Rejecting Big Oil Snakes
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Response to Captain Ike Kiefer
By Marc J. Rauch
Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher
THE AUTO CHANNEL
Just about five years ago, retired U.S. Navy Captain Todd A. "Ike" Kiefer wrote an anti-ethanol report titled "Twenty-First Century Snake Oil - Why the United States Should Reject Biofuels As Part of a Rational National Energy Strategy". Captain Kiefer's report was widely cited by many oil industry sponsored entities and a number of chronic anti-ethanol hacks such as Robert Bryce (author of the cesspool book* "Gusher Of Lies").
 Marc J. Rauch |
In 2015, as a result of an exchange between Captain Kiefer and myself on Disqus.com, I learned about his report and then responded to it with an email sent directly to him and to Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation, publishers of the original report.
In reviewing my past alternative fuel files I found that I had neglected to publish my rebuttal on TheAutoChannel.com. Since this is a quiet news time-of-the-year, I figured this is a good time to make my reply publicly known. I hope you enjoy it and get something from either Captain Kiefer's report or my response.
Hi Ike -
Your paper makes many of the same errors in judgment and interpretation that Robert Bryce made in his book "Gusher Of Lies."
First and foremost is your reliance on the studies conducted by Pimentel and Patzek - you should discount everything they've done - it was all done to just satisfy the oil industry funding that they received, which means it was all rigged to denigrate alternative fuels.
Then you work from the position that "fossil fuels" are tantamount to being an insurmountable, undeniable law of nature. Your opening story about the Chimu Empire is fascinating, and if it was on point it could be instructive. However, issues related to fossil fuels are not the same as trying to deal with gravity. Although as an aviator, you know that even the effects of gravity can be overcome with sufficient technology. The Chimu would have been okay if they only employed some simple pumping technology that was known by that time in other civilizations.
I mentioned this before, and will make mention of it again: Gasoline and diesel didn't begat the automobile and stationary internal combustion engine. Gasoline and petroleum-based diesel powered engines are only as efficient as they are because they are optimized to run on those fuels. Those fuels didn't make internal combustion engines more efficient because of some inherent quality of the fuel, and we don't use these fuels as our primary engine fuels because they were the best fuels. Gasoline can only be safely used in a high-combustion engine because some type of ingredient is added to mitigate the problems of engine knock. Diesel can only be used in an internal combustion engines when the fuel is sufficiently "warmed" to permit ignition. And while diesel-powered engines are preferable to gasoline-powered engines in circumstances that require greater torque, bio-diesel is just as effective as petroleum oil-based diesel.
I've often had people tell me that ethanol is not good because it has problems starting an ICE when the temperature is cold. They either forgot or didn't know that the same thing is/was true of diesel. The problem was initially overcome by using a simple heating element in the ignition system. When I went to college in Miami in the 1970's I had two friends who owned diesel-powered Mercedes. In order to start their cars they first had to depress a button that warmed a small amount of fuel to the point that it would ignite. It was a simple process that only took a few seconds, and it became even more simple through familiarity. The problem was fixed with a mechanical solution. I mention this because if ethanol didn't have to be denaturized due to alcohol consumption and tax laws, and if gasoline was unavailable, pure ethanol could be used as our primary engine fuel. At worst, a mechanical solution would be developed that would aid ignition when cooler temperatures prevail.
I often have to remind people that in certain regions of the continental United States that heating devices are used overnight or during periods of long inactivity to make sure that people can start their gasoline-powered cars. In other words, there's nothing magical about fossil fuels.
When you then begin your primary thrust into the heart of your thesis (Section 2), you state, "Scientists have been looking at alternatives to petroleum fuels for over a century." That statement is historically and technically inaccurate. For over a century scientists have been looking for ways to emulate bio-fuels and to create alternatives that they could patent for commercial control.
The first and second world wars were largely caused by the desire to control access to petroleum oil resources. You are correct in saying that the Germans and Japanese had to turn to bio-fuels because of desperation, but the desperation was due to their initiation of the respective wars (yes, I know that Japan was technically on the side of the Allies in WWI).
Germany allied itself with the Ottoman Empire in WWI because the Ottomans controlled much of the Middle East region that was thought to contain the largest oil reserves. The Germans needed easy access to the oil to continue thriving and challenging Britain as Europe's industrial power. The Ottomans allied themselves with the Germans to stop and eliminate British and French incursion into the oil-rich regions that they felt were part of their empire. The British and French moved into those areas specifically to be able to gain control over the oil.
In order to fuel their industrial growth, both Germany and Japan might have felt it necessary to initiate WWII even if petroleum oil fuels had never been created. Both countries had limited natural resources to create bio-fuels; this is particularly true of Japan. So perhaps instead of Japan attacking the oil reserves in Southeast Asia they would have set their sights on all that land in Australia. However, the fact remains that they did find ways to utilize alternatives to fossil-fuel fuels, and they came reasonably close to succeeding in their mission.
You make the point that the U.S. government spent $87 million between 1944 and 1953 on synthetic liquid fuel research involving military testing before dropping the program due to uncompetitive economics. And you obviously make this point as your first foray into the argument that the cost of developing alternatives to fossil fuels was, and is, too expensive. But this is a fallacious argument. What if Germany and Japan won the war or if the war was forestalled by the British capitulating to German and Japanese demands in 1940? Our cost to develop alternatives to German controlled Middle East oil and Japanese controlled Asian oil (or the cost in buying oil from them) would have probably been far, far in excess of the $87 million.
