We have watched with concern the spreading food security issues the world faces which have begun to put on an appearance even in the United States. We see the building of ethanol plants continuing, despite certain operational concerns with this fuel which we will explore below, and as global oil production peaked in 2005 so shall global gas production, likely in the 2010 to 2012 time frame. The gas peak implies peak nitrogen fertilizer as well, which has great influence over the first two items in our diary's title.
These three issues are serious. More serious than Bush's unlawful adventure in Iraq. More serious than Cheney's treason. This is famine serious, like Ireland in the 19th century or Ethiopia in the 20th. We offer up a partial solution to these concerns.
Food Security:
Global food prices are on the rise and the shortage are visible even here in the fabulously wealthy United States.
The warm up to a probable collapse of the dollar and the associated slide in its value, some 30% through 2007 have something to do with this. People have to work 57 hours today to buy what 40 hours purchased at this time last year.
Biofuels are another component of this lack of food security and this is occurring on a global scale. Here in the Americas we see 20% of the U.S. corn crop going into ethanol production, and there are concerns we'll see rationing of our corn crop as soon as next year.
Above and beyond the simple need to feed everyone we worry that food stress in conjunction with peak oil may lead to a destabilization of Mexico, which we have written about here and here.
Ethanol Concerns:
Ethanol bears a little less energy by volume than gasoline but it makes a fine road fuel. Our concerns with it have to do with its EROI.
Discusions of Energy Return On Input can be ponderous and complex, so we offer the following simplification.
EROI is a ratio that indicates how much energy is required to produce the energy result.
When the Brazilians grow cane sugar for ethanol they get 500% of the energy they put into the process back in the form of a burnable road fuel. Here in the U.S. if you add up the natural gas used to make nitrogen fertilizer with the Haber-Bosch process, the diesel used for planting and harvesting, the propane used for drying, and the inputs at the ethanol plant that produce ethanol and the dried distiller's grain which is later fed to livestock you end up with an EROI of 0.8 to 1.2. Ethanol as rendered by the current U.S. agricultural system is at best a derivative fuel and quite often is a net energy sink, although a politically acceptable one.
Peak Natural Gas:
People are beginning to understand that the geological structures where oil is found do have a finite production lifetime, as was first described by Hubbert back in 1956. Depending on which numbers you look at we passed peak global oil production in either May or September of 2005. Peak gas is still a future but most predictions place it in the 2010 to 2012 time frame.
Natural gas is used for heating, electricity generation, as a road fuel, and lastly for nitrogen fertilizer production. While the nitrogen production component is only 3% of global gas production if this is interrupted 50% of all people alive today will starve in fairly short order.
This will not be an atomic event neatly fitting into the two hour epic disaster movie format, an unfortunate cultural construct which constrains our understanding of large scale, long term changes such as the end of the oil age. We already see the effects of decreasing oil and gas supplies
here,
and here,
and here, and here, and here, and here.
What can be done about these issues?
First and foremost we must conserve what is left. There are plenty of sources of information on this and if you have read to this point in the article you already know this. May our scribbling here coupled with the supporting links serve as an added resource for you who seek to influence this aspect of our energy policy.
Many have contributed to the formation of Stranded Wind. Engineers and bankers. Economists and landsmen. College instructors and university professors. Field agronomists and farmers. Lawyers and legislators. Men and women who work with their minds and their hands arranging and building the infrastructure of the human race. The web presence does not yet reflect the breadth and depth of the experience of those involved. We are, we think, as a group a bit older than the typical Kossack, and fully 80% quietly lurk or simply do not participate in online forums such as DailyKos.
We are survivors, coming out of China's Great Leap Forward, out of the Iranian Revolution, out of New Orleans, and, in the case of our editor, out of the telecommunications business into alternative energy after the 9/11 attack in Manhattan wiped out a small international voice carrier. No one is old enough to recall the Great Depression directly but all of our parents do.
This being said, we recognize a problem and we have begun to work on what solutions time, money, and available talent have left within our grasp.
We have previously described a scheme to use the stranded wind in the upper Midwest to generate ammonia, both as a fertilizer and as a farm fuel, should we be able to construct enough wind turbines to power such an enterprise.(<= We did not mean to be cryptic. The ethanol improvement is covered in the links within this paragraph.)</p>
We delight in the fact that the Stranded Wind domain was available and that this phrase is both catchy and undefined, except by our efforts, as you may see with a simple Google query. We are also quite tired of George W. Bush in general and very specifically we are weary of his prattling on about "the hydrogen economy". The Google does not yet bow to our will, but we intend to take that phrase away from him. There are many uses for hydrogen but the only one in reach today is the use of ammonia as a hydrogen carrier for fueling farm vehicles. Leaving those three words lying about will lead to the so called "clean coal" industry using them next, and they'll distract and delay just as the oil industry has done.
What we ask of you:
We need your support, you young and restless progressives. Can you ...
link to the Stranded Wind web site? We should very much like to continue defining "stranded wind" and seizing "the hydrogen economy" from those who have so misused it would be a very nice coup indeed.
join the site and contribute from your area of expertise? We could really use a PR/press release writer as we are developing momentum in real world projects which would interest the dead tree media.
go to the Energize America 2020 web site and make a small donation? Jerome a Paris has much to do with how we came to be on this path, A. Siegel answers our questions and provides guidance in various ways, and they are both heavily involved in this effort.
The hour grows late. The oil peak has passed and the natural gas peak will soon be upon us. If we are going to do these things we can not wait for the federal elections this fall. The state of Iowa already has a marvelous renewable energy initiative and we know there are others.
One day this need for renewable energy and its tight connection to food security will become painfully obvious to everyone. We must stand ready to serve as a guide for that day, lest big oil pick our collective pockets one final time before they wither away, carrying all of us along with them.
(UPDATE #1
User Black Dog over at The Oil Drum has provided a link to his writings on failed ammonia plants. Putting this in perspective, the 6.2 million tons of missing domestic ammonia production would fertilize a hundred million acres or 155,000 square miles. Iowa itself is 56,272 square miles and produces about one fourth of the national corn crop. When imports decline due to the collapse of the dollar and peak natural gas we are going to have, uhh, difficulties.)
(UPDATE #2
We would like to thank dadanation and Avila for rescuing us, Jerome a Paris and A. Siegel for all their hard work on Energize America 2020, and the EA2020 wind ninjas, without whom we might have wandered in darkness this whole year, trying to discover what they have already mastered.