How U.S. Biofuel Policy Is Destroying Guatemala's Food Supply

A new report in The New York Times highlights how biofuel policy in the United States and Europe has produced a rolling food catastrophe in Guatemala.

The country once enjoyed a nearly self-sufficient level of corn production, but domestic producers were undercut by American corn exports subsidized by U.S. agricultural policy. Guatemala's domestic corn supplies dropped nearly 30 percent per capita between 1995 and 2005.

In 2007, the United States established its expanded biofuel standards, and began relying on corn to meet them. That drove up demand, and the flow of cheap corn into Guatemala dried up. Meanwhile, larger farms and industrial producers took up much of Guatemala's available cropland and water supplies to produce sugar cane, vegetable oil, and other crops to meet increased global demand for biofuel, due to European as well as U.S. policies.

The result left subsistence farmers with less and less land to work, and the average Guatemalan - whose diet is heavily corn-based - with no where else to turn for affordable food:

In a country where most families must spend about two thirds of their income on food, "the average Guatemalan is now hungrier because of biofuel development," said Katja Winkler, a researcher at Idear, a Guatemalan nonprofit organization that studies rural issues. Roughly 50 percent of the nation's children are chronically malnourished, the fourth-highest rate in the world, according to the United Nations. [...]

But many worry that Guatemala's poor are already suffering from the diversion of food to fuel. "There are pros and cons to biofuel, but not here," said Misael Gonz√°les of C.U.C., a labor union for Guatemala's farmers. "These people don't have enough to eat. They need food. They need land. They can't eat biofuel, and they don't drive cars."

In 2011, corn prices would have been 17 percent lower if the United States did not subsidize and give incentives for biofuel production with its renewable fuel policies, according to an analysis by Bruce A. Babcock, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University. The World Bank has suggested that biofuel mandates in the developed world should be adjusted when food is short or prices are inordinately high. [...]

In part because [the United Nations World Food Program in Guatemala's] primary food supplement is a mix of corn and soy, it cannot afford to help all of the Guatemalan children in need, Mr. Gauvreau said; it is agency policy to buy corn locally, but there is no extra corn grown here anymore. And Guatemalans cannot go back to the land because so much of it is being devoted to growing crops for biofuel. (Almost no biofuel is used domestically.)

In short, Guatemala is a microcosm for the damage Western food-based biofuels are doing to food supplies for the global poor. The United States is currently on track to devote nearly 40 percent of its own corn crop, and 15 percent of the world's corn supplies, to biofuels. By 2020, European standards will mandate that transportation fuels contain 10 percent biofuels. (Although the European Commission "recently proposed amending its policy so that only half of its 2020 target could be met by using biofuels made from food crops or those grown on land previously devoted to food crops," according to the New York Times.)

Most assessments of the 2008 food crisis found that biofuels played a role. Agricultural production is able to keep up with the world's growing demand for food; however, the growing demand for biofuels make it more difficult to match that demand in years when weather is poor. As global warming continues to raise the odds of extreme weather, less reliable rain, and less reliable growing seasons, the potential to meet that demand diminishes.

At the same time, most studies have determined that because of the carbon emissions involved in biofuels' agricultural production, their net effect on greenhouse gases is either negligible or negative. More advanced biofuels, such as the ones based on microalgae, could provide a solution, but they have not been fully commercialized. For the moment, we're causing severe damage to the world's food supply with no real benefit to the global warming problem.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/07/1410561/how-us-biofuel-pol

T. Boone Pickens says: Let's transform energy with Natural Gas

Mr. Pickens says from the outset that he believes in global warming, which I must assume he means to say human caused global warming.  He then launches into a pitch to sell us on a large-scale switch to natural gas to fuel our society.  Natural gas is a fossil fuel, and will only continue the path of global warming.   While Natural Gas is routinely believed to be cleaner, some research has shown it isn't, especially in the first stage after a frack-job when there's a lot of methane escaping into the atmosphere.

His approach is from national energy security.  The current dominance of oil to fuel our society of course undermines the U.S. national security, because oil is located in countries that aren't exactly friendly to the U.S.  Mr. Pickens calls these countries The Enemy, and one gathers that he thinks any OPEC country is part of that Enemy.  The numbers are that $3 trillion per year goes into buying fossil fuels, and of that amount $1 trillion flows to OPEC, which Mr. Pickens calls the Greatest Transfer of Wealth in History.  But, yes, of course, this is funding countries that are not friendly to the U.S.  Why, then, do the Republican politicians want to keep us on the fossil oil bandwagon?

Mr. Pickens claims there is plenty of natural gas available.  The technology enabling this is hydraulic fracturing.  In his view there's nothing wrong with that technology, he's done thousands of frack-jobs and not had a problem.  There's a lot of people who disagree with him.

His position is one of hypocrisy.  On the one hand he believes in global warming, on the other hand he's pushing a fuel that will continue the fossil fuel dependency behind human caused global warming.  The causitive factor to human caused global warming is digging up ancient fossil fuels and burning them, releasing more carbon into the ecosphere.  The way to stop this is to stop using fossil fuels.

