permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

On 2/1/06 10:35 AM, "Loren Davidson" <listmail@lorendavidson.com> wrote:

>> 
>> don't know if you caught my post the other day, but what about ethanol
>> derived from food wastes, lawn trimmings, municipal tree trimmings,
>> cardboard, etc., etc.,  There's a lot of it, the stream never stops, and we
>> have to get rid of it somehow. That represents a lot of wasted calories.
> 
> Well, I'm not Toby...but it seems to me that a lot of the materials
> you suggest might be better used as compost, to rebuild topsoil.
> We're still losing topsoil at an alarming rate in this country, and
> replacing it with fertilizers derived from petrochemicals.
> 
I think that in general, turning long-chain hydrocarbons and other complex
molecules in a single step into CO2 and energy without using some of that
energy to rebuild them, as nature does (that is, burning them --poof!-- to
move yourself and 3000 pounds of machinery around quickly rather than using
them in a biological or industrial metabolism) is a poor use of such
complexity. It also violates about 8 permaculture principles. We've put
ourselves in the position of needing to do it on a huge scale, which
suggests how bankrupt this culture is.

Someone contacted me off-list about a USDA proposal to convert all farm and
forest "residue" to provide 30% of our fuel needs
See http://feedstockreview.ornl.gov/pdf/billion_ton_vision.pdf

And part of my reply was

" The challenge with using ag and forest residues for fuel is that these
so-called ³residues,² a term implying that they are just waste going to the
landfill, are currently used either to return fertility to the soil as
compost or ash (stubble mulching, field burning etc), are being converted to
animal feed or other products, or, in the case of ³forest residues² are
being returned to the ecosystem via decomposers. Pulling that biomass out of
its current uses is just robbing Peter to pay Paul; in this case ³Peter² is
ecosystem function. The ag biomass will have to be replaced with fertilizer.
I see no hint of systems thinking in the papers you cite. They are really
talking about taking it all, leaving nothing for maintenance of ecosystem
function. It¹s like clearcutting cubed. You¹re in Oregon, too, yes? Rivers
of mud and hills of eroded rock already, so let¹s take the branches and bark
too. Have you seen near-village forests in Europe and Asia? The forest floor
is picked utterly clean for fuel and compost. Forest decline, anyone? The
claims strike me as moving numbers from one column to another and saying it
adds up to more. And once again, ecosystem services are entirely neglected.

Did you see their assumptions? That crop yields increased 50%, that
residue-to-grain ratios increased to 2:1, all manure not used for fertilizer
was used for fuel, and‹-get this--all US cropland was no-till (more
herbicide, more oil). Did they mention pigs flying? I used to edit
peer-reviewed papers; I¹d laugh that one to the wastebasket. The assumption
that we can be virtually 100% efficient doesn¹t resemble any reality I know.
So let¹s be rational and figure we can get halfway there: Then maybe we can
serve 15% of current use with ethanol. Not so rosy."

Toby
www.patternliteracy.com