4 Tons Of Plants per Mile to Ride In Your Car

Roland Piquepaille writes "As you might know, I enjoy big numbers. So it's just natural that I was attracted by this news release from the University of Utah, "Bad Mileage: 98 tons of plants per gallon." "A staggering 98 tons of prehistoric, buried plant material is required to produce each gallon of gasoline we burn in our cars, SUVs, trucks and other vehicles." For a reasonably efficient car, riding 25 miles per gallon, this translates to 4 tons of prehistoric plants per mile, or more than two tons per kilometer. The research paper also mentions that everyday, we are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plants growing during a whole year just for our cars. Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are. This analysis describes the calculations and contains other details about the research paper which will be published in November by Climate Change."

Comments

Re:FIRST POST

[Del Lardo]

25 mpg for a reasonable car!!!! Ah to live in the US where petrol is cheap and fuel economy doesn't matter.

say no to cars?

[QEDog]

Reminds me of an article posted in /. before that said:

"Building more roads to combat traffic congestion is like buying a bigger belt to combat obesity"

Re:say no to cars?

[onyxruby]

Let's try that on to see how it sounds with a simple enough change.

Building more buses to combat traffic congestion is like buying a bigger belt to combat obesity

The wonderful thing about cliche arguments is that they are always so easily turned upside down. You see what you need is a real solution. Stop making people, institute widespread culling of humantiy, reduce headcount with vigor and we won't have the need for things like highways anymore. Heck if you go far enough we'll be back in the day of the horse and buggy.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's try that on to see how it sounds with a simple enough change.

Well, if you make the change you did, then it suddenly sounds wrong. Was that your point? That buses actually do combat congestion? I presume it must be.

Re:say no to cars?

[SubtleNuance]

No, you dont have to stop making people. You have to reduce the resources people use for personal transportation.

More buses, bike lanes, walk-ways, Human-Scale Urban Planning, streetcars, subways etc all have a positive effect of reducing energy used.

Further, Im a litter perturbed with your ignorant, tired argument. The "Environmentalists are luddites" argument is stupidity. Environmentalists want balance. Technology can help achieve that balance. But too often than not, more better bigger stuff is just made for the sake of it... for the sake of consumption. This wasted energy (for instance, the personal 4tonne SUV) is what is The Problem. As this article articulates, the trouble is that we are consuming stored energy at such a rate it is amazing. Humanity needs to understand give and take w/ the Natural World. As it stands, we are destroying this vibrant natural world -- all the life on this planet that we managed to live with for millions of years is jeapordized by the the explosion of consumption over the last 3-400 years (for instance). You may think that Some New Technology will arise to solve our problems -- I dont -- and I have no interest in taking that very risky bet. New technology is welcome and necessary -- but ALL the impact of modern life needs to be assessed. When you expell crap into the air from your SUV, you are soiling the Commons. When you pump up oil, refine it and burn it in your SUV you are *NOT* paying the full cost.

Capitalists have managed to convince you that they are Creating Profit when they pump oil (cut rainforests, build suburbs, etc) and sell it -- in fact, they are not. They are ROBBING the planet (which we must all share wisely) and telling you its "ok". Its not, and if there is any sense in Humanity, we had better realize it quick - and not just about Oil. Look around you -- the glue in your chipped-wood desk, the metal PC case, your telephone, the lights, the carpet, drywall, everything around you was made in a giant pollution belching factory somewhere. We *cannot* continue to create all that pollution. The natural resources required to create that stuff (outside of the toxic waste byproducts), *is* ALSO not infinite.

Oil/Cars are one big problem, but not the only one. We are polluting ourselves off the planet, destroying our natural heritage, living in 'the red' wrt Energy use, and telling ourselves how Fucking Smart we are. Get real buddy and wake the hell up.

Re:say no to cars?

[proj_2501]

institute widespread culling of humantiy, reduce headcount with vigor

You won't mind if we start with you, then? I mean, you spelled 'humanity' wrong.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a system that would get us from point A to point B at 100 miles an hour with no traffic, that takes less room than our roads, that uses a small fraction of the energy, that costs $.10 a mile.

www.skytran.net

Would it get rid of cars entirely, I doubt it, but it would make it less neccesary to own a car and could go a long, long way to helping clean up some of the problems car's cause (traffic, smog, asphalt everywhere, trouble parking), while improving on most of what we like about cars (convienience).

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

No, you dont have to stop making people. You have to reduce the resources people use for personal transportation.

I got another good one for: Be more local.

The other day in the supermarket I saw some cookies, they sold for 87 cents (plus tax).

Problem is: They were made in Jamaica, sold to Singapore and then finally sold in Canada.

I just guess here, but I would say those cookies travelled more than I did in the past 2 years and most definetly used more than 87 cents worth of energy.

Oh, and as for the caloric value, according to the nutrional information on the back, the pack contains 600 kCal.

M.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen

Re:say no to cars?

[triumphDriver]

Is it possible the cookies only traveled to Canada?
They were probably sold to a broker in Singapore who sold them in Canada without them traveling to Canada.
Think drop shipment.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many gallons of fuel/tons of ancient biomass were required to fly the author of this paper to the conference where it was presented?

Whatever the number, it was a waste of resources.

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

Maybe, but even if, they were still made in Jamaica and I would venture the guess that the raw materials weren't grown there either.

This isn't the only one, I look at a can of Tuna and it comes from Taiwan, I look at the Pineapple it comes from Thailand, Manadrin slices I bought the other day (67 cents a can) came from China and so forth.

Or let's go with fresh fruits, I live in Toronto and guess what, most of my apples come from California.

There is something horrificly wrong in the way the market works I'd say.

M.

Re:say no to cars?

[the_mad_poster]

Building more buses to combat traffic congestion is like buying a bigger belt to combat obesity.

Umm... the original quip compares expanding the limits around the problems which simply allows for bigger problems. More roads = more potential congestion. Bigger belt = bigger potential gut.

Your unbelievably screwed up quip compares a solution that actually slims the problem to one that simply allows it to grow further. Thank you for proving only that you don't make sense... congratulations..

The wonderful thing about cliche arguments is that they are always so easily turned upside down

Maybe... but I don't think you should be trying to do it... it hasn't gone well so far.

Re:say no to cars?

[cayenne8]

"This wasted energy (for instance, the personal 4tonne SUV) is what is The Problem. "

Hmm....I only get 10 mile/gal...but, I don't own an SUV. But, hey, at least its better than the 9 mpg I was getting before I had the tune up....

:-)

I bought a car I wanted to drive..that is fun and fast. And I figure as long as I can afford gas for it..I'll keep it. I don't picture the world running out of gasoline in my lifetime...so, not really worried about it. I agree we need to develop alternative fuels to become more autonomous, but, in the short term, I'm too terribly worried about running out of gas...nor having to give up my fun little car for 'the good of the world I need to share with'....Its a short life, enjoy it while you're here.

Re:say no to cars?

[pmz]

Capitalists have managed to convince you that they are Creating Profit when they pump oil (cut rainforests, build suburbs, etc) and sell it -- in fact, they are not. They are ROBBING the planet (which we must all share wisely) and telling you its "ok".

No, oil is an energy source. When it is no longer practical and/or desirable, you do understand that the Sun is always a very good Plan B?

There is no shortage of energy. There will never by a shortage of energy until the Sun goes nova and evaporates the earth. Using oil is robbing the earth of nothing, and it is our inefficient and irresponsible use of that oil that is the biggest problem. Low emissions is simply an engineering problem (and one that doesn't need to be driven by legislation, either, as markets for energy-efficient engines become more common).

The best thing you can do is spread awareness of alternative types of engines/power sources/etc. and help create the demand for them and the resulting markets that drive the corporations. Consumer demand does wonders and is more efficient than the government even dreams about.

Re:say no to cars?

[onyxruby]

The "Environmentalists are luddites" argument is stupidity. Environmentalists want balance.

Capitalists have managed to convince you that they are Creating Profit when they pump oil (cut rainforests, build suburbs, etc) and sell it -- in fact, they are not. They are ROBBING the planet

Asked and answered

As it stands, we are destroying this vibrant natural world -- all the life on this planet that we managed to live with for millions of years is jeapordized by the the explosion of consumption over the last 3-400 years (for instance).

Tell that to the Wooly Mammoth, North American Horse and North American Camel that were all hunted to extinction thousands of years ago. There are many species on this planet that have been hunted well before this 3-400 time period of which you speak. Please check your history before spouting your ignorance of it.

You may think that Some New Technology will arise to solve our problems -- I dont

The "Environmentalists are luddites" argument is stupidity.

Asked and answered no 2.

New technology is welcome and necessary -- but ALL the impact of modern life needs to be assessed

I'll make sure I do a worldwide environmental impact statement before patenting my widget. Perhaps the Earth Simulator in Japan will have a time slot available?

When you expell crap into the air from your SUV

Really! I have an SUV, where can I pick it up? Here I thought the high mileage small cars I have been driving for the last decade were a little cramped for carrying much beyond myself.

Capitalists have managed to convince you that they are Creating Profit when they pump oil (cut rainforests, build suburbs, etc) and sell it

Dictionary.com defines profit as:

The return received on a business undertaking after all operating expenses have been met.

Perhaps your referring to pollution? An environmentalist such as yourself should be familiar with pollution:

The act or process of polluting or the state of being polluted, especially the contamination of soil, water, or the atmosphere by the discharge of harmful substances.

They are ROBBING the planet (which we must all share wisely) and telling you its "ok".

Again, you are having trouble with definitions. I want to introduce you to the word: exploit

To utilize; to make available; to get the value or usefulness out of; as, to exploit a mine or agricultural lands; to exploit public opinion.

You'll notice that this is the exact same word used to describe the process of taking plant material for consumption.

everything around you was made in a giant pollution belching factory somewhere

Now I've heard of painting with a pretty broad brush before, but I think that takes the cake. Remember folks Everything was made in a "pollution belching factory". As I stated in my original comment, the objective is to get everybody back the horse and buggy and you have proven my point for me. Thank-you.

Re:say no to cars?

[cens0r]

I'm glad everyone doesn't have this attitude, or the world would be a pretty shitty place. The world doesn't revolve around you... we're all in this together.

Re:say no to cars?

[ChrisMaple]

There will never by a shortage of energy until the Sun goes nova...

As I understand it, a star has to be twice or more the mass of our sun in order to go nova.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Open your Economics 101 book and read up on 'Comparative Advantage'. What you are describing sounds exactly right to me and is an excellent demonstration of the benefits of trade.

Re:say no to cars?

[JaredOfEuropa]

The "Environmentalists are luddites" argument is stupidity. Environmentalists want balance. Technology can help achieve that balance.

Environmentalists want control.

Environmentalists are often portrayed as selfless idealists who fight for a good cause. For many of the environmentalists, this is true (whether or not their good cause is a misguided one, is another matter). But I do not trust the environmentalists that matter: the ones in political parties, in lobbyists groups, or the loudest individuals in the green movements. They are not selfless, although it may seem so because they aren't after money. It is power, influence and control over other people's lives that they want.

Environmentalists are seen as luddites, because the top dog environmentalists often dismiss technological solutions to environmental problems out of hand. They would prefer a dirty factory to close or to produce less, rather than have its smokestacks fitted with scrubbers. Why? Selfish reasons. If the factory closes, they have shown themselves to be influential and caring for the environment. They'll garner the credits for the positive impact on the environment. And with any luck, they get to tell who can be allowed to use the now scarce products of this factory. In contrast, if the factory is fitted with scrubbers, they do not gain a lot of power, or even recognition: it's the factory owners who will, as 'responsible businessmen'. You can see this behaviour anywhere. The more rabiat environmentalists do not want cleaner cars, they want us to drive less. They don't want cheap energy, they want us using less of it.

I do realise that it might seem that I lump all environmentalists together, but that is not my intention. My point is that the label 'luddite' for environmentalists, is earned for then by the loudest few amongst them. It may also seem that I paint a rather sinister image of these environmentalists. Again, I do not include all of them; I am sure the majority of them are well-meaning individuals. But I do not trust the kind of environmentalists who dismisses solutions for vague reasons, because they are 'impractical', 'only postpone the inevitable', or are 'only seemingly clean', and try to push their preferred measures 'for our own good'. If you hear anyone utter those 4 words, you can be sure that it's their own good they are after.

Re:say no to cars?

[tumbaumba]

Take a look also at this article. In 1997 we consumed in form of oil 400 years worth of "primary production" of Earth.
I guess now we consume even more. We really out to have some respect to the Earth, plants and animals.

Re:say no to cars?

[Bishop923]

Oh, and as for the caloric value, according to the nutrional information on the back, the pack contains 600 kCal.

600,000 Calories?!

For an average 30 pack of cookies that would be around 20,000 Calories per cookie,which is equal to the average recommended caloric intake of 10 people in a given day...

heck, even if there are 100 cookies in the pack, that comes out to 6,000 calories a cookie.

Must be some damned good cookies :-)

Re:say no to cars?

[spike hay]

Or let's go with fresh fruits, I live in Toronto and guess what, most of my apples come from California.

There is something horrificly wrong in the way the market works I'd say.

Just like the AC said, read up on comparative advantage. It's called free trade. I live in a temperate area. I can't get pineapples from my region because you can't grow pineapples in temperate zones. Thus the Thai produce it for me. My regional economy is better suited to producing apples and grapes, so these products are produced in leiu of other products.

It's not horrifically wrong at all. It makes perfect sense and it is the way the world economy should work. That is, unless you'd like to go back to preindustrial conditions and live by the mercy of the harvest.

Re:say no to cars?

[pmz]

I thought it was more of a difference between nova and super-nova, but I'm far from an expert. What I remember from those Time-Life-style astronomy books is that in five billion or so years, the Sun will get really big and more or less consume the inner planets and probably cause the outer planets to boil away. The end result--no earth--is the same, nova or no.

Re:say no to cars?

[athakur999]

What we in the US refer to as "1 Calorie" is really 1 kCal. Kinda confusing, I know...

Re:say no to cars?

[xeaxes]

FYI, one kcal is one calorie. So, 600 kCals is 600 calories.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you and I call the 'Calorie' is really the kCal - the original poster was right.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if these "alternative" sources never materalize? Will we continue distroying the planet until we are extint?

Re:say no to cars?

[Mr. Slippery]

Environmentalists are seen as luddites, because the top dog environmentalists often dismiss technological solutions to environmental problems out of hand.

Specifics, please? What environmentalits are dismissing what solutions "out of hand"? (And please note that coming to different conclusions that you is not dismissing "out of hand".)

The more rabiat environmentalists do not want cleaner cars, they want us to drive less. They don't want cheap energy, they want us using less of it.

You have a strange defintion of "rabid". (Assuming that's what you meant to type.)

A system that requires overuse of transportation or energy is inefficient. That's like saying programmers who don't just want faster and cheaper processors, but want efficient code, are "rabid".

Re:say no to cars?

[onyxruby]

Umm... the original quip compares expanding the limits around the problems which simply allows for bigger problems. More roads = more potential congestion. Bigger belt = bigger potential gut.

Their original quip was flawed, which I pointed out. More roads do not mean more congestion. More roads reduce congestion. Look at any highway that goes from two lanes to three lanes and back again. Road speed is higher at three lanes. Stop and go traffic is averted, less traffic accidents result, and their is less pollution emited by vehicles on that given stretch of road. You see cars, buses, trucks, whatever - they all produce the most pollution when they accelerate.

When you have inadeqaute roads you get tens, if not hundreds of thousands of vehicles in a stretch of highway accelerating constantly. Don't believe me, check out the EPA mileage statistics for any non-hybrid new car of your choice, they all get better mileage at highway speeds. They do this because the engines operate more effeciently at consistent highway speeds.

Inadequate infrastructure, cannot, willnot and has not ever once resulted in lowerered pollution. It just doesn't happen. While mass transit can work well in some limited applications, it tends to work very poorly in the suburbs. Far more people live in suburbs than live in city centers where mass transit can and does work well.

The logic of my counter quip stands. Increasing traffic capacity of roads reduces congestion. Buses only increase capactiy when they are able to pull cars off the roads. Since they are inherintly limited to financial viable routes, this leaves the majority of roads and routes unavailable except by car. Now, if you can come up with a cliche free logical arguement against this, I'd like to hear it. One restraint though, you must use logic.

Since the only way to reduce traffic load in the real world is to reduce the demand for infrastructure through a head count reduction, we can't just go on a diet. Tightening the belt, much less not loosening it simply doesn't check with reality. It's simply not reasonable to ask people to stop making people, we have to add road capactiy to keep up with a booming population. Your arguement would work only if traffic demand was static, which it isn't and short of something like nuclear war never will be.

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

It's not horrifically wrong at all. It makes perfect sense and it is the way the world economy should work. That is, unless you'd like to go back to preindustrial conditions and live by the mercy of the harvest.

What is wrong is simply the cost, I am sure there is more spent on fuel to truck the apples to the store than I pay for it.

Someone has to subsidize it, I wonder who.

Remember, there is no free lunch (or apple).

Besides, Ontario grows quite a lot of their own apples.

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

Must be some damned good cookies :-)

When most people say a calorie they actually mean a kCal....

M.

Re:say no to cars?

[Nahor]

There will never by a shortage of energy until the Sun goes nova

I don't know about that. I always wondered what would happens if we truly use solar and wind energy? I mean we won't get more energy from the sun everyday because we use it. And that energy today has to go somewhere. Are we going to get another ice age because we use the solar energy to light a bulb instead of warming the planet or drier because less water will evaporate? Are we going to have drier seasons on the east and wetter seasons on the west because the wind won't have enough energy to move the clouds?

Mind, I'm not saying that I prefer to stay with gas, coal and stuff, I'm just wondering. Everything has a cost, even sun and wind. But what is this cost for renewable energy?

Re:say no to cars?

[DougMelvin]

Short life expentancy??

Analysys says we may run out of cheaply attained oil in a little as 60 years.

Seeing as how we get our gasoline from the oil fields.. I would say the liklyhood of "the world running out of gasoline in [your] lifetime" is actually quite high.

Especially with so many closed-minded people unable, or even, unwilling to consider the near future..

I am nearing what folks like to call "middle aged" and have started thinking about having kids..

There's only one problem.. I am quite simply unwilling to bring a new life into a world where they will have to wear 6 million proof suntan lotion and be hooking a horse up to the old Buick as there is no gas, and the gas/car companies ran out of money before the got around to "eventually" providing an alternative to Gas.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no shortage of energy. There will never by a shortage of energy until the Sun goes nova and evaporates the earth.

No shortage?! The sun will go nova any time now! We've got maybe a few billion years left... if we're lucky.
It's because of lax attitudes like yours that the dinosaurs went extinct!

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason cars get better mileage on the highway is because they are not losing energy when breaking. However, at highway speeds, air resistance reduces gas mileage greatly.

This is why hybrid cars have such excellent city gas mileage, they recover the lost energy from braking, and some models actually get better mileage in the city than on the highway.

So, it is not the highway speed that gets you better mileage (since going at 45 miles per hour would get you better gas mileage) but the lack of stopping.

Re:say no to cars?

[ZerroDefex]

Sorry, but like many people I prefer wide-open spaces and suburbs to crowded cities, I like driving my car, and I usually don't have or want to waste the time to walk somewhere when my car can get me there in a tenth of the time. Yes, I am an American and I like it that way.

Re:say no to cars?

[pkp_gl211]

Your argument makes no sense. According to the "godless" we are animals and are natural so why should we restrain from wiping a species off the face of the earth while other species have done so since the beginning of time? Locusts, Fire, bacteria, virii..... All have a seemingly negative impact on earth at times.

Re:say no to cars?

[Glock27]

No, oil is an energy source. When it is no longer practical and/or desirable, you do understand that the Sun is always a very good Plan B?

Right, along with hydrogen for fusion.

The one point I'd make about burning all that oil is that it would be much better used to make plastic (recyclable and long-lived). Making plastic may be fairly difficult once the oil is gone. On the other hand, with unlimited energy making plastic seems a solvable problem...

Re:say no to cars?

[Dr. Evil]

On the topic of the parent post, what shocks me about Southern Ontario thinking is the way developments work. Being that you're from Southern Ontario, you've certainly heard of the Oak-ridges Moriane project. 6000 houses are being built. WTF?!

Skip the environmentally sensitive aspects of the moriane, but think of this: 6000 houses means at least 15,000 people. They're building a town but will they build the infrastrucutre???

Hell no.

They'll just put 2-car garages on the front of the houses, pave the driveways, install garage door openers, and widen the roads into the city.

They'll create a couple stripmalls with big movie theatres, a Wal-Mart might appear and a bunch of schools will be put in of course.

Done.

It's weird to build a town in one fell swoop. It's weirder to not hook it up with public transit. Most of Southern Ontario is built that way.

Stronger urban planning would hook it up to a rail system express to the major working areas of the city. Include condominum developments for a higher-density around the railstation.

I'm strongly of the opinion that the -- let's rezone growing fields up into the most lucrative form of housing -- kind of city planning is nothing but municipal and provincial corruption. There are big bucks in development.

Re:say no to cars?

[Paracelcus]

When you consider that the conditions needed to create the oil and coal fields were a one time only occurance and will never happen again, isn't it a crying shame to squander these resources on two block trips to the grocery store in a Hummer?

Instead of driving five miles to the park to jog, just walk to the store and back.

My mother used to walk all over Brooklyn pulling a little shopping cart behind her going from store to store buying "whats on sale", she lived to be 75 and was as strong as three cell phone toting yuppies!

Re:say no to cars?

[rsklnkv]

Actually, many people DO have this attitude. Haven't you seen the Hummer hype yet? Or the war on 'terror'? All these things are the fantasies of the rich, coming true at cost not only to humanity, but the world itself.

Re:say no to cars?

[Suidae]

Are we going to get another ice age because we use the solar energy to light a bulb instead of warming the planet or drier because less water will evaporate?

No, almost all of it turns into heat at the end anyway, turning it into electricity and moving a car around with it before it turns into heat just makes it more useful to us.

