Posted on 09/26/2005 7:39:01 AM PDT by SmithL
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.
Then there are those who say they want to continue the conversation.
"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."
Reach Judy Silber at 925-977-8507 or jsilber@cctimes.com.
I put a 20% ethanol gas in my VW once and the thing made the most horrible sounds -- I thought it was going to die. I siphoned out the "gas," filled it with premium, and the sound was gone in about 30 miles. Never again.
This will get the thread to 300 posts...
"Uh, because all fuel usage isn't done by cars, genius."
Shhh, ya might get in the way of his agenda of promoting plastics over steel!
Existance of bad laws is not justification for me to accept others without protest.
The unintended consequences were the result of not making the standards universal, which was intended to allow working vehicles to still exist.
If you'll note, the "production subsidies" are largely in the nature of deficiency payments. Anything which tends to raise the price of corn (such as increased ethanol production)reduces the deficiency payment.
Although, in the U.S., the EPA is giving Mercedes grief about the urea treatment ("it could run out, and the owner might not refill it!")
Bureaucrats.
We already tax "per gallon". Why do we need any taxes based upon what we might get?
"Ethanol is currently the best replacement for gasoline at the current time. Most gasoline now has a 6& to 8% ethanol content (check the stickers on the pump next time you fill up). Why don't we bump up the ethanol percentage and it will help reduce our gasoline usage."
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http://www.free-eco.org/articleDisplay.php?id=21
The Ethanol Boondoggle
Most ethanol is made from Midwest corn. Hence, it's not surprising the region's congressmen and their agribusiness constituents support this mandate. Ethanol producers, led by Archer Daniels Midland, would have us believe ethanol will increase U.S. energy independence, clean up the environment, and provide new markets for farmers. These are lies.
Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Academy of Sciences reported that adding ethanol to gasoline at best will have no effect on air quality and could even make it worse.
Pollutants in automobile emissions have been dropping for decades and are
now only 5 percent of their 1960s levels. Most of the improvement is due to
technological innovations, i.e., better emissions equipment and cleaner-burning engines. Further, fuel-injection systems (standard equipment since the early 1980s) eliminate the need for oxygenated fuels.
Adding oxygenators to gas to reduce carbon monoxide made sense 30 years ago.
However, for cars built since 1983, oxygenated fuels are obsolete and pointless.
A study last year by Cornell University scientist David Pimentel highlighted
another problem. Most replacements for gas--including ethanol--have to be
manufactured. It turns out this process is both energy-intensive and expensive. Pimentel's analysis showed that it takes about 70 percent more energy to produce ethanol than the resultant ethanol yields. The additional energy comes from, you guessed it, fossil fuels.
Pimentel found it costs $1.74 to produce a gallon of ethanol, twice that for
gasoline. He notes that's why "fossil fuels--not ethanol--are used to produce ethanol.... Growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol."
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And that's you and me subsidizing the production of ethanol - wasting more energy and tax dollars, and harming the environment.
All so we can line the pockes of companies like ADM and buy votes in Iowa for politicians.
Yay.
As an aside, living in Houston I found over the last week that the gas stations never ran out of diesel. Given the great MPG and that fact, I'm leaning that way for next car purchase.
A suggestion for this "scientist" at Berkley - go back to Poland and improve the environment there.
Its obvious he is a tool of BIG oil and their stance is that any competition of any type that reduces our dependence on petroleum from Saudia Arabia has to be fought with every tool they have including the deluded Pole.
There is no true free market anyway, only the somewhat close approximation we have. Don't forget that ethanol is subsidized, so there are hidden costs there too.
But the answer to anything is rarely regulation, as we've seen in the past the unintended consequences of regulation. Airrbags mandatory -- oops, kids are dying. Fuel economy must go up -- oops people are dying because manufacturers cut weight in their cars to get better economy before the technology was there to make light, safe cars.
I would love to see the drafters of these regulations up on manslaughter charges for the unintended consequences of their regulations. Maybe that'll slow down new ones.
He thinks there really is such a thing as a free lunch.
I wonder where he thinks the plastics that make up the lightweight, fuel-efficient cars comes from?
Oh wait, they get those plastics from Petroleum!
At least he outed himself as a nanny stater on this thread.