But could natural gas be a bridge fuel to get us somewhere?  That's the core of his pitch, that it's a bridge fuel, and because he's an old guy that's about to die, he doesn't care about where that bridge leads.  It's up to us to solve the problems of adopting natural gas on a big scale.

There is already a large-scale adoption of natural gas in big trucks, as Mr. Pickens suggests.  The big trucks represent a large amount of fossil fuel/oil use, and because they're running dirty diesel engines the air pollution from those trucks is horrible and known to be carcinogenic.  His suggestion is that natural gas is cleaner than diesel, making it a better fuel.  But, what if our society adopts natural gas and then stops there?  We'll still be on the path of human caused global warming.

White roofs do little to stop global warming, solar panels do more, says Stanford's Mark Jacobsen

A couple years ago an idea was circulating that just painting your roof white or even silver colored would stop the heat island effect.  The urban heat island is the observation that urban areas, with lots of parking lots and buildings and very few trees and green areas, have a build-up of heat.  Go a little way out of town and temperatures cool off because the vegetation and shade and whatnot naturally acts to keep temperatures cooler.  The thinking goes that many things in urban areas, like Asphalt, are dark colored and therefore high school physics says it'll absorb heat.  The solution seemed to be that simply painting things white would cut the temperature and resolve the heat island.

Cities release more heat to the atmosphere than the rural vegetated areas around them, but how much influence these urban "heat islands" have on global warming has been a matter of debate. Now a study by Stanford researchers has quantified the contribution of the heat islands for the first time, showing that it is modest compared with what greenhouse gases contribute to global warming.  The team included Mark Jacobsen who's quoted saying "Between 2 and 4 percent of the gross global warming since the Industrial Revolution may be due to urban heat islands."

Some global warming skeptics have claimed that the urban heat island effect is so strong that it has been skewing temperature measurements that show that global warming is happening.  "This study shows that the urban heat island effect is a relatively minor contributor to warming, contrary to what climate skeptics have claimed," Jacobson said. "Greenhouse gases and particulate black carbon cause far more warming."

Although his study showed that urban heat islands are not major contributors to global warming, Jacobson said reducing the effect of heat islands is still important for slowing the rise of global temperatures.

The "paint roofs white" idea was described as "geoengineering" and found that white roofs did indeed cool urban surfaces, but that they also caused a net global warming, largely because they reduced cloudiness slightly by increasing the stability of the air, thereby reducing the vertical transport of moisture and energy to clouds.

Another idea that has been circulating is that because solar panels are dark color that they'd contribute to the heat island, and that perhaps we shouldn't use solar panels.  Jacobsens study can be taken to refute this idea, and give us a green light to using solar panels.  First, solar panels generate electricity hence offsetting electricity generated from fossil fuel powered plants.  Second, they reduce sunlight absorbed by buildings (assuming the panels are installed on the building) by shielding the building while being installed on the building.  Third, solar panels do not reflect the sunlight back into the air, meaning that light won't be re-absorbed by the atmosphere pollutants.

Jacobson is the director of Stanford's Atmosphere/Energy Program and a senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy. Graduate student John Ten Hoeve contributed to the research and is coauthor of the paper. Funding for the research was contributed by NASA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/Others/HeatIsland+WhiteRfs0911.pdf

Urban 'heat island' effect is only a small contributor to global warming, and white roofs don't help to solve the problem, say Stanford researchers

Global warming causing Methane Hydrate Production Technologies to be Tested on Alaska's North Slope

The Dept of Energy has announced a "Test" between themselves, Japan Oil, and ConocoPhillips for "producing methane gas from hydrate deposits on the Alaska North Slope".  This is probably a bit arcane but a) it's a sign of impending peak oil effects, b) continued extraction of fossil fuels which will result in more emissions of previously sequestered carbon, c) involve questionable technologies to scrape stuff off the ocean floor, d) doesn't contribute to moving to properly clean energy technologies

We should start with what is a "methane hydrate"?  Methane clathrate, also called methane hydrate, hydromethane, methane ice, "fire ice" and natural gas hydrate, is a solid clathrate compound (more specifically, a clathrate hydrate) in which a large amount of methane is trapped within a crystal structure of water, forming a solid similar to ice. .. The worldwide amounts of methane bound in gas hydrates is conservatively estimated to total twice the amount of carbon to be found in all known fossil fuels on Earth. (see wikipedia link below)  Basically that means it's methane frozen into ice.  One interesting thing is you can touch a match to this methane ice and set it on fire.

It occurs in shallow waters, both in "deep sedimentary structures" (e.g. underneath the sea floor), and as outcroppings on the sea floor.  They also occur in deep antarctic ice cores, indicating that 800,000 years ago Earth's atmosphere had high methane concentrations.  It's primarily an underground phenomena (according to wikipedia), can occur off-shore in continental shelf areas, as well as on-shore.  The hydrates deposits may conceal deeper methane deposits.