Now, if we put orbital collectors up or plate the moon with solar collectors and then transmit that energy to the Earth, then we will be adding more energy to the planet, in effect, we would be making the sun a tiny bit brighter. Probably not enough to have an environmental impact, maybe.

Re:say no to cars?

[Wavicle]

Specifics, please? What environmentalits are dismissing what solutions "out of hand"? (And please note that coming to different conclusions that you is not dismissing "out of hand".)

The forests of the pacific northwest have evolved over millions of years to survive being completely scorched every several decades. In fact most native species of trees specifically evolved to get their seeds to survive the inferno so that they can come up in the fertile ash of a post-fire forest. When explorers first encountered these forests, they wrote how wonderful these shady yet low density forests were.

Late in the 19th century we decided that allowing a wildfire to burn out of control was a bad thing. Eventually we got very good at containing fires, and the forests stopped getting scorched. Now the forests aren't so lovely, the foliage is dense and the build up of flammable detritus under the canopy continues until a devastating wildfire ravages the forest with greater ferocity than any time in history.

There's a solution. There are lumber interests who will thin the forest free of charge. In fact, they'll even let government inspectors choose which trees get cut. It's a great win all the way around. Logging companies get money. The market gets wood. The government doesn't have to pay its own workers to clean the forest.

The environmentalists dismiss it out of hand. It looks too much like the government endorsing clear cutting. They've been quite successful at blocking most attempts by logging to get access to the extra lumber in the forests. As a result we still see these super-charged wild fires.

A carefully managed program of clearing forested areas and reseeding it with young trees would emulate what fire has done for millions of years without destroying what little remains of the shrinking habitat of thousands of animals. Processing timber is also less polluting than a wild fire.

Re:say no to cars?

[Varitek]

It's called free trade.

Despite what you may have learned, "It's free trade" isn't the answer to end all answers. Free trade is notoriously poor at valuing externalities. Transporting goods over long distances, for example, may be profitable, but would be less so if the transporter had to pay the actual cost of the pollution he's creating.

Re:say no to cars?

[afidel]

Actually we don't need to go to alternative fuels to become autonomous, we just have to get rid of cars like yours. If we raised the average fleet fuel economy in the US to 35+ mpg we would eliminate the need to import any fossil fuels. Just imagine how different the world would be if that were possible (think Iraq and the rest of the middle east). Of course like you most Americans are too selfish to do what would be necessary to achieve that goal despite the fact that we all feel horrible about all of the people dying in those conflicts.

Re:say no to cars?

[pmz]

The Sun is the natural destination for our energy needs. It is really a matter of time, really. Electrolysis of the oceans for hydrogen using solar energy would be perfect (I think...), because it is a merely adding to the perpeptual water cycle. The resulting salt can either be dumped back into the ocean or consumed in recipies.

Re:say no to cars?

[Gurudev Das]

Consumer demand does wonders and is more efficient than the government even dreams about. no it doesn't, just look at Microsoft.

Re:say no to cars?

[pmz]

Making plastic may be fairly difficult once the oil is gone.

I would estimate that there are ways to synthesize plastic from raw materials (hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, etc.) using a engineeredp process, but that it would be much more expensive than we can currently do with oil from the ground. However, with unlimited solar energy, such a process would probably be practical.

Re:say no to cars?

[drauh]

Um, no. The roads->buses change destroys the roads:congestion :: belts:obesity analogy. Roads accomodate traffic, belts 'accomodate' waist size.

I suggest you go look back at your SAT prep books.

Re:say no to cars?

[zod1025]

Their original quip was flawed, which I pointed out. More roads do not mean more congestion. More roads reduce congestion.

Read it again, slower this time.

original "quip": "Building more roads to combat traffic congestion is like buying a bigger belt to combat obesity"

Increasing road capacity with no efforts to curtail ever increasing traffic volumes is in fact just like "buying a bigger belt to combat obesity." Perfectly legitimate statement.

Increasing unit traffic capacity (employing buses) is an act to curtail ever increasing traffic volumes while maintaining the same infrastructure, and would be akin to a statement like "going on a diet is a way to combat obesity without having to buy a bigger belt." A completely different logical statement.

The POINT of the original quip is to say that it is foolish to combat a growing problem by expanding your ability to tolerate the problem. You agreed with this point, saying that instead one should combat the growing problem. I fail to see how one point or the other is flawed.

In the general case, it is indeed foolish to try and accomodate a growing problem without also combatting the root cause of the problem. Foolish it is then to increase traffic capacity without also attempting to combat increasing traffic congestion.

Re:say no to cars?

[pmz]

no it doesn't, just look at Microsoft.

The reason this statement is incorrect, is because Microsoft broke the law in its quest for domination. They went outside the rules for civilized conduct in the free market. Extortion is illegal, for example, yet Microsoft does it effectively every day. This is one of the reasons why we see a growing backlash against Microsoft. Their legacy will be their nemisis; it's just a matter of time.

Re:say no to cars?

[Noco]

Yes the sun provides radiant energy, but even the most effecient conversion of solar energy to some other more readily available form is something like 30% and that's in the chlorplasts of living plants. Fusion power is a much more feasible source of energy. Covering the Earth's surface with solar cells couldn't generate the energy needed to sustain our civilization.

Re:say no to cars?

[SubtleNuance]

Someone has to subsidize it, I wonder who.

People subsidize international trade by building/maintaining highways.

All highways should be pay-for-use. Our Gov should tax based on kilometers and vehicle weight.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the big fucking deal? There's been millions of years to produce these tons of plants that turned into fossil fuels. Plants grow and die.

Re:say no to cars?

[Bull Hurley]

Sure, the rich crashed planes into those buildings.

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

On the topic of the parent post, what shocks me about Southern Ontario thinking is the way developments work. Being that you're from Southern Ontario, you've certainly heard of the Oak-ridges Moriane project. 6000 houses are being built. WTF?!

Actually I am from Europe, only living here for 4 years but yes, I have heard about it, though last I heard I think they stopped it, they better.

They'll just put 2-car garages on the front of the houses, pave the driveways, install garage door openers, and widen the roads into the city.

Mississauga is a perfect example, they don't invest in public transit, in fact there are people who complain about the idea to run a GO Train from Union into Pearson (Airport).

They build the Sheppard Subway line (nice going Lastman) when it would have made a lot more sense to extend the subway further north and maybe run it along Steeles (haha, that's funny).

But hey, what am I complaining about, I can't even vote here.

Stronger urban planning would hook it up to a rail system express to the major working areas of the city. Include condominum developments for a higher-density around the railstation.

Oh please, that would make SENSE. Like the light rail system they are proposing to run out to Kitchener / Waterloo from Toronto, it's needed, right now all you can get is Greyhound.

I'm strongly of the opinion that the -- let's rezone growing fields up into the most lucrative form of housing -- kind of city planning is nothing but municipal and provincial corruption. There are big bucks in development.

Yep, and MIssissauga is the worst of the lot in the GTA, they ran out of their own land and are now haggeling neighbouring cities to give them land so that they can expand even further.

A friend of mine is living in Brampton, we met there a couple of times for training rides up north into the "country side" she told me how with each year she has to go further to get away from the houses, the farmers are just selling the land off to developers.... And people buy it, no public transit, nothing, but 4 lane roads.

Sad, meanwhile of course people laugh at the TTC, especially when they ask for more money.

Re:say no to cars?

[Bull Hurley]

Twenty or twenty five years ago these same analysts said that we would be out of oil by now. I do think we need to work on alternative fuel sources, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over running out of oil.

Re:say no to cars?

[pmz]

Covering the Earth's surface with solar cells couldn't generate the energy needed to sustain our civilization.

There are lots of ways to tap into the Sun. Actually, oil is a way of tapping into past solar energy, but the ways to tap into current solar energy that I can think of are: solar panels for electricity/water heating, wind energy, thermal gradients in the oceans, dams on rivers, and that big tower thingy in Australia. None of these need to contribute to altering the reflectivity of the earth or the net energy balance of the earth. I'm pretty sure that asphalt has done much more to damage the earth's reflectivity than anything else.

Re:say no to cars?

[Dagum]

That's why we should start slinging our trash (and material floating around in space) into the sun.

Think of the potential energy to be collected...

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

All highways should be pay-for-use. Our Gov should tax based on kilometers and vehicle weight.

I think it goes beyond that, there are other things that are being subsidized, not only the roads, but pretty much every single aspect of "mass production". Economy of scale only gets you so far.


Stand against the coronation of Paul Martin! VOTE GREEN!

I would if I could, but I can't I am an alien in Canada, though I do vote green back in Germany.

Re:say no to cars?

[SubtleNuance]

Sad, meanwhile of course people laugh at the TTC, especially when they ask for more money

Of course they laugh, the TTC cant POSSIBLE correct the problem with transport as long as all this idiotic urban sprawl continues. Every city in the country has gotten so f'ed up in the last 25 years to the point that its going to take 150 years to correct it.

Re:say no to cars?

[SubtleNuance]

Well, keep voting green in Germany -- I am an active Ontario RA Green, and we use the success in Germany as a talking point w/ people often.

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

Of course they laugh, the TTC cant POSSIBLE correct the problem with transport as long as all this idiotic urban sprawl continues. Every city in the country has gotten so f'ed up in the last 25 years to the point that its going to take 150 years to correct it.

But you have to start somewhere, and the idea of giving Streetcars on St. Clair their own lane sounds pretty good to me, but of course a lot of people are already objecting this again.

Hail the car, bah, I have one, but quite frankly I only use it to get to work, and if I wouldn't need to work in Markham I wouldn't even use it that often.

M.

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

Europe in General is "more green", but then the political system allows for it.

The more I learn about the Canadian system the more I think it is severly broken, I wonder if anyone will ever change it? Doubtful, it keeps too many people in power.

Re:say no to cars?

[the_mad_poster]

No no no - I certainly agree that cliche arguments are vapid and generally useless except to simplify a point to the tolerance of the lowest IQ and shortest attention span (that's why they're such favorites among anybody that sets foot in a studio for CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc.). However, your argument in response stems from a misunderstanding of the point of the original quip.

The point is this: if you have a problem, address the root causes of the problem, don't artificially increase your ability to tolerate it. If you want an excellent example of WHY this is a good point in relation to the original discussion, come join me for a ride in PA once. Thanks to the massive influx of trucking coming off the ports in the east, we have been horribly overrun by our system of roads. As a result, we have sections that do indeed tolerate massive waves of traffic well. However, that's at the expense of other serious problems:

• Tangled, difficult to navigate roadways.
• Detoriating highway infrastructure is widespread.
• Absolutely appalling police coverage on the roadways.
• Constant, overbearing construction to try and keep up with the second problem.

To illustrate the last point: I live near Harrisburg - for a year now, there has not been 1 major roadway available into the city that's not been at least partially blocked by contstruction. Getting in and out of the city is absolute Hell, especially since some roads are TOTALLY closed at times.

Simply shrugging one's shoulders and increasing tolerance of a problem is only an option if you know that the problem has a limit, what that limit is, when it will be reached, and that it's tolerable once it's hit. The current glut of personal transportation - especially since it's largely misused (how many idiots do you see in giant SUVs driving by themselves on clear roads each day? I see a lot.) - is a problem that needs to be addressed, not accomodated. Rather than letting these nutjobs continue to waste everyone else's resources and cause additional havoc and congestion, we should be trying to get them to be a bit more sensible.

1. You don't need a 5000 lb. 4WD SUV on a clear day (odds are good you don't need it at all, actually).
2. You don't need a full size van to carry yourself.
3. If you live close to a bus/train/etc. that is on a line that runs close to work, you don't need to drive.
4. If you're going a 1/4 mile up the road on a sunny day you probably don't need to drive.
5. If you are driving, you don't need to peel out of every stoplight (man, I hate that... dude... I'm not racing your ****ing Escort! Idiots).
6. The road is not a speedway. You don't need to drive 95mph so you can get where you're going 2 minutes earlier.
7. If you live a 1/2 mile from work, you don't need to drive all of the time (in fact - given how hard it is on your car to short trip it, you'd be better off not doing that).

I'm sure there's more, but I think we all get the point: solve the real problems, don't accomodate them.

As for the buses - car pooling works great in the suburbs. Why? Because people in the suburbs tend to work in a concentrated metro area. Odds are pretty damn good that you can find enough people within 1/2 mile of you that work in the same general 3 square mild area as you if you live in a reasonably developed area. I can think of 6 households in the same 38 house development I live in that contain AT LEAST one individual that could be in my carpool. I can think of 3 people that live in my parents' area (don't know the number of houses in their development) that could carpool with them.

Hell, there's even people up in Purry (Perry) county - the middle of freakin' nowhere to the nth degree - that drive halfway to a pull off and carpool the last half. Constantly building to let the problem grow isn't beneficial to anyone (well, anyone important) in the long term - it's just a stick-head-in-the-sand "solution" for people who don't want to actually admit that they can't just keep doing whatever they want at everyone else's expense (a serious problem in this country these days).

Re:say no to cars?

[Bull Hurley]

So how many people are in your car pool? Also, are you driving a hybrid car? I am so sick of being preached to by people like Arianna Huffington who criticizes SUV owners while she rides around in limos and private jets. I suggest that you environmentalists start leading by example.

Re:say no to cars?

[SubtleNuance]

Our new Premier says he will hold a referendum on Proportional Representation. That is a start. After that, we kill First Past The Post voting with some other sane method.

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

Our new Premier says he will hold a referendum on Proportional Representation. That is a start. After that, we kill First Past The Post voting with some other sane method.

Guess we'll see... Let's be positive, but I somehow have my doubts, imagine if all of the sudden you have greens in the house of commons ;)

M.

Re:say no to cars?

[saskboy]

Or you could buy free market apples from ONTARIO which would make more sense.

Think of it this way:
If the Ukraine grew wheat, and Saskatchewan grew the same amount and kind of wheat, which one should ship that wheat to Eritrea?

Answer: Neither, because neither would get paid much for the food. They should just hold it and wait for a buyer with money.

That is the economy you are suggesting we work to "maintain". Sickening really.

Re:say no to cars?

[ManoMarks]

That's true, they did. Most of the hijakers were from well to do, or at least middle class families in Saudi Arabia. Which means that compared to most of the world, they were phenomenally rich.

Re:say no to cars?

[MacDude1]

Exactly. Pumping oil from the ground no more robs the planet of resources than you or I would rob the trash can by removing a bananna peel. The earth does not 'need' those oil reserves. They are a byproduct of carbon-based materials that died and subjected to sudden, intense pressure. Granted, it is not a 'renewable' source of energy, but to claim we are robbing the earth is alarmist language - pure and simple.

Should we try to develop more efficient internal combustion engines? Sure. Should we try to develop more efficient and renewable sources of energy? Of course. However, until those resources are available, we do our quality of life a huge disservice by saying we should not use the resources given to us. Does anyone here use tupperware? How about any other plastic products (hint: petroleum based). We need that resource. It is still in abundant supply on our planet - if we would just be left alone to go get it. Fine. Make sure the companies contracted to extract the resource from the ground are responsible for the ecosystem in which they work; but stop all the chicken little hysterics over pulling it from the ground.

Those of you worried about the environmental impact of drilling in areas like the vastly uninhabited ANWR should be more concerned about what is most likely very unsafe conditions in the nuclear power plants being built by the Iranians and the N. Koreans. Use your vehemence and vitriol wisely. Don't waste it on something that will make your life better.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that it costs far too much to bring those exotic fruits to you. You are polluting the world for the luxury of eating foods from theother side of the planet.

Re:say no to cars?

[arivanov]

It is so obvious that the poster and most people who commented are americans. You need to get some decent cars guys that is all I can say. Even the family spare pool car which is a yesterdays day tech being 9 years old does 45+ MPG. My new one does 60+. Both of them doing 0-60 in under 9s. So hearing numbers like 10 mpg is not even funny.

Re:say no to cars?

[cayenne8]

Mine that gets 10 mpg, is a 1986 German sports car.....

So...it isn't the US cars that are always 'tough' on gasoline usage...

It does, however, do 0-60 in about 4.x seconds.

Re:say no to cars?

[the_mad_poster]

Umm... right. I didn't realize I had a private jet or a limo, or that I'm an environmentalist or Arianna Huffington.

Are you one of the many clueless who buys an SUV without cause to? I've yet to meet anybody who I questioned who could justify their SUV purchase.

Incidentally - I drive a Mustang GT, looking into trading for a Corrolla if I can afford it. Thanks for asking.

Re:say no to cars?

[cayenne8]

Depends...what do you consider rich? I certainly cannot afford a Hummer, but, I do make a comfortable living. Why not? I work hard at it...try to keep educated on the latest in IT...and keep myself marketable and flexible. And yes, I work and save to buy 'toys'. Why else go through all the effort if you don't reward yourself?

Re:say no to cars?

[libzuk]

Dear Subtle,

I think the tired arguments emanate from your side of the debate. We ALL want a clean environment, and the fact is that the free-market Western capitalist system has struck the best balance between modernization and environmentalism; not perfect, but much better than demand economies. To ignore or deny this does not change the fact. Look at the mess that the Soviets left behind in Eastern Europe.

You seem to be arguing that all industrialization is bad ... you are simply wrong. The facts are that the environment is much cleaner now than it was a generation ago and virtually all commodities are priced lower, meaning that they are more readily available and supplies are not significantly depleted relative to projected demand.

You give us way too much credit; we couldn't change this planet's climate significantly even if we wanted to.

Relax, dude. The sky isn't falling!

Re:say no to cars?

[hesiod]

> I am an alien in Canada

Gee, and silly me thought that aliens only visited rednecks and "backward" places. :) Have you asked to see anyone's leader yet?

Re:say no to cars?

[Syrrh]

Uh, no.

Fusion of heavier atoms is endothermic, so any waste we'd care to dump into the sun would accelerate its death. Hydrogen fusion generates energy, but uranium *fission* does too. IIRC, the breakpont may even be as low on the periodic table as beryllium.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consumer demand does wonders and is more efficient than the government even dreams about.

You seem to be ignore that the fact consumer demand is to a great degree molded by the corporations or industries doing the selling.

The popularity of SUV's has nothing to do with the sudden discovery of an untapped functional gap in the spectrum of available vehicles. Trucks and vans easily perform those roles and do it better than SUV's. SUV's are a vehicular fad that taps into the vague American notions of ruggedness, individualism and outdoorsiness.

While the rise of SUV's probably wasn't initiated by some cadre of back-room marketing geniuses, marketing geniuses did quickly see the potential for tapping the "I want that outdoorsy aura" and a whole industry was born.

Although it's possible that a government inspired energy plan that laid out a future of increasing fuel efficiency, lower emissions and alternative energy sources may have failed to put the brakes on the SUV phenomenon, with enough effort, Americans might have become inspired with the idea of leading the world into a new age of pollution free energy. We do, after all, like to think of America as the greatest country in the world and if governmental policies had nudged us in that direction, we would have an accomplishment of which we could be justifiably proud.

Let's hope that Arnold Schwarzenegger and other trend setters never develop a fondness for backhoes. The resultant "wonders of consumer demand" might create a bit of a problem on our nation's highways.

It is a humorous image though :)

Re:say no to cars?

[Dagum]

What I actually meant was that we might, by dumping gobs of matter in, reach the doubling of mass, allowing us not to miss out on the supernovae from which other systems derive so much entertainment.

Though I am sure that you are right that my flippancy has a weak basis in science.

Re:say no to cars?

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Just like the AC said, read up on comparative advantage. It's called free trade. I live in a temperate area. I can't get pineapples from my region because you can't grow pineapples in temperate zones. Thus the Thai produce it for me. My regional economy is better suited to producing apples and grapes, so these products are produced in leiu of other products.

If you can't produce pineapples then it would absolute advantage (not comparative advantage; comparative is when both can produce the product). Anyway...

There are things you capitalists don't consider: the environment (among others). For you, a capitalist, the only thing that matters is price. The fact that you can get apples from your local farmer does not matter if you can import it for less from somewhere else. The fact that the imported apples traver further, resulting in transporation pollution, chemicals being injected into the fruits to keep them preseved, fruits being artificially coloured (did you know that some fruits are artificially "painted" to look like a fresh fruit), etc. Capitalism never considers any of these issues. The only thing that matters is price. IF the environment, for example, was priced into the product, the problem wouldn't exist. But as it is--and as it will always be under capitalism--destroying the environemnt and polluting has zero cost!!!

The funny thing about all this is that these issues will not manifest if the world were egalitarian. Unfortunately, capitalism is elitist and blocks egalitarianism. For instance, if wages were the same everywhere (they should be, since humans are all equal), the environmental policies were the same everywhere, etc, no one would be importing apples from far way. They would, instead, buy it locally. In other words, comparative advantage will become less meaningful.

Capitalists claim to produce wealth and to create efficiency. The fact of the matter is, that is codeword for simply exploiting people. In many cases, the reason companies move to another country, or import products from another country, is simply because the environmental, social, political, etc conditions are not the same. The reason these capitalists create profit is, not because they did anything revolutionary, but because they simply cut say labour costs by moving to another country where people would be willing to work 12 hours a day, without washroom breaks, for low wages. If these people weren't as vulnerable then these capitalists wouldn't be creating any wealth!

It's funny how the capitalists and their allies blame the left-wing for everything, ranging from trade all the way to preventing wealth creation. We, the left wing, are not against trade! Trade is something that existed thousands of years before capitalism manifested itself!!! I, speaking as a leftist, is perfectly fine with trade relating to absolute advantage. If I can't produce something, I'll happily import it. What the left wing is generally against is wealth creation by simply exploitation, generally masked as wealth creation or comparative advantage.

Capitalism Sucks! Thanks for reading :)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:say no to cars?

[onyxruby]

I'm a retarded asshole eh? Typical behavior of a small mind, can't attack the arguement so you attack the individual. If you have facts that show I'm wrong, than by all means put them in a comment. All that insulting someone for shredding apart a half ass arguement does is show your own ineptness.

Subtle Nuance's arguement was crap, and you'll noticed that I attacked it, not the poster. It was so bad that I was able to counter some of the posters points with their own words. I did not however insult the poster. It's call a discussion. Someone says something, and people who disagree respond. Once in a while I change somebodies mind, once in a while they change mind.

