[Vision2020] Human Powered Vs. Motorized Transport

Mon Aug 13 22:09:53 PDT 2007

Actually, people that live longer healthier lives take up less resources than those that live short troubled ones. 

  Best,

  Donovan

Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:

  All-

  The first paper Dan offered focuses on bicycling increasing longevity, thus increasing energy consumption for each person over their lifetime.  

  This argument could apply to anything that increases life span or population, given that each person added or year lived longer consumes more energy.  Indeed, the energy and global warming problem could be solved in large measure by reducing the world's population to, for example,  500,000,000, even if everyone lived at the energy consumption level of the average US citizen, currently far above the energy consumption of any other nation.  

  This argument could highlight the energy conservation benefits of a massive disease outbreak or war that dramatically reduces population or life span.

  There are similar arguments regarding the long term costs of tobacco related diseases.  Tobacco smoking reduces overall medical and other costs, it does not increase them, as some claim, because it shortens lifespan, reducing the expensive long term care for the elderly.  Tobacco smoking thus helps solve the Medicare/Medicaid funding problems, while also reducing the burden on Social Security. 

  The second article Dan posted focused on beef as a food energy source, and appeared oriented towards exposing how energy intensive beef, and other food sources, are in our industrialized food system, even mentioning the green house gases emitted by cows, which are significant. 

  From the article Dan posted:

  The ideal diet would consist of cereals and pulses. "This is a route which virtually nobody, apart from a vegan, is going to follow," Mr Goodall said. But there are other ways to reduce the carbon footprint. "Don't buy anything from the supermarket," Mr Goodall said, "or anything that's travelled too far." 
  -------------------------------------------------------
  Unless I missed something, the energy equations in these articles are inaccurate.  They do not take into account all significant variables and outcomes impacting the energy consumption for car or light truck versus human powered transportation.  The Wharton School paper on the comparisons between human powered transportation and car or light truck use states explicitly that the energy costs of manufacturing a car are not included.  

  If car or light truck use was reduced dramatically due to human powered alternatives, even if everyone owned a car or truck (of course one goal of human powered transportation is to decrease the number of people who own a car or truck), they would last much longer, thus decreasing the rates of manufacture and maintenance, reducing energy consumption. 

  Consider the amount of energy used to extract oil and raw (even recycled) resources, manufacture the car and ship the oil to refineries, refine the oil and ship the car and gas to dealers and stations, maintain the street and transportation system (replacing overburdened bridges, like the one that collapsed in Minnesota recently, that were not designed to handle increased car and truck traffic), and of course add the energy powering uses of cars and light trucks that would be avoided in the the human powered alternative.  Now compare this with the total energy to extract the resources for a bike or walking shoes, manufacture and ship, maintain, the impacts of a bike or walking system (even sidewalks cost money), and the energy to human power over the same miles that would be covered by motorized means, and reevaluate, considering energy impacts relating to the health improvement due to human powered transport, which might both reduce energy use (fewer sickness/medical
 related energy costs, fewer sick days off work increasing worker efficiency, perhaps) and increase energy use, assuming a longer life span.  I did not mention the oil war costs, which some would argue are relevant. 

  Finally, critically, one of the goals of promoting biking or walking as a primary means of transportation must be added:  lifestyles would adjust to less miles covered, an essential goal of energy reduction strategies.  The long distances now covered by cars and trucks are simply not possible if assuming walking or biking.  Long commutes to work and non-essential fossil fueled transportation would be greatly reduced.  Cars and trucks easily and casually facilitate consumers using large amounts of energy.  So assuming widespread biking or walking would create a significant reduction in overall miles covered per capita, this could reduce absolute energy consumption significantly, in some scenarios even if there was more energy per mile used for human powered transportation. 

  Ted Moffett

  On 8/13/07, Dan Carscallen <areaman at moscow.com> wrote:       Another one of those environmental paradoxes, like the one Phil Cook posted a while back about bicycling:
  http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~ulrich/documents/ulrich-cycling-enviro-jul06.pdf

  and like the one I heard on the Radio Men the other day (yes, C. Foster Kane's "Thee News" is *my* news source), which they probably gleaned from this article: 
  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2195538.ece 

  you just can't win.

  DC

  -----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Mark Solomon 
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 6:03 AM
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] ethanol and water 

  Interesting numbers re how much water does it take to produce ethanol. Including water for irrigating the corn crop feed-stock: 1700 gallons of water for each gallon of ethanol produced.

  Mark

How much water does it take to produce ethanol?

By Nate Jenkins of the Associated Press
August 13, 2007

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. - The growing thirst for ethanol takes a lot of water to quench, but less than many people believe and not enough to cause serious problems, experts told farmers. 

Last year in Nebraska, the nation's third-leading ethanol producer, it took 2 billion gallons of water at 15 ethanol plants to churn out 676 million gallons of the alternative fuel, Derrel Martin, an irrigation and water resources engineer said Thursday. 

But roughly 900 billion gallons of rain water falls annually in Lincoln County, Martin said, addressing the public perception that ethanol production takes an inordinate amount of water.

"These plants are not consuming a huge amount of water," he said. 

Martin spoke during an agriculture conference in North Platte that focused on water. Nebraska is aggressively pushing development of ethanol plants and is poised to become the second-leading producer in the country later this year. At the same time, it is struggling to meet water demands of its farmers and those in neighboring states who rely on water that passes through Nebraska. 

A longtime analyst of ethanol production disagreed with Martin and questioned his figures, saying it takes an average of about 15 gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol - much higher than the roughly three gallons of water per gallon of ethanol Martin cited. 

Groundwater tables in some states, including Missouri, have been drawn down to dangerously low levels near some ethanol plants, said David Pimentel, an ecology and agriculture professor at Cornell University.

The figures cited by both Martin and Pimentel include only a plant's production of ethanol, not the water it takes to grow corn. After adding that, about 1,700 gallons are needed to produce every gallon of ethanol, Pimentel said. 

The entire water-use picture, coupled with the fuel it takes to produce ethanol, makes long-term, mass production of ethanol unsustainable, Pimentel said.

"I wish it were sustainable, I'm an agriculturalist," he said. "I wish this whole ethanol deal was a major benefit, but you've got to be a scientist first and an agriculturalist second." 

Martin said the question of whether increased corn production and the irrigation it requires will overburden the state's water supply is an important one that does not yet have a clear answer.

Moratoriums on new groundwater wells are already in place in some regions, such as along the Platte River, and the Republican River basin has caps on groundwater use. 

The state faces a test over whether it will control water use in fragile areas or succumb to the financial allure of planting more irrigated corn to meet ethanol demands, Martin said.

Corn prices have risen with ethanol production. There are 19 percent more acres of irrigated corn this year across the country, including about one million more irrigated acres in Nebraska, he said. 

Plans designed to curtail water use in some basins could become "toothless tigers" in the face of such market pressures, he said.

On the Net:
Nebraska Ethanol Board: http://www.ne-ethanol.org/

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