Tad Patzek
University of California at Berkeley
and
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Abstract:
Our earth is a very efficient thermodynamic machine that produces life by importing light from the sun and exporting low-quality heat to space. Each earth household, an ecosystem, must therefore be very efficient in biomass management. We choose to extract gigantic quantities of biomass from major ecosystems, transform this biomass into fossil fuels, and burn these fuels elsewhere. We, therefore, disrupt the dynamic equilibria of natural ecosystems to an unprecedented degree, and pretend that we can get away with it. In my talk, I will discuss sustainability, the disconnect between economic growth and resource availability, limits on biomass production rate, limits on fossil fuel replacements with ethanol and biodiesel, and will offer some difficult solutions.