Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Rachel's Democracy & Health News #906
Thursday, May 10, 2007
http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_dhn070510.htm
From: Culture Change ......................................[This story
printer-friendly]
April 10, 2007

PEAK SOIL

[Rachel's introduction: This long, detailed essay builds a strong case that
biofuels, like ethanol from cellulose, are unsustainable and a threat to
America: "We need to transition from petroleum power to muscle power
gracefully if we want to preserve democracy."]

by Alice Friedemann**

"The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself." -- President Franklin
D. Roosevelt

Part 1. The Dirt on Dirt.

Ethanol is an agribusiness get-rich-quick scheme that will bankrupt our
topsoil.

Nineteenth century western farmers converted their corn into whiskey to
make a profit (Rorabaugh 1979). Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), a large grain
processor, came up with the same scheme in the 20th century. But ethanol
was a product in search of a market, so ADM spent three decades
relentlessly lobbying for ethanol to be used in gasoline. Today ADM makes
record profits from ethanol sales and government subsidies (Barrionuevo
2006).

The Department of Energy hopes to have biomass supply 5% of the nation's
power, 20% of transportation fuels, and 25% of chemicals by 2030. These
combined goals are 30% of the current petroleum consumption (DOE Biomass
Plan, DOE Feedstock Roadmap).

Fuels made from biomass are a lot like the nuclear powered airplanes the
Air Force tried to build from 1946 to 1961, for billions of dollars. They
never got off the ground. The idea was interesting -- atomic jets could fly
for months without refueling. But the lead shielding to protect the crew
and several months of food and water was too heavy for the plane to take
off. The weight problem, the ease of shooting this behemoth down, and the
consequences of a crash landing were so obvious, it's amazing the project
was ever funded, let alone kept going for 15 years.

Biomass fuels have equally obvious and predictable reasons for failure.
Odum says that time explains why renewable energy provides such low energy
yields compared to non-renewable fossil fuels. The more work left to
nature, the higher the energy yield, but the longer the time required.
Although coal and oil took millions of years to form into dense,
concentrated solar power, all we had to do was extract and transport them
(Odum 1996)

With every step required to transform a fuel into energy, there is less and
less energy yield. For example, to make ethanol from corn grain, which is
how all U.S. ethanol is made now, corn is first grown to develop hybrid
seeds, which next season are planted, harvested, delivered, stored, and
preprocessed to remove dirt. Dry-mill ethanol is milled, liquefied, heated,
saccharified, fermented, evaporated, centrifuged, distilled, scrubbed,
dried, stored, and transported to customers (McAloon 2000).

Fertile soil will be destroyed if crops and other "wastes" are removed to
make cellulosic ethanol.

"We stand, in most places on earth, only six inches from desolation, for
that is the thickness of the topsoil layer upon which the entire life of
the planet depends" (Sampson 1981).

Loss of topsoil has been a major factor in the fall of civilizations
(Sundquist 2005 Chapter 3, Lowdermilk 1953, Perlin 1991, Ponting 1993). You
end up with a country like Iraq, formerly Mesopotamia, where 75% of the
farm land became a salty desert.

Fuels from biomass are not sustainable, are ecologically destructive, have
a net energy loss, and there isn't enough biomass in America to make
significant amounts of energy because essential inputs like water, land,
fossil fuels, and phosphate ores are limited.

Soil Science 101 -- There Is No "Waste" Biomass

Long before there was "Peak Oil", there was "Peak Soil". Iowa has some of
the best topsoil in the world. In the past century, half of it's been lost,
from an average of 18 to 10 inches deep (Pate 2004, Klee 1991).

Productivity drops off sharply when topsoil reaches 6 inches or less, the
average crop root zone depth (Sundquist 2005).

Crop productivity continually declines as topsoil is lost and residues are
removed. (Al-Kaisi May 2001, Ball 2005, Blanco-Canqui 2006, BOA 1986,
Calvino 2003, Franzleubbers 2006, Grandy 2006, Johnson 2004, Johnson 2005,
Miranowski 1984, Power 1998, Sadras 2001, Troeh 2005, Wilhelm 2004).

On over half of America's best crop land, the erosion rate is 27 times the
natural rate, 11,000 pounds per acre (NCRS 2006). The natural, geological
erosion rate is about 400 pounds of soil per acre per year (Troeh 2005).
Some is due to farmers not being paid enough to conserve their land, but
most is due to investors who farm for profit. Erosion control cuts into
profits.

Erosion is happening ten to twenty times faster than the rate topsoil can
be formed by natural processes (Pimentel 2006). That might make the average
person concerned. But not the USDA -- they've defined erosion as the
average soil loss that could occur without causing a decline in long term
productivity.

Troeh (2005) believes that the tolerable soil loss (T) value is set too
high, because it's based only on the upper layers -- how long it takes
subsoil to be converted into topsoil. T ought to be based on deeper layers
-- the time for subsoil to develop from parent material or parent material
from rock. If he's right, erosion is even worse than NCRS figures.

Erosion removes the most fertile parts of the soil (USDA-ARS). When you
feed the soil [with organic matter], you're not feeding plants; you're
feeding the biota in the soil. Underground creatures and fungi break down
fallen leaves and twigs into microscopic bits that plants can eat, and
create tunnels air and water can infiltrate. In nature there are no elves
feeding (fertilizing) the wild lands. When plants die, they're recycled
into basic elements and become a part of new plants. It's a closed cycle.
There is no bio-waste.

Soil creatures and fungi act as an immune system for plants against
diseases, weeds, and insects -- when this living community is harmed by
agricultural chemicals and fertilizers, even more chemicals are needed in
an increasing vicious cycle (Wolfe 2001).

There's so much life in the soil, there can be 10 "biomass horses"
underground for every horse grazing on an acre of pasture (Wardle 2004). If
you dove into the soil and swam around, you'd be surrounded by miles of
thin strands of mycorrhizal fungi that help plant roots absorb more
nutrients and water, plus millions of creatures, most of them unknown.
There'd be thousands of species in just a handful of earth -- springtails,
bacteria, and worms digging airy subways. As you swam along, plant roots
would tower above you like trees as you wove through underground
skyscrapers.

Plants and creatures underground need to drink, eat, and breathe just as we
do. An ideal soil is half rock, and a quarter each water and air. When
tractors plant and harvest, they crush the life out of the soil, as
underground apartments collapse 9/11 style. The tracks left by tractors in
the soil are the erosion route for half of the soil that washes or blows
away (Wilhelm 2004).

Corn Biofuel -- Especially Harmful

Corn Biofuel (i.e. butanol, ethanol, biodiesel) is especially harmful
because: Row crops such as corn and soy cause 50 times more soil erosion
than sod crops [e.g., hay] (Sullivan 2004) or more (Al-Kaisi 2000), because
the soil between the rows can wash or blow away. If corn is planted with
last year's corn stalks left on the ground (no- till), erosion is less of a
problem, but only about 20% of corn is grown no-till. Soy is usually grown
no-till, but [leaves] insignificant residues to harvest for fuel. Corn uses
more water, insecticide, and fertilizer than most crops (Pimentel 2003).
Due to high corn prices, continuous corn (corn crop after corn crop) is
increasing, rather than rotation of nitrogen fixing (fertilizer) and
erosion control sod crops with corn.