Methane is basically identical to what we call "Natural Gas".  Methane is a very serious greenhouse gas, and is a carbon based hydrocarbon.

In other words, this is a fossil fuel.  Extracting these methane hydrates will do all the same things we're concerned about in other uses of fossil fuels.  It means releasing methane that's currently sequestered underground, releasing the carbon into the ecosphere, and will continue contributions to releases of greenhouse gasses known to influence global warming climate change.

This is related to the effect in Siberia and other arctic tundra areas, where the frozen tundra is melting leading to methane releases.  The "clathrate gun hypothesis" suggests that releases of methane from melting tundra will lead to runaway warming.  I wonder if the purposeful release of methane from the hydrate deposits would also trigger this chathrate gun ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

Methane Hydrate Production Technologies to be Tested on Alaska's North Slope

Washington, DC — The U.S. Department of Energy, the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation, and ConocoPhillips will work together to test innovative technologies for producing methane gas from hydrate deposits on the Alaska North Slope.

The collaborative testing will take place under the auspices of a Statement of Intent for Cooperation in Methane Hydrates signed in 2008 and extended in 2011 by DOE and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. The production tests are the next step in both U.S. and Japanese national efforts to evaluate the response of gas hydrate reservoirs to alternative gas hydrate production concepts. The tests will provide critical information to inform potential future extended-duration tests.

 

The tests will utilize the "Iġnik Sikumi" (Iñupiaq for "fire in the ice") gas hydrate field trial well, a fully instrumented borehole that was installed in the Prudhoe Bay region by ConocoPhillips and the Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory earlier this year.

 

Methane hydrate consists of molecules of natural gas trapped in an open rigid framework of water molecules. It occurs in sediments within and below thick permafrost in Arctic regions, and in the subsurface of most continental waters with a depth of ~1,500 feet or greater. Many experts believe it represents a potentially vast source of global energy, and DOE scientists have studied methane hydrate resource potential and production technologies for more than two decades.

 

The current test plans call for roughly 100 days of continuous operations from January to March 2012. Tests will include the initial field trial of a technology that involves injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) into methane-hydrate-bearing sandstone formations, resulting in the swapping of CO2 molecules for methane molecules in the solid-water hydrate lattice, the release of methane gas, and the permanent storage of CO2 in the formation. This field experiment will be an extension of earlier successful tests of the technology conducted by ConocoPhillips and their research partners in a laboratory setting.

 

Following the exchange tests, the team will conduct a 1-month evaluation of an alternative methane-production method called depressurization. This process involves pumping fluids out of the borehole to reduce pressure in the well, which results in dissociation of methane hydrate into methane gas and liquid water. The method was successfully demonstrated during a 1-week test conducted by Japan and Canada in northwestern Canada in 2008.

 

- End of Techline

 

For more information, contact: Jenny Hakun, FE Office of Communications, 202-586-5616, jenny.hakun@hq.doe.gov

It's hot ... here's how to cool off w/o using lots of energy

We're having a heck of a heat wave this summer. I live in the SF Bay Area and the temperatures are moderated a bit by the ocean. But yesterday it was over 100 where I live, which is an outrageous temperature. I know, I know, 100 isn't so outrageous in other parts of the U.S. but in the SF Bay Area our climate is highly moderated by the ocean. Usually severe winter or summer weather is but a rumor we hear about from friends in other parts of the country.

And I was reading that England is also seeing 100 degree weather. That they were expected to set an all time high temperature. And that it's the second time in the last three years that England is recording an all time high temperature.

Anybody doubt about Global Warming?

Anyway ... this is supposed to be about keeping cool. One reason I wanted to live in the SF Bay Area is the climate. I read in a "Places Rated" book that here in the Bay Area we have a low percentage of air conditioners installed in houses. Obviously that's climate related, and any place that doesn't have the people using air conditioning has got to be relatively cool in the summer.

And, indeed, that's what we have. Usually we have moderate temperatures in the summer with only a few days where we wish we had air conditioners.

Here's a few ideas I've collected about keeping cool without using a lot of power. Air conditioners use a lot of power, and if you want to live sustainably it's worth considering other ways of keeping cool without using air conditioning.

Attic fans work to exhaust hot air from your attic. The attic is like global warming on a miniature scale. Your roof is probably black color and is probably exposed to the sun, and therefore absorbs heat that's transmitted into the attic. The attic then sends that heat into the house. But an attic fan turns on when the temperature is high, draws the air out of the attic, reducing that effect.

Keep the windows open at night when it's cool, use fans to draw air into the house at night, and then shut the windows during the day. The idea is to capture cool air and keep it as long as you can during the day.

wiki how has some tips on keeping cool

For example .. aim a fan so it blows over the top of a bucket of ice. This will work better when the humidity is low. It's a similar idea to the swamp coolers they use in the desert.

Take a cool shower .. cover yourself with a cool cloth .. wear socks that have been soaked in cool water ..

The general idea is to use evaporative cooling.