His stance on ethanol sets Cal professor apart

It began benignly enough as an assignment for the 15 freshmen in Tad Patzek's UC Berkeley college seminar class. But it soon mushroomed into something much larger.

Patzek found himself in the national spotlight as his scientific paper published in June touched raw nerves throughout the nation's energy and farm industries. Gas prices were climbing higher; Congress was in the midst of drafting an energy policy; and the article criticized one possible solution -- making ethanol fuel from corn.

Hundreds of newspapers wrote about the publication. E-mails flooded Patzek's in-box. People yelled at him over the phone. He was invited to the National Press Club in Washington to debate the issue and to Chicago to speak to investors.

Patzek and David Pimentel, a Cornell scientist who had been a lone public voice against corn ethanol for more than 30 years, argued that corn ethanol did the environment more harm than good. Growing corn, fertilizing the fields, transporting it to the factories and then out to where it was needed took more energy than the resulting ethanol would ultimately generate, they said.

Detractors, including corn growers, federal government researchers and other academics, took offense at Patzek's stance. They saw ethanol as an environment-friendly way of reducing the nation's dependence on foreign fossil fuels.

Opponents pointed to Patzek's oil industry days, saying he had ulterior motives. They said he and Pimentel knew nothing about agriculture and had relied on irrelevant data. They even criticized the premise of Patzek's arguments, which were based on the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

Patzek, 52, took the criticisms in stride. He is a mostly good-humored man who possesses an unflappable, but not pretentious, confidence in his intellect. And having grown up in post-World War II Poland under the Communist regime, he already knew well the role of rebel.

Patzek's rebellious roots extend at least as far back as his grandfather, a Polish officer during World War II who spent five years in a German concentration camp. To stave off the boredom and despair that permeated the camp, Patzek's grandfather, a physicist, taught physics to anyone who would listen, and organized a theater.

In postwar Poland, Patzek's father also rebelled. He joined a student militia group when the Russian army liberated the town of Gliwice where he was studying at the university. When he fired on Russian soldiers threatening some women, he was expelled, although later allowed to return. He also refused to join the Communist party, though the choice meant he could not teach despite a doctorate in chemical engineering.

As a young boy, his father continually quizzed Patzek, giving him hypothetical situations, then asking him to decide between right and wrong.

In high school, Patzek took his education into his own hands. He liked learning on his own better than at school and began staying home three of six days to study. When his teachers got wind of his program, they agreed to it, but only if he met higher standards than the other students.

Patzek rebelled against Communism in high school and college. His views were so well-known that like his father he was forbidden to teach at Silesian Technical University after graduating with a master's degree. Communist officials told him he would "deprive the Polish youth of their innocence."

While a graduate student at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Patzek, then 26, helped organize the first Solidarity chapter at the chemical engineering center -- before it was legal to do so.

If the foundation of his defiance was laid in Poland, so too was a fierce loyalty to the environment. His family's house lay on the edge of fields and forest that stretched as far as the eye could see. Returning for a visit to Poland in 1991 after 10 years in the United States, he saw the destruction wrought by industrialization. Large homes had replaced the fields. Gone were the swamp, creeks, frogs and storks.

"It was affirmation of what I already knew," he said. "That we humans do a lot of bad things to the environment."

Patzek's life is nearly consumed by his work. "He is a workaholic, that's for sure," said his wife of 25 years, Joanna.

When not at work, he's often reading, late at night and during meals. He even reads while they watch a movie, though that doesn't stop him from commenting, she said. Typical books have titles such as "Carbon-Nitrogen-Sulfur, the Environmental Science of Dirty Water," "The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won't Run the World" and the three-part volume of "A History of Common Human Delusions."

At parties and at the dinner table, he's always teaching or prompting discussions around "what we should and shouldn't do," Joanna Patzek said. Current topics include saving water with shorter showers, dangerous chemicals in cosmetics and, of course, ethanol.