The government has studied the effect of growing continuous corn, and found
it increases eutrophication by 189%, global warming by 71%, and
acidification by 6% (Powers 2005).

Farmers want to plant corn on highly-erodible, water protecting, or
wildlife sustaining Conservation Reserve Program land. Farmers are paid not
to grow crops on this land. But with high corn prices, farmers are now
asking the Agricultural Department to release them from these contracts so
they can plant corn on these low-producing, environmentally sensitive lands
(Tomson 2007).

Crop residues are essential for soil nutrition, water retention, and soil
carbon. Making cellulosic ethanol from corn residues -- the parts of the
plant we don't eat (stalk, roots, and leaves) -- removes water, carbon, and
nutrients (Nelson, 2002, McAloon 2000, Sheehan, 2003). These practices lead
to lower crop production and ultimately deserts. Growing plants for fuel
will accelerate the already unacceptable levels of topsoil erosion, soil
carbon and nutrient depletion, soil compaction, water retention, water
depletion, water pollution, air pollution, eutrophication, destruction of
fisheries, siltation of dams and waterways, salination, loss of
biodiversity, and damage to human health (Tegtmeier 2004).

Why are soil scientists absent from the biofuels debate?

I asked 35 soil scientists why topsoil wasn't part of the biofuels debate.
These are just a few of the responses from the ten who replied to my
off-the-record poll (no one wanted me to quote them, mostly due to fear of
losing their jobs): "I have no idea why soil scientists aren't questioning
corn and cellulosic ethanol plans. Quite frankly I'm not sure that our
society has had any sort of reasonable debate about this with all the facts
laid out. When you see that even if all of the corn was converted to
ethanol and that would not provide more than 20% of our current liquid fuel
use, it certainly makes me wonder, even before considering the conversion
efficiency, soil loss, water contamination, food price problems, etc."

"Biomass production is not sustainable. Only business men and women in the
refinery business believe it is."

"Should we be using our best crop land to grow gasohol and contribute
further to global warming? What will our children grow their food on?"

"As agricultural scientists, we are programmed to make farmers profitable,
and therefore profits are at the top of the list, and not soil, family, or
environmental sustainability".

"Government policy since WWII has been to encourage overproduction to keep
food prices down (people with full bellies don't revolt or object too
much). It's hard to make a living farming commodities when the selling
price is always at or below the break even point. Farmers have had to get
bigger and bigger to make ends meet since the margins keep getting thinner
and thinner. We have sacrificed our family farms in the name of cheap food.
When farmers stand to make few bucks (as with biofuels) agricultural
scientists tend to look the other way".

"You are quite correct in your concern that soil science should be factored
into decisions about biofuel production. Unfortunately, we soil scientists
have missed the boat on the importance of soil management to the
sustainability of biomass production, and the long- term impact for soil
productivity.

This is not a new debate. Here's what scientists had to say decades ago:
Removing "crop residues...would rob organic matter that is vital to the
maintenance of soil fertility and tilth, leading to disastrous soil erosion
levels. Not considered is the importance of plant residues as a primary
source of energy for soil microbial activity. The most prudent course,
clearly, is to continue to recycle most crop residues back into the soil,
where they are vital in keeping organic matter levels high enough to make
the soil more open to air and water, more resistant to soil erosion, and
more productive" (Sampson 1981).

"...Massive alcohol production from our farms is an immoral use of our
soils since it rapidly promotes their wasting away. We must save these
soils for an oil-less future" (Jackson 1980).

Natural Gas in Agriculture

When you take out more nutrients and organic matter from the soil than you
put back in, you are "mining" the topsoil. The organic matter is especially
important, since that's what prevents erosion, improves soil structure,
health, water retention, and gives the next crop its nutrition. Modern
agriculture only addresses the nutritional component by adding fossil-fuel
based fertilizers, and because the soil is unhealthy from a lack of organic
matter, copes with insects and disease with oil-based pesticides.

"Fertilizer energy" is 28% of the energy used in agriculture (Heller,
2000). Fertilizer uses natural gas both as a feedstock and the source of
energy to create the high temperatures and pressures necessary to coax
inert nitrogen out of the air (nitrogen is often the limiting factor in
crop production). This is known as the Haber-Bosch process, and it's a big
part of the green revolution that made it possible for the world's
population to grow from half a billion to 6.5 billion today (Smil 2000,
Fisher 2001).

Our national security is at risk as we become dependent on unstable foreign
states to provide us with increasingly expensive fertilizer. Between 1995
and 2005 we increased our fertilizer imports by more than 148% for
Anhydrous Ammonia, 93% for Urea (solid), and 349 % of other nitrogen
fertilizers (USDA ERS). Removing crop residues will require large amounts
of imported fertilizer from potential cartels, potentially so expensive
farmers won't sell crops and residues for biofuels.

Improve national security and topsoil by returning residues to the land as
fertilizer. We are vulnerable to high-priced fertilizer imports or "food
for oil", which would greatly increase the cost of food for Americans.

Agriculture competes with homes and industry for fast depleting North
American natural gas. Natural gas price increases have already caused over
280,000 job losses (Gerard 2006). Natural gas is also used for heating and
cooking in over half our homes, generates 15% of electricity, and is a
feedstock for thousands of products.

Return crop residues to the soil to provide organic fertilizer, don't
increase the need for natural gas fertilizers by removing crop residues to
make cellulosic biofuels.

Part 2. The Poop on Ethanol

Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI)

To understand the concept of EROEI, imagine a magician doing a variation on
the rabbit-out-of-a-hat trick. He strides onstage with a rabbit, puts it
into a top hat, and then spends the next five minutes pulling 100 more
rabbits out. That is a pretty good return on investment!

Oil was like that in the beginning: one barrel of oil energy was required
to get 100 more out, an Energy Returned on Energy Invested of 100:1.

When the biofuel magician tries to do the same trick decades later, he puts
the rabbit into the hat, and pulls out only one pooping rabbit. The
excrement is known as byproduct or coproduct in the ethanol industry.

Studies that show a positive energy gain for ethanol would have a negative
return if the byproduct were left out (Farrell 2006). Here's where
byproduct comes from: if you made ethanol from corn in your back yard,
you'd dump a bushel of corn, two gallons of water, and yeast into your
contraption. Out would come 18 pounds of ethanol, 18 pounds of CO2, and 18
pounds of byproduct -- the leftover corn solids.

Patzek and Pimentel believe you shouldn't include the energy contained in
the byproduct, because you need to return it to the soil to improve
nutrition and soil structure (Patzek June 2006). Giampetro believes the
byproduct should be treated as a "serious waste disposal problem and... an
energy cost", because if we supplied 10% of our energy from biomass, we'd
generate 37 times more livestock feed than is used (Giampetro 1997).

