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Currently in Brazil some of the plantations are the size of "European states, these vast monocultures have replaced important eco-systems,"
True enough and I won't even mention soy farming, but so do a lot of things we take for granted in our modern American world such as cities, roads, industry shopping malls, fast food restaurants, agriculture, raising chickens, pigs and cows to name a few. You don't seem to be interested in advocating a reduction of the eco-system impacts of all of these other things. Sounds like you are the pot that is calling the kettle black.
It doesn't have to be the way you describe it.
http://www.biofuelsnow.com/Ethanol%20From%20Sugar%20Cane.pdf
•Why is sugar cane ethanol so efficient?
•First, because of the sugar cane plant itself
•Sugar cane fixes nitrogen from the air
•The farming process
•No irrigation needed
•All energy for industrial process comes from burning bagasse
•Industrial process produces surplus electricity, sold to the grid
•Nutrients from bagasse ashes are recycled
•Nutrients from vinasse are recycled
Great presentation. Repeat after me: There is no sugar cane grown in the Amazon (slde 3). Organic sugar cane has an EROEI of of 12:1. Much better for environment and climate than oil.
It's not going to save the world, but sugar cane-based ethanol does work.
WOW what a welcome to TOD....
"You don't seem to be interested in advocating a reduction of the eco-system impacts of all of these other things. Sounds like you are the pot that is calling the kettle black."
Instantly reducing yourself to an ad hominem attack is hardly the way to engender a positive response. If you had started your response at "it doesn't have to be the way you described it" your whole response would have a different feel to it. As it stands, I have a sour taste in my mouth wrt your response and am less likely to pay attention to any science you have to back up your statements. But I will move past that and do my best.
I did concede that Ethanol will play a part (I even stated that sugar cane was an exception did have a positive energy return!!). As will all forms of renewable energy play their part. But blindly worshiping at the foot of one technology is how we became addicted to oil.
And how, by questioning the applicability of ethanol to ease world peak oil am I not "interested in advocating a reduction of the eco-system impacts of [lot of things we take for granted in our modern American world such as cities, roads, industry shopping malls, fast food restaurants, agriculture, raising chickens, pigs and cows to name a few]"?
How you could infer such a stance from one singe post (my very first here) that I am such a anti-enviro minded person?
May I pose other ethanol related questions? (or will I get attacked personally again for daring to question the role of ethanol?)
So then how do we grow sugar cane in other parts of the world then?
How much sugar cane would need to be grown organically to slip in place for oil?
How are the problems of monoculture farming avoided?
How are the problems of P&K addressed?
Wasn't I talking about corn based ethanol anyways???
MS in Ontario Canada
In the coming battle between the 'rightness' of our economic model, and the geological limits to growth, I have a strong suspicion that the geologic limits may win.
Upon second read I admit my response to you was a bit off base. It's just that as someone who lived the ethanol experience in Brazil I reacted a bit from the gut in defense of that reality. To be honest what I got from your critique was something that upsets me quite a bit, namely what I consider to be a sort of arrogance of those who have created quite a mess both ecologically and economically in their own countries to criticize others who are trying other systems.
That does not in any way mean that I advocate the use of sugarcane based ethanol as a panacea to our energy needs. Nor by the way am I a great fan of monocultures for all the reasons you mentioned and I consider myself to be an environmentalist as well. So my apologies for the bad taste in your mouth due to my response. Having said that I still would like to import the excess ethanol that Brazil has already produced and have access to that technology here in the USA. BTW I'm not stuck on the "the 'rightness' of our economic model," Quite the contrary I believe it needs serious reexamination and some of has to be discarded or at least modified. Cheers.
Enviro Tech,
Welcome to The Oil Drum! I thought your comment was well thought out and summarised the arguments against sugar cane. You missed only one other I'd mention-that sugar cane requires either peonage/slavery to keep the EROEI positive. Its subsidised in South Louisiana and Florida as part of . the hate Cuba embargo, but, only there are the returns high enough to farm sugar cane in any modern society.
Sorry you had a rude introduction. Most of the folks posting here are very decent people who evaluate your arguments and respond politely. But like almost everwhere, we attract some jerks, so it helps if you are insensitive and a bit boorish. Please don't let this dissuade you from posting again!
Bob Ebersole
Bob, You might be describing me and that's ok because I have a pretty thick skin to begin with and sometimes I have a tendency to shoot from the hip. BTW you may also have noticed that after cooling off a bit I apologized to Enviro Tech. However despite what you say about peonage/slavery being the only way to keep EROEI positive I don't believe that is true.
I have lived both in Florida and Brazil among other places and certainly am aware of the perverse social conditions that exist in some parts. They can be addressed and changed if there is political will to do so. Just for the record this is being addressed in Brazil, ironically not so much in the Land of The Free. Though I'm sure it will also happen here eventually.
I've been wondering if sweet sorghum wouldn't prove to be a better ethanol feedstock for the temperate US than corn (maize). It won't compare with tropical sugar cane, but that can't be grown in temperate zones, whereas sorghum can. In fact, sorghum can be grown everywhere that maize can, and farmers can use the same equipment to plant it. (They may need to at least modify their harvesting equipment, as what they want to harvest is the cane and not ears. This should not present an insurmountable obstacle.) My understanding is that processing of sweet sorghum would not be all that different from the processing of sugar cane.
I wouldn't expect an EROI of as high as 12:1, but even an EROI of only 4:1 (which, as best as I can determine, is getting close to what might be expected for sweet sorghum) looks a whole lot better than the <2:1 obtained from maize ethanol.
Strange that no one at all seems to be talking about this.