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."

Not to be rude, but I know more about the law than you ever will (I have two law degrees). I would explain it for you, but it would take too long.

It's been fun folks, but I got to run.

people will tell you that they rarely haul anything

Again, you are changing your claim. First you challenged who should drive the vehicles, then claimed you wanted to change the vehicles. Next you claimed never, then changed to rarely. So, how often do I have to load up my Bronco or Expedition to defend it to you? Do you have to wonder why people will not take you seriously?

If you are going to mention Adam Smith, you need to carry your economic analysis through to the point you've captured the externalities - the cost in lives (1,900) and treasure ($300 billion) to keep the oil flowing in the Mid-East. The knee-jerk response of invoking Marx on your opponent is only worthy of liberal "racist, sexist, homophobe" type ad hominem attacks, and should be discouraged.

"Now obviously, I can't haul a full sized travel trailer of boat with my vehicle, nor do I use it as a contractor would, but it serves my purposes."

Sure. I used a Festiva to haul more concrete grain and lumber than you did on a regular basis. Of course I gutted it and redid the suspension and tires first. However, I have a truck to do the serious hauling. Festivas and Tauruses just don't have the balls to take on more than the occasional overload.

Why don't we bump up the ethanol percentage and it will help reduce our gasoline usage.

Because, if this guy is correct, the amount of energy contained in a gallon of ethanol is less than the amount of energy consumed to produce it. In other words, every gallon of it consumed actually increases the demand for other fuels, primarily fossil fuels.

OTOH, I've seen other studies that say the energy balance is positive, albeit not by a large amount. Given the quantity of subsidies for both corn and for ethanol production it seems apparent that at the least it is not a cost-effective way of producing fuel, although $60/bbl oil may have changed that. So the question remains, would anyone be doing corn to ethanol production without government subsidies?

Currently a plant called Switchgrass leads the pack for producing ethanol. Still it is not economical (for the grower or processor) without government subsidies.

Switchgrass does not really lead the pack for producing ethanol, it was just the original model system used for research. It requires an environmentally-unfriendly acid hydrolysis of the biomass to convert lignocellulose to sugars that can be fermented. Grains are used since the sugars in the starch tend to be the readily fermentable kind. If the process for lignocellulosic fermentation gets worked out, any type of plant material (including wood chip byproducts) could be used. Some very close to the industry say that the process has been "10 years from commercialization" for 50 years.

"I have owned several trucks and one SUV, and I rarely hauled anything in them."

Ah, now I see, guilt ridden emotions begging for a government smack down. The birth place of every liberal piece of legislation.

Switchgrass is a better choice than corn; it grows with very little care (and in poor soils) and has more energy content than corn.

True, but switchgrass doesn't have mega agro-conglomerates like ADM lobbying for its use and subsidies to promote its use.

Using ethanol is more a way of using excess corn production and I think that is fine for that purpose.

But why is there excess corn production, year after year? I think we all know the answer to that question. Would seem to be smarter to not subsidize the over production of corn so as to end up with a cheap feedstock for an inefficient fuel.

How are you getting it started and what are you doing with the empty cans?:)

The Omni-Pak ignition will fire wet plugs with no problem. This is not new technology. Racers have been running methanol for decades. The methanol is delivered in 55 gallon drums and the farm supply picks up the empties.
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We also are regulating small diesels out of existence, even thought they use less fuel and put out less CO2, CO and HC than equivalent gasoline engines, because of NOx and particulates.

Sad, espeically considering you can make cheap, clean biodiesel in your garage using leftover vegatable oil and run that in your diesel. Such small diesels are popular in Europe, and some, like VW/Audi's TDi and Mercedes' diesel, are great. This ain't your grand-dad's diesel anymore.

"I know more about the law than you ever will (I have two law degrees). I would explain it for you, but it would take too long."

So, you have been indoctrinated that the Constitution is a living document. That's all your statement tells the FR community. Let me give you a hint, if it takes to long to explain then it doesn't exist in the original intent of the document.

"It's been fun folks, but I got to run."

And hide.

Please, for the sake of the constitution and conservatism, keep running.

Do you want a government that controls how big your house may be? How far you are allowed to travel for vacation? How far away from work you are allowed to live? What kind of recreation you do? (boating, racing, RV's all consume fuel)

Here's the thing, in my mind. The gov't already decided how much of the money you earn you will get to keep. How is it essentially different for the gov't to interfere in all those other things? All for the greater good, of course (rolls eyes, sighs).

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