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  • From: robert waldrop <rmwj@soonernet.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] the hydrogen argument
  • Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 10:09:41 -0500

Marimike6@cs.com wrote:
> According to the laws of conservation of energy, no process is 100%
> efficient. Every process costs more energy to create than you can get
> out of it. A lump of coal, for instance, has more energy inside than
> you can use.

in this case, the inefficiency is in the end use, not in the production.
A barrel of petroleum has more energy in it, even if used
inefficiently, than it took to harvest it. At least, this is true now.
one of the problems of the energy decline is that as fossil fuel
resources dwindle, it takes more energy to harvest them than it has in
previous decades, eventually we will get to a point where it will take
more energy to dig/pump the stuff out of the ground than it will yield
as useful work, at which time petroleum production will dwindle even
more.

> So you look over all the available options and see what works best for
> your purposes in an imperfect world. The good thing about the current
> situation is that we have more choices than we've ever had to date.
> Some won't pan out. Some will.

I agree that the future of energy is diversity. in my own household, we
are developing passive solar heating and cooling and solar water
heating, and are heading towards bicycles for transportation. We have
been working for 3 years on minimizing electricity use.

> So energy decisions are going to continue to be taken for all the
> wrong reasons. The smart people will be working toward designing
> processes that make money. Because until sound practises make more
> money for the big dogs than the current practises they engage in,
> they're not going to do much. And they can afford to bribe government
> into not regulating them to force them to play nice.

Government "as it is now" is the enemy, no doubt about that. I am aware
of the problems of "mountain removal" in West Virginia and elsewhere.
That is where we are heading, unfortunately. I am unsure about the
viability of political opposition to this, but I write my letters and
sign petitions anyway.

> Other than fossil fuels we have the wind, the ocean (tidal forces),
> the sun-- we have some very big inputs that cost us nothing in terms
> of raw materials. Solar will probably never amount to much only
> because they're having trouble bringing the cost down. Tidal forces
> are potentially a monster if we design some proper works to utilize
> their lift and pull.

The problem with these is that they are very diffuse, tidal energy would
be the better bet, I would think.

> A lot of agricultural outputs are under-utilized right now. Much of it > is
> plowed under as a soil amendment,

Well, given the state of soils in North America (don't know much about
elsewhere) I would say that any agricultural output left on the ground,
even if plowed under, is not at all underutilized. The soil needs that
organic matter for the next year's crop, and continual removal of
agricultural output is depleting North American soils very rapidly.

much of it is landfilled (a
> stupid crime and waste of resource). Think about all the mowed grass
> from the lawns of America. I wonder how much ends up being put to good> use
> and not just landfilled.

some cities have urban composting programs, alas, mine is not. But I do
my part to rescue bags of grass bound for the landfill to use for mulch
and compost on my urban lot. I know it is "importing inputs" but most
of what I get comes from the area right around my home. The whole
concept of grass lawns, however, apart from say grazing goats or
something, is part of the problem, of course. I expect the future will
have a lot less useless grass (unless urban animal husbandry comes back
into vogue, which I hope it does).

If this biomass can be converted into
> long-chain carbon molecules, so much the better.

I agree and disagree, in that I question why it becomes waste in the
first place, and how much energy and resources that takes. I expect the
early adaptations to energy decline will be a reduction of waste.
People will stop fertilizing and watering lawns, so they won't have to
be cut so often, so they won't produce as many bags of grass clippings.
People will begin to encroach gardens on their former lawns. So we will
become more "thrifty and frugal" and produce less waste, so there will
be less energy that can be produced from the waste.
>
> You can't declare defeat just because you start out replacing only
> five or ten percent of fuel needs. You have to start somewhere and
> make some degree of difference. Later on, you try to invent other
> efficiencies.

I haven't declared defeat, I am proactively involved with devolving my
lifestyle while maintaining its quality, and helping others to do
likewise. Our simple decision to stop using air conditioning has saved
us thousands of kilowatt hours over the last four years, and that has
provided resources for other improvements. not many have followed our
no AC example, but when they are forced to do so by circumstances, we
and others will be there to show them how. The same is true for my
abandonment of long distance travel outside of Oklahoma by air or
private car. If I can't get there by bus, and it is in another state, I
ain't going. I wasn't even using my vehicle outside of Oklahoma City
for instate travel, but then we started this local food project and
there were places I needed to go for that which didn't have bus
transportation, so I am investing a bit of fossil fuel in that project,
but I don't travel by private auto for "pleasure" anymore.

