that have required a commitment. Not only that, but the demand for wind power (which currently has wind companies with a two-year backlog) could bring up to 17,000 jobs and $6 billion in investments. The new wind turbines were made in Denmark.

Another source of jobs and entrepreneurship is to develop the current transmission infrastructure to support the new energy sources. Current transmission limits the distance that the renewable energy can travel. The best place to build wind turbines is in rural areas.
States' wind power

The United States added 5,244 megawatts of wind power last year for a total of 16,800 megawatts nationwide. The states with the most installed wind power as of Dec. 31:

1. Texas... 4,356 MW

2. California...2,439 MW

3. Minnesota...1,299 MW

4. Iowa...1,273 MW

5. Washington...1,163 MW

22. Michigan...56 MW*

* As of March 2008

Source: American Wind Energy Association

The Rising Cost of Food

Have you noticed what has been happening to the cost of food? If you haven't you should, it is going up. Way up. Along with energy and fuel costs, and related to it (how does that artichoke get from California to Michigan if not for fossil fuel?) the American consumer is finding out what it means to live in a world that depends on fossil fuel to transport its food an average of 1500 miles, and has had a steadily declining value to its currency (the value of the dollar has halved in relation to the Euro in the past 6 years). In the past 12 months the cost of food has risen 5.1% the worst inflation since the early 1990s. For example in the past years increases include:

• Milk and dried legumes are up 17%
• Cheese 15%
• Rice and pasta 13%
• Bread 12%
• eggs 25% (and 62% in the past 2 years)
• chicken up 10%
• apples up 11.7%
  

Click on
image to enlarge

So what's a person to do? Well, many of us have been doing this for a long time already - grow a garden (also in the Freep on 3/14/08). It has always made a lot of sense. No more cardboard tomatoes, and a bounty of fresh fruit and veggies with nutrition intact.

Now many people are going to turn ever more toward the cheapest foods-processed foods, but be wary - they are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Processed foods lack nutritive value, made with the cheapest ingredients, and preserved with chemicals that shouldn't enter one's body unless they are interred (and I even question that). Processed foods have all kinds of bad fats (they are cheaper) and are filled with sodium and or sugar(to enhance boiled out flavor). They travel thousands of miles to sit on your store shelves. AND eating processed meats or red meats are an established source of cancer (reduce your meat consumption).

It is just more sustainable to eat what you grow (and have control over), reduce fossil fuel transport that is not necessary, and have a healthy nation (less obesity, less cancer, less diabetes). Don't you think?

Climate Change, Transportation, & Jobs

I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis, August 1, 2007. Is aging infrastructure something 'they' don't want to own up to? Should there be more funding? Can we afford it with a growing population and a growing expense for natural resources?

Maybe you have been wondering about all the so-called jobs that will come with accepting renewable energy and living in a world with climate change. Well, this article is not directly about jobs, but read it and think about what types of jobs will be required to answer the questions that this article is addressing. The jobs will be unique for the current time, because they will be "thinking" jobs, ones that are not the same old, same old. It is the youth of today who will answer these questions and think up new ideas. What an exciting challenge. And those of you who have been a part of these blogs are well on the way to living in this "new" world that is coming. I have been very impressed with your thoughts and ideas and feel that you are on the right track to exciting opportunities.

And so, what is this article? Transportation. Changes that will be required because of climate change. Specifically it notes:

• increases in very hot days and heat waves
• increases in Arctic temperatures
• rising sea levels
• increases in intense precipitation events
• increases in hurricane intensity.
  

Each of these climate change results will create infrastructure headaches (and even a few 'good' things, like being able to sail the Arctic!). Things break, things age in the normal course. With climate change it will no longer be the old normal, but a new normal, one that is seemingly random or chaotic - until we have minds that begin to work WITH the changes, instead of trying to do the "conquering of nature" as we have in the near past.