If you don't like reading opinions that you disagree with, than you don't belong on slashdot.

I'm reminded of a small child who is jabbering away "your wrong, your wrong". I'm sure if you can come up with something that proves me wrong, you'll put it out, but meanwhile STFU.

Re:say no to cars?

[Smidge204]

I am sure there is more spent on fuel to truck the apples to the store than I pay for it.

If that were true, then the company selling the product would have to be losing money. There's no way you could turn a profit selling items for less than what they cost you to produce and deliver.

The secret is bulk. They don't send a delivery truck for each can of tuna, and another truck for each bag of potato chips, and a van for each box of cookies. Everything goes into one truck and delivered at the same time.

It costs, say, $40 in fuel to drive a truck from the warehouse to the store and back (About half a tank for most box trucks with the diesel prices around here nowadays). But that truck can carry easily carry over $5000 worth (retail price) of groceries. Go ahead and throw in maintenance, diver salary, and insurance. You're still coming out ahead. That's why you're in the business, after all... to make money.

Now extrapolate that to a container ship that can easily carry a billion dollars worth of assorted cargo and costs $600,000 to sail across the ocean.

If anything, it's more energy efficient to ship things in bulk from halfway around the planet than to harvest only what you need locally. Imagine if every town had to grow it's own food? There's no way hat a hundred million farmers toiling over a hundred million little farms with a hundred million little tractors is more efficient than ten thousand farmers working thousands of acres of land with just three or four machines each.

And I won't even mention that the larger the engine/powerplant gets, the more efficient it becomes. Especially diesel engines and turbines.

In leu of subsidization, it's still cheaper and more efficient to buy in bulk. And if anything, you're paying tariffs on those imported foods!
=Smidge=

Re:say no to cars?

[Stephan Schulz]

Or let's go with fresh fruits, I live in Toronto and guess what, most of my apples come from California. Just like the AC said, read up on comparative advantage. It's called free trade. I live in a temperate area. I can't get pineapples from my region because you can't grow pineapples in temperate zones. Thus the Thai produce it for me. My regional economy is better suited to producing apples and grapes, so these products are produced in leiu of other products.

It's not horrifically wrong at all. It makes perfect sense and it is the way the world economy should work. That is, unless you'd like to go back to preindustrial conditions and live by the mercy of the harvest.

In fact, the truth is, as usual, in between. There is nothing wrong with us buying pineapples from Thailand (I like pineapple ;-).

What is wrong is that we allow the producers and/or traders to externalize much of the price of actually making and shipping things around, i.e. we all pay for the infrastructure and subsidize energy costs (either directly, e.g. by invading unfriendly but petroleum-rich countries) or indirectly, by not charging for enviromental degradation.

As a result I can often buy a pineapple at about the same price per gramm as apples grown next door. I don't want to pay more for pineapples (I react slighly allergic to plain raw plain apples, and I like pineapples better anyways), but I definitly agree that a more rational system would make them quite a lot more expensive.

Capitalism is very good at optimizing resource usage within a given set of constrainst. It's the job of politics to provide the constraints that lead to a reasonable outcome. And it's our job to elect politicians that actually do something about it, instead of those that just promise lower taxes, higher profits, and cheaper pineapples.

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

Gee, and silly me thought that aliens only visited rednecks and "backward" places. :) Have you asked to see anyone's leader yet?

Actually I did, but the guy was talking a bit funny.... ;)

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gentlemen! You can't fight in here!! This is a war room!!

Hehe, wrong word-- it's "This is the war room."

Re:say no to cars?

[RichardX]

Very true.
I remember seeing a TV program (yeah, I know - It Must Be True if it was on TV) a while back about supermarket distribution methods here in the UK.. seems that due to Just In Time distribution methods and what have you it's rather common for, say, a cabbage to be grown in Inverness (far North in the UK for those who don't know), be transported to a distribution or storage or processing centre in, say, London (far south), then come all the way back up to Inverness to be sold in a supermarket about 10 miles from where it was grown.

At least some supermarkets have started to take note of this.. I believe the Co-op tried to address the issue, at least

(on a semi-related environmentally friendly shopping note, fellow brits, check out the co-op's fairtrade chocolate, and the fairtrade (Teadirect) tea.. they're superb :)

Re:say no to cars?

[ahdeoz]

Actually, thanks to the miracle of gasoline (and diesel) it didn't cost more to ship the apples. It is cheaper to make cookies in Jamaica and ship the to Singapore and then to the USA, and then to Canada, than to make them in Canada. And not just because of Canadian labor and tax costs, but because dead dinosaurs are so plentiful and gas guzzling SUVs are so efficient, that it costs only a tiny fraction of that 87 cents Canadian (about 4 bits real money), to ship it practically all the way around the world. PS. You're probably wrong about where they were made and where they were shipped to.

Re:say no to cars?

[ahdeoz]

They do.

Only they give a tax credit for more efficient vehicles. Almost all the money spent on roads comes directly from gasoline tax. The less gas you use, the less tax you pay. And vice versa.

Re:say no to cars?

[ahdeoz]

So you know how to use the bold tag in HTML. Do you know anything else, or are you as ignorant of all other topics as your post would lead one to believe?

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

S. You're probably wrong about where they were made and where they were shipped to.

Am I?

Michael

Re:say no to cars?

[Jardine]

Besides, Ontario grows quite a lot of their own apples

Fresh, Ontario grown apples are very difficult to find in the winter.

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

Fresh, Ontario grown apples are very difficult to find in the winter.

Actually the wonderful thing about apples is that you can store them for a pretty long time.

Re:say no to cars?

[Anonymous Villain]

The theory that hydrocarbons are derived from plant matter is obsolete. This is passe. It doesn't require 4 tons of plants to make oil. Oil is the result of sulfur or element eating bacteria and other deep earth processes.

The current theory is that bacteria and other biological processes deep in the earth are what produces oil, natural gas, and hydrocarbons. The new theory is supported by the book The Deep Hot Biosphere. Some scientists are stuck in the dark age.

How would plant matter form oil deposits 10 miles down? There is also oil deposits below coal deposits. If hydrocarbons are the result of dead plants then why are some hydrocarbon aquifers are refilling? Plant matter alone can't explain the amount of oil and natural gas that exists. They also don't explain deep pockets of oil in the earth. Some deposits could be hundreds of miles down.

The Deep Hot Biosphere by Thomas Gold supports the idea that deep within the earth there is a biosphere and it is here that life began. Oil and natural gas were created by formed by ancient bacteria and sulphur eating life forms that feeds on the rocks and decomposes it creating natural gas and oil. There are also unknown processes that the organisms use to survive high temperatures and pressures and the result of this biosphere is anerobic and creates natural gas deposits. Some organisms have been found that feed on the rusting steel hulk of the Titanic and slowly decompose it. Different organisms exist that support life in very foreign almost alien environments.

Another example presented in the book is organisms that live in deep sea vents. These organisms live off of sulphur or other elements and not oxygen. They decompose hydrocarbons. Bacteria is very adaptive and life exists under different circumstances deep with the earth.

Re:say no to cars?

[abradsn]

I wish that people would get off the "SUV's are evil" kick.

Let me preface this with: I don't own an SUV.

1. Most electricity is derived from burning coal.
2. Coal pollutes, a lot too.
3. Air planes burn a lot of fuel, even though they are a form of mass transit.
4. Sometimes they dump their excess fuel before they land.
5. Try standing under that air plane as it drops hundreds of pounds of fuel over your head.
6. I'm a tough individual, but my eyes were burning.
7. I won't get started on the biggest pollution problem. -- The ocean. Instead I recomend that anyone reading this take a class in marine biology. You will learn all you need to, and you won't have to take my word for the problems we face.

Re:say no to cars?

[spike hay]

What is wrong is simply the cost, I am sure there is more spent on fuel to truck the apples to the store than I pay for it.

Someone has to subsidize it, I wonder who.

Of course the highways are subsidized. But shipment, especially in bulk, is very cheap. We are talking cents per kilogram. A truck or a train isn't going to burn very much fuel to ship your apple. It's an insignificant cost. There isn't much subsidizing going on. There's no need for it. This is a free market economy at work. Cheap shipment means goods produced elsewhere can undercut local competition. (Of course, this frees up the local resources to produce goods they are more suited to producing, which is better for the economy in the long run)

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

There isn't much subsidizing going on.

Um... You are aware that most agriculture is very heavily subsidized by the government? Both locally, state and federal?

It's not only the Highways, but other things as well. It's not only the roads, but production as well. Read up a bit.

Yeah, according to things like NAFTA and WTO things like that shouldn't happen but they do.

Re:say no to cars?

[spike hay]

Um... You are aware that most agriculture is very heavily subsidized by the government? Both locally, state and federal?

It's not only the Highways, but other things as well. It's not only the roads, but production as well. Read up a bit.

Of course agriculture is subsidized heavily but we were talking about shipping costs and why it is cheaper to get things like fresh fruits from elsewhere.

Re:say no to cars?

[MKalus]

No, shipping cost was just one example that adds to the overall cost of the product.

My initial statement was about in general that the price we pay at the register is not what the real price of the product is.

Re:say no to cars?

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

My knowledge of other areas is similar to econopolitics (capitalism in this case). So I guess that makes me dumb huh?

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:say no to cars?

[alex_ant]

Reeee-taaaard!

Re:say no to cars?

[spike hay]

My initial statement was about in general that the price we pay at the register is not what the real price of the product is.

Sounds like just a misunderstanding then. You are right. Depending on what products you are talking about, always some part of the cost of the product will come from the government, whether from subsidies, roads, grants, or what ever. With most products, it is a rather small percentage of the cost, although some products (i.e. wheat) are exceedingly subsidized. But, while the price at the supermarket does not accurately reflect the price of the product, you are still paying the full price for it, and then some. It's called taxes of course. I don't see it as a particularly bad thing, as long as government spending and taxes don't get out of hand. In fact, you need some government spending to even out the ups and downs of the business cycle with fiscal policy.

burgers

[matticus]

and every time I eat a burger, 2 tons of modern plants died to make that cow (or something like that).
We all know the cars burn too much energy. how long of a period were plants compressed for oil? thus, how long until we run out?

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the artical is misleading. Not all of the plant is converted to oil only a small part. This is intuitive, becouse your car dosen't carry 52 tons of gas in its tank. Also, gas is one of the best ways to back that much energy in to a small space.
-James

Re:burgers

[pinkboi]

No, really? What if we just ate those plants instead? Hell, then we could feed more people than just a smaller amount of us fat Americans.
<liberal hippie mode off>

<fat American mode on> Don't worry, it doesn't even come close to the amount of trash I make. If someone doesn't eat those cows, they will just go to waste anyway.

Re:burgers

[ekephart]

Convenient, you didn't turn fat American mode off.

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

No, ethanol is. Ethanol is more fuel-efficient and it is a pure hydrocarbon, meaning that it's combustion produces CO2 and H2O--exactly what plants need for Photosynthesis.

And our cars can run on ethanol as it stands. I've had to pour Bacardi 151 in my car to make it to the station when I ran out of gas before (I was too lazy to get a can filled with petrol, but I had the Bacardi laying around). It worked quite well.

Re:burgers

[misterpies]

Major logical fallacy: that 2 tons (or however much) went to make the whole cow, not a single burger. Your single quarter-pounder is no doubt equivalent to several pounds of cowfeed, but that's nothing like as ineffecient as the conversions being talked about here.

Moreover however much the cow ate, its food came from recently grown, mostly sustainable sources (eg hay). It's carbon neutral over a matter of years. Burning up fossil fuels at this rate would be carbon neutral only over thousands if not millions of years, i.e. it would take that may years of plant growth to put that carbon back in the soil.

Re:burgers

[letxa2000]

No, ethanol is. Ethanol is more fuel-efficient

Ethanol is more fuel efficient? How do you figure?

Might want to check here. Check last paragraph page 2 "Some critics say that ethanol contains less energy per unit volume than unblended gasoline. This is true."

Thank you, drive through.

Re:burgers

[greenhide]

Also, gas is one of the best ways to back that much energy in to a small space.

Yeah, but a Hummer is not the best ways to use that energy, which is the real point of the article.

Re:burgers

[uberdave]

And our cars can run on ethanol as it stands.

They may run on ethanol as it stands for a short time, however, since the engine computers are configured for gasoline, and the combustion temperatures, fuel/air mixture, and exhaust components for ethanol are different than those of gasoline, your engine computer is going to be trying to compensate for something it can't compensate for. The end result will be excessive engine wear, and premature component failure.

Re:burgers

[pinkboi]

It's not a logical fallacy, it's just not having the facts straight.

I think his point is that it is grossly ineficient, and I agree. We can only grow so much at a given time and when you use resources for one thing, you are forgoing using them for another (yay! economics 101) The problem is Americans have burgers several times a week and that adds up. not only making the burgers, but the healthcare costs of an obese population. I'm not saying Americans should stop eating their beloved burgers altogether, but it shouldn't be a large part of their diet, for christ's sake!

Re:burgers

[p3d0]

Cool! Where can I get a burger that contains an entire cow?

Re:burgers

[phreaqhopp]

It will be a long time. All these HIPPY FREAKOS need to relax. I love to pollute. Lets drill in ANWAR. Switching to hydorgen feul cells will make Russia the new middle east and crush the US.

Re:burgers

[hey!]

I think terrestrial rates are 1 lb food :: 1 lb of animal.

In any case, much depends on the scale and distribution of production. There is an equillibrium between predators and prey. You can remove predators and the system produces more predators within limits. There is an overall cycle in which organic matter is reused (recycled) and if we stay within those limits the general features of the cycle shouldn't be disturbed much. We eat cows, we exhale carbon dioxide, which is fixed by plants which are eaten by cows.

So, the problem is not necessarily eating beef per se, it is eating beef that is produced by methods which damage the environment.

Re:burgers

[b!arg]

Just a random thought, which has probably been refuted before and makes no real economic sense, in any sense of the word. It's also probably the complete wrong direction to go too or is being done already and I'm missing something competely(is that enough qualification for you?). But if we can compress carbon to create diamonds, why can't we grow plants and compress them to create oil? I'll go back to my coding now...

Re:burgers

[realdpk]

I wonder how many tons of modern plants were grown by the farmer who sells the feed to the cows during that same period? I'd wager it's probably close to 2 tons, so that the farmer can keep selling feed?

Re:burgers

[BigBir3d]

Than that should have been the point referenced. Another article slamming SUV's for their inefficeincy is rather tired. The horse is dead, stop flogging it. Plans have been announced by 2 rather large auto makers (Toyota and Ford) that their SUV's will have hybrid power options available for no later than 2007 model year. Toyota plans on having 6 hybrid models by 2006 (including Camry and Highlander, as well as the Prius). Honda sells the Civic Hybrid (since 2003). Ford is due to release Escape Hybrid (1 size smaller than the Explorer) by the end of 2004.

Too bad the adoption process is going so slowly. Then again, most American's are to self centered to care anyway.

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you need to cross rough off road terrain quickly, it's not bad.

Now a highway, with just you as a passenger? That's different. It's always about the tool for the job. That decision is, perhaps unwisely, always left to the humans.

Re:burgers

[MoP030]

i want a burger that contains _any_ actual cow...

Re:burgers

[pmz]

Yeah, but a Hummer is not the best ways to use that energy

What if there is no road leading to your destination? Don't blame the hummer, when it is penis-deficient suburbanites who are to blame.

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

There is something to be said for the positives of all that CO2. It undoes some of the carbon sequestration that's killing off trees, slowly but surely. Grasses evolved to take advantage of falling CO2 levels. That's right. Our enviroment has shifted from fertile to steppe before we've even finished researching nuclear engines. We better really kick ass at diplomacy if we expect to take control of Orion.

Re:burgers

[bjohnson]

People got along quite well on that score with 4 cylinder Land Rovers and Jeeps for decades.

Not that your comment about giant dick-compensators is wrong, it's just you *still* don't *need* a Hummer to do it...

Re:burgers

[Merk]

Why do you need to get to that destination? Could you get there by walking, or taking a mountain bike? Sure, someone who buys a hummer but never leaves the pavement is an ass. But that doesn't automatically mean that someone who does leave the pavement needs a Hummer... or that they even need to leave the pavement at all.

Re:burgers

[nizo]

But you know what keeps me up at night? Our bodies are made up of matter that came from dying stars, how many stars had to die to make each one of us???

Re:burgers

[JDevers]

Yea, but ethanol is pretty damned easy to make...we make billions of liters of it every year starting with little more than grain. Gasoline isn't so easy to make, we simply refine what is already there...

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

Hummer != Humvee

One is great for offroad driving. The other is great for displaying your insecurity and wastefulness simultaneously.

Re:burgers

[TnkMkr]

Funny you should ask we already do...
It's called biodiesel and is in the proccess of becoming cheaper to use. It is made from vegitable oils at a rate of about 86% output from the oil used.

check the site
http://www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/Productio n.PDF( sorry about c/p)
for details

Re:burgers

[elcheesmo]

It should also be noted that hay isn't a completely sustainable resource. Most agricultural products require large amounts of fertilizers to produce. And where does fertilizer come from? Fossil fuels naturally.

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

Just ask where the energy to do the compression comes from. I'm guessing the majority would be from fossil fuels.

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

well, that and birdshit.

Re:burgers

[CKW]

Nope.

Cows themselves are 1000 pounds or so.

A quick search shows that a cow will eat 25 pounds of hay per day - and the average age when taken to slaughter is 4-5 years.

That means one cow requires 41,000 pounds of feed over it's life, that's 20 tons. The amount of usable meat is around 700 pounds (although only 100 pounds or so is used for hamburger meat, but that's just the typing of the meat).

So for every single pound of (hamburger) meat, you need 58 pounds of hay. (Fair deal if you ask me.)

.
We haven't added in the transportation and processing costs, which if we used current plant matter instead of 10,000,000 year old refined plant matter, would increase it by how much? (Sorry, I'm not going to do that calculation).

Re:burgers

[leviramsey]

GM will also have hybrid SUVs shortly (the Saturn VUE being the first to go that route).

Re:burgers

[b!arg]

Ok...I was wondering if that's how bio-diesel was produced. The only drawback to that though is its "compatibility" with current engines. And sure you'd still be spewing out lovely emissions. More a question out of curiosity than anything. Maybe oil companies will start growing plants instead of drilling for oil...perhaps even repopulate the rainforests since it is economically viable! *wakes-up*

Re:burgers

[pmz]

Why do you need to get to that destination? Could you get there by walking, or taking a mountain bike?

What if you purchased rural property and wanted to build a cabin there, and there is no bridge crossing a creek along the way. Using a hummer and an appropriate trailer will be very useful in hauling building materials to the site and is cheaper than using helicopters or building a dirt road suitable for larger trucks.

Re:burgers

[TGK]

An excerpt from the Encyclopedia Galactica:

People got along fine making most goods from plastic and burning fossil fuels to get from point A to point B. When objections were raised about the environmental impact of this lifestyle some people said "People got along ok without domesticated animals and clothes by living in trees for thousands of years too. Let's go back to that. You first."

These people were the first against the wall when the revolution came.

Re:burgers

[maxconsulting]

it might be "carbon neutral" (?) but it's not nitrate neutral or methane neutral.

Re:burgers

[chainsaw1]

Gasoline is a byproduct of chemical production stocks being separated from crude oil. As long as we need plastics, paint (acryllic acid), pharmaceuticals, solvents (nail polish remover/ acetone), etc. we will have gasoline, propane, butane, etc. as well

I should add that to get relatively (> 96%) pure ethanol from water you need one of those stocks (benzine) to extract it. Water and ethanol form an azeotrope at 96% EtOH to H2O

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't seen American burgers. They're just a whole cow inside a bun. The bun is optional...

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

I've wanted for a while to create a bumper sticker, "My penis may be small, but my Hummer is big!" and put them on Hummers I find in parking lots.

Re:burgers

[brokenbeaker]

thanks for the analysis. i also want to add that, eventhough INAF (farmer), i think cows' digestive system is pretty inefficient - so much of the hay might actually be returning 'unprocessed'

Re:burgers

[butane_bob2003]

We're likely to run out of breathable air before we run out of fossil fuels. Running out of fuel should be the least of our concerns, unfortunately the superpowers are concerned primarily with just that.

Re:burgers

[TnkMkr]

Well yes you do still spew out Carbon *oxides,and Nox but those are a lot easier to deal with if you look at the total cycle. The massive fields of plants grown to produce the biodiesel manage to consume a large portion of the carbon dioxides emitted. The nice thing is there are no sulfates, or heavy metals being emitted (the leadiing cause of acid rain and other nasty stuff).

It may not be the perfect solution but it is certainly a much lower impact on the enviroment than current fuels.

Oh... and current gasoline engines can't run on it, but current diesel engines can (imagine the impact if we just switched all the tractor trailers on the road).

I'm hopping oil companies simply start paying farmers for their excess grains, that would suddenly make agriculture a profitable buisness again, and maybe more family farms would survive in America.

Re:burgers

[CKW]

Hee hee, good point. And that hay would just be decomposing on the ground anyways, just like fallen trees decompose in the woods.

So instead of microbes eating the trees, we have cows eating the trees and us eating the cows!

So I guess PETA is in fact a "pro microbe" lobby. They value the existence of a bunch of microbes over that of cows. (Yeah yeah, I'm getting out there, and at least the microbes don't mind their lives one way or the other :)

Anyways, unless you model the entire cycle in all of the relevant cases, how do you know what is good and what is not, never mind how good or how bad?

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, people were able to construct cabins in remote areas somewhat prior to the advent of the helicopter and the Hummer.

Sure, the Hummer might make the job easier, but you still need to remember that you're making the choice to value your expended effort over the (well-documented in other posts) consequences of using that vehicle.

Re:burgers

[Suidae]

Depends on what you mean by inefficient. They extract what nutrients it makes biological sense to do so. What is returned to the soil in the field (helping to grow new grass) contains nutrients that other parts of the bio-system uses. This is probably less than optimal if you are trying to manufacturing cow meat instead of robust, self-reproducing organisims that exist in harmony with their natural environment.