It's even worse than he realized -- Giampetro didn't know most of this
"livestock feed" can't be fed to livestock because it's too energy and
monetarily expensive to deliver -- especially heavy wet distillers
byproduct, which is short-lived, succumbing to mold and fungi after 4 to 10
days. Also, byproduct is a subset of what animals eat. Cattle are fed
byproduct in 20% of their diet at most. Iowa's a big hog state, but
commercial swine operations feed pigs a maximum of 5 to 10% byproduct
(Trenkle 2006; Shurson 2003).

Worst of all, the EROEI of ethanol is 1.2:1 or 1.2 units of energy out for
every unit of energy in, a gain of ".2". The "1" in "1.2" represents the
liquid ethanol. What is the ".2" then? It's the rabbit feces -- the
byproduct. So you have no ethanol for your car, because the liquid "1"
needs to be used to make more ethanol. That leaves you with just the ".2"
--- a bucket of byproduct to feed your horse -- you do have a horse, don't
you? If horses are like cattle, then you can only use your byproduct for
one-fifth of his diet, so you'll need four supplemental buckets of hay from
your back yard to feed him. No doubt the byproduct could be used to make
other things, but that would take energy.

Byproduct could be burned, but it takes a significant amount of energy to
dry it out, and requires additional handling and equipment. More money can
be made selling it wet to the cattle industry, which is hurting from the
high price of corn. Byproduct should be put back into the ground to improve
soil nutrition and structure for future generations, not sold for
short-term profit and fed to cattle who aren't biologically adapted to
eating corn.

The boundaries of what is included in EROEI calculations are kept as narrow
as possible to reach positive results.

Researchers who find a positive EROEI for ethanol have not accounted for
all of the energy inputs. For example, Shapouri admits the "energy used in
the production of... farm machinery and equipment..., and cement, steel,
and stainless steel used in the construction of ethanol plants, are not
included". (Shapouri 2002). Or they assign overstated values of ethanol
yield from corn (Patzek Dec 2006). Many, many, other inputs are left out.

Patzek and Pimentel have compelling evidence showing that about 30 percent
more fossil energy is required to produce a gallon of ethanol than you get
from it. Their papers are published in peer-reviewed journals where their
data and methods are public, unlike many of the positive net energy
results.

Infrastructure. Current EROEI figures don't take into account the delivery
infrastructure that needs to be built. There are 850 million combustion
engines in the world today. Just to replace half the 245 million cars and
light trucks in the United States with E85 vehicles will take 12-15 years,
It would take over $544 million dollars of delivery ethanol infrastructure
(Reynolds 2002 case B1) and $5 to $34 billion to revamp 170,000 gas
stations nationwide (Heinson 2007).

The EROEI of oil when we built most of the infrastructure in this country
was about 100:1, and it's about 25:1 worldwide now. Even if you believe
ethanol has a positive EROEI, you'd probably need at least an EROEI of at
least 5 to maintain modern civilization (Hall 2003). A civilization based
on ethanol's ".2" rabbit poop would only work for coprophagous
(dung-eating) rabbits.

Of the four articles that showed a positive net energy for ethanol in
Farrells 2006 Science article, three were not peer-reviewed. The only
positive peer-reviewed article (Dias De Oliveira, 2005) states "The use of
ethanol as a substitute for gasoline proved to be neither a sustainable nor
an environmentally friendly option" and the "environmental impacts outweigh
its benefits". Dias De Oliveria concluded there'd be a tremendous loss of
biodiversity, and if all vehicles ran on E85 and their numbers grew by 4%
per year, by 2048, the entire country, except for cities, would be covered
with corn.

Part 3. Biofuel is a Grim Reaper.

The energy to remediate environmental damage is left out of EROEI
calculations.

Global Warming

Soils contain twice the amount of carbon found in the atmosphere, and three
times more carbon than is stored in all the Earth's vegetation (Jones
2006).

Climate change could increase soil loss by 33% to 274%, depending on the
region (O'Neal 2005).

Intensive agriculture has already removed 20 to 50% of the original soil
carbon, and some areas have lost 70%. To maintain soil C levels, no crop
residues at all could be harvested under many tillage systems or on highly
erodible lands, and none to a small percent on no-till, depending on crop
production levels (Johnson 2006).

Deforestation of temperate hardwood forests, and conversion of range and
wetlands to grow energy and food crops increases global warming. An average
of 2.6 million acres of crop land were paved over or developed every year
between 1982 and 2002 in the USA (NCRS 2004). The only new crop land is
forest, range, or wetland.

Rainforest destruction is increasing global warming. Energy farming is
playing a huge role in deforestation, reducing biodiversity, water and
water quality, and increasing soil erosion. Fires to clear land for palm
oil plantations are destroying one of the last great remaining rainforests
in Borneo, spewing so much carbon that Indonesia is third behind the United
States and China in releasing greenhouse gases. Orangutans, rhinos, tigers
and thousands of other species may be driven extinct (Monbiot 2005). Borneo
palm oil plantation lands have grown 2,500% since 1984 (Barta 2006).
Soybeans cause even more erosion than corn and suffer from all the same
sustainability issues. The Amazon is being destroyed by farmers growing
soybeans for food (National Geographic Jan 2007).and fuel (Olmstead 2006).

Biofuel from coal-burning biomass factories increases global warming
(Farrell 2006). Driving a mile on ethanol from a coal-using biorefinery
releases more CO2 than a mile on gasoline (Ward 2007). Coal in ethanol
production is seen as a way to displace petroleum (Farrell 2006, Yacobucci
2006) and it's already happening (Clayton 2006).

Current and future quantities of biofuels are too minisucle to affect
global warming (ScienceDaily 2007).

Surface Albedo

"How much the sun warms our climate depends on how much sunlight the land
reflects (cooling us), versus how much it absorbs (heating us). A plausible
2% increase in the absorbed sunlight on a switch grass plantation could
negate the climatic cooling benefit of the ethanol produced on it. We need
to figure out now, not later, the full range of climatic consequences of
growing cellulose crops" (Harte 2007).

Eutrophication

Farm runoff of nitrogen fertilizers has contributed to the hypoxia (low
oxygen) of rivers and lakes across the country and the dead zone in the
Gulf of Mexico. Yet the cost of the lost shrimp and fisheries and increased
cost of water treatment are not subtracted from the EROEI of ethanol.

Soil Erosion

Corn and soybeans have higher than average erosion rates. Eroded soil
pollutes air, fills up reservoirs, and shortens the time dams can store
water and generate electricity. Yet the energy of the hydropower lost to
siltation, energy to remediate flood damage, energy to dredge dams,
agricultural drainage ditches, harbors, and navigation channels, aren't
considered in EROEI calculations.

