Go Sweden!
Sweden plans on being the first country in the world to be free from oil in 2020. Treehugger.com explains why we should take Sweden seriously on this one. In honour of this, behold, my favourite Mormon-environmentalist quote:
Gordon B. Hinckley: This earth is [Christ's] creation. When we make it ugly, we offend him. (“What Shall I Do Then with Jesus Which Is Called Christ?” Ensign (Dec. 1983): 3)
But here’s the rub: if Sweden’s cars (and then everyone else’s) run on biodiesel (or whatever), this is great for the environment but a disaster for the Middle East. Sweden has 15 years to figure out on what basis many of the economies of the world’s most volatile region should run. Manure?
This won’t be a problem for the Middle East. This doesn’t mean oil prices will fall, just that they will rise more slowly than they would have otherwise, as we gradually use up the easy-to-get-at oil that the Middle East has so much of.
In fact, you can make a perfectly respectable argument that having immense oil wealth actually hurts those countries, by making it much harder to establish democracy.
Comment by ed — January 24, 2006 @ 2:25 pm
Ed’s right. The current social science consensus is that oil impedes democracy and slows economic development.
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — January 24, 2006 @ 2:29 pm
Nobody cares squat about the Middle East except for their oil. Africa is in turmoil too, after all.
Once we don’t need the oil, and their infrastructure collapses and anarchy reigns, will we need to fear them? At least, any more than we already do?
Comment by Ann — January 24, 2006 @ 2:53 pm
No! Some tiny, insignificant Euro nation can’t be a the world leader in energy technology. That’s our job. America is supreme!
But seriously, I’m miffed that there isn’t a bigger effort on the U.S.’s part to develop alternate forms of energy. For me it’s less an issue of environmental health (although that is important) than of national security. The desperate, violent, grassroots anti-Americanism that’s brewing in the Middle East is our biggest national security problem. As long as we need Middle Eastern oil we’ll keep doing things that make people mad at us. If we worked out a practical alternative to oil we could ignore the Middle East like we ignore the rest of the world. Problem solved (at least partially–we still have the Israel thing).
The thing that bugs me is that we have enormous resources in terms of capital and brain power and the goal of oil independence is certainly within our reach. We just lack the motivation. What we need is a technologically advanced evil empire with which to have an energy race. We devoted enormous amounts of money and brain power to put men on the freakin’ moon for no other reason than to say we did it before the Commies. We need that same kind of initiative to become oil independent. I don’t think our anti-Europism will be a strong enough motivator.
Comment by Tom — January 24, 2006 @ 3:43 pm
Ronan, many governments already function solely on manure
Comment by Ben S. — January 24, 2006 @ 4:07 pm
“If we worked out a practical alternative to oil…”
Oh! Is that all we have to do! [slaps forehead]
Seriously, if it were only that easy. If you could do this you’d make BIG BIG money, so lots of people are trying already. If oil stays over $60/BBL, I’m sure we’ll see a lot more things coming to market. It’s already having a big effect in the Canada oil sands.
My biggest concern is all the carbon we’re pumping into the atmosphere. I think we should slap on a substantial gas tax, but that seems politically impossible in this country. Not only would it lower emmissions, but economic theory suggests that a lot of the burden of such a tax would be borne by the oil states, not by the US.
Comment by ed — January 24, 2006 @ 4:19 pm
Ed,
Be nice. I’m well aware that it’s not an easy task. My point is that the stakes are very high and that energy alternatives should, therefore, be pursued with the same kind of urgency that we pursued the space and arms races. Sure, the market will drive some innovation, but the problem is urgent enough that we shouldn’t wait for that. I can’t think of a more important task for our scientific brain power and money to be focused on. That includes biomedical research as far as I’m concerned, and I’m a biologist. (Don’t tell my boss I said that.)
As for a huge gas tax, my biggest problem with that is that it would cause a disproporitonate amount of hardship for the working poor.
Comment by Tom — January 24, 2006 @ 4:45 pm
One of the projects I fancied while in grad school was making hydrogen catalytically from sugar. That really is the bomb.
Comment by J. Stapley — January 24, 2006 @ 4:49 pm
I apologize for my snarkiness, Tom.