For manufacturing cow meat one would really prefer electric powered cow muscle that could be grown right in the consumer packaging, then sterilized so the consumer can't easily grow their own cow meat.

Re:burgers

[FreakWent]

Yeah, fine, but the grass isn't grown naturally, it's grown using herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers, and the phosphorus for the fertilizer is usually mined, which indicates that the consumption levels are not sustainable (everything mined is by defenition finite).

Re:burgers

[blitz1725]

Then again, most American's are to self centered to care anyway

Another comment slamming American's for being self centered is rather tired as well you egotistical twit.

Re:burgers

[felicity]

Actually that's a fallacy as well. The X tons of "plant material" went to feed the cow, not make it. At least, I haven't seen a cow made of hay, but I haven't been on a farm in a while. ;)

Re:burgers

[Rogerborg]

I note that you cited a PETA claim as one of your sources. If PETA told me that cows eat grass, I'd go and check myself to make sure.

Beef cattle are slaughtered at 18 months. Add a little more for the breeding cows, and you can push it to two years average. Find your own links.

Since your 700/100 lbs per cow is from a completely unreferenced anecdote, I'll throw in one of my own. McDonalds burgers are 100% beef, because they are (very nearly) 100% of the cow. Picture a huge cow sized grinder, making cow paste. You don't have to believe me; instead, find me anyone who works in the slaughter industry who'll eat a fast food burger.

Re:burgers

[eht]

Also don't forget that cows can eat things people cant, the non human edibles from corn, like the stalks and such are fine for cows, leftovers from beer making also get fed to cows, a lot of vegetable matter that would otherwise be thrown out if everyone was strictly vegetarian can be used to feed cows, chickens, pigs and other farm animals.

Re:burgers

[blitz1725]

Umm, animals also produce it even you my friend have produced it and not all of it from your ass oddly enough.

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering if it works with animal matter too? It would be kinda cool if you could make oil out of humans.

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all of the plant is converted to oil only a small part.

and don't forget not all the oil is converted to gas.

Re:burgers

[pmz]

IIRC, people were able to construct cabins in remote areas somewhat prior to the advent of the helicopter and the Hummer.

This is true, because they used the materials from clearing the land directly in building the house (e.g., log cabins). However, if a person wanted a few amenities, such as a brick foundation or a well, the Hummer might be a practical solution. For this application, the consequences of the Hummer are nil, because it is using the machine in the niche for which it is intended, and everyone else would be driving efficient sedans and station wagons for their needs. While I view the Hummer as a tool, other people view it as a status symbol. The latter definition is more troubling.

Re:burgers

[Brandybuck]

We need to conserve people. We're running out of dying stars.

Re:burgers

[pmz]

There is another thing we need to realize. The lack of counter-incentives when buying something like a Hummer is largely due to the perverse ass-backwards tax systems use to fund road construction and maintenance.

For example, if even one cent of highway funding comes from income taxes, sales taxes, or property-value-based taxes, then the true cost of the Hummer is transparent to its owners. This is sad, because beyond excessive fuel consuption the Hummer also does increased wear and tear to roadways. The fuel taxes only partially compensate for this, due to highways subsidies coming from other sources. In effect, the tax structure allows people to live a lie, because other people are subsidizing their habits. This is just another argument to repeal income taxes in favor of other purpose-specific taxes.

Re:burgers

[BigBir3d]

smug alert!

satire doesn't wok so well online.... but i like to see the knee-jerks anyhow.

Re:burgers

[bobbis.u]

Yeah, I don't get why the governments don't just introduce an extra, more stringent driving test to drive cars with a mass of more than 1500kg, say.

Overnight you have eliminated an enormous number of SUV's, 4x4's, etc. All of this without really penalising the people that actually _need_ to use them at all. It is also a good idea purely from a safety point of view, because these larger vehicles are inherently more dangerous for pedestrians and other road users due to their greater momentum, poorer handling and reduced maneovreability

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

Check up on Changing the World Technologies or CWT
they seem to have a process called Thermo-Depolymerization that changes organic material (in this case Turkey offal) into gasoline using low pressure and low temp. If this is real and it works then you can just turn primary producers or waste into gasoline. If this is real it means you might want to sell you Halliburton stock. Thank god.

Re:burgers

[Timothy Brownawell]

Grandparent post:
But if we can compress carbon to create diamonds, why can't we grow plants and compress them to create oil?

It's called biodiesel and is in the proccess of becoming cheaper to use. It is made from vegitable oils at a rate of about 86% output from the oil used.

Hmm...

Why does the guy mentioned in the article think that compressing plants by putting them deep underground would be so much less efficient?

Tim

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to talk enviromental impact? Imagine 6 billion hunter gatherers. It won't be long before we get to cannibalism. All cuteness aside, and I did laugh. His argument is a non argument. While it's true many people use Hummers in less than ideal situations. For the most part, they are extravagent displays of wealth. As silly as *I* might find those to be, I might wonder, do you also begrudge the peacock *his* plummage?

And despite the pleadings for conservation, as hearfelt, and even well deserved as they might be, they are hardly the doomsday threat. The booming third world population where people in grotesque poverty shit out 10 or even 12 children (many dying to be sure) is a far less stable situation. What are your plans for that excess? Euthanasia for the youth in Asia?

Re:burgers

[Minna Kirai]

then the true cost of the Hummer is transparent to its owners.

You should choose a different word than "transparent", such as "invisible". Those words are not synonyms!

A subject is often called "transparent" when all of the data needed to understand it is visible. But that's plainly not what you meant. "Transparent" doesn't mean you are unable to see something- it means there are no barriers to seeing inside it. cf

Re:burgers

[Colazar]

Our cow farm was pretty small scale (~100 head) but we would sell steers for meat at about 18 months, but they would be used by and large for real meat.

*Hamburger* were made by grinding up the heifers who were too old to have any more calves, by and large.

In that case, hamburger is almost "free," since you weren't feeding them to make meat, you were feeding them to make babies.

Re:burgers

[Minna Kirai]

because it is using the machine in the niche for which it is intended,

The Hummer was only intended for purposes involving guided missles or at least a 50 cal MG. It's a military tool. If your needs aren't military, then it is just a symbol.

For remote construction tasks, a traditional pickup truck will have better mileage, more cargo space, and 1/3 the price tag.

Re:burgers

[AVGVSTVS]

Yeah, but a Hummer is not the best ways to use that energy

And I suppose when a geek hooks up 12 monitors to 6 computers to play a game, thats a good use of that energy? BIAS

(Not that I have a problem with bias altogether, I just have a problem with it when its masqueraded as objective truth)

Re:burgers

[j-turkey]

There is another thing we need to realize. The lack of counter-incentives when buying something like a Hummer is largely due to the perverse ass-backwards tax systems use to fund road construction and maintenance.

For example, if even one cent of highway funding comes from income taxes, sales taxes, or property-value-based taxes, then the true cost of the Hummer is transparent to its owners. This is sad, because beyond excessive fuel consuption the Hummer also does increased wear and tear to roadways. The fuel taxes only partially compensate for this, due to highways subsidies coming from other sources. In effect, the tax structure allows people to live a lie, because other people are subsidizing their habits. This is just another argument to repeal income taxes in favor of other purpose-specific taxes.

While I understand (and agree with) your principle of a higher purpose-based taxes (and removing our income taxes), I couldn't disagree more with how you're getting there...First, the true cost of a large SUV is not transparent to the owner. I think that you may just be looking at this incorrectly. You've got sales and property tax (and on an already expensive vehicle, it's alot of money) The increased fuel consumption (and premium fuel requirements) both add to the cost of the vehicle (and there are already pretty heavy federal and state taxes on that gas). It's also expensive to get into to begin with, and many states levy a luxury tax against the car. Also, if said vehicle is over a certain weight, it's classified as a truck. I don't know what the weight/axle cutoff is, but from what I understand, most vehicles under that weight have a negligable effect on road-wear compared to other cars in that weight range (~2000-6000 Lbs). It's kind of a moot argument that SUV's do more wear and tear. Trucks have a special status in that they do have to pay for permits to cover the additional wear-and-tear on the roads. Those people don't need any additional taxes (and our interstate highway system was built [and is maintained] more for them than us). Additional road taxes will affect trucking more than you and me. Affecting trucking means that the cost to shipping raw materials around increases (as well as the cost of any business that needs to move anything anywhere), which means that everything we buy is more expensive. I agree that income tax should be reduced (greatly) for everyone...but the way you went about making that point just doesn't work.

Most of our taxes go to subsidizing something for someone...it's how it works. Big SUV's are the least egregious example of this. Sorry -- but your example is really bad, and I can chalk it up as basic anti-SUV banter that doesn't really make any sense to me.

--Turkey

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

There looks like a big gap between reality and theory in the study:

The calculations showed that roughly one-eleventh of the carbon in the plants deposited in peat bogs ends up as coal, and that only one-10,750th of the carbon in plants deposited on ancient seafloors, deltas and lakebeds ends up as oil and natural gas.

What happened to the rest of the carbon? I bet it got leaked into the atmosphere (ever smell a swamp?).

The numbers have been deliberately inflated by a four orders of magnitude.

Sure, it took that much plant material, but that material is already gone. We aren't destroying old plants by using the oil, any more than you destroy a mountain making glass from its sand.

Re:burgers

[WNight]

Ethanol has a lower energy density, true. But efficiency could refer to the percentage of that energy which is used. Perhaps you can get 70% efficient Ethanol engines versus 50% efficient gasoline engines.

But, the real issue is if Ethanol is more sustainable and has a smaller impact on the environment. Which fuel releases less CO^2 for a given ammount of energy. It's a given that Ethanol is more sustainable than fossil fuels.

Efficiency can be seen in a long-term sense.

Re:burgers

[Syrrh]

What if you purchased rural property and wanted to build a cabin there, and there is no bridge crossing a creek along the way. Using a hummer and an appropriate trailer will be very useful in hauling building materials to the site and is cheaper than using helicopters or building a dirt road suitable for larger trucks.

I suppose you couldn't hire a carpenter to build a basic bridge to that remote luxury property? Any path that requires serious 4x4 ability will be off-limits to a trailer anyway, so you'll have to tend to that road for construction trips. Well gee, now that you have a road, there's not much point in an extravagant SUV, is there? A plain pickup truck will do fine for hauling materials, and it'll probably still have air conditioning.

Sorry to beat on the issue even more, but I really don't have any sympathy when it comes to this fake perceived need. It's been created by marketing, obstacles are rarely severe enough to require such a vehicle. I go off-road in my basic 4-door family car, and I worry about my old tires more than the car's clearance.

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit.

Any kind.

Re:burgers

[Minna Kirai]

As long as we need plastics

At some point, we'll have to get our plastics (& related petrochem materials) by recylcing other plastics.

It is concievable that after using up crude oil fields, we could go on re-using the plastics over and over in new products. The same cannot be said for petroleum fuels. They WILL run out, and we WILL need something else. (Which probably won't turn out to be ethanol)

Re:burgers

[pmz]

Okay, I agree that it should be "invisible" or "hidden".

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to eat hay and I don't think it will do much good for me anyhow.

I have considered a plan. 1/58 is a much better ratio than the plant/fuel ratio cited. Therefore if we could produce some sort of cowoline. Don't worry there will be plenty of beef because we won't process steer, bull, etc. That will mess up our numbers.

Re:burgers

[pmz]

First, the true cost of a large SUV is not transparent to the owner.

First, my choice of words should have been "invisible" rather than "transparent." (another reply pointed this out)

As far as sales and property tax are concerned, you should visit South Carolina. Sales tax is capped at $300 and property tax goes down as the vehicle ages, meaning that vehicles contribute less to the tax base merely as a factor of age.

Also, the fuel taxes only reflect a portion of the vechicle's consumption, due to subsidies by other taxes (income and sales tax).

While I agree SUVs as an example isn't as extreme as housing subsidies, for example, I still think that the tax structure is weighted towards the "middle class" of cars while giving some artificial advantages to the top and the bottom of the spectrum. This dishonesty in the tax distribution is my main gripe.

Re:burgers

[pmz]

For remote construction tasks, a traditional pickup truck will have better mileage, more cargo space, and 1/3 the price tag.

It depends on the terrain. Hummers and pickup trucks have a different tradeoff regarding off-road capability vs. milage/price/cargo. Hummers can be used for non-miltary purposes, where the fact that it has 24" of ground clearance, water-crossing capabilities, etc., are valuable attributes.

Re:burgers

[Minna Kirai]

We're likely to run out of breathable air before we run out of fossil fuels.

Wherever do you get that from? Optimistic, pro-oil sources claim "We won't run out for 90 years"! How anyone can say that running out of fuel in 2093 (when I fully expect to be still alive) is not a problem is beyond me!

Pessimists assume that China and India will start to consume oil in this century, and that their usage will run us out much faster. You must know a dangerous secret if you think the air will be destroyed in less than a century.

Now, of course we will never 100% run out of oil. As it gets rarer, the price will shoot up to 100s of dollars per liter, and nobody can afford it. The effect on society will be similar to a total loss of fossil fuel.

Math summary: There are 649 billion barrels worth of oil underground around the world (an optimistic view). Last year, the world burned 75 million barrels of oil each day. That's 8653 days left, or just 23 years. Obviously, one can dispute the accuracy of the source data- but even using MORE optimistic guesses about how much oil the world really contains, you shouldn't expect it to last more than another century or two.

unfortunately the superpowers are concerned primarily with just that.

Wherever do you get that from? Every big nation is pulling back from investment into nuclear energy, which besides fossil fuel is the only reliable source of major power. On the contrary, the US is now pushing for a $90,000,000,000 investment in Iraq's infrastructure, which is really an investment in oil extraction (the only thing Iraq is good for).

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a mild flaw in your math. The age of cattle when slaughtered you mentioned (4-5 years) refers only to California dairy cattle. Dairy cows live long, productive lives giving milk and, as such, aren't used for beef until they're no longer able to produce milk (or, in the case of dairy bulls, produce more dairy cattle). Beef cattle, on the other hand, are typically sent to market at 12-18 months.

This brings your numbers down to 13,775 pounds of feed per head, or 19.6 pounds of feed per pound of meat.

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

Picture a huge cow sized grinder, making cow paste. You don't have to believe me; instead, find me anyone who works in the slaughter industry who'll eat a fast food burger.

Who cares? It doesn't hurt you to eat the whole cow. It's a good source of protein all the same. They take out the bad stuff that could hurt you.

Re:burgers

[greenhide]

And I suppose when a geek hooks up 12 monitors to 6 computers to play a game, thats a good use of that energy? BIAS

I don't do this either. I do a lot of things to reduce the amount of energy I use in general. Probably the one thing I waste the most energy on (aside from the occasional car ride in my relatively fuel efficient Chevy Cavalier -- I live close enough to work to walk there) is the servers here at work.

At home, I keep the thermostat at 65 or lower in the winter; I don't use AC in the summer. I don't even have a computer at home. The most electricity I use at home is when I watch TV from time to time, but it's generally under 6 hours per week, and it's a pretty small 21 inch TV, so it's not likely to use all that much energy anyway.

Also, even if I did hook up 12 monitors and 6 computers purely for entertainment, that still uses a lot less energy that a Hummer, without question. And given that a Hummer for civilian use is most likely for recreational purposes, more than likely the person who owns it is going to go on frequent joyrides in it (If they're using it just to commute I consider that a real waste of money.)

So, the objective truth is that unless you actually are in Iraq or a similar situation where roads are mostly non-existent and a strong, heavy vehicle is crucial to survival, a Hummer is a dumb, egotistical, and wasteful way to get from point A to point B.

If there are any such Hummer drivers out there who are offended, good. You may have made those hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy one by genuinely contributing the healing and well-being of the planet, but I doubt it. And even if you did earn your money through some such activity, that was a damn stupid way of spending it.

Re:burgers

[badman99]

I dunno about that. I drive a 4litre turbo diesel Nissan Patrol and I have an 9inch penis. I love living in Australia everything is soooo far away I need a snorkel on my 4x4 just to get to the shops, and a bullbar just incase I hit a Kangaroo.

Re:burgers

[TnkMkr]

Probably because the 86% is from vegetible oil, which has already been extracted from the plant. I can honestly say I don't know how "efficient" that proccess is. I don't know the mass of corn, or grains needed to make 1kilogram of vegetible oil.

I think that is where the real in-efficiencies come into play, going from a solid mass of plant to a liquified state (with no water present).

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

We're just starting to do that...used to be this process made poor quality oil and took as much energy as you got out of the resulting oil, but the new tech is 80% energy-efficient and makes a good product.

Re:burgers

[Peorth]

M-x order-quarter-pounder

Re:burgers

[Eric S. Smith]

Hamburger:

They take out the bad stuff that could hurt you.

Or so you hope.

Re:burgers

[butane_bob2003]

Thanks for the numbers, I didnt figure on oil running out that soon. Car sales in China especially are increasing every year, and with their economy leaning more towards global trade I would not be suprised if they became the second largest oil consumer.
You are confirming my second point, the US's primary concern is securing oil production and transport for itself, in order to protect it's economy (in the name of global security). I don't know if I made that clear.

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

i don't know about dying stars. but i know millions and millions of sperms died before you were born and millions more afterward.

*ding ding ding*
we have a winner and you were born.

Re:burgers

[redmoss]

Actually, internal combustion engines in general are horribly inefficient at using the energy stored in gasoline (about 12% efficient is what I last heard). It's a bunch of rapid explosions, which dissipate a lot of energy into heat, audible noise, and mechanical wear in the transmission mechanisms. To get better efficiency out of gas or anything with hydrogen in it, look at internal combustion engines (30-40% efficient last I heard).

Re:burgers

[Anonymous Coward]

You stupid mother fucker - humvees are SHIT offroad and to consider using one for hauling construction materials is just ASSININE. Get a duce and a half 6x6 or a unimog if your going to be dragging heavy shit through the woods. Both are exponentially better for the example you cite. Or just stick with a decent 4x4 and military-style trailer. And for the parent who dissed trailers off road - you ever been to rubicon or similar? I'm sure you'll find more than one.

Thermal

TD out

Re:burgers

[greenhide]

Hmmm...so what exactly is the difference between "internal combustion engines" and... "internal combustion engines"?

I think you must have meant something else for the second one.

Re:burgers

[pmz]

You stupid mother fucker

Dammit, I told you not to reveal my real name on Slashdot!!!

Get a duce and a half 6x6 or a unimog if your going to be dragging heavy shit through the woods.

Fine. The example still stands, where there are good tools for the job. On the road, a 6x6 is only slightly less practical as a humvee for commuting to work, but it still is fully justified in other uses. Remember, the statement at the top of this thread had made a generalization that humvees (unimogs, 6x6s, whatever) weren't the best use of oil, and I'm just trying to say that, basically, a big diesel engine on a big off-road vehicle can do wonders where there aren't roads suitable for electric wonder vehicles. In the future this could very well change, but it doesn't stand like that today.

Re:burgers

[Ken Erfourth]

One more factor. If the cow feed figure is coming from dairy cows, it is also probably suspect.

Dairy cows eat a LOT. They are producing huge quantities of high-calorie milk on a daily basis. A good milk cow can produce 10,000 lbs of milk a year. Even after subracting the water, that's still something like 2500 lbs of high quality protein, fat and sugars yearly.

You have to add that to the output of a dairy cow, and subtract the feed the dairy cow is eating and converting directly into milk from the normal feed of a beef cow. A lot of beef is raised on pretty marginal land, eating a pretty marginal diet. Dairy cows get special diets to help them produce abundant milk.

Re:burgers

[Xel'Naga]

That's because you strip sigs.

Re:burgers

[redmoss]

Or I am just an idiot... a definite possibility...

I meant "fuel cells"... oops...

you assume

[Anonymous Coward]

That plant material is the source of the oil reserves. I do not think there were ever enough plant mass ever to give us the amount of oil we have presently. FP

Re:you assume

[Anonymous Coward]

That plant material is the source of the oil reserves. I do not think there were ever enough plant mass ever to give us the amount of oil we have presently. FP

Well, it might be that oil didn't just come from bio-matter, but from ancient geological processes during earth's formation/early evolution. At least, that is what the Soviet's believed, and they seemed to have lots of oil.

Re:you assume

[wa5ter]

What are you suggesting? There is no shortage of clear proof that this is where the oil comes from. Coal contains clearly fossilised plant material.. oil and coal and natural gas are often all found together. The process of generating them can be simulated very easily.

Re:you assume

[ZooB]

Here! Here! And another thing...I'm not convinced that water is made of two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom. I mean, how do "THEY" know? They can't really see anything that small. I'll bet its really bananas and pistachio flavored ice cream. And how do I know the sun really exists? I can't see the nuclear fusion occurring deep within its core even though I can feel the byproducts of it everyday. That's it there is no sun! .... (and so goes the raving lunatic, muttering to himself as he wanders the sidewalks in the early morning)

Re:you assume

[Colonel Cholling]

I do not think there were ever enough plant mass ever to give us the amount of oil we have presently.

Not all at one time, no. But remember, fossilization has been going on for many millions of years. That means many, many generations of plants have found their way into our mineral deposits. (Unless you accept the claims of certain "creation scientists" who claim that oil or coal can be made from biomass in an exceedingly short amount of time, in which case the whole earth must have been a miles-thick compost pile at some point in its 6000-year history.)

Re:you assume

[mikerich]

There is no shortage of clear proof that this is where the oil comes from. Coal contains clearly fossilised plant material.. oil and coal and natural gas are often all found together.

Actually there is some evidence for a non-biogenic source for some oil reserves. It came as a surprise to me as well when I did my geology degree.

Thomas Gold (most famous for his Steady-State Theory of the Universe) postulated that oil might be formed from organic compounds deep in the Mantle which migrate up to the surface. IIRC he persuaded the Swedes to sink a test well into ancient hard shield rocks (where there should be no signs of hydrocarbons) and indeed traces of such compounds were recovered. Now I don't know whether they excluded the possibility that they were products of the lubricating mud used to drill the well or if they were younger oil seeping into the basement rocks from a distant reservoir.