The majority of the best soil in the nation is rented and has the highest
erosion rates. More than half the best farmland in the United States is
rented: 65% in Iowa, 74% in Minnesota, 84% in Illinois, and 86% in Indiana.
Owners seeking short-term profits have far less incentive than farmers who
work their land to preserve soil and water. As you can see in the map below
[click on image for original USDA site], the dark areas, which represent
the highest erosion rates, are the same areas with the highest percentage
of rented farmland. [Red - High, Yellow -- Medium, Green -- Low]

Water Pollution

Soil erosion is a serious source of water pollution, since it causes runoff
of sediments, nutrients, salts, eutrophication, and chemicals that have had
no chance to decompose into streams. This increases water treatment costs,
increases health costs, kills fish with insecticides that work their way up
the food chain (Troeh 2005).

Ethanol plants pollute water. They generate 13 liters of wastewater for
every liter of ethanol produced (Pimentel March 2005)

Water depletion

Biofuel factories use a huge amount of water -- four gallons for every
gallon of ethanol produced. Despite 30 inches of rain per year in Iowa,
there may not be enough water for corn ethanol factories as well as people
and industry. Drought years will make matters worse (Cruse 2006).

Fifty percent of Americans rely on groundwater (Glennon 2002), and in many
states, this groundwater is being depleted by agriculture faster than it is
being recharged. This is already threatening current food supplies
(Giampetro 1997). In some western irrigated corn acreage, groundwater is
being mined at a rate 25% faster than the natural recharge of its aquifer
(Pimentel 2003).

Biodiversity

Every acre of forest and wetland converted to crop land decreases soil
biota, insect, bird, reptile, and mammal biodiversity.

Part 4. Biodiesel: Can we eat enough French Fries?

The idea we could run our economy on discarded fried food grease is very
amusing. For starters, you'd need to feed 7 million heavy diesel trucks
getting less than 8 mpg. Seems like we're all going to need to eat a lot
more French Fries, but if anyone can pull it off, it would be Americans.
Spin it as a patriotic duty and you'd see people out the door before the TV
ad finished, the most popular government edict ever.

Scale. Where's the Soy? Biodiesel is not ready for prime time. Although
John Deere is working on fuel additives and technologies to burn more than
5% accredited biodiesel (made to ASTM D6751 specifications -- vegetable oil
does not qualify), that is a long way off. 52 billion gallons of diesel
fuel are consumed a year in the United States, but only 75 million gallons
of biodiesel were produced - two-tenths of one percent of what's needed. To
get the country to the point where gasoline was mixed with 5 percent
biodiesel would require 64 percent of the soybean crop and 71,875 square
miles of land (Borgman 2007), an area the size of the state of Washington.
Soybeans cause even more erosion than corn.

Biodiesel shortens engine life. Currently, biodiesel concentrations higher
than 5 percent can cause "water in the fuel due to storage problems,
foreign material plugging filters..., fuel system seal and gasket failure,
fuel gelling in cold weather, crankcase dilution, injection pump failure
due to water ingestion, power loss, and, in some instances, can be
detrimental to long engine life" (Borgman 2007). Biodiesel also has a short
shelf life and it's hard to store - it easily absorbs moisture (water is a
bane to combustion engines), oxidizes, and gets contaminated with microbes.
It increases engine NOx emissions (ozone) and has thermal degradation at
high temperatures (John Deere 2006).

On the cusp of energy descent, we can't even run the most vital aspect of
our economy, agricultural machines, on "renewable" fuels. John Deere
tractors can run on no more than 5% accredited biodiesel (Borgman 2007).
Perhaps this is unintentionally wise -- biofuels have yet to be proven
viable, and mechanization may not be a great strategy in a world of
declining energy.

Part 5. If we can't drink and drive, then burn baby burn.

Energy Crop Combustion

Wood is a crop, subject to the same issues as corn, and takes a lot longer
to grow. Burning wood in your stove at home delivers far more energy than
the logs would if converted to biofuels (Pimentel 2005). Wood was scarce in
America when there were just 75 million people. Electricity from biomass
combustion is not economic or sustainable.

Combustion pollution is expensive to control. Some biomass has absorbed
heavy metals and other pollutants from sources like coal power plants,
industry, and treated wood. Combustion can release chlorinated dioxins,
benzofurans, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, cadmium, mercury, arsenic,
lead, nickel, and zinc.

Combustion contributes to global warming by adding nitrogen oxides and the
carbon stored in plants back into the atmosphere, as well as removes
agriculturally essential nitrogen and phosphate (Reijnders 2006)

EROEI in doubt. Combustion plants need to produce, transport, prepare, dry,
burn, and control toxic emissions. Collection is energy intensive,
requiring some combination of bunchers, skidders, whole- tree choppers, or
tub grinders, and then hauling it to the biomass plant. There, the
feedstock is chopped into similar sizes and placed on a conveyor belt to be
fed to the plant. If biomass is co-fired with coal, it needs to be reduced
in size, and the resulting fly ash may not be marketable to the concrete
industry (Bain 2003). Any alkali or chlorine released in combustion gets
deposited on the equipment, reducing overall plant efficiencies, as well as
accelerating corrosion and erosion of plant components, requiring high
replacement and maintenance energy.

Processing materials with different physical properties is energy
intensive, requiring sorting, handling, drying, and chopping. It's hard to
optimize the pyrolysis, gasification, and combustion processes if different
combustible fuels are used. Urban waste requires a lot of sorting, since it
often has material that must be removed, such as rocks, concrete and metal.
The material that can be burned must also be sorted, since it varies from
yard trimmings with high moisture content to chemically treated wood.

Biomass combustion competes with other industries that want this material
for construction, mulch, compost, paper, and other profitable ventures,
often driving the price of wood higher than a wood-burning biomass plant
can afford. Much of the forest wood that could be burned is inaccessible
due to a lack of roads.

Efficiency is lowered if material with a high water content is burned, like
fresh wood. Different physical and chemical characteristics in fuel can
lead to control problems (Badger 2002). When wet fuel is burned, so much
energy goes into vaporizing the water that very little energy emerges as
heat, and drying takes time and energy.

Material is limited and expensive. California couldn't use crop residues
due to low bulk density. In 2000, the viability of California biomass
enterprise was in serious doubt because the energy to produce biomass was
so high due to the small facilities and high cost of collecting and
transporting material to the plants (Bain 2003).

Part 6. The problems with Cellulosic Ethanol could drive you to drink.

Many plants want animals to eat their seed and fruit to disperse them. Some
seeds only germinate after going through an animal gut and coming out in
ready-made fertilizer. Seeds and fruits are easy to digest compared to the
rest of the plant, that's why all of the commercial ethanol and biodiesel
are made from the yummy parts of plants, the grain, rather than the stalks,
leaves, and roots.

But plants don't want to be entirely devoured. They've spent hundreds of
millions of years perfecting structures that can't easily be eaten. Be
thankful plants figured this out, or everything would be mown down to
bedrock.

If we ever did figure out how to break down cellulose in our back yard
stills, it wouldn't be long before the 6.5 billion people on the planet
destroyed the grasslands and forests of the world to power generators and
motorbikes (Huber 2006)

Don Augenstein and John Benemann, who've been researching biofuels for over
30 years, are skeptical as well. According to them, "...severe barriers
remain to ethanol from lignocellulose. The barriers look as daunting as
they did 30 years ago".