For quite some time, I think the real "energy frontier" is learning to
do with less. Let the scientists do their thing, but given the
limitations of land, etc., whatever they come up with will be a lot less
than we are presently used to, so for most people, who aren't scientists
and thus can't really contribute to developing the efficiency of say
biodiesel production, our task is to develop models of low energy living
and a declining energy world.
>
> There is also manure. It's high-powered stuff, and can be put to much
> better use than it is now, since the current paradigm is still pretty
> much that this is bad stuff we need to just get rid of. That is
> changing, big time.

If you are talking about humanure, you're right, but I would not bet
much on animal manure. The days of the giant Confined Animal Feeding
Operations that are producing such large mountains of manure are
numbered. The first problem with them is that they are entirely
dependent upon producing large amounts of corn and wheat, and as the
energy decline hits, corn acreage in particular is likely to shrink
considerably. On a small farm, which is the future of animal husbandry,
no manure goes to waste.
>
> So we start out with a program to more effectively utilize hog poop.
> We don't start with a program to make everyone on earth into a Vegan,
> because that just ain't going to happen.

Yes, but those large mountains of hog poop are dependent upon large
mounains of corn, and without the corn, there will be no large mountains
of hog poop.
>
> You and I know that ranching operations are an efficient use of grain
> by a factor of 10:1. Sit on it. We're not going to convince people
> steak is environmentally insensitive. So I'd rather concentrate on
> learning how to provide more permaculturally sound steak for the
> American plate.

That would be mostly grass feed beef, and it would also be beef bought
directly from a farmer, not via the present system of agribidness
production and distribution.
>
> And if someone comes up with an efficiency that boosts ranching income
> by turning an expensive disposal problem into a new profit center,
> ther is a bonus in it for them. They get to license their process and
> retire very rich. This is sort of the upside of the American Way.

Well, the manure is not a problem on the ranch, it is a problem at the
confined animal feeding operation. And the only thing to do with them
is shut them down, especially if we want to save the family farmer.
>
> Two options-- (a) let a couple of billion people die so there's enough> to
> go around-- (b) grow spirulina (a really nutrient-rich algae) in>
> hydroponic tanks floating in the ocean. We have to be inventive-- some>
> really thorny issues are coming down the pike straight at us.

Well, I am dubious about changing the ocean ecology by floating tanks of
spirulina. And I hope we can avoid a catastrophic dieoff. I am
certainly not willing to kill off 2 billion people so that the first
world can maintain its present lifestyle, even if it does so by
converting mountains of hog poop into gasoline. This of course is the
decision that has been presently made, and the human dieoff has already
begun.
> >
> These are some really good points. And the bottom two fifths of the
> human race is already living with less-- much less! I don't think
> we'll be able to convince the rich nations to join them at the bottom.
> The current dialog is pretty much how to raise them up to our level.
> It will take an inventive approach to chart a realistic course that
> fixes the problem and still allows the rich to make money off it.

If we don't resolve the problem of the rich, then there won't be a
future. Our politics says that the poor are the problem, but the real
problem is the rich, which includes most of us in the "developed
world". Even our lifestyle, which uses a lot less resources than many
in this country, is too energy intensive and bloated to be sustainable.

And perhaps the problem is our vocabulary. While we have devolved
considerably, I do not have any sense that the quality of our life is
declining. It is hot outside as I write this, but inside it is cool,
and when I come home this afternoon about 5 PM, it will still be
comfortable inside the house, and that's without air conditioning. it
has taken four years to get to that point, but I am more comfortable at
home than I am at my perfectly air conditioned office. We certainly eat
better than we did when we were buying supermarket food. We know the
farmers who produce the food we buy, and that is a nice relationship
plus the products we get from them are a lot better quality than the
trash sold in supermarkets as "food".

So maybe we should start talking about devolving into a higher quality
of lifestyle.
>
Robert Waldrop, OKC

PS. I should mention that one reason I am so focused on energy decline
issues is that I am the moderator of the Running on Empty(2) yahoo
group, which has about 600 subscribers and has been carrying on a
conversation about energy decline and how to cope with this for a couple
of years now. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmpty2/ One would
have to say that we are "energy pessimists."




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