Peak Oil

The Future of Food

The Future of Taos

March 16, 2006

A six-part series on threats to our local food supply, and ideas on how to move toward real sustainability.

Cheap, plentiful oil is the life-blood of our modern industrial society. Recently, a number of shockingly apocalyptic reports have surfaced, claiming that we have reached “global oil production peak,� or the point at which we have extracted half of all the oil that has ever existed in the world—the half that was easiest to get.

James Howard Kunstler, author of “The Long Emergency,� is among the researchers who posit that our future is now a long slide into the dark end times of resource wars, as oil prices skyrocket and the exploding populations of India and China rise up to commandeer what fossil fuels are left. Cascading economic collapse will leave millions of Americans to wander in suburban wastelands and crippled cities, where everything we have taken for granted about daily life no longer functions. There will not be enough gas, goods, heat, medicine, water, or food.

Worst of all, Kunstler insists that no form of alternative energy can rescue us from this Mad-Max scenario. “No combination of alternative fuels will even permit us to operate a substantial fraction of the systems we currently run,� he declares.

But is this true?

Sustainable Energy Production for Taos
Richard Mason is one longtime Taoseño who strongly disagrees with Kunstler’s position on renewable energy. Richard is the executive director of Renewable Energy Partners of New Mexico, a non-profit organization that has already installed bio-fuel pumps in a gas station in Santa Fe and is currently assisting in the installation of bio-fuel pumps in Taos. Richard is also a co-manager of B&E Bio-fuels and Sunbelt, two companies currently working to produce ethanol and bio-diesel fuels here in Taos.

“The idea that bio-fuels can only meet a small part of our needs is just totally wrong,� Richard insists.

One major misperception about ethanol, a clean burning gasoline replacement, is that it takes more energy to produce than it generates. Additionally, most people think that ethanol is only produced from corn, grown on millions of acres of farmland.

“There are many other options besides corn,� explains Richard. “You can use municipal waste, which we want to do here in Taos, converting our landfill waste stream into local fuel. You can use woodchips from small diameter trees, which would provide an economic driver for thinning the forests, making them healthier and less prone to catastrophic fires.�
But most importantly, you can use algae.

“The Department of Energy did a 17-year study on the viability of algae to produce ethanol and bio-diesel. Under ideal conditions, algae can double its mass in a matter of hours. And growing algae can solve more than just the fuel problem. One of the key ingredients for growing is carbon dioxide. You can take the emissions from every power plant and bubble them through water, feeding the algae with that carbon, eliminating all of that carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere.�

Algae can be grown in salt water—even sewage-filled water is ideal.

“So you can purify exhaust from power plants and purify water at the same time you’re growing a crop for producing bio-diesel,� Richard smiles. “It’s industrial permaculture.�

Richard insists that bio-fuels have a great net energy ratio, and could replace all of the oil and gasoline needs of the country. Bio-fuels are an excellent source of hydrogen for fuel cell cars. Algae yields over 10,000 gallons of fuel per acre and could be grown in conditions as diverse as floating farms in the ocean or in desert communities like Taos, where it would take about 250 acres to grow enough feed stock to supply a three million-gallon-a-year bio-diesel plant.

“Transesterfication� is the process of taking the oils from vegetables or algae and turning them into bio-diesel. “Gasification,� the process by which carbon can be processed into ethanol, is one of the technologies Richard and his partners are focusing on for the municipal waste stream in Taos.

“We’re planning on getting this Taos ethanol project onboard by next year,� says Richard, who is glad to report that both Taos mayoral candidates have expressed their support.

Bio-fuels can be a community-generated bridge into the hydrogen economy that many believe is coming 5 or 10 years down the road. “You don’t need an oil well in Saudi Arabia to produce these fuels,� says Richard. “They don’t have to be produced at a big Texaco refinery in Houston owned by billionaires. Your energy supply line is a loop that is very local, so millions of dollars that would normally be leaving
the community are now staying within the community.�

The future of electricity for Taos could be a giant “concentrated solar array� west of town, in the sagebrush. “These don’t use photovoltaic cells,� explains Richard, “they reflect heat onto a tube of oil, or a Sterling engine, or they produce steam. One 900-acre array could supply all the electricity for Taos. They’re available in 25-kilowatt modules, so if you were living out in the country on 40 acres, you could have one of these. They’re developed to supply villages in the third world. The cost of electricity has gone up so high, it no longer makes sense for the utilities alone to be able to generate power.�

Emerging From the Ashes of the Oil Wars
Bio-diesel production quadrupled nationally last year, with billions of dollars funneled into development. It’s important to realize that many people in the U.S. government are behind these new technologies.

“Dick Cheney is not the entire government,� Richard points out. “You can get government grants right now to help build these bio-fuel plants. A government study proved the algae concept. The last energy bill creates a tax credit that makes it much easier for an investor to put up the money to put bio-fuels into a gas station. A lot of brilliant minds are focused on making this happen.