Benemann says the EROEI can be easily determined to be about five times as
much energy required to make cellulosic ethanol than the energy contained
in the ethanol.

The success of cellulosic ethanol depends on finding or engineering
organisms that can tolerate extremely high concentrations of ethanol.
Augenstein argues that this creature would already exist if it were
possible. Organisms have had a billion years of optimization through
evolution to develop a tolerance to high ethanol levels (Benemann 2006).
Someone making beer, wine, or moonshine would have already discovered this
creature if it could exist.

The range of chemical and physical properties in biomass, even just corn
stover (Ruth 2003, Sluiter 2000), is a challenge. It's hard to make
cellulosic ethanol plants optimally efficient, because processes can't be
tuned to such wide feedstock variation.

Where will the Billion Tons of Biomass for Cellulosic Fuels Come From?

The government believes there is a billion tons of biomass "waste" to make
cellulosic biofuels, chemicals, and generate electricity with.

The United States lost 52 million acres of cropland between 1982 and 2002
(NCRS 2004). At that rate, all of the cropland will be gone in 140 years.

There isn't enough biomass to replace 30% of our petroleum use. The
potential biomass energy is miniscule compared to the fossil fuel energy we
consume every year, about 105 exa joules (EJ) in the USA. If you burned
every living plant and its roots, you'd have 94 EJ of energy and we could
all pretend we lived on Mars. Most of this 94 EJ of biomass is already
being used for food and feed crops, and wood for paper and homes. Sparse
vegetation and the 30 EJ in root systems are economically unavailable --
leaving only a small amount of biomass unspoken for (Patzek June 2006).

Over 25% of the "waste" biomass is expected to come from 280 million tons
of corn stover. Stover is what's left after the corn grain is harvested.
Another 120 million tons will come from soy and cereal straw (DOE Feedstock
Roadmap, DOE Biomass Plan).

There isn't enough no-till corn stover to harvest. The success of biofuels
depends on corn residues. About 80% of farmers disk corn stover into the
land after harvest. That renders it useless -- the crop residue is buried
in mud and decomposing rapidly.

Only the 20 percent of farmers who farm no-till will have stover to sell.
The DOE Billion Ton vision assumes all farmers are no-till, 75% of residues
will be harvested, and fantasizes corn and wheat yields 50% higher than now
are reached (DOE Billion Ton Vision 2005).

Many tons will never be available because farmers won't sell any, or much
of their residue (certainly not 75%).

Many more tons will be lost due to drought, rain, or loss in storage.

Sustainable harvesting of plants is only 1/200th at best. [? Sustainable
harvesting of plants only captures 1/200th of the solar energy they
receive, at best. -EB ed] Plants can only fix a tiny part of solar energy
into plant matter every year -- about one-tenth to one-half of one percent
new growth in temperate climates.

To prevent erosion, you could only harvest 51 million tons of corn and
wheat residues, not 400 million tons (Nelson, 2002). Other factors, like
soil structure, soil compression, water depletion, and environmental damage
weren't considered. Fifty one million tons of residue could make about 3.8
billion gallons of ethanol, less than 1% of our energy needs.

Using corn stover is a problem, because corn, soy, and other row crops
cause 50 times more soil erosion than sod crops (Sullivan 2004) or more
(Al-Kaisi 2000), and corn also uses more water, insecticides and
fertilizers than most crops (Pimentel 2003).

The amount of soy and cereal straw (wheat, oats, etc) is insignificant. It
would be best to use cereal grain straw, because grains use far less water
and cause far less erosion than row crops like corn and soybeans. But that
isn't going to happen, because the green revolution fed billions more
people by shortening grain height so that plant energy went into the edible
seed, leaving little straw for biofuels. Often 90% of soybean and cereal
straw is grown no-till, but the amount of cereal straw is insignificant and
the soybean residues must remain on the field to prevent erosion

Limitations on Energy Crops

Poor, erodible land. There aren't enough acres of land to grow significant
amounts of energy crops. Potential energy crop land is usually poor quality
or highly erodible land that shouldn't be harvested. Farmers are often paid
not to farm this unproductive land. Many acres in switchgrass are being
used for wildlife and recreation.

Few suitable bio-factory sites. Biorefineries can't be built just anywhere
-- very few sites could be found to build switchgrass plants in all of
South Dakota (Wu 1998). Much of the state didn't have enough water or
adequate drainage to build an ethanol factory. The sites had to be on main
roads, near railroad and natural gas lines, out of floodplains, on parcels
of at least 40 acres to provide storage for the residues, have electric
power, and enough biomass nearby to supply the plant year round.

No energy crop farmers or investors. Farmers won't grow switchgrass until
there's a switchgrass plant. Machines to harvest and transport switchgrass
efficiently don't exist yet (Barrionuevo 2006). The capital to build
switchgrass plants won't materialize until there are switchgrass farmers.
Since "ethanol production using switchgrass required 50% more fossil energy
than the ethanol fuel produced" (Pimentel 2005), investors for these plants
will be hard to find.

Energy crops are subject to Liebig's law of the minimum too. Switchgrass
may grow on marginal land, but it hasn't escaped the need for minerals and
water. Studies have shown the more rainfall, the more switchgrass you get,
and if you remove switchgrass, you're going to need to fertilize the land
to replace the lost biomass, or you'll get continually lower yields of
switchgrass every time you harvest the crop (Vogel 2002). Sugar cane has
been touted as an "all you need is sunshine" plant. But according to the
FAO, the nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium requirements of sugar cane are
roughly similar to maize (FAO 2004).

Bioinvasive Potential. These fast-growing disease-resistant plants are
potentially bioinvasive, another kudzu. Bioinvasion costs our country
billions of dollars a year (Bright, 1998). Johnson grass was introduced as
a forage grass and it's now an invasive weed in many states. Another
fast-growing grass, Miscanthus, is now being proposed as a biofuel. It's
been described as "Johnson grass on steroids" (Raghu 2006).

Sugar cane: too little to import. Brazil uses oil for 90% of their energy,
and 17 times less oil [than the U.S.] (Jordan 2006). Brazilian ethanol
production in 2003 was 3.3 billion gallons, about the same as the USA in
2004, or 1% of our transportation energy. Brazil uses 85% of their cane
ethanol, leaving only 15% for export.

Sugar Cane: can't grow it here. Although we grow some sugar cane despite
tremendous environmental damage (WWF) in Florida thanks to the sugar lobby,
we're too far north to grow a significant amount of sugar cane or other
fast growing C4 plants.

Wood ethanol is an energy sink. Ethanol production using wood biomass
required 57% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced (Pimentel
2005).

Wood is a nonrenewable resource. Old-growth forests had very dense wood,
with a high energy content, but wood from fast-growing plantations is so
low-density and low calorie it's not even good to burn in a fireplace.
These plantations require energy to plant, fertilize, weed, thin, cut, and
deliver. The trees are finally available for use after 20 to 90 years --
too long for them to be considered a renewable fuel (Odum 1996). Nor do
secondary forests always come back with the vigor of the preceding forest
due to soil erosion, soil nutrition depletion, and mycorrhizae destruction
(Luoma 1999).