However, the vast majority of oil reserves are clearly from fossilised plants. The breakdown products of porphyrins (the complex organo metal compounds such as chlorophyll) can be extracted from most crudes.

Finally, oil, coal and natural gas may be found close to one another, but are usually not. For instance, the mainland of the UK has enormous coal reserves, but only one productive oil field and no on-shore gas. British oil probably originates in the Kimmeridge Clay - an organic rich clay that was formed in the late Jurassic. Conversely, the Middle East almost entirely lacks coal, but holds 60% of the World's petroleum reserves. The closest association is usually natural gas and oil - where it has been driven off from oil reservoirs that have been heated.

In the Southern North Sea much of the natural gas probably came from the underlying Coal Measures which have been deeply buried and exposed to intense heat.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:you assume

[wa5ter]

I stand corrected. Thanks. :)

Re:you assume

[Anonymous Coward]

"And how do I know the sun really exists? I can't see the nuclear fusion occurring deep within its core even though I can feel the byproducts of it everyday."

Say what? That's not a proven fact. Science has been wrong before.

Re:you assume

[mikerich]

No worries, I just remember getting a 'C' for writing an essay only mentioning a biogenic source, with a comment to go check the literature. I learned a lesson that day :)

If you're interested, Wired wrote up about Gold's theory a while back.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:you assume

[Hits_B]

I hate to split hairs here, but as a geologist who has worked in oil and gas exploration I need to clarify a few points. First, if you assume a biogenic origin for hydrocarbon deposits then you realize that different types of organic matter generate different types of hydrocarbons. I need to quote F.K. North from his book Petroleum Geology. In it on page 53 he states " Oil is not derived, as coal is, from terrestrial plant materials." As a result plant material is responsible for the generation of natural gas. Liquid hydrocarbons originate from the sapropelic material that typically is aquatic algae and may include some spores and pollens.

Re:you assume

[deglr6328]

Is this the same Thomas Gold that dosen't understand simple thermodynamics? Thought so. I wouldn't trust his theories about the origins of petroleum reserves very much at all if I were you.

Re:you assume

[IPFreely]

So, if someone makes a mistake in one area of science, then he must be completely incompetant in all others?

Most people here on slashdot would be doing good to come close to Golds expertiese in just one area, much less the variety of areas he covers.

If you would like to see his theories on the origins of oil, try his book "Deep Hot Biosphere". It makes a good case. If you find any errors in it let us know, hey?

Re:you assume

[Anonymous Coward]

Before the complex plants and animals we all know and love there probably were titanic bactirial colonies. (Or so I would imagine IANAPB) I would also suppose that some of those were by far the largest communities of anything ever, and huge by any metric (mass, volume, whatever).

Re:you assume

[Anonymous Coward]

His website on this is here.

Re:you assume

[Anonymous Coward]

"one productive oil field and no on-shore gas"

The North Sea oil fields arent onshore either, theyre well off the coast of Aberdeen, around abouts* where the abundance of gas is. No idea if there's coal there, doubt anyone would want to dive in and get it.

*That is, right beside each other in global terms, "actually quite near" in geological terms, but "farking far" in terms of swimming it.

Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[Biff98]

Internal combustion engines have ALWAYS been inefficient. There have been attempts to make them more efficient, but there has NEVER been an engine based on gasoline that has exceeded even 35%. Even rotary engines are very poor producers of energy to a set of tires. Just the facts of life.

Anyone for Hydrogen?

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[djh101010]

Yay hydrogen.

Oh - one thing...how are you planning to produce your hydrogen? Can't mine it - can't make a well to find it - gotta generate it by reforming another hydrocarbon (read: fuel) or by hydrolysis of water (read: takes fuel).

Other than those inconvenient facts, it's a great idea. How about biofuels instead - veggie oil runs diesel engines quite happily, for instance, and we've got plenty of excess capacity to grow the soybeans for it.

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[PhysicsExpert]

Exactly, any engine that relies on the carnot cycle is going to be inefficient, it is just one of those facts of life. Hopefully we will not have to rely on gasoline for much longer.

Interestingly although hydrogen fuel cells are an excellent choice for powering small vehicles, it is unlikely that they could be made powerful enough for trucks and even large SUV's and so another solution will have to be found. Some of the possibilities include LPG or bitumen based engines but perhaps the biggest hope is for ion drives similar to the ones currently being tested on Norwegian buses.

They are ideal in that they are practically silent and have no moving parts so they will almost never go wrong. Currently there is an environmental risk as they emit dangerous cl- ions but it is hoped that by adding h+ ions at the exhaust stage these can mopped up.

If I remember correctly Ford is building an ion drive based dragster to compete at the high speed trials in May next year. It should be very interesting to see how it stacks up against conventional NOx based machines.

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Combustion engines, by a fuel engine weight ratio, are much more efficient than most current fuel cells. The Gibbs free energy available in fossil or other higher level combustable fuels is much better than that of hydrogen; this is why we're seeing butane fuel cells coming out and in fact probably taking the place of heavy hydrogen cells (note it's still hydrogen, I know this). Anyway, one acre of hemp can create 1000 gallons of methanol. So it's not like we need to rely on fossil fuels for higher level combustion fuel sources.

On another note, it seems that the 'inefficiency' in this article is really with mother nature, and its time consuming processes to create fuel. We, growing crops of hemp or corn or whatever, can make thousands of gallons of fuel in one crop season. It took mother nature eons to create similar fuels (which still quite need processing).

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[Colonel Cholling]

Anyone for Hydrogen?

Sure. Except it takes electricity to produce hydrogen, and at the moment it usually takes fossil fuels to produce electricity. Plus there are the problems of how to store enough hydrogen to go any reasonable distance in a standard automobile. (If I recall, the original lunar rover was hydrogen-fueled. Most of its fuel was spent hauling its own fuel tank around-- and that's going slow, in a vacuum with low gravity. Of course on Earth you wouldn't need to haul your own oxygen, but that still leaves a lot of fuel to go a short distance.)

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[fuzzybunny]

Well, there'd probably be a lot more of the stuff to go around if the damn Germans didn't keep using it to light up the New Jersey night sky.

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uuh, and how are we going to grow thosse soybeans?

Fertilizers - made with hydrocarbons
Farming machine - powered with hydrocarbons
Pesticides - who knows?

The question is which is more efficient overall? Aren't fuel cells 90% efficient compared to 35% for diesel engines?

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[mwolff]

Oh - one thing...how are you planning to produce your hydrogen? Can't mine it - can't make a well to find it - gotta generate it by reforming another hydrocarbon (read: fuel) or by hydrolysis of water (read: takes fuel).

But the electricity needed for the production of hydrogen could be generated by clean sources such as wind or hydro power. It could even be produced by somewhat clean sources like nuclear power.

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[Anonymous Coward]

>it is unlikely that
>they could be made powerful
>enough for trucks
>and even large SUV's

its a matter of fact, that the german marine uses hydrogen fuel cells to power their current pusuit submarines,

those are too small to be powered by a nuclear reactor, but of course the diesel engine + rechargeable battery -combination - approch used back in WW2 is a little outdated meanwhile ;)

i think what can power a sub should be powerful enough to power trucks
(btw Daimler-Craysler already provided some cities with hydrogen fuel-cell driven buses in some german cities afaik)

cu

Corvus

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[Mattcelt]

Agreed. From the original post: Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

This is a misleading statement; obviously our cars are not directly burning 4 tons per mile! As the AC above states, the 'inefficiency' in this article is really with mother nature, which is what turns that 4 tons of organic matter into fossil fuels. Even then, we refine it even further - what we use in our gas tanks is actually very efficient even compared to raw crude, much less the original decomposing matter!

So to say that our machines are inefficient by this deduction is absolutely incorrect. It's sort of like saying that a candle burns inefficiently because it took so many "bee hours" of labor to create the candle: the creation of the wax has nothing whatsoever to do with the burn rate of the candle. (I can add or remove things from the wax which can raise or lower the burn efficiency independently of how many bees it took to create the wax.)

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[IronTomFlint]

Except for the fact that the eco-whacko Left doesn't want windmills (or anything else) "defiling" the "pristine" countryside, and they don't want dams filling the canyons, and they don't like nukes, either. You can't please these people except by dying.

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[djh101010]

I'd like to buy a 25KW fuel cell - know anyone selling them? "more efficient overall" is useless, when the technology can't be bought, and if the cost is 10X that of a diesel/electric generator, a factor of 3X in efficiency isn't gonna sell the unit.

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[RichN]

...they emit dangerous cl- ions but it is hoped that by adding h+ ions at the exhaust stage these can mopped up.

So the exhaust spits out hydrochloric acid?

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[Sique]

You got it right ;)
The message of those eco-whacko Leftists is: Minimize your footprint. Reduce your energy consumption. Reduce your soil consumption. Reduce your area consumption. Be more efficient. Be more productive with your resources. Turn out more bang for the bucks. Oh wait. That's not eco-whacko. That's purely capitalistic: Get more out of your investment. Produce more with less.

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[IronTomFlint]

The message of those eco-whacko Leftists is: Minimize your footprint.

By cutting off your feet.

Reduce your energy consumption.

By not consuming any at all - unless you're an eco-whacko Leftist on the way to protest SUVs, in which case it's perfectly acceptable to fly a polluting jet airplane

Reduce your soil consumption.

I'm safe here; I don't eat dirt. However, the eco-whacko Left would prefer that I reduce it anyway by composting myself - as soon as possible

Reduce your area consumption.

By living in straw huts packed with 20 people

Be more efficient.

By vandalizing and destroying other people's goods (so that they must consume more resources in order to repair or replace them) and setting traps for lumberjacks (so that they "reduce their energy consumption").

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[Biff98]

Lets put it this way -- If you took all the oil (some 200 years supply left at current consumption levels), and instead used it to produce hydrogen, your fossil fuel consumption levels would go WAY down (because cars aren't using them anymore) AND the plants generating the hydrogen would be able to cut emissions better than a car.

Suddenly you have a few millenia to figure out how to make electricity to produce hydrogen without gasoline. Think we can do it?

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[Anonymous Coward]

"the 'inefficiency' in this article is really with mother nature"

That fucking bitch.

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[Atmchicago]

I see your point, but the article is saying that we are burning up oil faster than it could possibly be replenished - thus using a Hummmer instead of a bicycle or smaller car is wasting a lot of time/precious resources.

If oil took seconds to produce there would be no controversy at all in regards to supply, it would just be the global warming effects.

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[WOV]

You're doing an excellent job of profiling the political thinking of ca. .01 of 1% of the green movement (and thereby missing the very salient and frankly critical points being advanced by the rest.)

Like any other political movement, there are idiots and crazies among the environmentalists. They get lots of press because they tend to generate lots of "man bites dog" type news stories. The TV cameras will definitely show up when Greenpeace rides a Zodiac in front of an exploding harpoon; probably not so much when you buy a Civic hybrid. However, treating these stories as representative of the movement as a whole is simplistic; and an uncritical way to swallow the news you recieve.

I work in Washington every day, and I talk to more than my fair share of Right and far Right politicians; I have to say that environmentalism is not a very Leftist thing any more so much as it is a realistic evaluation of what we need to do to keep ourselves alive and the world the way we enjoy it.

Re:Well -- yeah, Are you just figuring this out?

[IronTomFlint]

You're doing an excellent job of profiling the political thinking of ca. .01 of 1% of the green movement

Thank you! Perhaps my repeated use of the term "eco-whacko" was a dead giveaway? ;-)

However, treating these stories as representative of the movement as a whole is simplistic

Treating these my posts as representative of my opinion of the "green" movement as a whole is simplistic, and an uncritical way to swallow the posts here at slashdot.

I have to say that environmentalism is not a very Leftist thing any more so much as it is a realistic evaluation

Spoken like a true believer. That which we ourselves categorically accept is always characterized (by us) as wholly rational. That it is still a Leftist pathology is evident from the fact that the environmentalists always resort to various forms of people control as the only possible means by which their goals can be achieved. Thus environmentalism is just the same old Leftism; it just has a new(er) excuse today for the abuses of liberty that it attempts to justify.

oil and petrolium

[elrick_the_brave]

Hmm.. I've always wondered if we'd run out of oil (reasonably priced.. when the price is fixed) in my lifetime... some say yes... I really don't care about having a car.. it's convenient... but I do care about plastics and other poly-things that we get from oil-based resources... how long could humanity go without?

Re:oil and petrolium

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need pretroleum for plastics just like you don't need pretoleum for heat. It just happens to be conveninent and for the time being it's the cheapest option. That last part is what keeps us using petroleum and prevents us from using nuclear --cost. Solar and geothermal will eventually be used as the sources for most energy for the same reason --costs. When you break it down, it's all about heat, you can't get chaper heat than heat itself and solar and geothermal go straight to the hear. Okay, maybe fusion. But still, heat is what it's all about.

Re:oil and petrolium

[tomcio.s]

Seeing how plastics are relatively new phenomena, I'd say we can do away with them without much trouble in the first place.

Sure they are nice and convenient, but in all reality, for human life to continue, we don't need them.

Just my $.02

Re:oil and petrolium

[GTRacer]

True dat, BUT...

How much would the average lifespan be affected if plastics and their uses were dropped overnight? What would we use to make our things? And how long until THAT ran out?

What about the uses of plastics for packaging, sanitation, sterile handling, etc.? What kind of effect would not using plastics have on healthcare? Back to glass hypos? JCAHO safety regs be damned, then!

What about the economics? Plastics (and related polymers) make a lot of things lighter or stronger. Sure, there are metallic ways to do this, but how much more would things cost to make and purchase?

And speaking of money, what would they make the anti-counterfeiting strip in the new bills with? ;)

GTRacer
- Believes plastics are polymerrific, not a member of the Plastics Council

Re:oil and petrolium

[MouseR]

A question I have had in the back of my head wich I'd like to answer at some point keeps coming back to the surface whenever I read such stories.

The oil bubbles in the earth's crust were once plants and animals at the surface. So, it trickles down.

To pump it up, we sometime replace the oil with (saline) water, pushing the oil up.

Does this oil eventually reach the magma core? Does it help it keep hot by injecting fuel to the fire? What about all that water pumped down. Could it have a cooling effect?

I'm no geologist. I'm sure these questions have been looked at before. But, it'd be nice to have some insights from someone on /.. Surely, there's a geophysicist or two around.

Re:oil and petrolium

[nelsonal]

Assuming that some plastic compounds must be made from hydrocarbons (no other way to make them through other means), think about the change that would take place if oil got to $1000 per barrel (I don't think there are many uses that are worth this price but a higher price makes the example easier), as we get close to the end. You wouldn't drive a gasoline powered car or heat your home with oil, since it would cost something like $40 a gallon for gas, but you could stil use that plastic for those high value, your hypo goes from a quarter to $5 a big jump but probably worth paying. Economics is if nothing else, a great way to ensure that the best use of a commodity is what it gets used for, the environmental problem now is that we have too much oil, it's too cheap so we use it for all sorts of lower value uses. Oh and plastics are polymerrific.

Re:oil and petrolium

[ichimunki]

While you're at it, get rid of processed plant fiber clothing and fire too! Those are relatively new phenomena and I'm sure we can live without them. :)

Seriously, the problem with plastic isn't one of using it at all, it's of using it wisely. We're not there yet, I don't think.

Re:oil and petrolium

[stevesliva]

how long could humanity go without?

Good question. The author seemed to think that cars using a bazillion plants worth of energy meant that cars are inefficient, but my first thought was, "Damn, gasoline is a fantastic energy source." No wonder we're having difficulty finding viable alternatives.

On the other hand, the article indicates something like a year's worth of plant growth on 40 acres equals a gallon of gas. How does a gallon of gas compare to the output of 40 acres of solar panels over a year's time? I was trying to figure this out, but got lost in the relation of 115,000 BTUs per gallon and 3 megawatts per acre. Seems to indicate that the solar panels win by a factor of a million or so.

Re:oil and petrolium

[MKalus]

but I do care about plastics and other poly-things that we get from oil-based resources...

Read an article a while ago where someone was pointing this out as well, he concluded by saying:

"Oil is to precious to just burn it up."

I agree, I lately have been paying more attention on what stuff I have, what it's made off etc.

Even "worse" I have started to look where for example my food and other things are coming from and it is very very clear to me that my 25K commute is not my biggest "energy waste" but rather where my food is coming from.

Guess I should get my own garden :)

M.

Re:oil and petrolium

[cens0r]

Guess I should get my own garden :)

That helps, but as to my current living conditions I can only grow tomatoes in the summer and a few herbs. But one thing that everyone can do is to buy local. Shop at farmers markets. Doing so saves the energy of transporting the food long distances and packaging materials. Another thing you can do is buy organic food (not hard if you're shopping at farmer's markets). This saves on the petrochemicals used in pesticides and fertilizers.

Re:oil and petrolium

[Doc Ruby]

NYC gets an average (day/night, all year) 450W insolation (incident solar power) per square meter.
40 acres = 161,874.257 square meters
161,874.257 acres * 450 W/acre= 72,843,415.7W : 40acres
1 year = 31,556,926 seconds
72,843,415.7 watts * 31,556,926 seconds:year = 2.29871428 x 10^15 joules:year
115,000 BTU = 121,331,423 joules
2.29871428 x 10^15 joules:year / 121,331,423 joules:gallon = 18,945,745.6 gallons of gas contains the energy of 40 acres of sunlight each year

The remaining factors to compare apples:apples:
How efficient are the solar cells (20%)?
How much energy does it take to manufacture a square meter of solar cells?
How many years does a square meter of solar cell last before replacement?
How much energy does it take to deliver a gallon of gas from underground oil to your tank?

I'd guess solar wins, but by how much?

Re:oil and petrolium

[MKalus]

Shop at farmers markets.

I do, at St. Lawrence Market in Toronto, but guess what: Most of the stuff they sell there is coming in via the Ontario Food Terminal and is (at best) from the far end of the province....

Sad.

Re:oil and petrolium

[einTier]

Hmm.. I've always wondered if we'd run out of oil (reasonably priced.. when the price is fixed) in my lifetime... some say yes... I really don't care about having a car.. it's convenient... but I do care about plastics and other poly-things that we get from oil-based resources... how long could humanity go without?

In case you haven't noticed, oil is cheap. Even in places where it seems expensive, it is only expensive because of the massive amounts of tax levied on it. Even then, it's still cheaper than a gallon of milk. It's cheap because there is a lot of it, and it's fairly easy to get.

This may change over time. If we start to run out of oil, it won't be that one day we have oil and one day all the wells are dry. We'll notice a slow, gradual tapering off of available oil, and prices will slowly but surely increase. At some point, it won't make any sense economically to put it in our gas tanks, and we'll either move on to another fuel or we'll start traveling less. It won't happen overnight, and whatever the end result, it will likely be quite transparent to us. The very last pint of crude, if we ever get down that far, will almost certainly go towards something more nobel than propelling a 1953 Buick down the highway.

More than likely, what will happen is what always happens -- someone will make a technological breakthrough, entirely indendpendent on government legislation, and slowly, our dependence on oil will decline -- much as we don't use coal very much today. When this breakthrough occurs, we won't have to 'trick' or 'convince' people into driving these new cars, they will do it simply because it makes sense to do so, either economically or technologically.

We're always saying you can't legislate technological innovation, so why do we believe we can do it when it comes to alternate fuels?

Re:oil and petrolium

[Artifakt]

Plastics are already dividing into two kinds, and the pressure will increase as base oil prices go up. First, there are very cheap plastics made from non-oil sources such as corn. Many of these are designed for a single use, and bio-degrade easily when wet, like some grocery store bags now do. Second, there are expensive, but very durable plastics, such as delrin or ABS. These will continue to be used in products that are expected to last many years (like kitchen countertops, or at least car bumpers), and will be made long after oil becomes too rare for making gasoline. The plastics in the middle will become extinct. What this does to an application such as diapers, where its got to be cheap enough for one use only, but can't break down quickly from getting wet, is where the plastics industry will be most in turmoil.

Re:oil and petrolium

[bdlarkin]

Exactly!

In actuality, the prices we pay on any given gallon of gas are based on a future cost of extracting and refining the raw materials to make that gallon of gas. This is evidenced, during such events as a refinery fire, where gas prices shoot up over a few days. Its not that the evil "oil companies" are gouging their customers, rather that they know that it will cost them more to produce the next gallon of gas, since they have to replace the refinery.

Re:oil and petrolium

[cens0r]

That sucks... I guess I'm spoiled in seattle (and to a degree in dallas). Our farmers markets get the majority of our stuff from local producers. The exception being tropical fruits, but alot of that is from california which isn't that far anyway.

Re:oil and petrolium

[Bombcar]

ABS is the single most important substance known to man; without it we'd have no LEGO!

Re:oil and petrolium

[Artifakt]

Amen, Brother!

what

[Anonymous Coward]

still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

I think its more like how inefficient mother nature is. Geez lady, can't you just spit out hydrogen?

inefficient!!!!????

[Madcapjack]

98 tons of plant material for c.a. 25 miles? Damn! Have you seen a pound of carrots pushing any vehicle a foot?

reasonably efficient?

[ratbag]

25 miles per gallon is many things, but reasonably efficient isn't one of them.

Rob.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[PaulGrimshaw]

From a soccer website of all things:

"2/ Average MPG for a 1.6 litre 'family' car. This figure (33.5mpg) has been taken from the RAC and is based on both urban and motorway driving in a loaded car i.e. More than one occupant."

Thats 33.5 average.. be interested to know what it is in the US... Paul.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Zocalo]

Ahh, but this is US centric Slashdot, and in the US the average car is actually a four tonne SUV I gather. Jokes aside, I get over 30 miles per gallon urban mileage in my 6 cylinder, 2.5l BMW and over 50mpg extra-urban. 25mpg is not what I'd call "reasonably efficient" either, it's what I'd call "crap".

Re:reasonably efficient?

[ratbag]

You hit the nail on the head, re: US efficiency, Paul. Rob.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[riedquat]

To put things in perspective - the highest recorded for a passenger vehicle is 10240 miles per gallon.

http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/camphy/outreach/physics_a t_work_2003/exhibitor/team_crocodile.htm

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I find interesting about that statement is that 25 miles/gallon is what the fuel economy was for the Model T. What has it been, about a hundred years, and we haven't really been able to improve on that?