In his personal life, Patzek thinks somewhat obsessively about how to be a good citizen to the environment. During the summer, he rides his bike a few times a week to UC Berkeley from the Oakland hills. He drives his Nissan Altima, which gets 34 miles per gallon, only about 8,000 miles a year. Walks on the beach were never just that; he, his wife and their three grown children are always armed with bags to pick up trash. Insulating his house is an ongoing project, and he plans to try solar panels on the roof.

But until he joined the corn ethanol debate, Patzek's professional work didn't touch directly on environmental concerns. Instead, he focused on energy, working for seven years at Shell Development Co. His contribution to society was to help provide the fossil fuels it needed, he told himself.

By the time he left Shell, his philosophical views had changed. "I realized that society will never have enough energy," Patzek said. "We are incurable addicts. Our national policy is to satisfy the addict."

As a professor at UC Berkeley, he continued research that looked at how to efficiently extract fossil fuels. But he was bothered by the increasing environmental damage done as the oil fields became depleted. He began thinking about how he as a scientist could take a bigger, more relevant and more holistic approach to society's problems.

The ethanol corn debate may have thrust him into just that. What started almost as a whim after reading a book by Pimentel has become much larger. Patzek is now planning a center at UC Berkeley to take a careful look at all energy sources, including fossil fuels, biofuels like ethanol, solar and nuclear. He wants scientists to devise a common framework for evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of each. Such a forum is necessary to inform U.S. policy, he said.

Patzek's opponents on the other side of the corn ethanol discussion have similar concerns about the diminishing supply of fossil fuels.

But to hear them debate one can't help but wonder whether either hears anything the other says. Each accuses the other of misrepresenting, misusing and excluding data, as well as not understanding the full scope of the problem. And while supporters argue corn ethanol can be part of the energy solution, Patzek argues vehemently that it cannot.

"However you look at it, this is a rather inefficient way of concentrating solar energy into fuel," he said. It takes more energy to make ethanol than what is produced, he said.

In addition, he argues that ultimately, ethanol can contribute only a single-digit portion of the nation's fuel. Yet it causes environmental damage with pesticides and fertilizers, and co-opts land that could otherwise be dedicated to food.

There is no magic bullet to replace fossil fuels, Patzek said. He says the United States drastically needs to reduce its energy use. Fuel efficiency standards need to rise. People must commute less by living closer to work. Food should be produced locally, instead of shipped and trucked from far-away places.

Patzek's harshest critics in the corn ethanol debate say he is ignorant and arrogant.

"I think he needs to do his homework, spend some time actually learning things before he talks about them," said Bruce Dale, a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at Michigan State University.

Friendlier opponents, like Rick Tolman, CEO of the National Corn Growers Association, say Patzek has no practical knowledge of farms or a typical ethanol production plant. Nonetheless, Patzek earned Tolman's respect at the National Press Club debate when he remained composed and friendly even when eight people consecutively stood up to shoot his logic down.

"Patzek's point is the same as ours," said John Sheehan, a senior engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. "The size of the energy problem is huge."

For the sake of the country, the differences between the two sides should be worked out, Sheehan said.

"It has to be worked out," he said. "Because this country has to make rational choices."

I am not advocating driving Yugos or hybrids or any other small car, but I just don't think it makes sense to be driving vehicles that get 10 mpg in today's world.

The point that you're missing is that what may not make sense to you makes perfect sense to other people. Since you have no way of knowing the details of someone else's personal life, priorities, cash flow, and transportation needs, you can't know whether a vehicle that gets 10mpg is or isn't the most economical solution to that individual's problems.

The communists thought they could know all that information, and make central decisions about issues such as fuel, heating, etc. In fact, to this day Russian apartment buildings don't have thermostats or valves on their radiators, and are heated via steam from a central plant.

The advantage of the free market is that the problem of 10mpg vehicles in a climate of $3 gasoline is self-correcting - prices of large SUVs and Hummers are falling through the floor as people rush to unload them, and people keeping them aren't driving them as much.

" I would argue that it seems that you would rather use ad hominem attacks rather than any logical arguments."

