Washington County Peak Oil's January Public Meeting launched the year with an excellent start. About twenty attendees enjoyed Buzz Duell, of MC Electric Vehicles, who spoke for about an hour about electric vehicles as a viable solution to petroleum depletion, the current state of the electric vehicle industry, and challenges facing the industry such as battery technology. Mr. Duell brought along one of his neighborhood electric vehicles for "show and tell".
Here is a link to a video of his presentation (with a good Q&A following the talk) [courtesy of Adam Gretzinger, WCDCC]
We then watched a DVD video of a talk by David Fridley of Lawrence Berkley Laboratories, an expert on both the petroleum industry and alternative energies, entitled, "The Myths of Biofuels". In his presentation Mr. Fridley outlines why biofuels will ultimately meet only a small percentage of current gasoline and diesel consumption levels, and the immense impacts biofuels production and consumption will have on food prices and availability, the economy, and most importantly on soil depletion.
The myths include:
- Large scale biofuel production is sustainable
- Biofuels are environmentally friendly and reduce carbon dioxide emissions
- Biofules will help us achieve "energy independence"
- Biofuels will help farmers
- "Second-generation" biofuels (cellulosic ethanol, etc.) will save us
- Biofuels will let us continue our current way of life
Information on the DVD video, and David Fridley, may be found at http://www.sfbayoil.org/sfoa/myths/
