[dolanbaker]

http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/126243 ... trih5yj6eq
Twenty-First CenturySnake Oil: Why the United States Should Reject Biofuels as Part of a Rational National Security Energy Strategy

Captain T. A. “Ike” Kiefer

About 1200 AD in the coastal region of the Andes in what is today northern Peru, the Chimu Empire faced a severe water shortage during a prolonged drought. In a flurry of public works activity that greatly stressed the royal treasury, the government embarked on a crash program to construct a 50-kilometer canal to bring water to the people. Construction was started simultaneously on several parallel routes in hopes that one of them would pay off. A great expenditure of labor was made to erect sections of aqueduct as high as 30 meters and to waterproof miles of earthen trenches with tile. However, the evidence is that this grand waterworks project never delivered water to the capital city of Chan Chan. Modern surveys of the ruins have found a fatal flaw that doomed the work - the canal route has segments that run uphill.

Unfortunately, there are similarities between Chimu engineering and the current reckless pursuit of biofuels. Both were begun without a proper survey of the terrain and obstacles, both have taken approaches that attempt to defy unyielding physical laws, and both have expended prodigious resources without achieving their goals. The Chimu tried to make water run uphill in defiance of the law of gravity. The US government and military are trying to make energy run uphill in defiance of the laws of thermodynamics. There is a set of talking points trumpeted almost daily in the press to justify biofuels as an essential part of US energy strategy. Some prominent figures and pundits argue that biofuels will increase our domestic supply of transportation fuel, end our dependence upon foreign oil, reduce military vulnerabilities on the battlefield, and generally improve national security. Biofuels are further promised to reduce fuel price volatility, reduce polluting emissions, reduce greenhouse gases,and even stimulate the economy. These arguments all fall apart under scrutiny. The promise and curse of biofuels is that they are limited by the energy that living organisms harvest from the sun. They suffer from a fatal catch-22: uncultivated biomass produces biofuel yields that are far too small, diffuse, and infrequent to displace any meaningful fraction of US primary energy needs; and boosting yields through cultivation consumes more additional energy than it adds to the biomass. Furthermore, the harvested biomass requires large amounts of additional energy to upgrade it into the compact, energy-rich, liquid hydrocarbon form that is required for compatibility with the nation’s fuel infrastructure, its transportation sector, and especially its military. When the energy content of the final product biofuel is compared to all the energy that was required to make it, the trade proves to be a very poor investment, especially in consideration of other alternatives. In many cases, there is net loss of energy. When energy balance (energy output minus energy input) across the full fuel creation and combustion lifecycle is considered, cultivated liquid biofuels are revealed to be a modern-day attempt at perpetual motion that is doomed by the laws of thermodynamics and a fatal dependence upon fossil fuel energy. Biofuels’ promise of energy security also proves to be an illusion as their price is more volatile and supply less assured, being subject to the economic and political vagaries of both the international energy markets and agricultural markets, as well as the whims of weather.

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[Plantagenet]

Dream on. Obama wouldn't suspend the corn ethanol program last summer even though drought had sent the price of corn sky-high and consumers were pleading with him to help keep the price of food down by suspending the government mandated diversion of corn to make ethanol. Obama wouldn't do it because too many farmers and too many giant agribiz corporations make big bucks from the government mandated program.

There is about zero chance of Obama ending corn-ethanol or the biofuel program as a whole anytime soon, because these programs exist for political reasons that are quite independent of any kind of economic or scientific rationale.

[BobInget]

First of all, we need to disabuse ourselves of the notion President Obama is any shade of liberal.
The election is over, historical truth will show our current president to be center right.
Plantagenet neglects the obvious. Obama was engaged in a reelection campaign. Winning swing state Iowa
(as he did) was thought essential. Its fair to say, no candidate, in the general, would have come out against ethanol with gasoline prices persistently high despite The Depression and a public mostly ignorant of corn ethanol's downsides.

Not that I would dismiss any future for biofuels, that would be like saying defiantly "there is NO life after fossil fuels become so expensive, ICE transportation will become unaffordable".

[Plantagenet]

Plantagenet neglects the obvious. Obama was engaged in a reelection campaign. Winning swing state Iowa (as he did) was thought essential.

I didn't neglect it. Thats exactly the point I was making----Obama made a POLITICAL decision not to suspend the ethanol mandate for vehicles even though the drought had caused corn prices (and food prices) to jump. In fact Obama is so in the pocket of the corn ethanol lobby that his administration has INCREASED the mandate for corn ethanol in gasoline from 10% to 15% (E15) in spite of studies showing E15 is damaging to many engines. Most other politicians also ignore the bad science and dismal economics of corn ethanol subsidies and continue to support the corn ethanol mandate purely for political reasons.

You are the one who neglected the obvious---you failed to understand the obvious point I made.