Well, at least we have enough coal

There is a number range that keeps getting batted around in the world of fossil fuels. That range is 200 to 300 years, referring to the amount of coal we have left. It is almost a throwaway line, a truism. Global warming stands between us and a cheerful enjoyment of these fossilized riches, but it is a comforting thought, nevertheless. In fact, it might only be a thought and not a reality.

By analogy, imagine that you are scuba diving, and that you have an air tank with an hour’s supply in it. It is useful to know that you have an hour’s worth of air in terms of planning your dive. Now imagine that there is a malfunction in the regulator so that you can only get 50 seconds worth of air in a minute. Life underwater just got a bit edgy. Now imagine that the malfunction progresses, from 5/6 of your need to 2/3, to ½. Suddenly that hour’s worth of air becomes an unimportant concept compared to how much is coming out of the mouthpiece right now.

This is the same concept as peak energy, whether that energy is in the form of oil, natural gas, coal, or uranium. What matters is that we need X billion barrels, cubic feet, or tons this year, and if we get less than X, the price goes up and people do without. How many years worth are left in the ground becomes a secondary matter.

I recently heard an offhand mention on The Oil Drum that David Hughes, a chief energy geologist for Geological Survey of Canada said that the U.S. had passed peak coal energy production. (Canadian coal production has been in steep decline for over a decade) I decided to look at the numbers.

The US Energy Information Agency provides figures for coal production in the U.S. When I looked at the tables I found that overall coal production in tons is still rising at 1.133 billion in 2006, about 1% up since 2001. However, the mix of coal has changed. There are four categories of coal:

Anthracite – hard, shiny, and high energy, averaging 25 million BTUs per ton
Bituminous – softer, more crumbly, averaging 24 million BTU’s per ton
Sub-Bituminous – less dense, averaging 18 million BTUs per ton
Lignite – brown, soft, light, averaging 13 million BTUs per ton

A BTU, by the way, is the energy necessary to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. A useful approximation is the energy obtained by burning one wooden matchstick.

Anthracite and lignite production are a small fraction of the total. The production of bituminous has been falling since about 1990. The production of sub-bituminous is rising, accounting for the slight increase in overall production. So, there is less of the good stuff and more of the mediocre stuff, with production of the really good and really bad stuff flat and insignificant.

The upshot is that total coal production in terms of actual energy is down a little over 1% since 2001. (23.579 x 10^18 BTUs in 2001, 23.329 x 10^18 in 2005) The price per ton has doubled in that time, a fact that would have made headlines if oil weren’t doing the same thing. And yet, it is slightly worse than that.

It takes some energy to dig coal out of the ground, and the trend with any mined resource is to get the easy stuff first. Back in the 1950s it took the energy equivalent of one ton of coal to extract 70 tons. By the 1970s that one ton equivalent extracted only 30 tons. Ok, so we went from a 1.25% energy cost of extraction to a 3.33% energy cost. Minimal, but a doubling in 20 years. More recent energy return on investment (EROI) figures are around 8 to 10. So, that one percent drop in total coal energy production has to be worsened by perhaps ten more percentage points to get the net useful energy from all that tonnage. Some energy analysts are following the EROI curve and predicting that U.S. coal will reach 1:1 in the next few decades, rendering the rest of the 300-year supply essentially useless as an energy source.

At best, we are on a coal production plateau, one that could persist for some time. We are definitely on a net coal energy downslope, one that can only get worse with time. Even if the slope is shallow, it comes during an awkward period. Demand for energy, especially electrical energy, is increasing as our supply of natural gas, the other premier power plant fuel, is declining. Coal fired plants produce more greenhouse gas and other pollutants per kilowatt-hour than natural gas. It is another sign for us to accelerate towards a more energy efficient economy and more rapid development of renewable energy.

Corn for cars or corn for people

Some would have you believe that corn ethanol will be the great savior of the American driver and the Midwest corn farmer. Our representatives in Washington seem to think so. They are working on a bill that would increase incentives for research and development of ethanol technology and the production of the magic fluid. Ethanol is turning out to be a great profit center for farmers and processors. Nobody else will really get much out of it and some are already suffering from it.

