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The green hills of Montana.

Elk grazing beneath the big sky – PERC country.

It had hardly occurred to me that conservation could be done by anybody other than governments…

In 1987 I became chief correspondent for the Economist in Washington. My predecessor gave me a few tips as he moved to London. One of them was: “If you get an invitation to a PERC meeting in Montana, grab it! You’ll have a great time in the Rockies watching elk and, although they’ve got some crazy ideas, they are worth listening to.’

He was right. I went to a PERC journalists’ conference, right in the middle of the infamous Yellowstone fire, which proved to be a big distraction. Still, I recall Terry Anderson bugling to elk, Aaron Wildavsky making no sartorial concessions to the West, and some great late-night arguments about the role of the state.

It came at a time when my eyes were opening. Aged 30, I was a keen conservationist and enthusiastic naturalist. I had briefly been a field research biologist before I became a journalist and I was born on a farm in northern England. But it hardly occurred to me until then that conservation could be done by anybody other than governments. And like most Europeans, I knew all about “market failures” and not nearly enough about the perverse incentives and bureaucratic momentum of government failures.

Meeting PERC and reading Terry and Don’s book set me thinking. The following year I found myself covering the Clean Air Act revisions as they passed through Congress, and I was very struck by how most of the environmental organizations dismissed emissions trading in sulfur and nitrogen dioxide. It sounded to me (and later proved) to be a very good idea.

But it was November 1989 when the penny finally dropped. Not only were communism’s appalling human crimes bared for the entire world to see, but its environmental ones were as well. The day the Berlin Wall came down, I recalled a conversation I had a few years earlier on an airplane with a prominent British pop star (now a respected leftist politician) about how happy East Germans really were under communism and how much freer and more sustainable their lives were than those of Americans. He’d been there. He knew. I resolved the day the Wall came down to stop tolerating such excuses for all forms of state domination.

The legacy of utopian central planning – hideous air pollution in the Soviet Union.

Ten years later I was plowing a lonely furrow as a pro-environment, but pro-market, newspaper columnist in Britain. My stance baffled people. I met (and still meet) absolute incredulity rather than opposition from state-employed conservationists. It is not that they think command-and-control is the only way to conserve; it’s that they have never even considered an alternative – never imagined markets generating incentives. Grimly they repeat the mistakes of Gosplan (the committee for economic planning in the Soviet Union), wondering why their central planning, nationalization, and confiscation of people’s interest in wildlife and amenity doesn’t seem to generate enthusiasm.

Here is an example. To convert a barn into a house in Britain today you must survey it for bats before you apply for permission to convert. The bat survey must be done by an “accredited” bat group and only in the summer months. Guess what? Bat groups are very busy in the summer and charge very high fees. If the survey says there are rare bats in the building you may be refused permission to convert; as it turns out, the bats, not you, own the building. So what happens? People respond to incentives. Most barn owners resent and detest bats. I’m told playing Wagner at full volume clears a building of bats in short order. A simple scheme of small tax rebates for owners of barns who add bat-roosting boxes to their houses would achieve good will as well as bat babies. But it would not make paid work for bat groups.

PERC inspired me to see the world differently. The vision of free market environmentalism is inspiring because it is optimistic, and the solutions it suggests are voluntary, diverse and (for the taxpayer) cheap. The only things standing in its way are vested interests of politicians, bureaucrats, and pressure groups.

About the Author: Matt Ridley received a doctorate in zoology from the University of Oxford before commencing a career in science journalism. Ridley worked as a science correspondent for the Economist and the Daily Telegraph and is the author of several acclaimed works including The Origins Of Virtue (1997), Genome (1999), and Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes us Human (2003), also later released under the title The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture (2004). This article originally appeared in the March 2007 issue of “PERC Reports.” The Property & Environment Research Center, PERC, is a nonprofit institute dedicated to improving environmental quality through markets. Republished with permission.