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends if you're using imperial gallons or U.S. gallons.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[ratbag]

Spookily enough, my car's the same. BMW 325 Compact. Week-in, week out, it does 31.7mpg (50 mile round-trip commute, 20 miles in London, 30 on M20/local roads).

And I don't hold that figure (31.7mpg) up as "reasonably efficient". It's just that if an ostensibly sporty car, driven with occasional gusto, can beat "reasonably efficient" by 20% then there's something wrong sowewhere.

Rob.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Ahh, but this is US centric Slashdot, and in the US the average car is actually a four tonne SUV I gather

How dare you challenge our God-given right to slash, burn, pollute and generally 'shit on' planet earth in peruit of the American Dream(tm) [aaaaaamen bothers!!!].

We are U S A - we are the masters, now fuck off you Eurotrash!

Re:reasonably efficient?

[mschaffer]

Doesn't that depend on what is accomplished with the gallon? One of those ultra-lightweight cars with 25 MPG gasoline is pittiful. A Hummer H-2 with 25 MPG gasoline is an accomplishment.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[weave]

A U.S. gallon is 4/5ths that of an Imperial gallon, so once you adjust for that, you're down in the crap range as well!

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Brackney]

Thankfully for the oil conglomerates we've been able to take huge leaps backwards! The Hummer just manages to eek out double digit fuel economy. On the down side, it doesn't come with a cigarette lighter - you have to light your cigars with 100 dollar bills...

Did I mention how much I love my Toyota Prius? :)

Re:reasonably efficient?

[MindStalker]

Yes, but we have substatially increased the weight and engine load of the vehicle adding such luxeries as a starter and battery, wide traction tires, automatic transmition, power steering, air conditioning, etc. The Model T. engine had a lot less it had to do.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Qrlx]

My truck gets about ten miles per gallon. It's an old wreck. I'm actually too afraid to do the math and see what my real MPG is.

Even at cheap US fuel prices, it's extremely expensive just to drive somewhere. However, I barely drive anywhere. I just have the truck because once in a while, I need to go somewhere that my legs/bike/the bus/a cab won't take me.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Gordonjcp]

25mpg is absolutely pissing through fuel. I get that in heavy city traffic from my car. Perhaps American car manufacturers should look at making engines with things like fuel injection, and aluminium cylinder heads and blocks. There's only so far you can take engine designs from the 1950s.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Rotten168]

That's great... you won't use a lot of gas when you drive to the market to buy your whine. :)

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha Ha! Quite the genius, I see!

Reasonably efficient is relative.... Can a Geo Metro (60 mpg) tow a 10,000 pound load 3000 miles across the U.S?

As far as the U.S.A. being so evil, let's look at emissions per mile..... two stroke street-bound motorcycles have not been available in the U.S. since 1985, due to the fact that they can't pass the strict emission standards. How about Europe? They seem to be everywhere! How tight are pollution standards there for vehicles? Why are European Diesels not allowed in the U.S.? Too polluting, that's why! They have to use a different emissions package for the U.S.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[thunderbird46]

Umm. Apparently you aren't terribly familiar with American cars. The last carbureted mass-produced American vehicle was, I believe, the Jeep Wagoneer, which went out of production in the late 80's. And a lot of cars these days have aluminum heads, many with aluminum blocks too.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[kiwimate]

The Hummer just manages to eek out double digit fuel economy.

And in a fit of remarkable inanity, California, that most tree-hugging of all states, just elected as governor the individual responsible for ensuring the general public can drive the stupid things.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[ianjk]

A Hummer H-2 with 25 MPG gasoline is an accomplishment.


A Hummer H-2 with 15 MPG would be an accomplishment, 25 would be a miracle.

From what I have read, from real world driving tests, the thing gets high single digits.

Here is an example of the Service Bulletins for the beast. Note the "Needle Bearings Found Upon Oil Change"

Bulletins for 2003 Hummer H2 V8-364 6.0L VIN U SFI

General Recalls
TSB Number Issue Date TSB Title 03011 MAR 03 Campaign - Keyless Entry System Inoperative

Service Bulletins
TSB Number Issue Date TSB Title 02-06-05-005B APR 03 Exhaust System - Rattle/Popping Noise from Under Vehicle
03-07-29-004 APR 03 M/T - Operating Characteristics
03-08-64-008 MAR 03 Body - Squeaks When Raising Windows
03-08-67-002 MAR 03 Body - Excessive Roof Rack Wind Rush Noise
03-06-04-019 MAR 03 Fuel System - Difficult Refueling/Nozzle Shuts OFF
02-08-110-003A MAR 03 Interior - Headliner Sagging
03-00-90-001 MAR 03 Steering - Recommended Idler Arm Grease Fitting
03-08-63-001 MAR 03 Body/Frame - Rattle/Pop/Clunk From Vehicle Left Front
99-01-39-007B MAR 03 A/C - Automatic A/C Functional Description
03-01-38-001 MAR 03 A/C - System Sealers/Leak Detection Guidelines
02-08-44-020B MAR 03 Audio System - No Audio From Speakers At Times
01-05-23-001A MAR 03 Brakes - Brake Rotor Lateral Runout Correction
00-05-22-002B MAR 03 Brakes - Rotor Service Guidelines
03-08-52-001C MAR 03 Keyless Entry System - Won't Operate
02-08-42-001A MAR 03 Lighting - Polycarbonate Headlamp Damage Prevention
03-08-111-001 FEB 03 Body - Air Inlet Grille Replacement
03-03-99-001 FEB 03 Electronic Air Suspension - DTC C0660 Explanation
03-04-21-002 FEB 03 Transfer Case - Leaks/Low Power/Vehicle Won't Move
03-08-44-004 FEB 03 Audio System - Automatic Volume Control Inoperative
99-07-30-017A FEB 03 A/T - Oil Cooler Flushing/Flow Check Procedures
02-08-46-010B FEB 03 Accessories - OnStar(R) Canadian French Programming
03-06-01-003 FEB 03 Engine/Transmission - Flexplate/Flywheel Replacement
99-08-64-016A JAN 03 Body - Weatherstrip Maintenance
03-06-04-012 JAN 03 Electrical - Wiring Harness Inspection Recommendations
03-08-50-003 JAN 03 Interior - Seat Heater/Power Memory Seat Inoperative
03-08-52-001 JAN 03 Keyless Entry - System Inoperative
00-02-35-003B JAN 03 Steering - Clunking Noise From Under Hood
99-03-10-009A JAN 03 Wheels/Tires - Wheel Weight Usage
01-07-30-042A DEC 02 A/T - 2-3 Upshift or 3-2 Downshift Clunk Explanation
01-07-30-036B DEC 02 A/T Controls - DTC P0756 Diagnostic Tips
02-06-03-006A DEC 02 Electrical - Testing Before Replacing Battery or Alt
02-03-10-008 DEC 02 Wheels/Tires - Recommended Wheel Nut Torque
02-08-44-018 OCT 02 Audio System - Diagnostics for No Sound From Speakers
02-08-44-017 OCT 02 Audio System - Steering Wheel Radio Source Selection
02-06-03-009A OCT 02 Battery - Charging/Information Tips
02-06-03-010 OCT 02 Battery - Parasitic Drain Information
01-04-18-001A OCT 02 Driveline - 4X4/AWD Driveline Characteristics
02-05-22-004B OCT 02 Electrical - Trailer Brakes Applied With Headlamps ON
02-03-07-002 OCT 02 Steering/Suspension - Revised Camber/Caster Adjustment
02-04-21-007 SEP 02 Drivetrain - New Transfer Case Output Bearing Tool
02-06-01-029 SEP 02 Engine - Needle Bearings Found Upon Oil Change
02-06-03-008 AUG 02 Charging System - Low Voltage Display ON/Dim Lights
02-06-01-028 AUG 02 Engine - Crankcase Flushing Recommendations
02-07-30-028 JUN 02 A/T - Serial Number/Site Code Locations/Id

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Gordonjcp]

I was being facetious. However, you could perhaps look at why American cars all have ridiculously large engines and are geared to have an incredibly low top speed (good acceleration though).

I help out at a place that converts imported American cars for use in the UK (slightly more involved than for the rest of Europe, because lights need to be changed to RHD spec). I'm amazed how many of these 6.5 litre behemoths struggle to make UK motorway speeds. 70mph comes up at about 4500rpm, why for God's sake? They're dangerously slow.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[zero_offset]

Can you cite specific examples? Most everybody in the traffic around me each morning is doing more like 80-90MPH. And off-hand I can't think of any 6.5L engines which are terribly common. In fact, the ONLY American 6.5L engine I'm aware of is a Chevy turbo diesel which is only used in trucks, and yeah it's a dog, but it's also designed for low-end torque (tow-duty). The most common "large" American engine is the 5.7L Chevy 350, probably followed by the 5.0L Chevy 305, or maybe Ford's 302. None of them would have any trouble doing 70 MPH. Most American cars these days have 3.xL sixes, or four cylinder engines.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Gordonjcp]

I suppose this *is* older cars that are being imported. And indeed, some (like the Z28) are very fast indeed). But I find that they all struggle a bit to keep up with UK motorway traffic (legal limit 70mph, but aren't US miles shorter than UK miles) so about 120kph? Something like that. Anyway, my elderly Citroen XM sits at 70 at a little under 3,000 rpm, although it does have a four-speed thirstymatic. The 5-speed manual I had before did 70mph at 2800rpm.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[bucky0]

Shit, on top of that, i drove an 88 honda accord that had a 2 barrel carburator(granted, it got 35mpg, but that's besides the point). I remember talking to a friend of mine with a car made in the 90's that was carburated.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[throbbingbrain.com]

Perhaps American car manufacturers should look at making engines with things like fuel injection, and aluminium cylinder heads and blocks.

Land Rover Range Rover, EFI, Aluminum block and heads: 12mpg city, 16mpg highway.

1995 Pontiac Trans Am, EFI, iron block, push rods (design dates to 1955): 28mpg highway, 300HP.

btw: There are no cars made/sold in the US that are not fuel injected. Emissions killed the carburetor.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Matrix272]

4 ton SUV? Holy crap... that's 8,818.4 (2204.6 x 4) lbs. worth of vehicle. Damn... that's pretty efficient, if you ask me. I mean, seriously, at 25 miles per gallon, if you take 4 tons of prehistoric plants per mile, that means you're moving 4+ tons of modern SUV and the accompanying family for the price of 4 tons of prehistoric plants. Wow... so 1:1 conversion rate of prehistoric plants to modern SUV goodness. Not too shabby.

Of course, you're incredibly wrong in many things... First, the average US car doesn't weigh 9,000 lbs. In fact, It doesn't even weigh HALF that. The highest selling car in the US is the Toyota Camry, which, as of the 2004 edition, weighs a grand total of 3,142 lbs. give or take 100 lbs, depending on the configuration. I understand you were joking, but I just wanted to clarify. So, take the highest selling car weight and add 350 lbs for a couple people... just round it out to 3,500 lbs. That's 1.75 tons (or 1.59 metric tons).

Second, I'm interested to know what car you drive, and how much it costs. I took a brief glance at BMW's website, and I could only find 3 cars that break the 30 mpg barrier (the 700 series, the X3 SUV, and the X5 SUV). The highest one I found was 43mpg. However, I certainly don't consider my research to be the end-all, be-all conclusive summary of BMW models available.

Third, I would hardly call 25mpg "crap". I'd love to see a study that shows when the world will run out of oil, given the past 25 or so years of usage. This planet is billions of years old... I hardly think our driving SUV's around for a couple decades is going to kill it. However, if anyone has a link to a study that shows exactly when we're destined to run out of oil (please, none sponsored by the UN... no offense, but they're a bunch of tree-hugging hippies that would twist and distort facts to suit their own purposes (and they have) anyway), I'd be glad to take a look. My guestimate would be... around the year 29,296. Give or take 10,000 years.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[makapuf]

"25 miles per gallon in liter per 100 km" put into google calc (magic!) is about 9.41 L/100km fur us non-units-impaired people.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[rhombic]

I dunno, I hit 70mph at around 1800rpm in fifth, though unless I'm cruising, I'll keep it in fourth (~2600rpm) so I have some quick power if I need it without downshifting. Fifth is only really much good above 90.

And that's in a car with a cast-iron block ;).

Re:reasonably efficient?

[malfunct]

I make no comments on the efficiency of cars, but I think the fact that it takes 98tons of plants to make one gallon of gasoline speaks volumes on how inefficient the natural process of making oil is.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[GMontag]

All well and cute, but I have no idea what the mileage per gallon is in my Hydrogen Powered Hacker Jeep and I don't care either. If I could not afford the fuel I could not have afforded the payments when I was paying it off.

Good luck to you on your mechanic bills and all of those european fuel taxes!

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Alan Cox]

Not really. An efficient EU car does 50+ so that becomes 40+. Some of the smart cars do a lot better. Amazing how putting fuel costs in tax *on the fuel* motivates the market to innovate instead of letting flat taxes distort it.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a great comparison. Those types of ultra-high-mileage competition cars tend to spend most of their time coasting with the engine off. Plus they're going around a smooth racetrack, not stop-and-go rush hour traffic. It's like comparing a 747 to a hang glider.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[mcflaherty]

On the down side, it doesn't come with a cigarette lighter - you have to light your cigars with 100 dollar bills...

But they do give you the nice Condor egg Omelette when you buy one, Mr. Krustofski.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Ledskof]

I thought the European diesels were so polluting and needed a different emissions package in US because the diesel available in US is crap, and pretty far down on the grade qualities available in Europe.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[cloudmaster]

The last American "new" car I had was a Ford Focus ZX3 - it had a 2 liter 4 cylinder, got around 30 MPG, and ran at about 3500RPM at 75MPH. That was 10 MPH over the interstate highway speed limit, and 20 MPH over the highway limit. My daily driver is an '80 Chevy Caprice (a rare "sport coupe", even) with a 5.7L engine and the high factory rear gears. It cruises at about 2500RPMs at 75 MPH, and has enough torque to accelerate pleasingly quickly, despite weighing a ton and a half, and could fit a spare small car in the trunk. The price? It drinks gas relatively quickly (about 20MPG) - but it's also got 260K miles on the odometer. I should rebuild the engine, but I'm lazy.

American speed limits have been 55 and 65 MPH for years, which is probably why the cars are designed to run in the engine's powerband (which is most efficient) at those speeds.

Howver, you're missing that most older american cars did not use an overdrive gear, which means they had to choose between acceptable acceleration or low cruise RPMs - or poor economy due to the fuel consumption required to have speed and acceleration. Slow acceleration is not acceptable to most American drivers. It's been my experience that even most lightweight UK sports cars have no torque and crummy acceleration - but I imagine they can cruise at high speeds easily...

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn!! Aparently, the diesel fuel in the U.S. has more sulfur.

you MAY be right on the diesels

How about the gas motors?

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

But you forget that a Hummer can go lots of places your Beamer can't go. Like straight up a freakin tree!

Re:reasonably efficient?

[ZerroDefex]

On most American roads the speed limit is so low and there is so much stopping for signs and lights that you end up with much more of a need for low-end acceleration that high-speed efficiency.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[dubious9]

please, none sponsored by the UN... no offense, but they're a bunch of tree-hugging hippies

Care to give some examples?

that would twist and distort facts to suit their own purposes

Um... you mean the goals of the entire global community? That's who the UN represents(aside from the security council, but that's on non-economic issues anyway). And as such there is no coherant 'purpose' of the UN because it's members and therefore opinions is so diverse. Really, your opinion of the UN is assine and ignorant. Name one policy or action that is fool-heartedly 'hippie'

However, if anyone has a link to a study that shows exactly when we're destined to run out of oil

Global oil estimates vary from widely from a few decades to around 150-200 years. Global estimates seem to be only 14 times what what we have already extracted. Add to that an ever-climbing consupmtion rate How about 284 years at present consumption rates, and much less than that given the inevitable increate in consumption rates. I give it ~100 yrs before oil becomes scarce enough to drive it off the market.

Oh, and that survey is by the USGS, I hope that meets your exacting standards. Their estimates are liberal If even the USGS is not sufficient, propose a competeing estimate.

The truth is, unless we find that the core of the earth is made of oil, we're going to run out in a matter of decades (probably 10-20) instead of thousands of years.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[nolife]

Ford Mustang 5.0l with a 2.73 differential is 2000rpm@80mph and 3000@120mph. One of the things I have noticed over the past few years with cars is higher horsepower "ratings" but without the following increase in torque. IMHO, the current peak HP ratings that cars have is for the spec sheet and sales flyers, eventually people are going to figure out that the peak HP rating is almost useless when comparing a cars power. A perfect example is the Elantra I just bought, a 140HP rating but anything under 3500rpm sucks. I had a 1973 Mustang (not the one referenced above) and it to had a rating of 140HP, the difference between the two is night and day.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[leviramsey]

I'm going to assume, given spelling and the fact that it's a soccer website, that it's using Imperial gallons and not US gallons, thus:

2/ Average MPG for a 1.6 litre 'family' car. This figure (27.9 miles/US gallon)...

FWIW, by my computations, the average mpg of US vehicles is about 22.5 mpg.

Methodology: given sales figures of the 10 best-selling light trucks and cars and their associated mileage figures, mileages were averaged using sales amounts as weights.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most folks don't realize this, but US gasoline is already taxed at a roughly 30% to 50% rate (state and local taxes vary). I used to work with price-databases for oil/energy industry. The price spread between gasoline at the pump and being pumped into a station's tanks, is mainly tax, with a small margin for the station's costs/profits.

A half-dollar per gallon (or more) *on the fuel* does not indicate a flat-tax; it's an existing, direct tax on consumption.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[leviramsey]

US automakers have traditionally tended to stick with what works, at least in the mass-market (their leading edge engines, e.g. the Northstar tend to be highly advanced designs). The mainstay of General Motors' full-size and mid-size sedan lineup, the 3800 engine is a cast-iron push-rod design that, save for the addition of electronic fuel injection in the 80's, is basically unchanged for a few decades. In the 3800's defense, it's a virtually indestructible engine which outlasts the cars it's put in.

The Saturn LW200 my mother has hits 70 at about 3000 rpm with a 2.2L Ecotec engine (admittedly, the Ecotec is basically a design from GM Europe).

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Zocalo]

Good point; I'd overlooked that the US has smaller gallons than us Brits, maybe you should try and adopt the Metric system or something? ;) Anyway, on the otherhand, you are taking 20% of my 30mpg to get to the US equivalent of 24mpg, rather than the combined urban/extra-urban mileage. That's a touch under 35mpg at present, which means I'm actually getting a combined average of 30mpg (us), which I think is pretty good for an engine of that capacity.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

I get over 30 miles per gallon urban mileage in my 6 cylinder, 2.5l BMW and over 50mpg extra-urban.

Could you double check your conversions? I don't find any BMW stats that show better than 30 MPG extra-urban.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the European diesels were so polluting and needed a different emissions package in US because the diesel available in US is crap, and pretty far down on the grade qualities available in Europe.

Probably true. But don't forget that processing higher quality fuel comes at a cost. It will increase that plant/fuel ratio.

However the efficiency of a refinery is probably much greater than letting your vehicle filter the crap. So your right to some extent.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Hoser McMoose]

Actually, your car is only doing 26.3 miles to the US gallon (which, presumably was the type of "gallon" that they were talking about). Not at all far off the 25mpg figure quoted. Also, European cars tend to have better fuel economy but burn gas less cleanly than North American cars. The EU is only just now catching up with North America in terms of emissions requirements.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

And an Australian kilometre is 1 European kilometre, which even more complicated, is only 1 Asian km. Surprisingly, a km measured in Africa is equal to a whole 1 km when measured in the US. Geez remembering all this stuff is hard compared to the old imperial system.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Matrix272]

Care to give some examples?

If you have to ask someone to give examples of how they value "nature" over humans, you won't believe them, or you'll make excuses anyway, so I'm not going to waste my time.

Um... you mean the goals of the entire global community? That's who the UN represents (aside from the security council, but that's on non-economic issues anyway). And as such there is no coherant 'purpose' of the UN because it's members and therefore opinions is so diverse.

There's no purpose, or there's no power to enforce its purposes? Considering that the UN has a Charter, and several documents defining what IS and what IS NOT acceptable on planet Earth, I'd say they have a pretty coherent purpose. Apparently, it IS acceptable to deliberately violate over a dozen UN resolutions, but is NOT acceptable to hold someone accountable to their actions. Heh, go figure.

Really, your opinion of the UN is assine and ignorant.

I prefer to think of my opinion of the UN as "realistic" and "logical".

Name one policy or action that is fool-heartedly 'hippie'.

First, how about the budget of the UN? The United States pays so much of the budget, yet almost every favorable resolution for US or its allies is opposed by the other nations? How about the latest incident with the Israelis building a wall to protect themselves from the Islamic extremists who seem intent on killing every free soul on the world (specifically, they're building a wall to hold back the Palestinians, but the UN seems to think that somehow infringes on the Palestinians' right to kill Israelis). But again, if I have to point out examples, you won't believe what I say, or you'll make excuses anyway.

Global oil estimates vary from widely from a few decades to around 150-200 years.

And yet, you give no link to back up that assertion...

Global estimates seem to be only 14 times what what we have already extracted.

Maybe you missed the heading of the page... It says "World Undiscovered Assessment Results Summary" and it summarizes the estimated amount of oil that we haven't discovered yet. Great... if we haven't discovered it yet, we can't assert how accurate or inaccurate the information is. So, next point please.

Add to that an ever-climbing consupmtion rate How about 284 years at present consumption rates, and much less than that given the inevitable increate in consumption rates.

Well, even if it does take 100 years to run out of oil... WHO CARES? We've barely been USING oil for 100 years! Oil was first used in the 1850's as an energy source, and look at everything we've accomplished since then. Don't you think we'll figure out a new energy source by 2103?

Man, sometimes it must hurt to be so pessimistic.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

WRONG. The US has not paid it's UN dues in over 30 years. And it gets away with it. Given that I don't put too much stock in the rest of your comment.

