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."

" guess you favor lifting all regulations off cars so that we can do without any safety features, pollution features, etc."

Yes, I advocate returning to the point where the consumer (market) decides the level of safety that they would like to purchase and the fuel efficiency they want. We would get a much better performing vehicle almost immediately and the market would be created to invest in new engine technology.

Keep holding the auto industry back with your continual support of government regulation.

"I have read the constitution several times and I still can't find a reference to a freedom to breath clean air. Can you point me in the right direction?"

You may want to go read it again. Our individual freedoms cannot infringe on other peoples freedoms. That is why we have laws beyond the constitution--to ensure that your personal freedom does not infringe or limit mine.

Again, tell me how this differs from limiting how far you are "allowed" to drive for a vacation? How large a home you heat and cool? How much fuel your recreation consumes?

"I would like you to defend your claim that the majority of truck owners never haul anything in them. I have never meet a truck owner who never used it to haul anything."

Unless you hang around people in the construction business or farmers, I would bet if you ask people how often they haul anything (other than groceries), you will find that most people will tell you that they rarely haul anything that requires a truck or an SUV. I have owned several trucks and one SUV, and I rarely hauled anything in them. How many times a year do you really need a sheet of plywood or anything else that requires a truck?

" We already have fuel efficiency standards on cars, and it makes sense to adjust them like we have done with every other product that uses efficiency, including every appliance that you own. "

ALmost all of these standards are simply statements of what is readily available for simple low cost design of any paritcular performance level for an engineered product. What the greens are calling for is extreme cost, low performance and banning everything else. Low performance includes having the product banned altogether.

You surrendered your "right" to breathe clean air when you chose to live in a city, near other humans. Humans pollute. They heat their homes, they breathe, they cook, they eat beans and emit methane. They drive cars, buses, trucks, trains, ships so that you can eat. They burn coal and natural gas so you can watch TV and make half-considered statements on your computer.

My "neighbors" are far enough away so that the report of my .30-06 is a soft thud. Not everyone wants to live in someone else's back pocket. We use the Suburban to take the trailer into town for loads of feed, repair the mower, drop off the washer. Out here in the Tall and Uncut, the idea of "banning" SUVs, (pickup trucks that keep the dog warm) and pickups is a non-starter.

The farmers want ethanol because it increases demand for corn and gives them a reason to farm, even though it does not make sense to do it from an energy policy point of view.

To be more exact, farmers want corn to ethanol fuel production because it increases demand and prices for corn that is already in oversupply since its production is subsidized. Farm subsidies are big business (and a lot of them are paid to big businesses, too, not the relatively small independent operator that they are supposed support).

"Again, tell me how this differs from limiting how far you are "allowed" to drive for a vacation? How large a home you heat and cool? How much fuel your recreation consumes?"

There are no regulations on any of that, but WE HAVE HAD FUEL EFFICIENCY STANDARS FOR CARS FOR MANY YEARS. ADJUSTING THEM TO HELP SAVE ENEGY (LIKE WE HAVE DONE FOR EVERY APPLICANCE IN YOUR HOME) WOULD NOT BE COMMUNISIM, DESPITE THE ARGUMENTS ON THIS BOARD.

"Higher efficiency means MORE not less driving which will increase consumption there for driving demand"

That is a false assumption. You are assuming that people will choose to drive more if their cars get better gas mileage. I don't think that will be the case. Most people drive the amount needed to go to work, etc., so they are not going to just choose to start driving more because their cars get better gas mileage.

Do you disagree that people do limit their fuel consumption because of the recent rise in fuel expense? I see people doing more car pooling, better job of combining their trips. Do you think this is only a one-way cause & effect?

"I do what makes the most sense and let the chips fall where they may."

Don't let facts get in the way of your emotions tho'.

As I understand it, any more than 10% ethanol in U.S. cars would ruin the engine.

Alcohol will not ruin the engine. In fact, alcohol will extend the life of your engine. Some fuel pump diaphrams will deteriiorate with alcohol. This is a minor, easily solved problem. You can switch to run straight alcohol cheaply with off the shelf parts.
.

By that standard, no one can do anything...one cannot even go to the bathroom without imposing "externalities."

I guess what this means is: I cannot argue against your position, so I am going to claim the problem is too complicated to understand (even though we know how much it has cost the country in the Mid-East over the last 15 years through two major wars and all the other aid). Until the US is involved in a war over water rights, flushing the toilet is not likely to lead to issues of strategic importance.

SUVs became popular as an unintended consequence of the very fuel efficiency standards you like so much.

The end result was more, not less, fuel used. People bought larger vehicles to replace the full-size cars they could no longer buy.

"To be more exact, farmers want corn to ethanol fuel production because it increases demand and prices for corn that is already in oversupply since its production is subsidized. Farm subsidies are big business (and a lot of them are paid to big businesses, too, not the relatively small independent operator that they are supposed support)."

I agree that people have cut consumption from the costs, but I dont' think that people will drive twice as much if our cars get twice the gas mileage and nullify the higher fuel efficiency as you claim. It won't happen.

I would really like to see a regulation that required a vehicle to be heavier. I suspect, that the automobile manufacture chose this method to meet crash test requirements.

The requirements for ABS and airbags added a lot of weight. The biggest weight addition was replacing the small, light engine with a heavier one that had already undergone the prohibitively expensive tests for American emissions standards (as opposed to the stringent European standards it already met). But we do have insurance-industry-bought bumper requirements, so the manufacturer had to get a hardship exemption from bumper rules, and also headlight rules (for this car, the bumper and headlamp issues are related).

All that also upped the price over 30%. That's your government looking out for you.

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