When will the promise of electric cars be realized? As Larry Burns, VP of R&D for General Motors has patiently reminded the auto-bloggers, innovation isn’t sustainable until you can manufacture a vehicle not by the hundreds, but by the hundreds of thousands. So when will GM’s “Volt” hit the showrooms? And what does it mean that we have so many aspirants to become the maker of the next generation electric car – Tesla, ZAP, ZENN, AC Propulsion, Phoenix, Myers Motors, the Tango, and many, many more?

The just announced “ZAP-X” all electric car.

Who is going to build the model T of electric cars – the one that captures the imagination of a nation, and sells by the millions? Could it be the ZAP-X Crossover?

It’s hard not to like the concept. All electric, a 350 mile range, recharge in ten minutes (that one really stretches credulity, ZAP), in-wheel motors, over 600 horsepower, and it looks like a mid-sized SUV. And who’s to say ZAP can’t pull it off, given they’ve announced a partnership with Lotus to design and build this car?

But how ZAP is going to get from here to there is the question. It isn’t clear how much ZAP, who has been in business since 1993, is going to bring to the table. Many of their cars have been manufactured elsewhere – they claim to have sold over 90,000 cars, but most of these are light electric vehicles that you can’t drive on the freeway and many of them were imported. The ZAP-X crossover is a huge, ambitious leap forward.

Not only is ZAP moving abruptly into the mainstream with the announcement of the ZAP-X Crossover, but they must have some financial backing to get themselves there. Looking at ZAP’s financials – they are a public company – as of 12-31-06 they reported cash reserves of $2.1M, and with losses during 2006 of nearly 12 million, they are burning through $4.0M per quarter. Since formation ZAP has lost nearly $87 million, nearly twice their current enterprise value. How is ZAP staying alive?

If ZAP overcomes a legacy of financial losses and takes the best technology and expertise they’ve acquired over the years to team up with Lotus Engineering to make the ZAP-X Crossover the first mainstream all-electric car – it won’t be the first time a pioneering company with a bold vision pulled themselves through to triumph at last. But it is the exception, not the rule. Nonetheless we are pulling for them, and we hope they surprise everyone. Somebody is going to do this.

Peaking through the stover, already shucked, golden kernals of corn await not the dinner table, but a refinery.

The maize industry in South Africa is diversifying and prospering…..

If corn requires irrigation, then each gallon of ethanol from corn requires 500 to 1,000 gallons of fresh water.

Ethanol Africa, a South African company that plans to produce ethanol from yellow maize, wants soon to list on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM). There are around 9,000 commercial maize producers in South Africa, which produces 8.8 million tonnes on average per year one of its largest crops. Ethanol could provide a new and much welcome source of earnings.

Ethanol Africa, which is one of the companies leading this move, plans to open eight ethanol plants over the next six years, the first of which will be located in Bothaville. All will be located inland in the central and Eastern part of the country. “The socio-economic benefits of biofuels are extremely clear there’s a huge positive argument for it,” emphasises Jo Kruger, the company’s managing director.

The prospect is an exciting one and is not lost on the South African government which approved a draft biofuels strategy in January of 2007. This strategy proposes that there be a mandatory inclusion of 4.5% of biofuels in road transport fuel by 2013. Implementation will mean an additional 1.3 million hectares of land will be needed to produce grain and oilseed to supply the biofuel industry. South Africa is likely to see under-used land in the economically depressed former homelands being developed to grow biofuel crops. By helping to jumpstart the biofuels industry the strategy should create 55,000 jobs while reducing the country’s climate-changing carbon emissions.

This is one reason why Ethanol Africa plans eventually to spread its operations to other African countries such as Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania and is also a major reason why several African governments, such as that of South Africa, have opted to take the biofuels route. In South Africa, maize, sugar cane, soya and lesser known perennial plants are all feedstock options.

But while it is hard to dispute the numerous economic and low carbon benefits arising from the industry’s development, several environmental problems (as well as some positive environmental spin-offs) are already becoming more visible.