Re:reasonably efficient?

[Matrix272]

WRONG. The US has not paid it's UN dues in over 30 years. And it gets away with it. Given that I don't put too much stock in the rest of your comment.

WRONG. The US paid ALL of its debt to the UN in September - October of 2002. Do some research on the Helms-Biden legislation if you don't believe me.

Oh, and the US has a policy of supporting up to 25% of the UN's budget...

Isn't most of the original mass water?

[YetAnotherAnonymousC]

Isn't most of the original biomass water that does not end up in the oil/coal/gas deposits? Or am I missing something.

I just don't quite see the point of the guy who did the calculations/report... and I did read the article. This is just throwing around big meaningless numbers. At least Ig Nobel candidate material is train-wreck-interesting.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[andykuan]

Well here are some percent water composition numbers for various fruits and veggies from a Virginia Farm Bureau article.

Let's say plants are 75% water (probably a bit high, but I'm being conservative here). That 4 tons of wet-weight per mile becomes 1 ton of wet-weight per mile. It's all in the same order of magnitude. 2000 pounds of dried spinach to push my car 1 mile is still a lot of plant matter.

Anyway, I think the point of this calculation is similar to the point being made by those illustrative lessons (say, in Time Magazine) about how many miles high a trillion dollars in debt would be if we stacked 1 dollar bills, or how many miles of muscle we have in our body, or the number of land mines per person have been buried in Korea. It just offers a different perspective.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think 75% is probably still too low. The human body is 98% water, so I think plants are probably closer to that.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[YetAnotherAnonymousC]

I actually think you are low. I think it's probably closer to 98-99% water, especially in the case of prehistoric plants when the earth was much warmer.

I do agree that this is similar to the piling-dollar-bills of debt example. Namely, all style and no substance. Why dollar bills? Why not pennies, or $100 bills? Yeah, it's a different perspective. An irrelevant one. An interesting perspective would be an economic analysis of how national debt hurts/helps an economy, Kenesyian (sp?) theory, etc.

There's nothing inherently wrong with article like this for curiosity's sake; it's just when they are done as trumped-up press releases by a major university that it becomes silly.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[ivan256]

It's a selective usage of statistics at best and an irrelevant spin on an irrelevant fact designed to decieve people to win supporters in the most likely case.

This article is fraudulent.

Lets start with the easy one. First, they write off as waste all the other products of the oil that don't become gasoline. So, remove another 50% from the tally...

Next, they add the weight of all the plant that didn't manage to become oil, even after all the water is disregarded. In fact, the multiply their figure by 10,750 (there's a few orders of magnitude in there if you werent counting).

Finally, and most importantly, it doesn't matter how many dead, prehistoric plants were required to make the oil we use. It's an irrelevant number, no matter how large or small. Any meaning derived out of this article was conjured by spin and implication.

Ditch the propaganda. If you don't have solutions, don't waste money on research.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[ivan256]

Sorry, I meant to say if you're not looking for solutions, don't waste money on research...

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[poot_rootbeer]

Could you maybe tell us WHY it's "fraudulent" to include all the parts of the prehistoric plants that don't get turned into gasoline?

Take that away, and you've taken away the part of the figure that people can relate to. We all know what living plants look like, what with their water mass and their insoluble fiber. If you take only the stuff that becomes gasoline, what does that look like? Is that crude oil? I don't even know. Now THAT would be a meaningless statistic.

it doesn't matter how many dead, prehistoric plants were required to make the oil we use.

I disagree. No one would argue that oil is a renewable resource, but studies like these demonstrate just how much of a resource drain it is.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[xdroop]

Ditch the propaganda. If you don't have solutions, don't waste money on research.

Ok, this is stunningly steaming horseshit.

While I'm definitely not a rabid Climate Changeologist (or other made up word), I can appreciate that sometimes pure research has no point other than itself. Maybe there will be a use for it (or a solution to the problems it identifies) -- but sticking one's head in the sand in no way makes the problem go away.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[ivan256]

Take that away, and you've taken away the part of the figure that people can relate to.

That's why it's fraudulent. They needed to artificially inflate the number to make people relate to it. I can think of a million apt analogies, but let's suffice it to say that I could relate any meaning I wanted in any reasearch I wanted to do if I were allowed to multiply the resluting data by 10,000, or .00001.

To make maters worse, there are plenty of valid arguments against oil use. There is no reason to fabricate addtional arguments by twisting some meaningless numbers into a suggestive paper.

but studies like these demonstrate just how much of a resource drain it is.

No, studies like this plant a totally false impression of how much of a resource drain it is. We could extract the same energy from far fewer plants because we don't have to throw away 99.990% of the plant before we start.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[ivan256]

I corrected that comment in my followup to myself.

A agree. It's horseshit as written, but it's not what I meant to say. I didn't proofread enough. Obviously you can't have a solution before the research begins.

However, research with no hope of productive outcome is a waste and nothing more.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was very special. Thanks for sharing your strong emotional reaction to this study with the group.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[mugnyte]

Howabout you wood-chip the plants, dehydrate, oxidize and then pulverize the remaining ash? So that 99% of the water, oils, waxes and other soluble components of plant material are removed. Now you're talking about a lot of plants to make a little bit of ash.

Now compress and heat all this ash into crude over a long time. Distill this crude oil into *many* components, only some of which are refined into gasoline. It doesn't surprise me that quite a lot of plants have to make 1 gallon of gas.

What insight does this perspective give us? It seems like nothing new to me. Burn away! The sooner we're into a panic about the price of fossil fuels, the sooner we'll have some real change towards weening ourselves off of it. Human nature acts no other way. We are an emotional animal, powered by greed and stupid at the macro level.

There are quite a few scenarios online detailing the coming tragedy of this oil scarcity. They seem plausible to me and are all quite scary.

mug

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[drinkypoo]

I disagree. No one would argue that oil is a renewable resource, but studies like these demonstrate just how much of a resource drain it is.

That's a load of hooey. If you want to tell people what a resource drain cars are, then figure out how much oil is in the ground, then how much oil is turned into gasoline, then determine how much gas is burned by automobiles. Tell people that if they keep going at the rate they are, then the fossil fuels needed to produce that gasoline will run out at a certain date. Then tell them that if automobile ownership continues to grow at its current rate, then the fossil fuels will run out at this other (presumably sooner) date.

Frankly I believe that the reason this has not been done already is that the date is so far off as to have no meaning to most people. Which of course shows that it's not as much of a resource drain on a global scale as you would like to make it out to be. If it is, then please make with these figures.

The real cost of the use of petrochemicals for any purpose, whether it be fossil fuels, making plastics, or making vaseline, has to involve the cost of getting it out of the ground, both direct financial and environmental; the cost of shipping, again both financial and environmental; and the cost of refining... you get where I'm going with this. You can't just tell people that so many tons of plants went into this oil, because as the comment you reply to says, no one cares. Those plants are dead already, they have become oil fer chrissake, the fact that they were ever plants is wholly irrelevant. What is relevant is, how much longer can we keep pulling oil out of the ground, and what is it doing to our earth to be doing so, to be refining it, and to be burning it in our cars.

When so many alternatives exist (such as that white naptha fuel, or biodiesel, or non-IC technologies like fuel cells, air cars, and so on) it is irresponsible to be burning any kind of fossil fuel, whether it be kerosene, diesel fuel, gasoline, or anything else. Likewise, our dependency on petroleum plastic must stop. But by telling people how many tons of plants died and made it possible for them to tool around in their excursion, you are both lying to them in a very real way, and not telling them anything useful. [statistically] No one will give a fuck about some dead prehistoric plants.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[Have Blue]

No, a study showing how much oil is left in the planet would show how much of a resource drain it is, and *nobody* knows that.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[meta-monkey]

You're absolutely right. I think we need to do all we can to be good stewards of the earth...try not to make a mess in the first place, and clean it up when we do. However, I think our dependence on fossil fuels will end long before we run out of fossil fuels. I seriously doubt cars will still be running on gasoline 100 years from now, as new technologies become available, and it becomes harder and harder to extract oil from deeper and deeper in increasingly remote corners of the planet.

I think it was economist Walter Williams who came up with this example, but he may have simply retold it from someone else. Imagine you absolutely love pistachio nuts. A friend presents you with a room, empty but for a giganitc pile of nuts on the floor that take up half the space in the room. You can eat all you want, but the only conditions are that you can't bring the nuts out of the room, nor can you throw the discarded shells out of the room, either. How long until all the nuts are gone?

The answer is never. Eventually, it becomes too expensive to gather the nuts. The unshelled nuts get lost in the mess of the discarded shells, and you give up and go to the store to buy nuts, instead. Same thing with energy...right now, the optimal economic solution is to keep using oil. When it gets to be more and more expensive to use that oil, you won't see our world grind to a halt...you'll see either more effecient use of the oil, or a switch to cheaper forms of energy altogether.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[CharlieG]

Actually, what I find interesting is "4 tons" like that is a BIG number

I live on a small plot of land in NY - 50x100, and most of THAT is house

From April till Mid October, I take 10 cubic feet of grass clippings/week off my lawn. Call it 28 weeks. That's 280 cubic feet of grass clippings, at 24 lbs/cu ft, or 6720 lbs (Note only about 1/4 of that property is grass) - then figure in leaves from the trees - another 120 cubic feet, at 14lbs/cu ft. Thats 1680 lbs - so I "raise" a total crop of 8400lbs of clippings/leaves per year, or 4.2 tons. Note, this doesn't count growth of the trees. Maple comes in at about 37lbs/cu ft (DRY - green is MORE) Oak is about 45 lbs/cuft. Think how many cubic feet are in an oak tree - you probably have 10 tons or more in a typical full grwn tree

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[Anonymous Coward]

I really do absolutely love pistachio nuts, so I don't need to imagine it. I'm having trouble with this room though. Is there a toilet in there?

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[EastCoastSurfer]

However, research with no hope of productive outcome is a waste and nothing more.

I agree. Just check my sig :p

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[cowbutt]

To make that analogy more accurate, the shop is a few weeks walk away and so you need a certain amount of energy from the pistachios in the room so as not to starve to death on the journey.

If we leave it too late to migrate to the next generation of (hopefully sustainable/renewable) energy sources, we'll find ourselves stranded without the energy to do so at all. Like running out of fuel on the motorway because we didn't want to take a 10 mile detour to refill the tank.

--

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not bad. Now you can travel 25 miles a year.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[ivan256]

Sorry. Didn't see it. I have sigs turned off...

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you maybe tell us WHY it's "fraudulent" to include all the parts of the prehistoric plants that don't get turned into gasoline?

Good question. I was also wondering why the study didn't include all of the staplers, hotdogs, and optical mice that don't get turned into gasoline.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious? You collect 10 cu. ft. of clippings per week, and you claim a weight of 24 lbs per cu. ft. I find it spectacularly improbable that you are collecting 240 lbs of grass clippings per week (from your "small plot", no less)!

Don't smoke crack, kids.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[meta-monkey]

No, that's what makes it even more interesting. You have to hunt for good nuts AND dodge poop.

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[Peorth]

Now all you have to do is bury and compress your yard refuse and add a few million years...then FIND it, drill for it, barrel it, refine it from crude into usable gasoline, and pour it into your car. Then, drive somewhere between 15-27 miles (I hope you don't drive a Porsche or SUV), and then wash, rinse, and repeat. ^_^

Though, I hope you write this down. Slashdot archives may not be available in 15 million years (give or take), but...then again, neither probably will your car!

Re:Isn't most of the original mass water?

[Anonymous Coward]

They needed to artificially inflate the number to make people relate to it. I can think of a million apt analogies...

Now who's artificially inflating numbers? ;-)

What is the equivelent in......

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok... lessee... 98 tons of plants/gallon... hmmm... I'll bet that we could get more efficient energy extraction from flannel-clad, tree-hugging lesbians (not that there's anything wrong that).

Inefficient?

[jeffkjo1]

Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

I think it shows how inefficient mother nature is. Stupid nature, not forseeing our need to drive Hummers and Ford Excursions!

Re:Inefficient?

[Hard_Code]

"I think it shows how inefficient mother nature is. Stupid nature, not forseeing our need to drive Hummers and Ford Excursions!"

Yeah, but Mother Nature punishes with rollover fatalities. What nature givith, she taketh. :)

Re:Inefficient?

[amightywind]

I think it shows how inefficient mother nature is. Stupid nature, not forseeing our need to drive Hummers and Ford Excursions!

Mother Nature has blessed us with a more efficient power source. It is called Uranium. It doesn't cause nasty climate change either.

Re:Inefficient?

[pmz]

I think it shows how inefficient mother nature is.

Exactly. The Sun put out 1000 fuckinbazilliwatts per second, only to fuel a planet that will be destroyed in 5 billion years, anyway. Kinda sad.

Re:Inefficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

Escalade, escalade!!!!

Re:Inefficient?

[Sevn]

"Oil an emergency?!?!? HAH!! It's about time the people who run this planet of yours realize that to be dependant on a mineral slime just doesn't make sense. Now, the energizing of hydrogen....."

--Doctor Who

How about free fuel?

[ProppaT]

Hmm, so I could burn 4 tons of plants per mile to drive my gas truck....OR I could go to McDonalds, have them dump out their fry oil into my bio-diesel truck for free and get about 50mpg.

Silly humans...

Come on, get reasonable!

[Anonymous Coward]

25 mpg for a *reasonably* efficient car??!!!

I normally get around 45 mpg in my car, which is just a bog standard Vauxhall Astra, nothing particularly fuel efficient.

Good heavens, the wonders having a heavy fuel-tax will force car manufacturers to...

What's the point here?

[AnhZone]

Why do we care about prehistoric plants that turned into underground petrochemical deposits millions for years ago. I agree that cars are ridiculously inefficient, but underground oil is not one of the natural features I am worried about being disturbed. Above-ground pollution, oil spills, global warming, yes, but why cry for rotten prehistoric plants?

John

Re:What's the point here?

[acid_zebra]

One day my friend, we are going to run out of rotten prehistoric plants. This article is intended to show that we are going through them VERY fast (yes, we knew already, but some bitheads like numbers, go figure)

And then plenty of people will be crying for them rotten prehistoric plants.

Re:What's the point here?

[floydigus]

If we were to switch from burning prehistoric plants to modern ones (i.e. veg oil) then we would no longer be adding to carbon emissions by driving cars because the growing plants consume as much C02 as a car generates.

Some people will have you believe that this is pointless because we couldn't grow enough oilseed rape or whatever. I say let's try it and find out.

My next car will be a big, inefficient, carbon neutral monster.

Re:What's the point here?

[snarkh]

Above-ground pollution, oil spills, global warming, yes, but why cry for rotten prehistoric plants?

Exactly, seems like a strange obsession.

There is plenty of energy to go around, just look at the sun!

Re:What's the point here?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

The point is we should celebrate. Those plants died believing that that was all there was to their existence. But millions of years later the energy they stored during their lifetimes has found a new purpose. Maybe millions of years after you die you'll find a purpose too. I think it's wonderful.

Re:What's the point here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read up on "thermodynamics" and "entropy" - then you might have half a clue!

Re:What's the point here?

[monkeydo]

Yes, someday tens of thousands of years from now. Unless the environmentatlists let us start building nuclear powerplants again.

Re:What's the point here?

[shreak]

I don't weep for the long dead plants. I am, however, concerned with the carbon that was locked away with that plant (In the form of oil or coal...). Now that it's been dug up and burned, it's floating around in the atmosphere. There are tons and tons of locked away (and safe) carbon in the earth's crust. By mineing it and burning it we introduce it into the atmosphere.

It's VERY difficult to get that stuff back down into the sea or crust. It wants to stay in the air, where we don't want it!

=Shreak

Re:What's the point here?

[claud9999]

Think of the plants! The poor poor plants! Ooooh the tragedy!

(Sorry, had to say it.)

Re:What's the point here?

[maraist]

Unless the environmentatlists let us start building nuclear powerplants again.

How does this solve the problem? Now you exchange the abundant low-energy organic fuel for scarse high-power solar(nova)-generated fuel.

We can always burry a couple continents worth of trees.. Can't exactly detonate a star yet.

I think the answer is in more efficient consumption, and more efficient energy-extraction. We're always going to find ever more power-hungry uses of fuel, so simply expanding our extraction of a particular rare resources isn't much progress.

Thanks to economics/capitalism, what's going to happen is that people will extract from what-ever resource is cheapest.. Until that resource becomes more expensive than competitors (natural gas, renuable, nuclear, etc). Each competator in turn will be depleated until the next most expensive option can compete..

This goes on until it's cheaper to research alternate/exotic forms of energy.. All along the way, each consumer experiences higher prices and thus is inclined to be more conscientious about their consumption habbits. Right now fuel/electricity/heating are the cheapest elements of our life-styles. It's what's enabling us to grow in socio-technological respects. But as we start to struggle to maintain our life-styles; we'll find the motivation..

In summary; there are no cheap/easy solutions our fuel/pollution problems.

Re:What's the point here?

[monkeydo]

Nuclear power is cheaper, cleaner, and safer than the alternatives. It is also indefinately sustainable and produces much less waste when breeder reactors are used. I don't know what point you are trying to make about blowing up stars. The only reason that nuclear generated electricity is not cheap and plentiful is because of artificial constraints on the market.

Re:What's the point here?

[maraist]

There is plenty of energy to go around, just look at the sun!

But energy isn't the problem.. Power is the problem.. Power is energy consumed per unit of time.

For example, We have a thousand watt micro-wave, but our electric bill is in "kilo-watt-hours". If we divide the electric bill by the fractional number of hours we used the microwave, we'd see how much power the microwave consumed on average (which should be near 1,000 watts).

Look at how we cooked food several hundred years ago. It was by wood-fire or coal-fire. Thus a single tree could feed a family for quite a while. Now we use a microwave for 10 minutes per family member (or an oven for half an hour).. So let's say it's a kilowatt-hour of energy. Solar-cells which are (lets say) 25% efficient, and only produce a couple watts of energy over a decent period of time (don't have numbers in front of me), mean that the raw energy from the sun is not enough to feed our current appetite.

The sun IS enough to feed us.. We could use a magnifier and focus it on our raw food for only a few minutes and heat it up nicely. But it's not convinient.. Thus the "convinence" is what drives us to use more powerful mechanisms.. And thus require larger amounts of energy than we really need.

Look at a 3 cylinder geo metro.. Or a 1975 volkswagon desel. They have hardly any horse power. But consume their energy slower and more efficiently.. Likewise, coal-burning steam engines have very little power.. But use weaker wood/coal fuels. (Where a wood burner only uses a couple years-old-tree worth of sun-shine).

Driving 45 is a near optimum speed for most vehicles.. It can use a high enough gearing that allows "some" acceleration, and isn't at a speed that allows rolling resistance / air-resistance to dramatically affect efficiency... Driving any speed faster than 45 mph has a dramatic effect on fuel efficiency..

And aside from the highways, 45mph is the speed limit... Yet, we drive 80/90 mph all the time.. This can drop our milage almost in half.. Moreoever, in a traffic jam, we "floor-it" to prevent people from cutting us off.. This requires an enormous amount of power (even though it's only over a short period of it). Why? The bursts of speed don't even get us there any faster.. It's the social issue not wanting to be taken advantage of (being constantly cut off).

Likewise, we get gas guzzling vehicles today, not because they go any faster, and often not even because they accelerate faster. But because we are competative.

Likewise, for a short while, people took the concord instead of more efficient, cheaper, more luxurious flights. On the outset you might say because it is faster. But in reality, an air-port's wait-time is comparable to it's flight-time. What's 3 hours saved if you have a random possibility of getting a 2 hour delay. Sure the concord's price meant short lines, but that too is part of the point (socio-devisions of energy-consumption).

Given the rise of electic-ovens, then microwaves, then air-conditioners, then computer/home-entertainment-centers. I feel it's highly likely that we'll invent more power-hungry "normal-use" items.

Imagine the discovery of teleportation.. Lets assume that it consumes mega or giga watts of power. How useful would this be? And therefore, how much power would it consume? You think our current spending habbits are bad?

Now, about the sun having enough energy. Just look at the enormous amounts of power we achieve from solar cells.. This is a direct realization of the energy ebbing through our solar system.. You might scoff and say our solar cells are currently too innefficient.. But we're talking about 25% efficient cells... We can only get 4 times better.

How about large mirror-array power plants? Well, if you look they are enormous in scale. And they still take time to boil their target water.

How about our fossil fuels? Well, they took millions of acres of space and compressed them over dozens

Re:What's the point here?

[butane_bob2003]

I think the article is meant to be taken in the context of carbon balance. No one wants you to cry for fallen plants, the suggestion is ludacris. Burning millions of barrels of oil per day releases into the air much more C02 than can be absorbed by the earth's plant coverage. It took millions of years to lock all that C02 under the earths surface, and just a century or two to release it into the atmosphere. Intentionally throwing off the carbon balance is probably one of the dumbest things humans have ever done.

Re:What's the point here?

[js3]

first thought that I got. So what? What's the point of cyring over a bunch of dead fossils? If we didn't use it it would still be dead fossils. Many have said the calculations are fradulent and I agree, the numbers in the article will look fishy to anyone who has completed high school. 4 tons of dead animals per gallon is far better than 4 tons of dead animals of nothing. It is mother nature that is inefficient, and if cars were even more efficient than they are now, it will wouldn't make any dent in how inefficient nature is.

Re:What's the point here?

[maraist]

I don't know what point you are trying to make about blowing up stars.

You can't synthesize fuel indefinitely in breeder reactors. That's the idealized perpetual motion machine (keep itself going forever and extract energy from it in the process with no additional input). So if you produce enough [breeder] reactors world-wide, you will eventually deplete the world's supply of this already rare material in no time at all. While the reactors may last for some time with the fuel you give them, that time is most certainly finite.

The only reason that nuclear generated electricity is not cheap and plentiful is because of artificial constraints on the market.

Nuclear power is cheaper, cleaner, and safer than the alternatives.
I liken nuclear-power being safer than ? to the misleading comment that air-travel is statistically safer than driving. If you include that most car-drivers are morons, and few pilots are morons, then I might agree.