There's not enough wood to fuel a civilization of 300 million people. Over
half of North America was deforested by 1900, at a time when there were
only 75 million people (Williams 2003). Most of this was from home use. In
the 18th century the average Northeastern family used 10 to 20 cords per
year. At least one acre of woods is required to sustainably harvest one
cord of wood (Whitney 1994).

Energy crop limits. Energy crops may not be sustainable due to water,
fertilizer, and harvesting impacts on the soil (DOE Biomass Roadmap 2005).
Like all other monoculture crops, ultimately yields of energy crops will be
reduced due to "pest problems, diseases, and soil degradation" (Giampetro,
1997).

Energy crop monoculture. The "physical and chemical characteristics of
feedstocks vary by source, by year, and by season, increasing processing
costs" (DOE Feedstock Roadmap). That will encourage the development of
genetically engineered biomass to minimize variation. Harvesting economies
of scale will mean these crops will be grown in monoculture, just as food
crops are. That's the wrong direction -- to farm with less energy there'll
need to be a return to rotation of diverse crops, and composted residues
for soil nutrition, pest, and disease resistance.

A way around this would be to spend more on researching how cellulose
digesting microbes tackle different herbaceous and woody biomass. The ideal
energy crop would be a perennial, tall-grass prairie / herbivore ecosystem
(Tilman 2006).

Farmers aren't stupid: They won't sell their residues. Farmers are some of
the smartest people on earth or they'd soon go out of business. They have
to know everything from soil science to commodity futures.

Crop production is reduced when residues are removed from the soil. Why
would farmers want to sell their residues?

Erosion, water, compression, nutrition. Harvesting of stover on the scale
needed to fuel a cellulosic industry won't happen because farmers aren't
stupid, especially the ones who work their own land. Although there is a
wide range of opinion about the amount of residue that can be harvested
safely without causing erosion, loss of soil nutrition, and soil structure,
many farmers will want to be on the safe side, and stick with the studies
showing that 20% (Nelson, 2002) to 30% (McAloon et al., 2000; Sheehan,
2003) at most can be harvested, not the 75% agribusiness claims is
possible. Farmers also care about water quality (Lal 1998, Mann et al,
2002). And farmers will decide that permanent soil compression is not worth
any price (Wilhelm 2004). As prices of fertilizer inexorably rise due to
natural gas depletion, it will be cheaper to return residues to the soil
than to buy fertilizer.

Residues are a headache. The further the farmer is from the biorefinery or
railroad, the slimmer the profit, and the less likely a farmer will want
the extra headache and cost of hiring and scheduling many different
harvesting, collection, baling, and transportation contractors for corn
stover.

Residues are used by other industries. Farm managers working for distant
owners are more likely to sell crop residues since they're paid to generate
profits, not preserve land. But even they will sell to the highest bidder,
which might be the livestock or dairy industries, furfural factories,
hydromulching companies, biocomposite manufacturers, pulp mills, or city
dwellers faced with skyrocketing utility bills, since the high heating
value of residue has twice the energy of the converted ethanol.

Investors aren't stupid either. If farmers can't supply enough crop
residues to fuel the large biorefinery in their region, who will put up the
capital to build one?

Can the biomass be harvested, baled, stored, and transported economically?

Harvesting. Sixteen ton tractors harvest corn and spit out stover. Many of
these harvesters are contracted and will continue to collect corn in the
limited harvest time, not stover. If tractors are still available, the land
isn't wet, snow doesn't fall, and the stover is dry, three additional
tractor runs will mow, rake, and bale the stover (Wilhelm 2004). This will
triple the compaction damage to the soil (Troeh 2005), create more
erosion-prone tire tracks, increase CO2 emissions, add to labor costs, and
put unwanted foreign matter into the bale (soil, rocks, baling wire, etc).

So biomass roadmaps call for a new type of tractor or attachment to harvest
both corn and stover in one pass. But then the tractor would need to be
much larger and heavier, which could cause decades-long or even permanent
soil compaction. Farmers worry that mixing corn and stover might harm the
quality of the grain. And on the cusp of energy descent, is it a good idea
to build an even larger and more complex machine?

If the stover is harvested, the soil is now vulnerable to erosion if it
rains, because there's no vegetation to protect the soil from the impact of
falling raindrops. Rain also compacts the surface of the soil so that less
water can enter, forcing more to run off, increasing erosion. Water landing
on dense vegetation soaks into the soil, increasing plant growth and
recharging underground aquifers. The more stover left on the land, the
better.

Baling. The current technology to harvest residues is to put them into
bales of hay. Hay is a dangerous commodity -- it can spontaneously combust,
and once on fire, can't be extinguished, leading to fire loss and increased
fire insurance costs. Somehow the bales have to be kept from combusting
during the several months it takes to dry them from 50 to 15 percent
moisture. A large, well drained, covered area is needed to vent fumes and
dissipate heat. If the bales get wet they will compost (Atchison 2004).

Baling was developed for hay and has been adapted to corn stover with
limited success. Biorefineries need at least half a million tons of biomass
on hand to smooth supply bumps, much greater than any bale system has been
designed for. Pelletization is not an option, it's too expensive. Other
options need to be found. (DOE Feedstock Roadmap)

To get around the problems of exploding hay bales, wet stover could be
collected. The moisture content needs to be around 60 percent, which means
a lot of water will be transported, adding significantly to the delivery
cost.

Storage. Stover needs to be stored with a moisture content of 15% or less,
but it's typically 35-50%, and rain or snow during harvest will raise these
levels even higher (DOE Feedstock Roadmap). If it's harvested wet anyhow,
there'll be high or complete losses of biomass in storage (Atchison 2004).

Residues could be stored wet, as they are in ensilage, but a great deal of
R&D are needed and to see if there are disease, pest, emission, runoff,
groundwater contamination, dust, mold, or odor control problems. The amount
of water required is unknown. The transit time must be short, or aerobic
microbial activity will damage it. At the storage site, the wet biomass
must be immediately washed, shredded, and transported to a drainage pad
under a roof for storage, instead of baled when drier and left at the farm.
The wet residues are heavy, making transportation costlier than for dry
residues, perhaps uneconomical. It can freeze in the winter making it hard
to handle. If the moisture is too low, air gets in, making aerobic
fermentation possible, resulting in molds and spoilage.

Transportation. Although a 6,000 dry ton per day biorefinery would have 33%
lower [unit] costs than [one that processed 2,000 dry tons per day], the
price of gas and diesel limits the distance the biofuel refinery can be
from farms, since the bales are large in volume but low in density, which
limits how many bales can be loaded onto a truck and transported
economically.

So the "economy of scale" achieved by a very large refinery has to be
reduced to a 2,000 dry ton per day biorefinery. Even this smaller refinery
would require 200 trucks per hour delivering biomass during harvest season
(7 x 24), or 100 trucks per day if satellite sites for storage are used.
This plant would need 90% of the no-till crop residues from the surrounding
7,000 square miles with half the farmers participating. Yet less than 20%
of farmers practice no-till corn and not all of the farmland is planted in
corn. When this biomass is delivered to the biorefinery, it will take up at
least 100 acres of land stacked 25 feet high.