As it happens, the Manhattan Project alone cost us $2 billion to put a final end to a war that cost us close to $500 billion, plus hundreds of thousands of lives. So if you want to criticize upside-down economics, this is one more part of the upside-down economics of using and relying on fossil fuels.
Continuing onto Sections 3 and 4, all of that information is irrelevant. It is all based upon the presumption that petroleum oil fuels were the only fuels that could be used and that without these fuels civilization would not have progressed to where we are today. This is a completely false assumption. I once had a conversation with Dennis Prager (radio talk show host) who was arguing against alternative fuels. He said "I thank God for fossil fuels, they gave us the standard of living we enjoy today." I said "Thank God for the inventions that happen to use fossil fuels because it is those inventions that have given us the standard of living we enjoy today. But those inventions could be just as easily be powered by alternative fuels."
All of your numbers and calculations rely on fossil fuels being the only system to use, sort of like someone arguing that the metric system is the only measuring system that is accurate. The imperial measurement system works just as good, and every bit as accurate.
The entire discussion of the number of atoms in hydrogen is only important in a discussion of fuel and energy if it can be proven that only one particular fuel can do a particular job. If you want to measure millimeters, use a metric ruler. If you want to measure inches, use a standard ruler. If you're going to measure millimeters with a standard ruler, or inches with a metric ruler then there will be some inaccuracies or "loss" of space; but that still doesn't make one measurement system better than the other.
Germany and Japan didn't lose WWII because they used an inferior fuel that had fewer atoms or the wrong color atoms, they ultimately lost because they weren't able to use certain atoms as quickly as we were.
Section 5 is all reliant on Pimentel and Patzek's erroneous work, and work similar to it. I discuss this in greater detail in the report I published in June 2013 The bottom line is that it takes more energy to produce gasoline than it takes to produce ethanol.
I love where and when you write about the history of the Chimu Empire or the Roman Empire, but their EROEI is immaterial - except as an arcane intellectual exercise.
Section 6, Evaluating Bio-fuels: There is no one I know in the ethanol field or in alternative energy that claims that corn is the best crop to produce ethanol. I don't even know anyone that says it is one of the best. However, we all agree that the best raw material to be used to make ethanol is the one that is best for that region. "Best" is defined as most plentiful, provides the most efficient yield ratios, and is the most economical.
In America corn is the primary ethanol crop. This is because we have farmers who know how to make corn grow and because it is best suited for the climates that span the rather diverse regions of our country. Farmers grow as much corn for ethanol as they do because they have sales orders to do so. If they could grow something else that gave them a better profit (regardless of the ultimate use of the crop) they would do so. Using corn for ethanol has no impact on food pricing or availability. I cover this in greater detail in my June 2013 report, and I have addressed this issue with you online.
Today, more corn grown in the U.S. is used for ethanol production then ever before. However, the amount of corn used for animal and human food remains virtually unchanged since 2000. No one ever complains that there is not enough corn on the cob available for barbeques; no one ever complains that there are not enough tortilla chips to watch football games; and no one ever claims that there is not enough popcorn at movie theaters. If the price of popcorn at theaters is outrageously high it is not because of the cost of the corn or amount of corn used in ethanol; it is because movie theaters gouge their customers on all food and beverages (which they do to make a profit).
It is not my desire and intent to review your paper on an item-by-item basis as I sort of did with Bryce's book; I don't have the time and much would be duplicative. If you are interested and care about my take - even if you don't agree with me - then you should read the report. I cover subsidies and much more.
I read your paper because the subject matter interests me and because I wanted to see if you added anything new that further illuminates the issue.
You did write about one thing that Bryce didn't, primarily because he wrote his book years before the event happened: the drought. You write that corn price spikes caused by the drought caused ethanol plants to go out of business. Ethanol plants fail financially because they cannot sell enough ethanol, and they can't sell enough ethanol because laws prohibit them from doing so. There is absolutely no reason for regular gasoline to only contain 10% ethanol. Every gasoline-powered passenger car and truck manufactured since at least the mid-1990's can use higher level ethanol-gasoline blends without any problems, whether they are badged flex-fuel or not. These vehicles could use E15, E20, E30, E40 and E50. If there was greater freedom of availability of these blends, without all the undue hysteria created by the oil industry and its stooges, ethanol production would be much more profitable.
Most modern non-flex fuel passenger vehicles can also use blends in excess of E50, but they may experience some engine hesitation because the onboard computer doesn't know how to adjust to the difference in the fuels. This problem can be cured simply and inexpensively by either updating the computer software or adding a small device that interfaces with the vehicle's computer.
If you haven't already done your own splash blending to try something like an E20 or E30 in whatever non-flex fuel vehicles you own then you shouldn't even be talking about this subject. I'm not saying that you shouldn't comment on the results of a test, but you should just do some experimenting.
If you think my criticism is harsh then you should re-examine your positions. If you think I'm wrong, and you can tell me so without referring to molecular mumbo-jumbo, please do. If I'm wrong I will change as I have no financial involvement one way or another. In fact, it could be said that if you or someone else could show me where I am wrong I might even be able to get on the oil-industry stooge band wagon and get them to fund my efforts. Incidentally, I'm not against learning about molecules, per say. but I don't need wading through a smokescreen to get to the bottom line.
Should you have the occasion to read my report and you want to return the favor with your criticism, I will be happy to read it.
Regards.
Marc J. Rauch
Postscript: I never heard back from Captain Kiefer
* I always refer to Robert Bryce's book as his "cesspool book" instead of his "seminal book" because it belong's in the sewer with the rest of the offal.