The first problem with ethanol as a motor fuel is that it takes a lot of energy to make the stuff. I have written about Energy Return On Investment (EROI) before. The concept is simple – if it takes the energy in a gallon of fuel to produce that fuel, then you gain no net energy with which to do something useful. Corn sucks up a lot of fossil fuel energy in natural gas fertilizer, petroleum based pesticides, and diesel for tractors and trucks. The fermentation and distillation process takes yet more. The EROI on corn ethanol might be anywhere from 0.7 (a net loss) to 2 (one unit of energy in gets you two out) with an average of 1.5. As Professor Cutler Cleveland pointed out, an ethanol economy would require two thirds of our energy stream to be tied up in ethanol production so we could drive around on the other third.

Aside from the problem of basic physics, there is one of geography. There just isn’t enough land to grow enough corn to supply even a fraction of our fuel needs. An article by the Earth Policy Institute sums it up nicely.

“According to the EPI compilation, the 116 plants in production on December 31, 2006, were using 53 million tons of grain per year, while the 79 plants under construction—mostly larger facilities—will use 51 million tons of grain when they come online. Expansions of 11 existing plants will use another 8 million tons of grain (1 ton of corn = 39.4 bushels = 110 gallons of ethanol).

In addition, easily 200 ethanol plants were in the planning stage at the end of 2006. If these translate into construction starts between January 1 and June 30, 2007, at the same rate that plants did during the final six months of 2006, then an additional 3 billion gallons of capacity requiring 27 million more tons of grain will likely come online by September 1, 2008, the start of the 2008 harvest year. This raises the corn needed for distilleries to 139 million tons, half the 2008 harvest projected by USDA. This would yield nearly 15 billion gallons of ethanol, satisfying 6 percent of U.S. auto fuel needs. (And this estimate does not include any plants started after June 30, 2007, that would be finished in time to draw on the 2008 harvest.)”

So, if we diverted our entire corn crop to ethanol, we would supply 12% of our motor fuel. Of course, we would have to use the equivalent of 8% of our motor fuel to grow the corn and distill the ethanol, so we would net 4%.

Add to this the problem that intensive industrial corn production is responsible for the loss of topsoil. It takes the earth hundreds of years to create an inch of topsoil, but industrial agriculture has been stripping it away ten times faster. The more corn we grow this way, the less dirt we have to grow it in.

The final stake in the heart for ethanol is that we are responsible for 40% of world corn exports. In Guatemala, the poorest country in Central America, the rising price of corn is causing severe hardship. Even though the type of corn used for ethanol production is not the same as the type used for human consumption, a price rise in one pushes up the price of the other. The increase in the price of corn has paralleled the recent surge in ethanol production. Compare the doubling of the price of white corn over the past six months to this graph.

It’s a basic case of supply and demand, the demand competition being between gas tanks and stomachs. The amount of corn needed to fill your gas tank with ethanol would fill a Guatemalan’s stomach for a year. With the price of corn heading up sharply, it looks as if it will be an either/or proposition.

Don't sweat it

I am well dressed today. You wouldn’t think so to look at me. I am wearing faded jeans, a work shirt, a wool vest (waistcoat to you Commonwealth folks), and a shabby pair of running shoes. How does this count as well dressed? Well, none of these items was made in a sweatshop.

The running shoes are U.S. made by New Balance.
The jeans are made by Union Jean and Apparel in Ohio.
The shirt is made in the U.S. by Carrhart.
The vest is made by Johnson Woolen Mills here in Vermont.

I try to avoid sweatshop clothing, as do a number of my friends, but it isn’t easy. Most of the major retailers buy their clothes almost exclusively in third world countries with rotten labor practices. This is intentional. Some companies, when pressed, say that either they have codes of conduct or that they don’t know exactly how much the garment workers make.

In fact, if you read the codes of conduct, they generally refer to obeying local laws, local standards, and the local prevailing wage. Not the most reassuring guarantee. The standards are generally ignored, company auditors get prearranged tours of “Potemkin” factories, and the subcontractors suffer no penalties for their behavior. Also, retailers do know exactly how much the garment workers make. A garment buyer would be fired for incompetence if he or she didn’t know the exact labor costs for each item and how that translated into worker income.

This is the most aggravating thing about the whole situation: It is so unnecessary. Third world labor costs in the garment industry are around ½ to 1 percent of the retail garment price. In other words, perhaps a nickel on a $20 sweatshirt or fifty cents on a $100 pair of running shoes.