The average stover haul to the biorefinery would be 43 miles one way if
these rosy assumptions all came true (Perlack 2002). If less than 30% of
the stover is available, the average one-way trip becomes 100 miles and the
biorefinery is economically impossible.

There is also a shortage of truck drivers, the rail system can't handle any
new capacity, and trains are designed to operate between hubs, not
intermodally (truck to train to truck). The existing transportation system
has not changed much in 30 years, yet this congested, inadequate
infrastructure somehow has to be used to transport huge amounts of ethanol,
biomass, and byproducts (Haney 2006).

Cellulosic Biorefineries (see Appendix for more barriers)

There are over 60 barriers to be overcome in making cellulosic ethanol in
Section III of the DOE "Roadmap for Agriculture Biomass Feedstock Supply in
the United States" (DOE Feedstock Roadmap 2003). For example: "Enzyme
Biochemistry. Enzymes that exhibit high thermostability and substantial
resistance to sugar end-product inhibition will be essential to fully
realize enzyme-based sugar platform technology. The ability to develop such
enzymes and consequently very low cost enzymatic hydrolysis technology
requires increasing our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms
underlying the biochemistry of enzymatic cellulose hydrolysis, including
the impact of biomass structure on enzymatic cellulose decrystallization.
Additional efforts aimed at understanding the role of cellulases and their
interaction not only with cellulose but also the process environment is
needed to affect further reductions in cellulase cost through improved
production". No wonder many of the issues with cellulosic ethanol aren't
discussed -- there's no way to express the problems in a sound bite.

It may not be possible to reduce the complex cellulose digesting strategies
of bacteria and fungi into microorganisms or enzymes that can convert
cellulose into ethanol in giant steel vats, especially given the huge
physical and chemical variations in feedstock. The field of metagenomics is
trying to create a chimera from snips of genetic material of
cellulose-digesting bacteria and fungi. That would be the ultimate Swiss
Army-knife microbe, able to convert cellulose to sugar and then sugar to
ethanol.

There's also research to replicate termite gut cellulose breakdown.
Termites depend on fascinating creatures called protists in their guts to
digest wood. The protists in turn outsource the work to multiple kinds of
bacteria living inside of them. This is done with energy (ATP) and
architecture (membranes) in a system that evolved over millions of years.
If the termite could fire the protists and work directly with the bacteria,
that probably would have happened 50 million years ago. This process
involves many kinds of bacteria, waste products, and other complexities
that may not be reducible to an enzyme or a bacteria.

Finally, ethanol must be delivered. A motivation to develop cellulosic
ethanol is the high delivery cost of corn grain ethanol from the Midwest to
the coasts, since ethanol can't be delivered cheaply through pipelines, but
must be transported by truck, rail, or barge (Yacobucci 2003).

The whole cellulosic ethanol enterprise falls apart if the energy returned
is less than the energy invested or even one of the major stumbling blocks
can't be overcome. If there isn't enough biomass, if the residues can't be
stored without exploding or composting, if the oil to transport low-density
residues to biorefineries or deliver the final product is too great, if no
cheap enzymes or microbes are found to break down lignocellulose in wildly
varying feedstocks, if the energy to clean up toxic byproducts is too
expensive, or if organisms capable of tolerating high ethanol
concentrations aren't found, if the barriers in Appendix A can't be
overcome, then cellulosic fuels are not going to happen.

If the obstacles can be overcome, but we lose topsoil, deplete aquifers,
poison the land, air, and water -- what kind of Faustian bargain is that?

Scientists have been trying to solve these issues for over thirty years
now.

Nevertheless, this is worthy of research money, but not public funds for
commercial refineries until the issues above have been solved. This is the
best hope we have for replacing the half million products made from and
with fossil fuels, and for liquid transportation fuels when population
falls to pre-coal levels.

Part 7. Where do we go from here?

Subsidies and Politics

How come there are over 116 ethanol plants with 79 under construction and
200 more planned? The answer: subsidies and tax breaks.

Federal and state ethanol subsidies add up to 79 cents per liter (McCain
2003), with most of that going to agribusiness, not farmers. There is also
a tax break of 5.3 cents per gallon for ethanol (Wall Street Journal 2002).
An additional 51 cents per gallon goes mainly to the oil industry to get
them to blend ethanol with gasoline.

In addition to the $8.4 billion per year subsidies for corn and ethanol
production, the consumer pays an additional amount for any product with
corn in it (Pollan 20005), beef, milk, and eggs, because corn diverted to
ethanol raises the price of corn for the livestock industry.

Worst of all, the subsidies may never end, because Iowa plays a leading
role in who's selected to be the next president. John McCain has softened
his stand on ethanol (Birger 2006). All four senators in California and New
York have pointed out that "ethanol subsidies are nothing but a way to
funnel money to agribusiness and corn states at the expense of the rest of
the country" (Washington Post 2002).

"Once we have a corn-based technology up and running the political system
will protect it," said Lawrence J. Goldstein, a board member at the Energy
Policy Research Foundation. "We cannot afford to have 15 billion gallons of
corn-based ethanol in 2015, and that's exactly where we are headed"
(Barrionuevo 2007).

Conclusion

Soil is the bedrock of civilization (Perlin 1991, Ponting 1993). Biofuels
are not sustainable or renewable. Why would we destroy our topsoil,
increase global warming, deplete and pollute groundwater, destroy
fisheries, and use more energy than what's gained to make ethanol? Why
would we do this to our children and grandchildren?

Perhaps it's a combination of pork barrel politics, an uninformed public,
short-sighted greedy agribusiness corporations, jobs for the Midwest,
politicians getting too large a percent of their campaign money from
agribusiness (Lavelle 2007), elected leaders without science degrees, and
desperation to provide liquid transportation fuels (Bucknell 1981, Hirsch
2005).

But this madness puts our national security at risk. Destruction of topsoil
and collateral damage to water, fisheries, and food production will result
in less food to eat or sell for petroleum and natural gas imports.
Diversion of precious dwindling energy and money to impossible solutions is
a threat to our nations' future.

Recommendations

Fix the unsustainable and destructive aspects of industrial agriculture. At
least some good would come out of the ethanol fiasco if more attention were
paid to how we grow our food. The effects of soil erosion on crop
production have been hidden by mechanization and intensive use of fossil
fuel fertilizers and chemicals on crops bred to tolerate them. As energy
declines, crop yields will decline as well.

Jobs. Since part of what's driving the ethanol insanity is job creation,
divert the subsidies and pork barrel money to erosion control and
sustainable agriculture. Maybe Iowa will emerge from its makeover looking
like Provence, France, and volunteers won't be needed to hand out free
coffee at rest areas along I-80.

