US Ethanol Production

Biofuels and Farm Prices

Biofuels: the Biggest Supply Response to the 2000s Oil Shock

Real annual average oil price according to BP (top graph), and estimates of volumetric production/capacity for various oil alternatives (bottom).  1975-2008/9.  Note that these are total volumetric estimates: about half of tar sands production is sold as bitumen, not synfuel, and the energy density of the biofuel stream is only about 70% or so of that of crude oil.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Continuing the holiday book blogging theme, I just finished The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer.

This was a book that my Dad gave me for my birthday a couple of months back, along with several others, and it had sat somewhere towards the bottom of the big teetering pile of books-in-progress on my bedside table, which is a constantly churning, occasionally-overflowing-onto-the-floor, index of whatever I'm currently interested in. Somehow this book hadn't really caught my attention (I guess the cover-art didn't really work on me), but mainly out of a sense of duty to my Dad I threw it into my bag for this trip.

And Wow! This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It's gripping, it's tears-down-the-cheeks heartwarming, it's inspiring, and it's must-read material for anyone who cares deeply about the shape of the ongoing collision between global civilization and global resource constraints.