Oops, wrong one. What's the Explorer based on? But the intent stands: bigger does not necessarily mean safer, and sometimes can be the opposite.
Because at some point you have to move beyond the theoretical and pick a method - that was mine. My Corolla will get around three times the MPG as a Hummer, so basing the tax on that will get us in the ballpark, which means more accurately applying the true costs. It does not have to be perfect.
One of the reasons I like switchgrass is that it's an ideal crop for the southeast, and they need something to replace tobacco.
One of the problems is building the infrastructure, i.e., cropland, transport, processing and production. Now seems as good a time as any for that...
Quotes: "The prospect of cheap cellulosic ethanol makes it possible to envision a very different energy landscape. Since it doesn't require fuel-intensive refining, Iogen's product would provide a net energy gain. If it becomes competitive with gasoline, we could begin substituting cellulosic ethanol for imported gas. According to an estimate by the consulting firm Burrill Co., if the waste products of all American farms were converted into cellulosic ethanol (a long-term, best-case scenario to be sure) it would provide 25 percent of all the energy needed to run our transportation system--about the same percentage which we import today from Venezuela and the Persian Gulf combined. (The rest currently comes from U.S. sources, Canada, and Mexico.)"
"Most intriguing of all is switchgrass, a hardy North American plant that can be raised without irrigation and harvested with a low-labor process similar to mowing the lawn. In other words, it requires very little energy to bring to harvest compared with ethanol's traditional corn. According to Cornell's Pimentel, roughly 15 percent of the North American continent consists of land that is unsuitable for food farming but workable for switchgrass cultivation. Given the typical energy yield of switchgrass, a rough calculation indicates that if all that land were planted with switchgrass, we could replace every single gallon of gas consumed in the United States with a gallon of inexpensive, domestically produced, and more environmentally-friendly cellulosic ethanol."
Quotes: ""The WTW model for cellulosic ethanol showed greenhouse gas emission reductions of about 80% [over gasoline]," said Wang. "Corn ethanol showed 20 to 30% reductions." (WTW stands for Well-to-Wheel.)
""The key to producing enough ethanol is switchgrass," says Greene. Switchgrass shows great potential for improving yields, offers environmental benefits and can be grown in diverse areas across the country. Current average yields are five dry tons per acre. Crop experts have concluded standard breeding techniques, applied progressively and consistently, could more than double the yield of switchgrass. Yield improvements predicted by the report of 12.4 dry tons per acre are in keeping with results from breeding programs with crops such as corn and other grasses. The innovations discussed have a net effect of reducing the total land required to grow switchgrass to an estimated 114 million acres. Sufficient switchgrass could be grown on this acreage to produce 165 billion gallons of ethanol by 2050, which is equivalent to 108 billion gallons of gasoline. The next logical question is how do we integrate switchgrass production into our agricultural systems. The answer lies with the ability to produce animal protein from switchgrass. "If we have cost-effective agricultural policy, farmers will rethink what they plant," says Lynch "For example, we are using 70 million acres to grow soybeans for animal feed. You can grow more animal feed protein per acre with switchgrass. If there were a demand for biomass feedstocks to produce ethanol and other biofuels, farmers would be able to increase their profits by growing one crop producing two high value products."
That should be enough for now. Except we need a picture:
[I think I can grow that in my backyard without too much effort.]
But it makes sense to force people to live within bicycle distance of their jobs. So using your yardstick of rationality, we should regulate where people live.
And it makes sense to regulate home sizes. I mean, what sense does it make for couple that has no kids to have a 3000 sq. ft. home??? C'mon, what are they doing in there with all that space and wasting energy on heating and cooling it.
Welcome to our new world order, Comrade.
I have to agree here. I live in a very country area, and at least 95% of the time the only trucks I see hauling anything are work trucks with a company logo. I also rarely see more than four people in an SUV, usually one or two.
But I won't complain, because what's the baseline? You apparently say average sedan is it, anything more is a waste. How about we do this:
If you are one or two people in the car, you really don't need any more than this. So we should punish everyone driving something larger.
You might want to Google on this professor Pimental that so many of you folks think hung the moon. His problem with ethanol is that it's largely derived from corn and he hates corn because it's used as an animal feed. He's a raging vegan. (and his claims as to energy innefficiency have been thoroughly repudiated by virtually every other researcher to look into the matter)
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