4 Tons Of Plants per Mile to Ride In Your Car 995
Roland Piquepaille writes "As you might know, I enjoy big numbers. So it's just natural that I was attracted by this news release from the University of Utah, "Bad Mileage: 98 tons of plants per gallon." "A staggering 98 tons of prehistoric, buried plant material is required to produce each gallon of gasoline we burn in our cars, SUVs, trucks and other vehicles." For a reasonably efficient car, riding 25 miles per gallon, this translates to 4 tons of prehistoric plants per mile, or more than two tons per kilometer. The research paper also mentions that everyday, we are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plants growing during a whole year just for our cars. Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are. This analysis describes the calculations and contains other details about the research paper which will be published in November by Climate Change."
oil and petrolium (Score:2, Informative)
How much gas does that give us? (Score:3, Informative)
If there's 600,000,000 of plants and plant material out there to burn in fossil fuels...and we burn a years worth of it a day. And you divide 600 million by 365...that gives us 1643835 years worth of fossil fuels.
A much more optomistic projection that even the Skeptical Environmentalist!
I'm going to go drive my 5.7 liter Chevy truck around then just for the hell of it.
Re:you assume (Score:2, Informative)
Well, it might be that oil didn't just come from bio-matter, but from ancient geological processes during earth's formation/early evolution. At least, that is what the Soviet's believed, and they seemed to have lots of oil.
For metric system addicts: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:you assume (Score:3, Informative)
Re:burgers (Score:3, Informative)
-James
Re:If it *is* plants (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What's the point here? (Score:3, Informative)
Some people will have you believe that this is pointless because we couldn't grow enough oilseed rape or whatever. I say let's try it and find out.
My next car will be a big, inefficient, carbon neutral monster.
poor science (Score:1, Informative)
This is "science" that is only meant for political posturing. By his theories, coal is a better source of energy because it took less plant matter to make it.
Re:Isn't most of the original mass water? (Score:3, Informative)
Remaining Oil (Score:1, Informative)
Current world consumption is around 75 million bbl/day.[2] This might lead one to believe that oil will last our current rate of consumption for another 35+ years.
Unfortunately, there are two problems. Firstly, oil consumption is increasing globally at around 5% annually. Secondly, and much more seriously, oil production is unlikely to proceed at a increasing rate until the last drop comes out of the ground.
The shape of the oil production curve is subject of some debate, but a popular model is the "Hubbert Curve" named for the Shell Oil geologist who, in 1956, used it to successfully predict that oil production in the lower 48 would peak in the early 1970's.
Using the Hubbert Curve for global oil reserves, Kenneth Deffeyes predicts peak global oil production will occur between 2000 and 2007 before beginning an irreversible decline.[3] Other geologists have given more optimistic forecasts, pushing out the start of the decline several more years.
Sources:
[1] World Resources Institute [wri.org]
[2] Energy Information Administration [doe.gov] (part of the Department of Energy)
[3] "Hubbert's Peak" by Kenneth Deffeyes, Princeton University Press, 2001.
Re:If it *is* plants (Score:3, Informative)
Basement usually refers to ancient metamorphic or igneous rocks. AFAIK there are no productive wells in such areas.
Sedimentary rocks can be pushed down beyond 5km in so-called downwarps. In fact they are almost essential since the oil formation process requires the source rocks to enter the so-called 'oil window'. As rocks get buried, the temperature rises, theories suggest that between 80 and 140 Celsius is optimum for oil production - going up to about 200 with decreasing yield of oil (but increasing natural gas production).
The average geothermal gradient is around 25C per km, meaning that the oil window sits comfortably in the 5 to 6 km depth. In many places (particularly those where mountain forming is going on), the geothermal gradient may be as low as 15C per km) - meaning that oil production can go on at even deeper levels in the Crust.
