David Pimentel Responds to Fellow Blogger, C. Scott Miller
In a recent post, Dr. Pimentel invited viewers to comment on his controversial 2005 Ethanol paper co-written alongside Tad Patzek. Blogger, C. Scott Miller of the BioConversion Blog was able to give an in-depth evaluation and response. Dr. Pimentel is back to respond…
David Pimentel:
"1) Our ethanol paper was reviewed by 4 Cornell Professors and 5 scientists outside of
2)
I am surprised that Scott picked Dr. Wang's paper as the best paper on
the science of ethanol production. Dr. Wang omits the following
data in his analysis: farm machinery, processing machinery, farm labor,
hybrid corn, to mention a few. He also gives way too much credit
for the distiller's grain by product. Of course, all these
omissions and credits help the ethanol balance. It is also
interesting that no one else in the world uses Wang's broad ethanol
model?
3) An economist at
4)
Economists always include farm machinery, repair, and farm labor in
their enterprise studies of crop production. Why does Wang omit
these inputs?
5)
Why does Wang omit all the environmental impacts (soil erosion,
pesticide pollution, sewage pollution) of corn production, except
climate change?
6)
We have published a detailed paper on renewable energy that offers many
technologies for the production of solar energy and substitutes for
oil.
7) Currently the U.S. is producing 4.5 billion gallons of
ethanol (DOE) without charging for the oil and natural gas inputs. This
is using 18% of all U.S. corn and represents only 1% of U.S. petroleum
use. If 100% of U.S. corn were used, it would provide only 6% of
current U.S. petroleum use. Will this make the U.S. oil independent?"
Note* Comments and Opininons are still welcomed to be sent to Dr. Pimentel
Brazil is farther along then we are in becoming a self reliant ethanol producer/consumer. Has the good doctor got anything to say about Sugar cane? If ethanol does not add up then why are there whole nations not relying on middle eastern oil. Some one should have warned those countries before they got themselves into such a predicament. Being from the U.S. I consistantly see where we spread our all knowing knowledge (ie give everyone democracy/capitalism), yet we are unwilling to learn from others. Remember the original OIL scare back before I was born. I'd wager you do. Brazil and sugar cane was at least one positive to come of that situation and just because it took them nearly 30 years does not mean that americans cannot adopt it. Please leave your fancy equations where they belong. In the cow manure.
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Even in today's world where the science of thermodynamics and intelligent reasoning can provide logical answers, politics is still the driving force for moving forward. It's not as though Pimental does not offer alternative scenarios. The problem in searching for energy solutions is based on the readily available and high energy content in crude oil, coal, and natural gas. These sources are, economically, very difficult to replace. If we didn't have these sources to convert corn to ethanol, the truth would be known and we would be building nuclear power plants, wind farms, and solar panels to make the fuels and materials we need with electricity. Biomass might provide a local solution to some, for example switchgrass or wood, but superbug enzymatic technologies to convert cellulose and lignocellulose have not been developed and may never be; cellulose is very resistant to microbial attack and has been for a billion years. It seems more likely that gasification of biomass will be the process of choice, from which the syn-gas generated will be used to make methanol. Methanol can also be made from electricity (which can be used to make H2) and CO2. Methanol can then be used as a liquid fuel or to make olefins and other chemicals which are used to make materials that are presently derived from crude oil. See Olah et al. "Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy."
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