Better than Pickens Plan is to import ethanol from Brazil to preclude energy cost induced depression

[Bill USA]

I previously http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=585378&mesg_id=585378">posted about T. Boone Pickens plan to use natural gas to fuel cars and thus replace demand for gasoline. My point was it would be more practical to convert the natural gas to methanol and use that to fuel cars as this would be quicker and cheaper than building the facilities to dispense the compressed natural gas and building the cars to burn it.

I mentioned this approach as being worthy of consideration as it would be more practical than using natural gas directly as a fuel for cars.

But my preferred approach which is better than the Pickens Plan is to just lower the tariff on Brazilian ethanol and add that to whatever ethanol we are making domestically. We could displace gasoline even faster than by building up methanol production. IN fact we could do this and STILL work on converting natural gas to methanol to be added to the ethanol supply domestic and imported.

The whole point to this is to preclude an oil/gas cost increase in the next few years which will put us back into a deeper recession or a depression. Sinking deeper into recession or experiencing a depression will not help us invest in and develop technologies needed for the long term, i.e. cellulosic ethanol, electric cars, fuel cells.

Refusing to face the rising price of oil and what it will do our economy (and the world economy for that matter) won't help us build the technologies we need for the long term.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/05/oil-prices-threaten-global-economic-recovery">Oil prices may threaten global economic recovery, says energy agency
As crude oil prices hit $95 a barrel, it is in a 'danger zone' which may derail recovery, says chief economist at Paris's IEA

[DCKit]

1. It sure sounds nice, but what about the Amazon?

They're already experiencing regional drought and dryness where too many trees have been cleared.

If the rest is cut and cleared to provide sugar cane ethanol to the U.S., it'll be a matter of several years before it can't even support that.

In this case, the tariffs are environmentally beneficial.

Fail.

[Bill USA]

2. sugar cane is not grown in rainforest. In fact while ethanol production grew deforestation decreased

Ethanol production really increased from 2005 on (note how bars in chart increase in length more rapidly from 2005 onward):
http://www.caribbeanethanolproducers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/ethanol-and-caribbean-basin.pdf

But deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon decreased dramatically from 2004 onward.

http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html

Deforestation Figures for Brazil

...... Deforestation... Deforestation
. ................................Change
Year..(sq mi)... (sq km)... (%)
2004 10,722 ... 27,772... 9%
2005 7,341 ... 19,014... -31%
2006 5,515 ....14,285... -49%
2007 4,498 ... 11,651... -18%
2008 4,984 ... 12,911... 11%
2009 2,882 ... 7,464... -42%
2010 2,491 ... 6,451... -14%


The leading causes of deforestation are:
1. Clearing for cattle pasture
2. Colonization and subsequent subsistence agriculture
3. Infrastructure improvements
4. Commercial agriculture (in particular soy-beans - soy-beans are used widely as a feed for cattle and hogs)
5. Logging

NOte:

"between 1990 and 2001 the percentage of Europe's processed meat imports that came from Brazil rose from 40 to 74 percent" and by 2003 "for the first time ever, the growth in Brazilian cattle production—80 percent of which was in the Amazon—was largely export driven."


If you are really concerned about deforestation in the Amazon the most effective action you can take is to cut back you beef consumption. I think we could all cut back 10%. This brings down the price of beef making it less lucrative to raise cattle. That would have a very beneficial affect on deforestation pressures. (If you live in Europe even more-so).

BUT, the other factor not mentioned here is Enforcement and Protection of the Rainforest through Enforcement action. Why did the rate of deforestation drop so dramatically after 2004?... because Brazil started to get more serious about enforcement of illegal cutting of trees in the Amazon. Enforcement makes a BIG difference!

NOte that protecting the rainforest from illegal cutting of trees is a big, big job. The area to be policed is HUGE. But if Brazil puts the money and manpower into it, the record shows the impact is considerable.

In the meantime, EAT LESS BEEF.

[DCKit]

5. Your increases and reduction charts mimic the those of the heating and cooling economies.

Additionally, it's no longer "rain forest" once it's been cut down. Regardless, I'm not argumentative and concede that we've got to do SOMETHING.

If lifting these restrictions on imports results in more Amazon deforestation, then they would need to be reimplemented, immediately. If lifting the restrictions results in a rise in the cost of living for the majority poor of Brazil, then they need to be reimplemented, immediately. Both are easy enough to track to ensure accountability.

So, I say "Fine, let's go" and screw the politics of it all. We need better answers and need to put scientists and socialists in charge, rather than politicians and lobbyists.

[Bill USA]

10. Sugar-cane is not grown in the former rainforest areas ...see link

since rainforest deforestation actually decreased during the same time period when ethanol production rapidly increased it's hard to say ethanol production directly irrevocably causes deforestation. What these data show it that when the rainforest is protected with enforcement actions deforestation decreases.