The maize industry has been criticised for using fossil fuels at every stage in the production process. Its cultivation uses fertilisers and tractors, and this is followed by energy used for processing and transportation. According to the World Conservation Union, “maize farming appears to use 30% more energy than the finished fuel produces, and leaves eroded soils and polluted waters behind.” Some studies confirm that at the very least, maize shows only a marginal positive energy balance in comparison to other crops, while others show its energy balance to be negative.

The sugar-bioethanol chain, which has provided huge benefits for Brazil, could also create jobs and income for several African countries, hence many countries are considering it. A UK-Brazil-South Africa partnership study published in July 2006 on behalf of the UK Office of Science and Innovation said sugar cultivation could be more than doubled to 1.5 million hectares in the Southern African region over the next 10-15 years.

If so, sugar cane production would meet more than twice the current regional sugar consumption while also creating 7.3 billion litres of bioethanol each year. It is an attractive option and “has the potential to be among the lowest cost and lowest CO2 fuel chains,” according to the report’s authors.

There are around 47 000 registered sugarcane growers producing an average 22 million tonnes of sugarcane according to the South Africa Sugar Association. About 80% of production comes from large commercial players.

But sugar production has created major concern in recent years. Future potential is limited in South Africa and one reason for this is the industry’s consumption of water. A 2005 World Wildlife Fund study found that 600 to 1000 litres of water are used to produce 1 kg of sugar, or one million litres of water to produce 12.5 tonnes of commercial cane. It is a water intensive crop that remains in the soil for the whole year.

Compared to corn, sugar cane can yield twice the ethanol per unit of area, but also can require more water.

Solutions are needed, especially in these arid countries. WWF’s response has been to create a Sustainable Sugar Initiative, through which it plans to develop a set of standards for use by investors and producers. In South Africa itself, there is in any case little physical room for sugar cane expansion. Kruger estimates that at most there could be enough for two sugar cane-based ethanol plants. However, new plantations and plants in neighbouring countries such as Mozambique will be under pressure to consider these issues.

Perhaps some of the most interesting developments are in the more unusual tropical plants being considered as biofuels feedstocks, many of which show a higher yield than maize and sugar cane. Simon Wilson, is managing a South African biodiesel project for the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), a highly recognised global organisation promoting the development of clean and sustainable energy. REEEP is funding biofuel projects in Africa. He points out that the issue is a complex one, but that studies have noted negative environmental impacts from many of these plants, which are often grown on land that is degraded and not viewed as entirely arable.

“Given that marginal land is often a refuge for wildlife and biodiversity, it is likely that energy crops will have some of their greatest impact on these resources as is already being seen in South East Asia with the expansion of oil palm plantations into secondary forests which in turn is having a clear impact on orangutan populations, for example,” he explains. Africa is an enormous and unique continent, and the development of biofuels, whether in traditional crops or through tropical plants, is in many ways a step into the unknown.

Annie Sugrue, the South African co-ordinator for the international NGO Citizens United for Renewable Energy and Sustainability (CURES), is interested in the potential benefits of biofuels, but says that “the issues are not fully understood.” She believes that a full life cycle analysis for different crops needs to be done. Nevertheless, some positive environmental benefits have been noted from plants being considered as biofuel feedstocks in South Africa.

Perennial crops, including jatropha, moringa (a tree whose bark, leaves and other parts can all be used) and two local plums, could be the way forward, according to Sugrue, not least because they are more productive. Jatropha, the tree cultivated by biodiesel company D1 Oils in Southern Africa, can generate 2.5 tonnes of biofuel/hectare out of jatropha in comparison to, for instance, soya, which averages at 0.8 tonnes/hectare.

But there are other benefits too: “We have lots of arable land but it’s degraded, but long-term crops such as these help to stabilise and improve it over time,” Ms Sugrue says. Many sustainability campaigners favour the development of food forests that include different types of plants (trees and bushes) of different species and different heights.

It is a tricky problem. The financial gains from developing biofuels are attractive, since future high import demand is likely from mature economies in the European Union and Far East. But many of the environmental issues still need to be worked through.

REEEP as an organisation will continue to support the development of biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the partnership will always ensure that projects take a comprehensive approach, requiring biofuels production to consider sustainability, economic development and land use holistically. REEEP does not support biofuels production that involves deforestation or displacement of food crops.

About the Author: Dr. Marianne Moscoso-Osterkorn obtained her Ph.d.in Business Administration at the University of Economics in Vienna, and received a Masters of Arts in Industrial Psychology from the University of Michigan. She started her career in the banking sector as a project manager for organizational projects at several Austrian banks. From 1981-2004, Moscoso-Osterkorn was employed by Verbund, the largest Austrian utility company. During her 23-year stay at this company she held various management positions, including 10 years as the International Relations Manager of Verbund where she was responsible for international lobbying and market development; she followed closely the liberalisation process of the European Energy Market. During these years she was also strongly involved in the development of the European Green certificate market and was for several years President of RECS International, a European green certificate organisation. In 2004 Dr. Moscoso-Osterkorn became the International Director of REEEP, the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership.

Ever since an incendiary interview with Czech President Vaclav Klaus was translated into English back in February 2007, he’s been on the radar. Quite simply, there is no head of state on earth who is as outspoken on the global warming scare as Mr. Klaus. Others may agree with him, but as he puts it, “their voices are strangled by political correctness.”

Here is the translation as originally published by Lubos Motl on his blog. He doesn’t beat around the bush about global warming hysteria, stating “It’s a false myth and I think that every serious person and scientist says it. Pointing to a UN panel is unfair. It isn’t a scientific institution, it’s a political organ. It’s like creating a non-governmental organization of green coloring. This isn’t a choice of neutral scientists, a balanced group of scientists. These are politicised scientists who are coming to this with one-sided opinions and assignments. It is again an undignified slapstick that isn’t abided by this panel’s May report, but now that there is a fundamental reaction to the political content of this report, when all the ‘buts,’ ‘whens,’ and ‘ifs’ are crossed out and left out, there are simple theses there. This is simply such an unbelievable failure by all, starting with the media and ending with politicians”

Unlike most members of the media and politicians, Mr. Klaus has done his homework: “Environmentalism is a metaphysical ideology and a worldview that has absolutely nothing in common with science and the climate. Unfortunately, it has nothing in common with the social sciences either, and it is becoming the fashion of the modern era. That terrifies me. We have bundles of studies and books by climatologists who have come to the absolutely opposite opinion. I don’t measure the thickness of ice in the Antarctic. I really don’t know and I don’t aspire to. As a scientifically based person, though, I know how to read scientific reports on this issue and I know how to read how it is with the ice in the Antarctic. I don’t have to be a climatologist for that.”

We reported on these matters ourselves, in our posts “Antarctic Ice” and “Greenland’s Ice Melting Slowly.” There and elsewhere, our conclusions match those of Klaus, leading us to publish, among other things, the post “Inconvenient Questions.”

More recently, on June 13th, 2007, Klaus authored an article printed in the Financial Times of London entitled “Freedom, Not Climate is at Risk,” and we couldn’t agree more. As somebody who used to live under Soviet tyranny, he may be better equipped to recognize propaganda and creeping communism than the average American. Here’s one quote from this very astute commentary:

“As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.”

As scientists and politicians catch up with independent minded skeptics like President Klaus, we will hopefully stop the anti-CO2 agenda, and return to things that matter, like eliminating truly noxious pollutants, reversing tropical deforestation, and continuing to develop clean and efficient fossil fuel while we eventually transition to nuclear and solar power.

Vaclav Klaus is a hero, and he should be getting a Nobel Prize, instead of you-know-who.

The face of the forest – a flying monkey soars through the canopy.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn…..

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

That simple Emerson quotation is premise of the reforestation program developed by Steve and Debbie Legg owners of Leaves and Lizards Arenal Volcano Cabin Retreat.

This devastating clear cut in Peru is an example of how the trouble begins. (Photo: Mongabay.com)

Just over a year ago, the Legg’s purchased a 26 acre dairy farm in Monterrey, Costa Rica. They built 3 cabins and opened to guests in January 2007. A vacation at Leaves and Lizards is an ecological and cultural experience. Guests may learn about the Meso-American Biological Corridor, the consequences of deforestation, spend the day with a Costa Rica family, become informed about the circle of life in the rainforest by their expert guides and eat food cooked with methane gas produced from the manure of their pigs and cows. Many of the guests that have had the pleasure of staying at Leaves and Lizards inquire about reforesting opportunities. Some have even purchased farms in need of reforesting. Others just want to do something to help reverse deforestation.

Proper reforestation takes planning and follow through. These are the steps necessary for a successful reforestation plan:

1 – Clean-up and soil preparation; if the farm has natural grass, clean-up is done once before planting. If the farm has exotic grasses like Brazilian or Gigante, it will take several clean-ups. These invasive grasses have been planted as pasture grass on cattle farms. They choke out and kill baby trees or other native grasses and plants.

2 – Designing the new forest, ordering and careful transport of trees to the planting location. The design includes a variety of native trees. Teak, not native to Costa Rica, is commonly used as the pioneer forest. It grows rapidly, has large leaves that provide shade that the native trees need to grow. The teak can be harvested later to provide additional funding for future projects.

3 – Making sticks for tree supports, digging holes, planting and organic fertilizing of trees. In the San Carlos area of Costa Rica tree planting season is in May and November. These are the rainiest months.

4 – Eliminating weed competition and pruning; once a month for the next 24 months.
It is possible to just let the land go back to “back to nature,” however, that takes longer and the new forest will have less biodiversity.

The endpoint of thoughtless and rampant deforestation is shown in this photo of the Malagasy Republic, where erosion has claimed entire mountainsides. (Photo: WildMadagascar.org)

Biodiversity is short for Biological + Diversity, defined as the number of organisms in an ecosystem, region or environment. Rainforests are highly biodiverse; they cover only about 2% of the land mass on the earth, but contain 50% of all life on the planet. In 2.5 acres of primary rainforest there may be as many as 480 different species of trees. Brazil has the highest level of biodiversity in the world with 59,851 known different species of plants and animals. Sadly, they also have the world’s highest deforestation rate. Brazil is responsible for 27 % of the earth’s yearly deforestation. The earth suffers 80,000 acres of deforestation daily!

A good reforestation plan includes ways for the new forest to support itself. For example, two trees are growing side by side, but in nature only one of those trees will reach old age, the other less dominate one will eventually be crowded out by the larger tree, the smaller tree can be harvested and the wood used to provide funding for the farm up keep, and further reforestation projects. Another tree is planted in its place. This is growing what Fred Morgan at Finca Leola (www.fincaleola.com) calls a perpetual forest.

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. – Greek Proverb

The reforestation project at Leaves and Lizards (www.leavesandlizards.com) offers people a chance to buy trees for reforestation as a gift, memorial or as part of a vacation package. One package gives the supporter the opportunity to plant and care for the baby trees. Supporters receive yearly photographs, documenting the growth of the trees they sponsored. The Legg’s work with Hector Ramirez from Reforest Costa Rica (www.reforestcostarica.com). Hector’s knowledge and expertise of the local flora and fauna, as well as the connections he has in the community, prove to make this program a great success. Local farmers trust him and he is educating farmers about the need to protect their remaining forests and reforest to protect water sources.

As an ecologically and socially responsible resort, community involvement is the philosophy of Leaves and Lizards. Monterrey is a tiny, close knit community, perched in the mountains above La Fortuna. La Fortuna sits in the shadow of the Arenal Volcano and has experienced rapid growth as numerous tourists flock to the area hoping to get a glimpse of one of the most active volcanoes in the world. The community of Monterrey has watched Fortuna outgrow its resources and since the opening of Leaves and Lizards, Monterrey has looked to the Legg’s for guidance in planning for future tourism. Steve and Debbie believe tourism should be a support to the community, remain in the background and not take over the community. Local leaders are taking proactive measures to ensure the preservation and continuation of the quality of life in this tranquil hamlet. The first meeting of the “city association” took place in February 2007. The association facilitates community improvements including road repair, handling of garbage, recycling and water usage.

Many of the tours offered at Leaves and Lizards promote rural tourism. Farmers and other locals show off their farms, waterfalls and forests to the guests at Leaves and Lizards. Residents of Monterrey have helped plant native trees and plants that produce fruit to attract wildlife to the resort for guests to enjoy.

Funds raised by Leaves and Lizards will help pay for farmers and individuals who are buying land to reforest to plant trees. This program may indeed be the seed of a thousand forests.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. – William Blake, 1799, The Letters

We find Steven Milloy at JunkScience.com to be consistently entertaining, and almost always right. So it’s our duty to critique his critique of Jim Manzi’s (of the partisan publication National Review) shocking leap onto the stop-industrial-CO2 (at any cost) bandwagon.

Here’s what Manzi wrote:

“It is no longer possible, scientifically or politically, to deny that human activities have very likely increased global temperatures; what remains in dispute is the precise magnitude of the human impact. Conservatives should accept this reality — and move on to the question of what we should do about it.”

Apparently Manzi is doing damage control – he’s decided that global warming hysteria is here to stay, and if the two-party system is to survive in America, the Republicans need to get with the program. As journalists, of course, we stay above the partisan political fray – but our concern with the agenda of the global warming alarmists is well documented. And we are unabashedly in favor of free-market solutions to environmental challenges – the solutions proposed to combat the global warming boogyman are an accelerating exercise in collectivism and tyranny that should make any student of history shudder with dread.

Milloy deconstructs Manzi’s perspective with his usual verve.

Here’s one nugget:

“Manzi’s is a recipe for social, political and economic disaster – not just for conservatives, but for everyone, with the possible exception of the misanthropic, back-to-nature socialists among us.”

The heart of Milloy’s essay, however, is where he lists the hidden agendas of the global warming alarmists. His reasons are sound, although he misses one of the biggest of all…

“First, there are the radical left-wing environmentalists whose goal – through control of energy production and use, and ultimately the economy – is global socialism. As Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore related in the recent Channel 4 (UK) documentary, entitled ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle,’ by the mid-1980s, environmental goals – e.g., clean air and clean water – had become so mainstream that activists had to adopt more extreme positions to remain anti-establishment. Then when the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended, many “peace-niks” and left-wing political activists moved over to environmental activism, bringing their ‘neo-Marxist’ political philosophy with them. As Moore puts it, environmentalism became the ‘new guise for anti-capitalism.”

Milloy also indicts the Europeans, claiming Margaret Thatcher nurtured the global warming crowd back in the 1980′s because that was a way she could advocate nuclear power without having to openly fight the unions who controlled the coal mining industry.

But while Milloy alludes to the allure global warming hysteria presents to businesses who exploit these emotions to move product and attract subsidies, he doesn’t go far enough. It has been a common refrain among global warming alarmists that any scientist or advocate who questions global warming is probably funded by oil companies. Well that was then. Top management at oil companies aren’t stupid. If 90% of the world’s energy production comes from burning something, and if the entire political establishment in the world is hell-bent to curtail burning anything because it’s going to destroy the planet, then the price of oil will stay in the stratosphere, and only the established cartels will continue to pump oil, and their profits will reach unprecedented levels.

When the oil companies tried to inject reason into the global warming debate – back when it was still a debate, oil companies were fighting the good fight – and now they’ve said fine, hang yourselves, we’ll just get richer. The real question is, if you want to demonize oil companies (which we do not want to do, thank you very much), is what took them so long. Global warming hysteria is the best thing that ever happened to big oil.

Well it had to happen. Just as we reported with delight back in 2006 on the imminent arrival of the Tesla Roadster, an all-electric car we estimate can top out somewhere north of 180 mph, last week we learned of a Dodge Viper that’s been modified to run on E85, a fuel blend that is 85% ethanol.

Karl Jacob’s E85 Viper

When I talked with owner Karl Jacob last week, he stated his Viper has already been clocked at 185 mph in the standing mile, and he’s gearing up to do another run with the goal of topping 195 mph. We’re looking forward to seeing Karl’s E85 Viper on display this September at the GoingGreen executive summit, an event for green technology investors and entrepreneurs that EcoWorld is co-hosting.

There are many ways to look at something like a Viper that runs on E85. It’s kind of like an incandescent light bulb – it may be an inefficient use of energy, but if the fuel comes from a clean and sustainable source, it’s nobody’s business how efficiently it’s used.

It’s interesting that the folks who are trying to take away our incandescents – claiming most electricity comes from coal, and therefore any inefficient use of electricity should be against the law – are not trying to discourage use of biofuel. After all, most biofuel comes from land where tropical rainforests once stood. But what’s encouraging about biofuel and electricity is not that today their predominant sources are destroyed rainforests and coal fired power plants, but where they will come from tomorrow. Both biofuel and electricity have the potential to be absolutely clean and sustainable – from cradle to cradle.

Electricity and biofuel are both attractive because the sources of these energies are various, and many of them have no negative environmental impacts whatsoever. Electricity can come from photovoltaics, or solar thermal arrays – some claim, not without good arguments, that nuclear power is safer than ever and will become a more significant source of electricity for the world. Biofuel feedstocks are being developed that can be grown within completely enclosed systems, where water (constantly reused), light and CO2 are the only inputs.

So bring on the high-performance clean vehicles, we say, and continue to explore free market solutions to environmental challenges, not rationing. It will be a poorer world if innovators like Karl Jacobs can’t burn rubber from time to time.

Just over 100 years ago, on May 27th, 1907, Rachel Carson was born. Her book “Silent Spring,” published in 1962, is considered by many to have launched the modern environmental movement. Inspired by concerns over misuse of the chemical DDT, the book had the specific effect of leading to the banning of DDT use in most of the world.

Just yesterday, in the New York Times, John Tierney wrote a column entitled “Fateful Voice of a Generation Still Drowns Out Real Science,” referring to Rachel Carson and the impact of her book. Tierney’s observations are important to note in this larger context, because Carson’s impassioned prose has become the norm for environmental dialog, and this extends to countless environmental issues.

Tierney writes “the chemophobia inspired by Ms. Carson’s book has been harmful in various ways. The obsession with eliminating minute risks from synthetic chemicals has wasted vast sums of money: environmental experts complain that the billions spent cleaning up Superfund sites would be better spent on more serious dangers.”

We have opined on DDT in particular, and chemophobia in general, in two feature stories, “Bring Back DDT,” and “Chemophobia,” written by EcoWorld science correspondant Dr. Edward Wheeler. Scientific evidence does not support the notion that DDT, properly used, causes more harm than good. In fact, quite the opposite is true – to this day, no better and more effective measure to fight malaria has been found. Once DDT was banned, malaria returned to areas where it had been all but eliminated – and millions of people have died as a result.

The larger challenge worth examining on the centenary of Rachel Carson’s birth is that rational scientific inquiry is no match for emotional rhetoric. This comes as no surprise, of course, but the degree to which emotional rhetoric is overtaking issues where economics and environmental concerns intersect is becoming all-inclusive. A perfect example of this is the rush to develop biofuel in order to combat global warming. The practical result of this has been massive new rounds of tropical deforestation to develop biofuel plantations. This tropical deforestation, in turn, is undoubtedly contributing to droughts, extreme weather, and global warming. Read “When Green is Brown” or any of our posts in the categories “Biofuel” and “Global Warming.” Biofuel feels good for a variety of compelling emotional reasons, but in reality, clean and efficient use of petroleum is probably not as “brown” as biofuel eked from former tropical rainforests.