An anti-sweatshop group obtained the pay slips from a teenaged garment worker in Southeast Asia. This young woman worked seven days a week and earned the equivalent of about $2.50 a day making children’s clothing emblazoned with the world’s most famous mouse. Her six cents per $20 garment got her two bowls of plain noodles a day and bus fare. Period. This is absolutely typical for the industry, from Indonesia to Bangladesh.

What if the contractors had a sudden fit of humanity and multiplied her wages by ten? At $25 a day she could afford a decent life, wouldn’t have to work seven days a week and we would pay $20.54 instead of $20.00 for the kid’s sweatshirt. It would be a pass-through expense for the wholesaler and retailer. Oh, but then they’d have to break through that $19.99 price point. Horrors.

So where can you get “clean” clothes? I have provided some online shopping opportunities below.

Clothing

No Sweat Apparel Casual clothing
American Apparel Made in downtown L.A. for the young and hip. Or the not-so young and hip.
Filson Expensive, but incredibly well made work clothes.
Shudde Brothers Where the real rodeo cowboys get their hats.
Sweatx Athletic clothes and a bit more.
King Louie Basic stuff.
Union Jean Just what it says, plus khakis, shirts, and outerwear.
Justice Clothing A little bit of everything.

Shoes and boots

Chaco Sandals Comfortable, durable, and re-soleable.
Cape Shoe Work shoes and boots.
Chippewa They have an American made line.
Weinbrenner They also have an American made line.
West Coast Shoe Serious work boots.
New Balance Some styles made in U.S.A.
Red Wing Shoes Made in Red Wing Minnesota, ya, fer sure.

In General
Buy American Mart
New Dream

Here’s an idea: A 7% tariff on clothing made in countries where labor standards are lax and sweatshops are allowed. It wouldn’t empty our wallets, but it would eliminate the profits gained by squeezing the workers. It would be cheaper for the retailers to force the subcontractors to pay decent wages.

Oh yes, I almost forgot: This blog is written on a laptop that was union built in the U.S.A. by Union Built PC.

Happy shopping.

Death as a side effect

Geneva Conventions (Article 48, 1977 addition to, Part IV):
“The Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.”

“Collateral damage” is more than a euphemism; it’s a lie. Since the development of long-range artillery and aerial bombing in the First World War, the killing zone of wars has expanded and the involvement of civilians in battle has become commonplace.

John Keegan, a military historian, wrote an interesting book called The Face of Battle. In it he looks at the concept of a battle from the individual soldier’s point of view, as a social and psychological experience. He uses the battle of Agincourt in 1415, the battle of Waterloo in 1814, and the First Battle of the Somme in 1916 as examples. One of the striking differences about these battles is the extent of the killing zone. At Agincourt there were archers who could kill at distances up to a hundred yards or more, but most of the bloody work was done at arm’s length. Armored men hacked and slashed at each other face to face, while people from the nearby villages watched from the adjacent woods. Waterloo was fought with muskets and cannon, and the killing zone was extended to a mile. Even so, some troops sat out the battle on the back slopes of hills or in dense woods within a short walk of the carnage. The First World War was different. Modern artillery extended the killing zone to seven miles, and the soldiers of each side reached the front through a maze of well-policed trenches. There was little opportunity for refusal or escape. Keegan doesn’t cover this, but at the same time, the Germans were beginning to make aerial forays over Britain with dirigibles, dropping bombs on industrial areas and their surrounding cities. Shells fell on French villages. Civilians were now part of the battle. Keegan’s final point is that in our era of intercontinental ballistic missiles the killing zone has become global. We are all on the battlefield.

In fact, as the reach and power of our weapons has increased, so has the ratio of civilian war related deaths to military battle casualties. During American military operations in the Middle East since 1991, the ratio of civilian deaths to U.S. military deaths has varied from 13:1 to 20:1 by the most conservative counts. The ratio of civilian deaths to tons of bombs dropped has varied since the introduction of aerial bombing, but nobody denies that there is a ratio. Even the use of so-called “precision guided munitions” hasn’t reduced the number of civilian deaths.

The arsenal of a modern army includes bombs that can be (and are) dropped from miles in the air, destroying entire city blocks. Artillery can reach out to 14 miles, delivering high explosives, shrapnel, and burning chemical agents such as phosphorus. Individual soldiers with handheld weapons can send multiple projectiles far beyond their own visual range, or blanket an area with a hail of bullets. Combine this technological prowess with the limitations of human perception, communication, cognition, and moral judgment and there is an inescapable conclusion: It is literally impossible to conduct modern warfare without killing significant numbers of innocent civilians. This conclusion is amply corroborated by our experience from the Second World War to this day.