I guess I have more confidence in the market that you do. I think the main role of the government is to provide broad incentives (e.g. a gas tax), and maybe to lower regulatory barriers for nuclear power and somehow deal with the NIMBY problems. And I think the benefits from biomedical research are potentially much larger. We already know lots of other ways to get energy, we just don’t know which ones are best, and most of them just weren’t worth doing when oil was $30/BBL.
I agree that a gas tax would disproportionately hurt the working poor, but we could easily make it up to them by using the extra revenue to cut the payroll tax, or something.
I finally looked at the original article. I’m not sure how objective I can expect a piece on a site named “treehugger” to be. I was puzzled by a couple of items on their list:
*Not subjecting fuel that is free of carbon dioxide to…the carbon dioxide emission tax.
Isn’t that obvious?
*Exempting efficient vehicles from the congestion tax that will be introduced in Stockholm in January.
I don’t see how efficient vehicles will help you become “oil free.” If anything, having a more efficient oil-powered vehicles means you are more likely to keep driving them even when oil gets expensive, and less likely to look for alternative fuels. To be oil free, you’ve got to have vehicles that don’t use any oil.
Still, I wish the Swedes well. If nothing else, the rest of the world will be able to benefit from any advances they make. But I don’t understand why you’d even want to be completely oil free…sometimes, oil is just the right stuff for the job, and if it’s still more affordable than alternatives, why not use it? I predict, for example, that they will still use oil-based jet fuel in 2020. A more realistic goal would be to cut oil use by some large fraction.
Comment by ed — January 24, 2006 @ 5:31 pm
By the way, my wife was telling me about how in Brazil they already run a significant fraction of their cars on Biodiesel made from sugar. Acording to Wikipedia, the effects are a mixed bag.
Comment by ed — January 24, 2006 @ 5:33 pm
The First Presidency has indicated to the director of the Deseret Ranch (in NE Utah) that they are to be oil-free within one year. This is after about ten years of turning the 220,000 acre ranch from desert into a thriving ecosystem using sustainable principles. When the Church bought the property they gave the director two instructions: make it profitable and improve the resource (both of which they overwhelmingly succeeded). Now they’ve told them they want them to be off of oil within a year. (I think they made the same edict to all of their ranches but I’m not sure.) What do they know?
It appears to me that the First Presidency is a bit more progressive than the general membership.
Comment by Rusty — January 24, 2006 @ 6:32 pm
Rusty,
Sounds like pseudo-doctrine to me
Comment by Ronan — January 24, 2006 @ 7:38 pm
Sounds like pseudo-doctrine to me
Except that I know the director
Comment by Rusty — January 24, 2006 @ 8:04 pm
Interesting. I watched a documentary last year, about Iceland’s efforts towards other fuels, particularly hydrogen, I think. Hydrogen? One of those H-elements. (Okay, big on science as I am, I’ve never had a chemistry class in my life; we moved from an excellent science educational state, to a horrible one, when I was 15 and I hadn’t had taken one by then).
They have so much geothermal activity, and an excess I guess of the particular elements involved.
Comment by Sarebear — January 24, 2006 @ 8:05 pm
ed,
Actually Brazil makes ethanol which is a gasoline substitute rather than a biodiesel. Many of the cars there now are dual fuel, meaning they can run on either gas or ethanol or both and you don’t have to worry about what you fill up with.
When I was there on my mission it was a different story. Cars were either gas or ethanol but not both. The ethanol cars did not start when it was cold, they smelled bad (like a drunk actually) and burning cane fields meant towns covered in ashes. My first area was surrounded by cane fields and we would regularly come home to find our clothes that we had hung out to dry were covered with coin sized ashes.
At the time the cars were seen as a holdover from the 1980s and nobody was buying them. How things have changed.
Now I am told that burning fields prior to harvest is illegal, which is much nicer, at least for the residents of nearby towns. I would guess it is a mixed bag for those that harvest the cane.
Friends in the country report that the cars are seen as better than pure gas cars and are a source of national pride.
Comment by a random John — January 24, 2006 @ 8:07 pm
Well, you can buy bio-d in Fort Worth, Texas. People drive cars on it.
What is interesting is the plankton crops that generate useable oil at extremely high densities per acre.
As for ethanol
Those are interesting numbers.
