An Alternative Perspective on Biodiesel
Seattle Peak Oil is not focused on alternative energy because we’re beyond the bargaining stage of dealing with our energy future. We view most alternative liquid fuels projects as efforts to avoid any disruption to the way we live today. As such, we see them as both futile and largely unhelpful.
Needs vs. Wants
While it is true that our industrial growth-based economy would fall apart without the ability to keep increasing resource consumption endlessly, that fate is already sealed by the circumstance of a finite planet. We don’t need alternative fuels to lose this battle, and they can’t help us win it either: you just can’t produce your way out of a resource crisis.
Yet, many alternative energy advocates still insist that we will “need” biofuels in the future. Actually, the U.S. is still the third largest producer of oil in the world, so we believe that terms like “need” are inappropriate in this context. Without imports, the U.S. would still be incredibly wealthy among nations, but we might have to return to oppressive and humiliating habits like walking once in a while.
Poverty With Dignity
This points out some serious problems in America today, especially the fact that we don’t leave any cultural space for poverty with dignity in this country. If profligate energy use is our measure of status, then we’re set to suffer mightily in the coming decades. Perhaps that’s why the alternative fuels prospect is so deeply attractive to so many, and is nationally considered to be the only realistic option.
We at Seattle Peak Oil see another possible option on the table: failure. We should reserve a seat at the table for failure; give ourselves some room to live fulfilling and happy lives even if we won’t be able to meet the expectations we set for ourselves in the past.
Quest for Fire
Other advocates for biofuels focus on the common belief that these fuels are “green”. While there are many raging debates about food-vs-fuel, whether biofuels really are carbon neutral, or how much energy they return, there is almost no debate on the question of whether they are actually green in the first place, or what that would mean. The idea that biofuels are “green” has become so widely agreed upon that it isn’t even questioned anymore.
We question it.
While a banana might be more “green” than a barrel of crude oil, we strongly dispute the idea that YOU are “green” if you find a way to BURN the banana instead of eating it.
Save the Cars!
One of the strangest aspects of the biofuels movement is that people calling themselves “green” or “environmentalist” are actually promoting the continuation of both the growth economy and mass motoring as a national pastime. Not only that, but they are putting a “green” stamp of approval on all the things that real environmental activists have fought against for decades.
What a strange world we live in!
Presentation
In an effort to raise these issues, Robert Nelson delivered the following presentation to the group at our monthly meeting on January 8th, 2009. Use the resources below to view the slides online, or download the whole presentation and take advantage of the detailed speaker’s notes which include research, data and links to support the case made within.
Original PowerPoint 2003 file:
An Alternative Perspective on Biodiesel
Save to hard drive and use PowerPoint to view speaker’s notes.
Or, view the presentation slides online using the viewer below:
You’ll want to use the “full screen” button in the authorstream control bar or else the text is going to be very hard to read:
