Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a waste

Gothmolly

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

This Cornell fellow brings this up about once a year. Do a search on this site and see the FUD.
 

DrStink

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A study by Cornell and UC Berkely concluded that bio and ethanol production consume more dino than they are worth.
http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.a...0717-1101578905
Didn't we just have this discussion? It reminds me of Mark Twain's line about "lies, damn lies, and statistics". Sheesh.
Yes we just had this discussion, on the 6th and, as I pointed out then, Pimental's findings have been disputed repeatedly.

But while we're clearly things up, I'd like to also point out that it was supposedly Benjamin D'Israeli, not Mark Twain, that said "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics"

 

DrStink

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

The Cornhole guy brings it up yearly...
Hey. That happens to be a damn fine school. Just because Pimental publishes this crap yearly doesn't justify your trashing the entire institution.

It also happens to be my alma mater, so watch it.
 

RobertB

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

The article made Slashdot: Ethanol More Trouble Than its Worth? The posts so far tend to make the point that 1) the call for a hydrogen economy is more of the same BS, 2) it's all about the subsidies, 3) the true costs of traditional fuels aren't given for comparison (the point of my own post), and 4) "Ethanol is most certainly a worthwhile endeavor. How else would ulgy people..."
 

samspock

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

The article made Slashdot
I was wondering how long it would take for the two sites I waste the most time on mentioned one another. Now I know.
 

nh mike

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

The Cornhole guy brings it up yearly...
And it's brought up by posters here roughly weekly (maybe bi-weekly).

Pimentel has no credibility anymore in the scientific community.
 

Thunderstruck

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

Pimentel has no credibility anymore in the scientific community.
Which is the exact reason the media will hop on it and treat it like it's all true, instead of seeing if his conclusions are valid or not.
 

DrStink

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

Pimentel has no credibility anymore in the scientific community.
Which is the exact reason the media will hop on it and treat it like it's all true, instead of seeing if his conclusions are valid or not.
Well, don't forget what our friends Mencken and Sinclair had to say about human nature:

It is the nature of humans to ignore what is true but uncomfortable, and accept what is known to be false, but comforting.
--H L Mencken

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
--Upton sinclair

Americans, the media included, are wont to believe Pimental's tripe because it justifies their inaction. Why should I change my lifestyle and consumption habits when the alternatives aren't any better.
 

RobertB

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

Not sure if it's related to the excellent points above about our Faux News culture, but someone kicked my Slashdot post down two notches with "Flamebait" mods. If anyone here happens to have mod points, perhaps they could consider giving my post some help?

Note: if you don't know what Slashdot Mod Points are, you don't have them.
 

ericy

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

Not sure if it's related to the excellent points above about our Faux News culture, but someone kicked my Slashdot post down two notches with "Flamebait" mods. If anyone here happens to have mod points, perhaps they could consider giving my post some help?

Note: if you don't know what Slashdot Mod Points are, you don't have them.
I was wondering how all of that worked.

I wouldn't worry about it too much - many others have posted critiques of the 'study'. I suppose if you wanted to you could create a sockpuppet and post the stuff again
 

RobertB

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

I was wondering how all of that worked.

I wouldn't worry about it too much - many others have posted critiques of the 'study'. I suppose if you wanted to you could create a sockpuppet and post the stuff again
The way the Slashdot moderation and Karma system works, it's almost impossible to use a sockpuppet to push your agenda. New Slashdot members start out with neutral Karma, and their posts start out with a moderation level of 1. When you've been moderated up a few times, you get a Karma Bonus, and your posts start out at 2. Anonymous posting is allowed, but AC (Anonymous Coward) posts start out at 0. There is so much volume -- both legitimate and crapflooding -- that most casual readers of Slashdot only view the comments that have been moderated up to 4 or 5 (the default is 3, I think). However, you can set your preferences to view everything, even the "-1" crap.