Uh, you started with the illogical, factless, and ridiculous statement in post #8 "We could cut our consumption in half by raising fuel efficiency standards. That is a good place to start."

No, we couldn't. That is a false claim. You have nothing to base that on other than your hopes.

In fact, even a hybrid advocate said that if were replaced the vehicles on the road with hybrids, we could reduce usage by 15% Not 50. And that assumes that hybrids get the mileage they claim, which most times, they do not.

Other studies have shown that if every SUV was replaced with a hybrid,the savings would last no more than a couple of years, before increased demand raised usage to above the previous levels.

Again, when you argue for government control of standards, you are NOT a conservative. So don't even bother to put yourself off as one. People will chose their cars according to their needs,and they will adjust their usage accordingly.

BTW, in your quuest for feeling good about yourself, you apparently don't give a damn that raising CAFE Standards cost lives:

Fuel Efficiency Regulations Cost Lives and Money

by Mary Katherine Ascik

That new car you just bought may be a threat to your health - and even your life - thanks to Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. These federal rules are responsible for thousands of needless deaths and injuries. Not only that, CAFE standards make it difficult for many Americans to afford safe cars.

The CAFE program was established by Congress in 1975. Current CAFE standards require motor vehicle manufacturers' fleets of cars to average 27.5 miles per gallon of gasoline and their fleets of light trucks (which include minivans and SUVs) to average 20.7 miles per gallon.1 The only affordable way for automakers to meet these standards is to reduce the mass and weight of their vehicles.2

This reduction has had deadly consequences. According to a study by the National Research Council (NRC), reductions in vehicle mass and weight necessary to meet CAFE standards increase the risk of death or serious injury in crashes. The NRC study found that vehicle downsizing and downweighting resulted in between 1,300 and 2,600 deaths and between 13,000 and 26,000 serious injuries in 1993 alone.3 A USA Today report, using data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, estimated that 46,000 people - nearly as many Americans as lost their lives in the Vietnam War - have died since 1975 as a result of the vehicle downsizing and downweighting due to CAFE standards.4

CAFE standards have also been responsible for several hundred thousand injuries. African-Americans should be particularly concerned about these dangers because motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for black children.5

CAFE standards also make it harder for people to purchase cars. To meet fuel efficiency requirements, automakers must sell a certain number of small (read: fuel efficient) cars. But to induce consumers to purchase these small cars, automakers must sell them at little more than their production cost.6 To recover the profits lost through the sale of these small cars, automakers must raise the prices of larger cars and light trucks. In short, according to environmental policy expert Charli Coon of The Heritage Foundation, "CAFE standards act as a tax on larger, safer cars that is used in turn to subsidize sales of smaller, less safe cars that get more miles per gallon."7

This de facto tax on larger cars and light trucks essentially discriminates against people who have lower incomes, larger families, need a larger vehicle or just want to own a safer car. African-Americans are particularly affected, since their incomes tend to be lower than those of whites.8

CAFE standards make today's small cars smaller than ever, making them more dangerous than when the CAFE program was established in 1975.9 Since smaller cars are more dangerous, collision insurance for small cars is now more expensive than for larger cars and light trucks. Small, cheap cars also depreciate more quickly and can be easily damaged even in minor accidents.10

In the 27 years since they were established, CAFE standards have not only taken a toll on consumers' lives, health and wallets; they have also failed to accomplish the goals for which they were created - reducing U.S. gasoline consumption and dependence on foreign oil. Since CAFE standards were established in 1975, oil imports have increased from approximately 35 percent of supply to 52 percent.11 Although fuel efficiency has improved, this improvement has encouraged people to drive more. Hence, CAFE has had little success in reducing overall fuel usage.12

CAFE is a failed government program that has had deadly and costly consequences for thousands of Americans, and it places those with lower incomes at particular risk. It's time to repeal CAFE standards and put safety first.

You want logical arguments? Here's a hint: They start with the use of facts, not feelings. All you've provided is feelings. I've got enough facts to prove you wrong all day long.

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