Each of these challenges will require people who are thinking outside the current box, and creating a new box (which, of course, will also require going outside of it). People will need to be expert in various transportation modes, climate change and effects, as well as working with one another to adjust the infrastructure.

Infrastructure. A majority of the roads, bridges, highway, and tunnels in America were completed in the 1960s. That is now getting to be close to 50 years old. Everywhere there are problems with infrastructure that is aging. Roads with potholes, bridges falling down or on the cusp of failure, tunnels losing panels due to poor construction quality, highways congested and worn out. Not only to they all have to be corrected, but rethinking how to proceed into the new sustainable future. Do we all have to have cars ALL THE TIME? Is there a way to share some transportation, or heaven forbid, live nearby our work? Can we change the way we live? As we rethink our infrastructure we will need to also rethink how we live and can we continue as we have been? Do we need to rethink our patterns in life? Hey! we can use a few geographers and urban planners for that.

There are many jobs that have not yet come to be, but if you keep reading the many issues and new opportunities in the sustainable world we are shaping, then, you will find your way.

Making Renewable Energy Affordable -Michigan

Twenty five states have requirements that more electricity is to come from renewable sources. Michigan is not one of them, but Governor Granholm would like Michigan to be come the 26th state. Unfortunately she has faced a very partisan legislature, which has stymied her every move. According to an article in the Sunday March 9, 2008 Free Press

Some Republican lawmakers are reluctant to mandate green power.

The majority of Michigan's power is coal generated (60%)and new electricity sources are needed. According to the article:

No matter which fuel is used to generate electricity, costs are going to go up because state regulators say Michigan needs at least one new multibillion-dollar power plant by 2015, and another nine could be needed by 2025 if demand grows as expected.

Granholm believes that Michigan has the potential to become a regional manufacturer of renewable energy sources - something that would bring in much needed capital ($6 Billion) and create 17,000 jobs.

The problem is that it will cost consumers more to move toward renewable energy. The House is considering capping resident's additional costs at $3 monthly over 20 years.

Granholm wants to require power companies to produce 10% of electric power by 2015, and 25% by 2025. Currently, about 3% of Michigan's electricity is renewable.

So should Michigan become a "green power" state? Is this important for our economy? Is there a future is a renewable economy? And....do we need to continue to grow our use of electricity, or should we learn to conserve power, rather than continue to grow in its use? The US consumes almost a third of world power, but is only 4% of the total population.

United Arab Emirates Going Green?

The World Islands . 300 artificially created islands in the shape of the world. Each island will have an estimated cost of $25-30 million.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) have made a LOT of money off of the sales of crude oil. The desert country (the western boundary is so desert the boundary remains undetermined even today) has decided to use its wealth to become the biggest and best of everything. Dubai has made many headlines with its over the top construction projects including artificial islands (as seen above and below) that represent palms and a map of the world.

This is Dubai, a city-state that has been on a rampage to make the biggest everything in the world, the biggest artificial islands (that is a one of their "palm islands" housing thousands of millionaire homes), largest indoor ski mountain, largest amusement park, largest shopping mall, highest building etc. etc.

Not to be outdone by Dubai, Abu Dubai (pop. 1.8 million) has decided to build a $15 billion development, Masdar City - the greenist outpost on the planet. The new city is advertised as the first totally sustainable city–a car-free, zero-carbon, no waste development running on alternative energy. They are building it because as the CEO of the development, Sultan al Jaber says, "because we can, and because we should."

The United Arab Emirates is located at the entrance of the Persian Gulf to the south of Iran. The federation is formed from 7 Arab Sheikdoms that are city-states. The country is one of the wealthiest in the world and has been cited repeatedly for human rights abuses and discrimination.

What are your thoughts on the development in the Arab states?

• Is building a green city the best way to spend their money?
  
• What are your thoughts of building artificial islands in the Gulf?
• Should the US follow suit and build in our gulf?
  
• Is building a green city (built on oil money) in the middle of a desert the future?
  
• Should Houston be doing the same?