Comment by Stephen M (Ethesis) — January 24, 2006 @ 9:38 pm
Ethesis,
The numbers you cite apply to Brazil where it is relatively easy to grow sugar cane. Costs in the US where most ethanol is produced from corn are much higher. And all that corn production means that our soft drinks suck big time. I keep hearing that switchgrass is a better alternative for US production if ethanol is what you want. I admit to having no idea what switchgrass is.
Comment by a random John — January 25, 2006 @ 8:51 am
I think we should spend a lot of money on solar and geothermal power as well. And I don’t have a problem with nuclear power.
I don’t have a “let em eat cake” attitude toward the countries that produce oil. I think if we as people would ask God, He has a pretty good solution to all this, and He knows what those people should do to survive.
Switzerland doesn’t have oil. They survive.
This is going to sound racist, but I don’t consider myself a racist. A friend of mine whose father was a racist once made the point to when we were arguing that countries whose citizens have darker skins are not as prosperous as countries with citizens of lighter skin. She’s right.
I don’t know why that is so, I’m sure color of skin isn’t the determining factor, but nevertheless, Iraq, Iran, and other countries surely have other things to offer the world besides oil.
Comment by annegb — January 25, 2006 @ 9:04 am
A few questions re #11:
(1) When was Deseret Ranch given the 1-year ultimatum? I want to know when we can expect to hear the details of their successful conversion.
(2) Does the Deseret Ranch rely heavily on internal combustion engines? How many gallons of biodiesel should we expect them to be using in a typical year?
(3) If the switch to biodiesel ends up meaning lower productivity for Deseret Ranch, will this make things even more progressive in that there will actually be meals on the menus of temple cafeterias that are not centered around a slab of meat?
(4) Are the Church leaders driving biodiesel-burning cars themselves?
Comment by Chris Grant — January 25, 2006 @ 9:27 am
Chris,
Those are good questions, the only one of which I can answer is #1, and I was told about it last fall (though I’m not sure exactly when the ultimatum was given). When I was there I didn’t inspect their storage spaces so I don’t know exactly how many tractors and trucks they use, but I can’t imagine it’s that much. They run the ranch through sustainable principles so instead of rounding up the herd of cattle they get them to move by introducing elk into the area giving the cattle incentive to leave on their own (or whatever). I don’t know exactly how it all works but it’s all very natural (no fences, no feed, no protection from natural enemies or the elements, etc).
I think you were joking about the cafeteria food, but for what it’s worth, the beef from the ranch is high quality, top dollar meat… not cafeteria junk. I imagine this stuff is going on the plates at Peter Luger’s rather than at the bishop’s storehouse.
I don’t know anything about the church leader’s cars.
Comment by Rusty — January 25, 2006 @ 12:57 pm
I’ve been told that the meat used by BYU, the MTC, the temples, etc., is produced by Church ranches/farms and processed at Church meat-packing plants. Perhaps you are right that the good stuff gets “exported”. I know that the quantity and quality of the turkey served in the MTC in early 1982 convinced me that eating “but a very little meat” might not be so bad after all.
The Priesthood session of our regional conference in 2002 was held at our stake center, and President Hinckley was driven there in a large (but not ostentatious) black car (a Crown Victoria or a Lincoln Continental), and Elder Maxwell drove himself there in a mid-sized SUV, again nothing showy but any EarthFirsters in the vicinity probably would have taken offense.
Comment by Chris Grant — January 25, 2006 @ 2:21 pm
Ethesis,
The numbers you cite apply to Brazil where it is relatively easy to grow sugar cane. Costs in the US where most ethanol is produced from corn are much higher. And all that corn production means that our soft drinks suck big time. I keep hearing that switchgrass is a better alternative for US production if ethanol is what you want. I admit to having no idea what switchgrass is.
Well, if we used Cuban sugar cane, or bought the ethanol from Brazil instead of buying oil, the price is cheaper — and cheaper than oil.
Or, if you generate biod by extracting oil from plankton.
I was just providing numbers for perspective, corn is discussed in the wiki as a bad crop for the purpose.
Comment by Stephen M (Ethesis) — January 25, 2006 @ 10:02 pm
Ah, here it is on switchgrass:
http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switgrs.html
Interesting stuff.
Comment by Stephen M (Ethesis) — January 25, 2006 @ 10:03 pm