So reposting under another name won't work, because it will start out at 1 (or 2 at the best), and nobody will read it. Worse, it would likely get moderated downward, which would make my Karma drop even more -- get down-modded enough, and your posts start out with a 0 or even a -1.

Now you know what geeks think about, when they're not thinking about sex.
 

DrStink

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

Not sure if it's related to the excellent points above about our Faux News culture, but someone kicked my Slashdot post down two notches with "Flamebait" mods. If anyone here happens to have mod points, perhaps they could consider giving my post some help?

Note: if you don't know what Slashdot Mod Points are, you don't have them.
Unfortunately, I only had one point left this AM and I couldn't have used it anyway as I posted in the thread in question.

For non-/. readers, you can moderate or post to a thread but not both.

You get 5 mod points at a time and they are time limited. Speed at which you get mod points is also based on your karma, and other poorly explained factors.

Your moderation is then subject to meta-moderation; if your mods were judged to be fair, you'll get your next 5 mod points more quickly. Also, taking 5 minutes to meta-moderate other users helps to get you mod points more quickly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Karma

All in all, it's a neat system, but it can be subject to group think wherein a user will downmoderate a post they don't agree with.
 

nh mike

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

Based on quick analyses a few friends (scientists in various fields) have done of Pimentel's biodiesel (and ethanol) energy balance assessments, and comparing to previous assessments (such as the 1998 assessment done by the DOE/NREL which they found a positive energy balance of 3.2):

1. Pimentel used highly inflated numbers for energy inputs practically everywhere. A few examples:

2. The electricity used by the soy oil processing plant he claimed was ten times as much as the DOE used in their analysis - even though the DOE's electricity figures were already inflated to twice as much as what plants coming online at the time were using. So, Pimentel's electricity usage in processing is at least 20 times what's realistic for processing plants.

3. Pimentel included the energy to build the farm machinery as an energy requirement - but didn't properly account for the fact that the machinery lasts decades (he basically treated it almost as if you have to buy new tractors, combines, and everything else every year or two).

4. Pimentel included the food eaten by workers (on the farm and everywhere) as a fossil energy input - as if one unit of energy in the form of any food requires one unit of energy in the form of fossil fuels to produce. Not at all realistic.

5. He included way, way, way too much lime as being needed for treating soils, and with a very high energy input for producing the lime. For example (these numbers come from Mark Ambrose of the NCSU FOrestry Dept.), in North Carolina, where the soil is highly acidic (so you need more lime than normal), farmers growing soy typically put 2500 kg of lime on per hectare every 3-4 years (so 625-833 kg/hectare). In the mid-western US, where soils are less acidic, considerably less is used. Yet, Pimentel claimed that 4800 kg is needed PER YEAR - roughly an order of magnitude too much for most soy farmland in the US).

6. He used fertilizer application rates too high by 20-50%, and overstated the fossil energy input for fertilizer production by at least a factor of 2.

7. Used plant processing efficiencies from the mid-80s (for the ethanol analysis) - modern efficiencies are far, far greater.

And so on. Basically at every step of the process, he greatly overstates energy inputs (ranging from 10% to hundreds of percentage points), and then also claims substantially lower yields (basically using the lowest yields he could find, even though it meant going back decades).

That's why Pimentel has no credibility in the scientific community. Unfortunately, the media doesn't care about that. Talk of his analysis has been going on all over the place - it seems that this is the start of a campaign against biofuels.
 

nicklockard

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

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ericy

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Re: Latest study shows bio and ethanol to be a was

Where does he get his funding? Exxon?
He just published another "study" that may shed light on his true motives:

Organic farming produces same corn and soybean yields as conventional farms, but consumes less energy and no pesticides, study finds

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/organic.farm.vs.other.ssl.html
I won't claim much at all about whether this new study has any merit or not - he has already demonstrated a willingness to publish deliberate falsehoods in the biofuel study, but the organic farming study provides some insight as to what his true motives are.
 
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