5km wells are highly unusual simply because oil tends to migrate upwards into traps much closer to the surface.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Re:you assume (Score:5, Informative)
Peak Oil (Score:2, Informative)
Mike Ruppert/FTW [fromthewilderness.com]
"The Party's Over [fromthewilderness.com]
"The PARTY'S OVER Oil, War and the fate of Industrial Societies By Richard Heinberg When Mike Bowlin, Chairman of ARCO, said in 1999 that "We've embarked on the beginning of the last days of the age of oil," he was voicing a truth that many others in the petroleum industry knew but dared not utter. Over the past few years, evidence has mounted that global oil production is nearing its historic peak. Oil has been the cheapest and most convenient energy resource ever discovered by humans. During the past two centuries, people in industrial nations accustomed themselves to a regime in which more fossil-fuel energy was available each year, and the global population grew quickly to take advantage of this energy windfall. Industrial nations also came to rely on an economic system built on the assumption that growth is normal and necessary, and that it can go on forever. When oil production peaks, those assumptions will come crashing down. As we move from a historic interval of energy growth to one of energy decline, we are entering uncharted territory. It takes some effort to adjust one's mental frame of reference to this new reality. Richard Heinberg has distilled complex facts, histories, and events into a readable overview of the energy systems that keep today's mass society running. The result is jarring. The Party's Over is the book we need to reorient ourselves for a realistic future. - Chellis Glendinning, Ph.D., author of Off the Map: An Expedition Deep into Empire and the Global Economy"
Re:One word: bioethanol (Score:3, Informative)
I'll start you off with this overview link [doe.gov]. Then I'll direct you here to read an energy security justification [doe.gov] of the Biofuels research program at the DOE. If you are interested in reading a technical and economic assessment of one such program in this area, I encourage you to read this report from the NREL [nrel.gov] (big PDF warning) which has lots and lots of numbers to backup a feasibility analysis of large scale bioethanol production. Search around the ott.doe.gov/biofuels page, you'll find tons and tons more research and useful information, and hopefully you won't think this is just "snake oil".
Re:say no to dinosaurs! (Score:5, Informative)
So I do away with the process of turning plants into petroleum, and burn the plants directly in my engine. Anyone can do it! You only need:
With either method, waste vegetable oil from restaurants can be used, solving two problems at once!
With the exception of nitrous oxide and CO2, vegetable oil powered diesels are MUCH cleaner than petro diesels. Yes, they produce climate-warming CO2 in similar quantities to petro-diesel engines, but the CO2 they release was taken out of the atmosphere last year, NOT millions of years ago.
It is unlikely that Big Oil is going to embrace this, but you don't have to go it alone. Co-ops for producing and/or distributing biodiesel are sprining up like rapeseed oil plants. Google for "biodiesel," "SVO," "WVO" for more info, or visit www.GoBiodiesel.org for more information.
Re:reasonably efficient? (Score:3, Informative)
Hydrocarbon fuels may not be decomposed plants (Score:4, Informative)
There are many alternative theories for petrolium formation, many are 'abiogenic' theories that say that 'fossil fuels' are actually primordial, that have existed since the Earth was created.
For more info read see this [wikipedia.org] and "The Deep Not Biosphere" by Thomas Gold of Cornell university.
Re:burgers (Score:3, Informative)
I should add that to get relatively (> 96%) pure ethanol from water you need one of those stocks (benzine) to extract it. Water and ethanol form an azeotrope at 96% EtOH to H2O
Re:Just being contrarian :) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Corn to ethanol (Score:3, Informative)
Re:say no to dinosaurs! (Score:3, Informative)
Who said anything about soybeans? Any plant that produces oil can produce transportation and heating fuel. It doesn't even have to be a wonderful nitrogen fixer like soybeans. (I would disagree they're "terrible for the soil.") Or you can alternate nitrogen-depletors like corn with beans, getting two oil crops that complement each other's soil use. (I grew up on a farm, so please don't tell me what is good or bad unless you can claim the same.)
"We are converting farmland back into forest in the US and if we met domestic demand for diesel through vegetable oil we would be back to deforesting and depleting. Bad idea."
First, I would argue both that we are NOT "converting farmland... to forest" in any significant quantity, and also that any resulting "managed" forest is no better than farmland with respect to environmental factors.