As Mongabay site indicates the biggest cause of deforestation is cattle farmers clearing forest to provide land for their cattle to graze on. That's why I said, seriously, if anyone is concerned about deforestation the best thing they can do to affect those market forces which do impact rainforests is to reduce their consumption of beef. If we cut back beef consumption 10% it would have an affect.

Here's some interesting information re Brazil and sugar-cane cultivation:

http://www.brazil.org.uk/publications/index_files/mythsvsfacts.pdf


Most sugarcane for ethanol production (90%) is harvested in South-Central Brazil, over
2,500 km (1,550 miles) from the Amazon. The remainder (10%) is grown in Northeastern
Brazil, about the same distance from the Amazon’s easternmost fringe. That is roughly
the distance between New York City and Dallas, or between Paris and Moscow. There
is a very tiny production of sugarcane in the Amazon (less than 0.2% of Brazilian total
production) that is processed at four mills that were built more than 20 years ago at a
time when the government provided fiscal incentives to set up industrial facilities in this
region to supply the local market. Without subsidies these mills would not have been
economically viable since the Amazon region does not offer favorable conditions for
commercial sugarcane production. For this reason, future expansion is anticipated to
continue in South-Central Brazil, primarily in degraded pastures.

And BTW, an area the size of TEXAS has been set aside in virgin Brazilian rainforest for oil exploration. When they explore a region for oil, roads are put into the forest (up to hundreds of miles) to get test drilling equipment in. Once roads are put in - illegal tree cutting operations quickly denude an area of trees (except for those too small to be of commercial value) extending about a quarter mile or more on both sides of the roads. Putting in roads is a guaranteed way of increasing deforestation...whether or not oil is ever found in that area.

Of course, if oil is found it is bad for the rainforests as people and equipment are brought in. Drilling the oil wells destroys an area around each well as they dump sludge and unusable crud that comes up out of the well before the oil comes up (actually, even where oil is not found, test drills leave ponds of toxic crud too). Ponds of this stuff remain for years which fouls an area much greater than that of the ponds themselves. Inevitably the during rainy periods the ponds overflow and the sludge ends up in nearby streams and rivers causing further environmental damage, even miles away down the river or stream.

[russspeakeasy]

13. You are correct , sir.

[barbiegeek]

3. Can we convert Old Tobacco farms in USA (now empty) to ethanol production

Maybe we can grow sugar can, but there is other products.

[DCKit]

4. Sugar beets are as viable an alternative... but they have no lobby (unlike Big Corn). nt

Anything but corn, until they crack cellulose based ethanol production.

Hell, even potatoes. Then, at least, we could develop a parallel market for decent vodka.

[barbiegeek]

7. Why not corn, the corn plastic is biogradable

[DCKit]

9. Corn is the Beef of the plant world. That's why.

Needs waaaayyy too much fertilizer to produce.... not much.

[Bill USA]

11. 1.2 Billion acres lie fallow Worldwide - Stanford Univ study

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/july9/biofuel-070908.html

Between 1- and 1.2-billion acres of abandoned agricultural land is lying fallow, according to the researchers.

"Just to put that in context, global cropland is around 3.8 billion acres. So this is not a small number; it's something like a quarter of the total amount of cropland globally," said Field, who is also director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford.
~~
~~
"Perennials, crops that don't need as much tilling or cultivation would probably be more advantageous, so you would have less runoff, less pollution in the water and you would be able to sustain your soils better," he said.

Brazil, China, India, the southern republics of the former Soviet Union, Australia and the United States all have large areas of land with significant potential for growing bioenergy crops.

A world map shows bioenergy potential as a ratio of the energy content of the annual plant growth on abandoned agricultural land relative to current annual energy demand in each country. Higher numbers indicate greater potential for abandoned agricultural land to contribute to national energy need.

[provis99]

6. Fuck Pickens.

Sorry, there goes my Pickens tourettes again.

[MedicalAdmin]

8. Anything is usually better than the Picken plan.

[SnakeEyes]

12. then be reliant upon brazil instead of multiple oil countries

I'd rather keep our reliance spread out, if we must rely on others. We need to become independent.

[Bill USA]

14. ok then, make natural gas into methanol and supplement gas and ethanol with that.

Supply about 5% of fuel as methanol combined with ethanol of 8% to 10% (7.6% now, moving up 10% in the next few years) that would be 13% to 15% of a reduction in demand for gasoline. That much might very well be enough to limit or stop gasoline price increases. Note, there is a significant unknown here in how much demand for gas will grow from China and India. If their demand grows even faster than it is anticipated we might still see oil/gasoline prices increase, but with a 15% reduction in our demand for oil that would reduce the price increase.