To the uninitiated, all of these points to ponder are mere nuances compared to the compelling emotional appeals that are, unfortunately, parroted unrelentingly by nearly every media pundit, public school teacher and politician in America. Even most scientists have now become frighteningly selective in the scope of what might still inspire scientific skepticism.

For these reasons, Rachel Carson’s legacy is mixed. Her powerful, emotional prose continues to captivate and inspire generations of concerned citizens. But policies based on emotional arguments are ripe for exploitation, and often entirely removed from what a rational environmentalist might really want.

An arcane but instructive way to evaluate corn ethanol, along with all biofuels, may not just be to audit their “net energy balance,” but also their “net water balance.” Evaluating whether or not a biofuel crop could be “water positive” is even more subjective to calculate than whether or not that crop is energy positive, but here goes:

Corn is one of the better temperate crops to use as a primary biofuel feedstock, since cellulosic extraction isn’t here yet and sugar cane doesn’t grow in Iowa. Using corn as an example, a good ethanol yield is about 480 gallons per acre per year, which is based on 160 bushels per acre, and 3.0 gallons of ethanol per bushel. How much water corn needs varies greatly, and the range we’ve arrived at for this analysis is between 300 and 900 cubic meters per ton. Our source for 900 m3/ton is from a reference to UNESCO’s “The Water Footprint of Nations,” and our source for 300 m3/ton is from Colorado State University.

Since a bushel of corn weighs about 70 pounds, based on a yield of 160 bushels per acre, expressed in tons the per acre yield of corn is about 5.6 tons. This means, at the lower figure of 300 cubic meters of water per ton of corn, the average acre of corn requires 1,680 tons of water per harvest cycle, which equates to 444,000 gallons of water for every 480 gallon yield of ethanol. Clearly, from this perspective, the 3-6 additional gallons of water required after harvest to refine each gallon of corn ethanol is not the critical factor – particularly when petroleum fuels also require water during their refining process.

If it takes 925 gallons of irrigation water to grow corn for every gallon of ethanol that can be distilled from corn, how much energy would it take to desalinate seawater to irrigate that corn? Would there be energy left over after the ethanol had been used to power the desalination plant that provided the fresh water for irrigating the corn? The answer is yes, but only when we use the lower figure – 300 cubic meters of water per ton of corn harvested.

Since 2.0 kilowatt-hours is necessary to desalinate a cubic meter of seawater, then at 300 cubic meters of water per ton, and 5.6 tons per acre, it takes 3,360 kilowatt-hours of electric power to desalinate enough water to irrigate an acre of corn for a year. Since ethanol has about 80,000 BTUs of energy per gallon, at a yield of 480 gallons per acre you will extract 38 million BTUs. Theoretically, 3,400 BTUs equals one kilowatt-hour, but even the best electric generating plants only succeed in capturing about 60% of those BTU’s. This means that in terms of electric power, corn ethanol is good for about 23 million BTUs, equating to 6,776 kilowatt-hours.

So is corn ethanol water positive? At 300 cubic meters of water per acre, you would require 50% of your corn ethanol yield per acre to power the desalination plant to irrigate the corn. At 900 cubic meters of water per acre, your corn crop would not yield enough ethanol to desalinate the water required to irrigate the corn. Under these assumptions, growing and refining corn ethanol is certainly not a decisively water-positive enterprise.

This reality points to another trade-off when considering whether or not to develop biofuel crops to scale. If the land status is changing – either from forest or from farmland – in order to produce biofuel crops, then it is valid to assume the opportunity cost of the biofuel includes reallocating the water – even if it was rainfall. The measurements explored here could be as good as any when determining the net water balance of biofuel crops.