This stark fact puts a moral burden on those in positions of political power who propose the use of military force. The argument of collateral damage, i.e., “We didn’t mean to kill civilians - it was an unfortunate error,” is one of negligence. The inevitability of civilian casualties in modern warfare disallows the plea of negligence.

What if someone were to visit a crowded shopping mall with a paper target and a handgun, paste the target on a wall, back off through the throng, put on a blindfold, and start blasting away in the general direction of the target? Would that person be able to say that he never intended to kill or injure anyone? It wouldn’t stand up in court. Foreknowledge of the certain consequences of your actions places the moral responsibility for those consequences squarely on you.

I’d like to propose a formal statement to be signed by members of Congress and the President whenever they decide to fund or execute an act of war, aside from defending the country from a direct attack upon our territory.

STATEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

I, ________________, in my official capacity as ___________________, am authorizing or funding military action in foreign territory by the United States of America.

I understand and fully acknowledge the following:

Due to the power and range of existing weaponry and the limits of human perception and judgment, the prosecution of modern mechanized warfare inevitably results in the injury and deaths of innocent children, women, and men.

My foreknowledge of these unavoidable injuries and deaths of innocent civilians as a consequence of my actions makes me personally morally responsible for them.

Therefore, I swear (or affirm) that I have diligently, patiently, and in good faith exhausted all other possibilities for the resolution of the relevant conflict. I swear (or affirm) that I have, to the best of my ability, investigated the probable number of direct and indirect casualties resulting from this military action and found that this military action would prevent greater injury and loss of life.

In the event of a war crimes prosecution resulting from this military action, I agree to submit myself to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court or other United Nations sanctioned tribunal set up for the purpose.

Signed, this ____ day of ____________, 20__

X_____________________________________

Human beings show an almost unlimited capacity for the rationalization of evil acts, so this document would be no guarantee of ethical decision making. It would, however, force those in power to contemplate, at least momentarily, the effects of their actions on the lives of ordinary people. Perhaps they should be required to read the statement aloud, in public. The initiators and supporters of war should have to acknowledge that they know the human cost of what they are doing. Parallel to this, the expression “collateral damage” should be expunged from the military and journalistic vocabulary.

Learning the ways of their fathers

Sometimes the irony is so thick that it ceases to be irony. One might call it a case of single entendre. The University of Vermont College Republicans club has been shut down by the Student Government Association for defaulting on a loan.

Fiscal irresponsibility by Republicans….hmmm.

It gets better. The young conservatives borrowed $7,000 to pay for an appearance by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, but attendance at the event was far less than they expected. They were left with a balance of $6,548. Apparently there were few people willing to pony up real money to hear Mr. Family Values talk about how he cheated on his wife while pursuing the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The real irony about this, however, is that Gingrich was one of the advocates of an amendment to the Constitution requiring a balanced federal budget. Of course, the Bush administration has been swiping the national credit card in a frenzy that exceeds even the Reagan years.

What adds richness to the story (published by the Vermont Cynic) is the president of the College Republicans, Heather Baldyga, speaking in a feckless, no-fault, passive voice:

"We were not able to pay back SGA because there was little or no effort to fundraise in the past few semesters. It is also difficult to fundraise for a Republican organization around here, because we don't have many fans in this area," Baldyga said. (H. Note: Governor Jim Douglas managed somehow)

The derecognition did not come as a big surprise to Baldyga. "I was aware that we would more than likely be derecognized some point during the semester," she said.

"It is upsetting because alumni worked very hard to get this club started less than six years ago, and now it no longer exists due to a lack of funds. It is a shame that we were not able to repay the debt," Baldyga said.

Aw, gee, and whose fault was that? Apparently, nobody’s. As they say at the Attorney General’s Office, “Mistakes were made.”

And where will the defaulted $6,548, now in the pocket of Newt Gingrich, come from? It will be involuntarily extracted from the pockets of every student on campus, of course.

Let’s review the process:

1) Borrow money
2) Pay a wealthy Republican to perform a service for other Republicans
3) Let the debt slide
4) Ignore warnings
5) Deflect responsibility
6) Make everybody else pay for your mistake

The UVM College Republicans should get an “A” in Neoconservative Management Practices 101. Too bad for them that the market for that skill set is starting to diminish.