I never claimed that we should get all our transportation needs from farm crops. Indeed, if you re-read what I wrote, I was advocating using WASTE cooking oil. How you got from there to "soybeans" and "farmland" is beyond me.
"A far better option seem to be CWT. These guy say they can change any carbon into distilled water, balanced organic fertilizer and gasoline."
Well, I couldn't find any place where they claimed that!
Their process seems to consume unspecified hydrocarbons and produces various hydrocarbons. It appears to be energy- and water-intensive, with lots of heat and pressure required. It is unclear exactly what the feedstock is and exactly what the result is, except that it consumes a great deal of water and energy in the process.
A hydrogen energy economy is decades away. Vegetable oil diesel can serve as an important part of a transition away from fossil fuels. This can be done with today's technology -- indeed, in a handyman's garage -- using a waste stream that is currently a disposal problem.
Just don't tell me it can't be done, or I'll have to un-drive all those miles I've driven, powered by waste vegetable oil!
Incorrect Premise (Score:2, Informative)
Re:say no to cars?.. the hidden benefits of cars (Score:3, Informative)
Driving gives employers access to a much larger pool of potential applicants and people acccess to a much larger pool of employers. An article a few years ago in Sci. Am. noted that the average daily commute for people is remarkably the same across time and cultures. Its usually about 15 min to 1 hour each way whether you walk, ride a horse, take a bus, or drive. With a constant commute-time, a doubling of the speed gives a 4X increase in area (and a car is usually twice as fast as mass transit in most, but not all, locations). This greater pool of applicants and job opportunities means that employers find better people and people find better jobs. Imagine if you had to find a job within walking distance of your house -- it would probably suck.
Driving also lets people buy a much wider selection of low-cost consumer goods. Rather than be forced to pay high prices at cramped neighborhood stores, people can find a wider selection of goods at low prices at the big-box stores built on low-cost land at the edge of town. As much as people hate the big corporate retailers on a spiritual level, they love to shop at them. The car makes that possible.
Cars may suck at energy efficiency, but they are vastly superior at time-efficiency -- taking people, their kids, and cargo from any point to any point in the least time. In this day and age, it is labor costs that dominate the equation on both a personal and global-economic level. Until they invent a scheme that lets someone go from work to the store to the kid's school to the kid's after school activities and to home in one fast, easy, wait-free process, the car will continue to dominate.
I'm not even sure how to estimate the economic benefits of 4 times the worker pool or access to low-cost goods, but I'd bet that some economist has estimated it someplace. So whether car and gas are underpriced or overpriced in the bigger scheme of things is unknown.
BTW, for the record, I'm not some assUVhole in the lane next to any of you. I don't own a car and my commute the less than 30 seconds.
Re:say no to cars? (Score:3, Informative)
If that were true, then the company selling the product would have to be losing money. There's no way you could turn a profit selling items for less than what they cost you to produce and deliver.
The secret is bulk. They don't send a delivery truck for each can of tuna, and another truck for each bag of potato chips, and a van for each box of cookies. Everything goes into one truck and delivered at the same time.
It costs, say, $40 in fuel to drive a truck from the warehouse to the store and back (About half a tank for most box trucks with the diesel prices around here nowadays). But that truck can carry easily carry over $5000 worth (retail price) of groceries. Go ahead and throw in maintenance, diver salary, and insurance. You're still coming out ahead. That's why you're in the business, after all... to make money.
Now extrapolate that to a container ship that can easily carry a billion dollars worth of assorted cargo and costs $600,000 to sail across the ocean.
If anything, it's more energy efficient to ship things in bulk from halfway around the planet than to harvest only what you need locally. Imagine if every town had to grow it's own food? There's no way hat a hundred million farmers toiling over a hundred million little farms with a hundred million little tractors is more efficient than ten thousand farmers working thousands of acres of land with just three or four machines each.
And I won't even mention that the larger the engine/powerplant gets, the more efficient it becomes. Especially diesel engines and turbines.
In leu of subsidization, it's still cheaper and more efficient to buy in bulk. And if anything, you're paying tariffs on those imported foods!
=Smidge=