Continue to fund cellulosic ethanol research, focusing on how to make
500,000 fossil-fuel-based products (i.e. medicine, chemicals, plastics,
etc) and fuel for when population declines to pre-fossil fuel carrying
capacity. The feedstock should be from a perennial, tall-grass prairie
herbivore ecosystem, not food crops. But don't waste taxpayer money to
build demonstration or commercial plants until most of the research and
sustainability barriers have been solved.

California should not adopt the E10 ethanol blend for global warming bill
AB 32. Biofuels are at best neutral and at worst contribute to global
warming. A better early action item would be to favor low- emission vehicle
sales and require all new cars to have energy efficient tires.

Take away the E85 loophole that allows Detroit automakers to ignore CAFE
standards and get away with selling even more gas guzzling vehicles
(Consumer Reports 2006). Raise the CAFE standards higher immediately.

There are better, easier ways to stretch out petroleum than adding ethanol
to it. Just keeping tires inflated properly would save more energy than all
the ethanol produced today. Reducing the maximum speed limit to 55,
consumer driving tips, truck stop electrification, and many other measures
can save far more fuel in a shorter time than biofuels ever will, far less
destructively. Better yet, Americans can bike or walk, which will save
energy used in the health care system.

Let's stop the subsidies and see if ethanol can fly.

Reform our non-sustainable agricultural system

Give integrated pest management and organic agriculture research more
funding

The National Resources Conservation Service (NCRS) and other conservation
agencies have done a superb job of lowering the erosion rate since the
dustbowl of the 1930's. Give these agencies a larger budget to further the
effort.

To promote land stewardship, change taxes and zoning laws to favor small
family farms. This will make possible the "social, economic, and
environmental diversity necessary for agricultural and ecosystem stability"
(Opie 2000).

Make the land grant universities follow the directive of the Hatch Act of
1887 to improve the lives of family farmers. Stop funding agricultural
mechanization and petrochemical research and start funding how to fight
pests and disease with diverse crops, crop rotations, and so on (Hightower
1978).

Don't allow construction of homes and businesses on prime farm land. 
Integrate livestock into the crop rotation.

Teach family farmers and suburban homeowners how to maximize food
production in limited space with Rodale and Biointensive techniques.

Since less than 1 percent of our elected leaders and their staff have
scientific backgrounds, educate them in systems ecology, population
ecology, soil, and climate science. So many of the important issues that
face us need scientific understanding and judgment.

Divert funding from new airports, roads, and other future senseless
infrastructure towards research in solar, wind, and cellulosic products.
We're at the peak of scientific knowledge and our economic system hasn't
been knocked flat yet by energy shortages -- if we don't do the research
now, it may never happen.

It's not unreasonable to expect farmers to conserve the soil, since the
fate of civilization lies in their hands. But we need to pay farmers for
far more than the cost of growing food so they can afford to conserve the
land. In an oil-less future, healthy topsoil will be our most important
resource.

Responsible politicians need to tell Americans why their love affair with
the car can't continue. Leaders need to make the public understand that
there are limits to growth, and an increasing population leads to the
"Tragedy of the Commons". Even if it means they won't be re-elected.
Arguing this amidst the church of development that prevails this is like
walking into a Bible-belt church and telling the congregation God doesn't
exist, but it must be done.

We are betting the farm on making cellulosic fuels work at a time when our
energy and financial resources are diminishing. No matter how desperately
we want to believe that human ingenuity will invent liquid or combustible
fuels despite the laws of thermodynamics and how ecological systems
actually work, the possibility of failure needs to be contemplated.

Living in the moment might be enlightenment for individuals, but for a
nation, it's disastrous. Is there a Plan B if biofuels don't work? Coal is
not an option. CO2 levels over 1,000 ppm could lead to the extinction of
95% of life on the planet (Lynas 2007, Ward 2006, Benton 2003).

Here we are, on the cusp of energy descent, with mechanized petrochemical
farms. We import more farm products now than we sell abroad (Rohter 2004).
Suburban sprawl destroys millions of acres of prime farm land as population
grows every year. We've gone from 7 million family farms to 2 million much
larger farms and destroyed a deeply satisfying rural way of life.

There need to be plans for de-mechanization of the farm economy if liquid
fuels aren't found. There are less than four million horses, donkeys, and
mules in America today. According to Bucknell, if the farm economy were
de-mechanized, you'd need at least 31 million farm workers and 61 million
horses. (Bucknell 1981)

The population of the United States has grown over 25 percent since
Bucknell published Energy and the National Defense. To de-mechanize now,
we'd need 39 million farm workers and 76 million horses. The horsepower
represented by just farm tractors alone is equal to 400 million horses.
It's time to start increasing horse and oxen numbers, which will leave even
less biomass for biorefineries.

We need to transition from petroleum power to muscle power gracefully if we
want to preserve democracy. Paul Roberts wonders whether the coming change
will be "peaceful and orderly or chaotic and violent because we waited too
long to begin planning for it" (Roberts 2004).

What is the carrying capacity of the nation? Is it 100 million (Pimentel
1991) or 250 million (Smil 2000)? Whatever carrying capacity is decided
upon, pass legislation to drastically lower immigration and encourage one
child families until America reaches this number. Or we can let resource
wars, hunger, disease, extreme weather, rising oceans, and social chaos
legislate the outcome.

Do you want to eat or drive? Even without growing food for biofuels, crop
production per capita is going to go down as population keeps increasing,
fossil fuel energy decreases, topsoil loss continues, and aquifers deplete,
especially the Ogallala (Opie 2000). Where will the money come from to buy
imported oil and natural gas if we don't have food to export?

There is no such thing as "waste" biomass. As we go down the energy ladder,
plants will increasingly be needed to stabilize climate, provide food,
medicine, shelter, furniture, heat, light, cooking fuel, clothing, etc.

Biofuels are a threat to the long-term national security of our nation. Is
Dr. Strangelove in charge, with a plan to solve defense worries by creating
a country that's such a salty polluted desert, no one would want to invade
us? Why is Dr. Strangelove spending the last bits of energy in Uncle Sam's
pocket on moonshine? Perhaps he's thinking that we're all going to need it,
and the way things are going, he's probably right.

Appendix: Department of Energy Biofuel Roadmap Barriers

This is a partial summary of biofuel barriers from Department of Energy.
Unless otherwise footnoted, the problems with biomass fuel production are
from the Multi Year Program Plan DOE Biomass Plan or Roadmap for
Agriculture Biomass Feedstock Supply in the United States. (DOE Biomass
Plan, DOE Feedstock Roadmap). Resource and Sustainability Barriers

1) Biomass feedstock will ultimately be limited by finite amounts of land
and water

2) Biomass production may not be sustainable because of impacts on soil
compaction, erosion, carbon, and nutrition.

3) Nor is it clear that perennial energy crops are sustainable, since not
enough is known about their water and fertilizer needs, harvesting impacts
on the soil, etc.

4) Farmers are concerned about the long-term effects on soil, crop
productivity, and the return on investment when collecting residues.

5) The effects of biomass feedstock production on water flows and water
quality are unknown

6) The risks of impact on biodiversity and public lands haven't been
assessed.

SEE part 2