Take this little factoid.. Statistically, the concord jet was the safest method of travel of all types of travel ever experienced.. Why? Because there were zero accidents.. And zero / {small-number} ~ zero accidents / unit. Then when the concord DID eventually crash, it became the least safe airplane in the world. (Because the DC-10, with it's bad record, had MANY MANY total flights). Since 1 / {small number} compared to {small number} / {very large number} happened to not work in the concords favor (heard this on NPR; don't know the actual numbers).

I would believe the statistic of air-planes being safer than driving a car if there were as many flights are cars driven on a daily basis. "not a fair comparison" you might say? Well, I suggest that it is the volume across such a diversity that is the problem, and that if you are as skillfull as a pilot, then you'll be as safe as an airplane while driving; if not more. Note that it's less the skill and more the ability to concentrate while performing a life-threatening task (as opposed to fiddling with the radio/make-up/conversations/etc).

Likewise, look at the number of nuclear reactors in the world.. Now look at the number of dams. How many dams have failed; killing hundreds/thousands of people? Maybe a couple a long time ago, but I haven't heard of any recently. Moreover, I haven't even heard of dam-scares (though I'd probably be more scared living beneath a dam, than living near a reactor).

Alterantively, look at coal-fired plants.. How often does its boiler room risk the lives of neighboring town/ countries? Sure there is long-term damage done by coal-plants, but the same is the case for nuclear reactors.. spent-fuel leaks, improper disposal, neighboring land of both the plant and disposal site being un-inhabitable.

As for the cost.. I don't know where you're getting that nuclear power is cheaper. For countries that wish to be self-sufficient, and are willing to accept the ENORMOUS cost of waste disposal, it might be over-all a better solution.

The reason it's so expensive in America is not that it's held back, but that we are very concerned with safety both before, during and after usage. Skepticism is a good thing, in my opinion.

Perhaps there are some other reasons I'm not aware of for America's expensive nuclear reactors.. But this is the first time I'm hearing someone suggest Nuclear is, in fact, cheaper.

I'm fine with nuclear personally. And I wish we'd ramp up investment dollars to develop more modern / efficient reactors. I'm just not convinced that nuclear is the panacea that you're making it out to be.

Re:What's the point here?

[monkeydo]

In terms of individual accidents hydro-electric power is the LEAST safe form of generation and nuclear is the safest. Individual hydro-electric accidents, while rare, typically kill thousands. Long term, oil and natural gas are probably the least safe, but nuclear is still the safest (maybe solar is safer, but that doesn't really count). For some data, you might want to check out these tables.
And don't forget that when considering the human hazards of coal and oil you must consider the deaths and injuries associated with mining and drilling/refining operations.

Better than that

[cybercuzco]

this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

Its even better than that! Internal combustion engines are only about 25% efficient, so for every ten gallons of gas you put into your car, only 2.5 gallons are actually used to propel you forward, the rest is just used to heat up the engine and exhaust.

Re:Better than that

[JanneM]

Not even that. Out of that energy, a good deal turns into losses elsewhere, like transmission and gearbox (stuff you can do without with for instance electric motors). I believe the 'real' number is closer to 15%.

Re:Better than that

[slim]

the rest is just used to heat up the engine and exhaust. ... and planet...

Re:Better than that

[Waffle Iron]

Not even that. Out of that energy, a good deal turns into losses elsewhere, like transmission and gearbox (stuff you can do without with for instance electric motors). I believe the 'real' number is closer to 15%.

Actually when you account for all losses, a car is 0% efficient. Start with your car in your garage; its kinetic energy is zero. Now drive on a 100 mile round trip, using 4 gallons of gas.

When you get back, put your car back in the garage; its kinetic energy is zero again. You have just used up several hundred megajoules of energy, and you have nothing to show for it.

Re:Better than that

[Anonymous Coward]

morons,
for the given temperature range that our automobile engines work in the carnot (perfect) cycle is only like 40% efficient. most gasoline engines that are produced today are around 35-38% efficient. so they are 85-95% efficient for what they can actually achieve.
if you are gonna throw numbers out you need to know what they mean.

Re:Better than that

[drinkypoo]

You lose 10 to 25 percent between the back of the engine and the wheels, depending on what kind of differential you have, if it's FWD/RWD/AWD, auto or manual, et cetera. 15-20% is a decent estimate for a car with a manual transmission. Automatic cars these days often have a lockup torque converter which, once the car is at speed, is just as efficient as having a manual transmission; in some cases moreso, because the transmission is at that point behaving like a simpler system. In a non-hybrid car, you also piss away a lot of power braking, at least in town; Hybrids have electric motors which are around 80% efficient for both generating and regenerating, so they save immense amounts of power in town.

Re:Better than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Moron, you should be taking that 100 mile round trip, not the net change in position. We're not talking about kinetic energy, we're talking about work.

Go back to high school.

Re:Better than that

[Waffle Iron]

Moron, you should be taking that 100 mile round trip, not the net change in position. We're not talking about kinetic energy, we're talking about work.

Dufus, we're talking about motion, not work. In a frictionless environment, you could make the round trip with an arbitrarily small amount of work. All of the work that a car does goes only to overcome friction and provide kinetic energy that will be wasted by the brakes. Essentially all of the energy used by a car becomes waste heat. As I said, a car's efficiency is zero.

Re:Better than that

[cybercuzco]

Thats work out of the engine itself, there ar driveshaft losses, gearbox losses, friction losses in the bearings and tires etc. I stand by my 25% number

Re:Better than that

[newhoggy]

Its even better than that! Internal combustion engines are only about 25% efficient, so for every ten gallons of gas you put into your car, only 2.5 gallons are actually used to propel you forward, the rest is just used to heat up the engine and exhaust.

And 100% of that 25% is lost to friction. Imagine if we could eliminate friction. We'd be able to accelerate to speed and just coast without using any gas, all the way around the world.

For that reason - space flight is probably the most efficient mode of transport to date! Strange - it doesn't feel that way.

Re:so give them up

[Biff98]

The day Bill Gates says Windows sucks and Linux is really the way to go.

Thank goodness for research like this

[TopShelf]

That certainly explains the foul smell I can't get out of the seats...

Re:Thank goodness for research like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Try using the toilet next time. :)

What about thermal depolymerization?

[Xiver]

I read an interesting article at Discover.com. Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year.

I think this is a huge step in the right direction, I'll be very interested to see what happens once the plant is online.

Re:What about thermal depolymerization?

[Colonel Cholling]

Does that mean vegans will have to keep using the old plant-based fossil fuels?

Re:What about thermal depolymerization?

[gotw]

I think this is a huge step in the right direction
Is it now!? There are lots of good reasons not to cut down on motor vehicles other than the fact that oil might one day run out, especially in urban areas.
Mixing high speed traffic with pedestrian traffic, especially high volume pedestrian traffic has always seemed crazy to me. The way that we just accept road deaths as part of life, and the fact that UK law deems death by dangerous driving to be a seperate crime to manslaughter extends this attitude wherein people do not take full responsibility for the way that they drive their cars and the consequences thereof.
Antisocial/toxic pollutants are an obvious (although diminishng) point. Diesel engines in particular chuck out some really unpleasant stuff whenever I'm behind them, I don't know what it is but maybe someone can tell me what is in that black soot that they chuck out to a lesser or greater extent whenever they start. Of course emissions are getting better, but poorer people who are forced to drive a car in a society where it's nessecary are going to driver older, crappier cars with nastier emissions. A recent advert by Transport for London (londons transport body, responsible for tube, bus, street management and transport integration amongst other things) quoted the figure that 1 in 5 cars would fail an EU emissions test and quoted some 5 digit number of deaths caused by them.
Damage to buildings. Burning hydrocarbons is always going to contribute to acid rain, many statues in rome are melting away. Whenever I go down the eastern avenue I wonder how white all the grey houses once were.
I could go on ... I could talk about health (how many people stumble into car from home, out of car into office, into lift, into chair). I could talk about the segregation and unpleasant territorial attitudes that the car can bring. I could talk about the way that roads divide areas and slice inner city areas to peices.
The point is that 200 years ago our cities were not built for the motor car. And now many (most?) cities, especially those in north america put tha car first. We need to find alternatives to HGVs running about through the centre of town. We need good metropolitan transit systems, with public subsidy (to a redistributive end poorer people effectively pay less, and are not forced to drive old vehicles which pollute and stigmatise). I think the use of roads for long distance traffic is more acceptable mind, long distance road traffic is segregated from pedestrian traffic, safer for the occupants of the vehicle and will always be cheaper than long distance, low volume rail or other means of transit. The coach seems pretty cheap if you need. What this dosn't mean is that we can keep going about burning bloody hydrocarbons all the time. At some point we're going to be forced to find some other way of doing it (aren't we), countries all had a point where they built up a lot of their infrastructure ... why can't we put investment in again now? While we're at it we may as well find a better way of doing things.

Re:What about thermal depolymerization?

[Xiver]

Uhh... No matter what form of transport you use, be it public or private, It still needs to be powered by something, not to mention your home, workplace, favorite resturant.
Unless of couse we jump in with the luddites and get rid of all of the evil electical things we own.

Re:What about thermal depolymerization?

[gotw]

It's not a matter of ludditism.
What I was actually arguing for was progress. I said that 1) we should change the way we use the car ... especially within cities as it has a big impact on quality of life, especially for the poorest. and that 2) Where we do need cars we should put resources into finding new, better ways of fuelling them.
You know, progress!

Re:What about thermal depolymerization?

[Pebble]

Mod the parent up! This >is an interesting article.

Re:What about thermal depolymerization?

[DougWebb]

Not only will TDP allow us to make new oil from any organic waste (from farm waste to that big plastic box you're looking at) but it'll be a fraction of the current cost, too. In the article they state that oil can be produced for US$8 to US$12 a barrel, but todays price is about $30/barrel. Even the long-term post-WWII average is $15-$19/barrel.

http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm

The company building these TDP plants is currently building a large-scale plant in Japan. The Japanese don't have their own oil sources, but I expect that they'll convert completely over to manufactured oil as soon as they can, so they can stop importing oil, and may even become an exporter.

Re:What about thermal depolymerization?

[Makarakalax]

This would be a good thing - if it was discovered after we'd moved the majority of burning-oil uses onto alternative fuel sources. If we start discovering new ways to produce oil our streets will forever be smoggy, our skies full of acid rain and our world in general polluted and (possibly) ruined.

Otherwise oil is great, plastics are fantastically useful, oil derivatives are unmatched portable power sources. We just burn them too much, we need alternatives forced on us. Leave the synthetic oil solutions alone for ~20 years.

Re:What about thermal depolymerization?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the linked article and it will tell you the amount of oil you could get from the average adult. Adjust for the appropriate weight and you'll have your answer.

Re:What about thermal depolymerization?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget, this process has a few other benefits as well:

1) No more landfill worries. We're recycling our waste into fuel instead of dumping it in landfills.

2) Much less toxic waste. The process will work with any type of organic toxin, and heavy metals get turned into a safe form that doesn't cause trouble. About the only thing you can't fix is radioactivity.

There are cars that do a very good job cleaning up the secondary products of combustion. I read about a Japanese car that with exhaust that was cleaner than the ambient smog in some cities. So we might be able to deal wtih that satisfactorily, though I agree with you that currently we're doing a lot of damage with this stuff...read The Dying of the Trees for a pretty horrifying account of what it's doing to our forests.

But alternative sources aren't necessarily benign, either. Hydrogen could hurt the ozone layer, running the whole country on solar would take a lot of space that could otherwise be devoted to wilderness, nuclear creates the one waste problem that TD can't deal with, etc. TD won't fix everything but it sure looks like a huge step forward to me.

Re:What about thermal depolymerization?

[Anonymous Coward]

The oil produced from the TDP is also typically a lighter oil then crude. Therefore if you are intending on distilling it further into petrol (cars), or kerosene (planes) you get more value out of a TDP oil barrel then a crude oil barrel even if they were the same price.

Simply because the TDP oil is closer to the desired product, requiring less energy to refine, and less waste. However since the final part of TDP is already a distillation phase, it is more likely that purpose built plants will be built to concentrate on fuel generation.

Recycling the leftover heavy crude from existing oil refinery plants, and/or plastic recycling are good candidates for this purpose.

Re:What about thermal depolymerization?

[adpowers]

Amen, brother

Comparisons?

[confu2000]

Anyone want to take a stab at how much a horse eats per mile? I guess to be fair, you'd probably want to multiply it by 4 at least. Even then it's only 4 horsepower versus like 100-150 in your standard economy car.

Re:Comparisons?

[lennart78]

The fact that 'your standard economy car' is able to generate 100 - 150 Horsepower does not mean it actually /does/.
The french Citroen 2CV is/was a lightweight car that could get you from a to b with a 2 Horsepower engine. No, it didn't have SIPS, rollbars and heavy steel plating like todays cars, but it makes you wonder if you actually /need/ all that power to get where you need to be...

Re:Comparisons?

[Gordonjcp]

It's not *literally* two horsepower. 2CV comes from the old French "Fiscal Rating" system. It's also a rather poetic reference to the two pistons, shuttling back and forth in the incredibly light (I can pick up the complete engine with one hand) aircooled boxer twin that powers these great wee cars.

The early versions were around 400-450cc (can't remember exactly) and produced about 18bhp at the wheels. The last versions were 625cc and produced something more like 30bhp. In the Citroen Dyane they had a crude supercharger (pressurised air from the huge cooling fan fed the carburettor) which was good for another 5hp.

The later Visa had a 650cc boxer twin engine, with a little over 35bhp. The boxer four engine in the GSA had overhead cams (each with a timing belt of its own), a bigger carb, and produced a whopping (for its day) 67hp from 1300cc. Thanks to their light but very strong body construction and aerodynamic design (lower drag than a Porsche 911) it could top 115mph.

Re:Comparisons?

[drinkypoo]

These days, they do. All those 1.5 liter four cylinder engines put out at least 100hp these days. They have variable valve timing, you see...

How much gas does that give us?

[Wyatt Earp]

"The research paper also mentions that everyday, we are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plants growing during a whole year just for our cars."

If there's 600,000,000 of plants and plant material out there to burn in fossil fuels...and we burn a years worth of it a day. And you divide 600 million by 365...that gives us 1643835 years worth of fossil fuels.

A much more optomistic projection that even the Skeptical Environmentalist!

I'm going to go drive my 5.7 liter Chevy truck around then just for the hell of it.

Re:How much gas does that give us?

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's 600,000,000 of plants and plant material out there to burn in fossil fuels...and we burn a years worth of it a day. And you divide 600 million by 365...that gives us 1643835 years worth of fossil fuels.

I was about to say the same thing.

I'm going to go drive my 5.7 liter Chevy truck around then just for the hell of it.

Why don't you replace the 350 with a 502 instead? That'll rankle the slashbots, big time.

Re:How much gas does that give us?

[Wyatt Earp]

"Why don't you replace the 350 with a 502 instead? That'll rankle the slashbots, big time."

Because that'll take money away that I could use to buy gas with for my 9 block drive to the Store, and my drive across the street to the post office.

Re:How much gas does that give us?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ewuuuuuuuu! Look at me! I rankle slashdotters!

Re:How much gas does that give us?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting that not all plant material becomes oil and gas, and not all oil and gas is economically feasible to reach.

Re:How much gas does that give us?

[RogerWilco]

Please note:
1) The Oil/coal was mainly created during the Carbon Age, so it's only about 80 million years.
2) Only Peat bogs turned into oil/coal, not all plant live, maybe 1% ?
3) The article states that currenlty about 22% of plant life is harvested and replaced each year, and we would need about 33% to have the equivalent carbon energy for a day's worth of consumption.
Now ask yourself the question: How big would this number be without agriculture, say 10%.
=> 80,000,000/365/100/10 = 218 years, which is about the current estimate for coal+oil reserves, of which oil is only about 10%

Oh, and when we're talking big numbers,
Global consuption: 27,481,215,000 barrels per year
= 1,154,211,030,000 gallons/Year
=>100,000,000,000,000 Tons of original plan life.

Adriaan.

Re:How much gas does that give us?

[Wyatt Earp]

Actually, we don't really know what mainly created oil. Others have linked to stuff on that here today, but here is another one.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/gold_pr. ht ml

Not only peat turned to oil

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF13/1335 .h tml

"Oil trapped in underground pockets of the North Slope comes in many flavors, some of it light-colored and easily pourable and some of it blackish and tar-like. Oil's density and viscosity depends on exactly what types of animal and plant life were cooked to form the oil. Prehistoric plants, for example, turn into light oils and gas. Oil's character is further determined by the pressure and heat it forms under."

"The critters and algae that are now crude oil lived hundreds of millions of years ago when a shallow ocean covered what is now Alaska's North Slope. The gradual rise of the Brooks Range, caused by the Pacific plate shoving over the top of the North American plate, pushed out the ocean and eventually buried enormous amounts of ocean plants and animals."

I'm not sure of the length of the Sludge and Critter ages, but I'd wager it's more than 80 million years.

http://www.4chemistry.co.uk/oil-forming.htm

"Oil was gradually made over millions of years as enormous numbers of dead animals and plants (plankton) got deposited and buried on the sea bed. Not all were eaten or fully decomposed (due to lack of oxygen), and their organic (once living) remains slowly turned into oil due to pressure and heat of the rocks."

Please note that my wildassed guess and numbers is about as accurate as your wildassed guess and numbers.

Re:How much gas does that give us?

[FreakWent]

They say that's the equivalent of all the plants on the planet for a year for our cars.

1) That's only for cars, not turbines and all the other things we use fossil fuels for.

2) Not all those plants actually get turned into fossil fuels. Note they said it's the equivalent of plants growing in a year, not plants turned into fossil fuels in a year. Only a (tiny?) small fraction gets turned into ff.

3) Not every year was appropriate to create any fossil fuels from exisitng plants (ice ages, asteroid winters, to recent etc)

4) Not every year produced significant amounts of plants (same reasons)

So you're wrong.

Re:How much gas does that give us?

[Wyatt Earp]

They counted plants.

What about the untold megatons of krill and protozoa and mongooses that have been decaying over the megayears?

I never said my figure was the end all be all figure.

It was a wild out my ass number, kind of like the wild out thier ass number the people doing the "report" or "study" used.

What are the energy costs of bicycling?

[cosmol]

Wouldn't it be interesting to see how much bio material is needed to give a person energy to pedal a bicycle for a mile. Methinks that it would be in the order of grams rather than tons.

Re:What are the energy costs of bicycling?

[Dun Malg]

Wouldn't it be interesting to see how much bio material is needed to give a person energy to pedal a bicycle for a mile. Methinks that it would be in the order of grams rather than tons.

Of course, if you were going to do it that way you'd have to take into account all the energy conversions that lead to those "grams", going back to the original plant cycle. 100g of protein, the delivery and production of which requires X amount of fossil fuel, Y amount of animal feed, Z amount of chemical fertilizer, etc. Humans, on their own, may be more efficient than cars, but there's no amount of fairy magic that will turn a person on a bike in a major US city into an equation that stands on its own. The system we live within is too big.

Re:What are the energy costs of bicycling?

[The_Unforgiven]

You're probably correct, but show me a guy on a bike that can do 70 mph for extended periods of time. Daily.

Re:What are the energy costs of bicycling?

[ThosLives]

It all depends on the mile bicycled. Is it flat, uphill, or downhill? If it's downhill, you don't burn any more calories than if you were doing nothing. Uphill and you burn a lot more. It also depends on the bike and the rider. I'm a featherweight (75 kg) so I can go a lot farther on a kilocalorie (all else being equal) than someone massing 100 kg.

That's why I don't like "miles per gallon" because while it is a measure of consumption it is NOT a measure of efficiency. Measurements would require something like "pound-miles per gallon" (or "liters per 100 kilogram-kilometers" for our metric friends) to actually compare efficiency. Interestingly enough, SUVs aren't that bad when you look at it that way. Sure moving an SUV takes more fuel, but you are moving more substance, so it may not be less efficient. (Another interesting excersize is looking at how fuel economy changes with payload - adding 6 people to an SUV barely changes its fuel economy, but adding 6 people to a compact car will most likely show a non-negligible effect).

The more important question is not "can we make SUVs more efficient" because they are already as efficient (if not more so) than cars but "do we really need to move things this big?" I think people attack based on "efficiency" because that is seen as a simpler solution.

Re:What are the energy costs of bicycling?

[CaptMonkeyDLuffy]

Hmmm... While tallying efficiency as the entire mass moved a distance per quantity of fuel might be a more 'textbook' definition of efficiency, would it not make sense to ignore the weight of the vehicle itself and simply calculate efficiency based on weight of 'cargo', distance travelled and fuel consumed?

Re:What are the energy costs of bicycling?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.uspsprocycling.com/team/bios/armstrong. jpg

Re:What are the energy costs of bicycling?

[cosmol]

You raise a good point, one that other posters are using to put the original article into perspective. Perhaps I should have said that at any way you want to look at it, riding a bike is many orders of magnitude more effecient at transporting people than cars are at any level of description you care to look at. Be it counting simple calories expended per person mile, or the looking at the level of fairy magic where we think about things like animal feed and fertilizer.

Re:What are the energy costs of bicycling?

[Montreal Geek]

This entirely depends on what you mean by "efficient".

I measure efficiency as how much energy it takes to perform function x.

With an SUV used to commute from the 'burbs to work (the vast majority) the function x is "move driver from A to B". The additional energy required to move the vehicle itself is a factor of efficiency (waste), not part of the function. I.e.: using a heavy vehicle to "move driver" is necessarly less efficient than a lighter vehicle because you will have to use more energy (and thus more fuel) to perform the same end result.

SUVs are /not/ more efficient than cars at any task a car can do.

Now, if you happen to commute with a ton of payload every morning, or need to travel over terrain that would be inpassable by a car[1], the SUV is probably more efficient.

-- MG

[1] Unlikely, given that most sport "utility" vehicles are unstable and lack torque and handling-- all sacrificed to the altar of looks and highway performance. Feh.

Re:What are the energy costs of bicycling?

[ThosLives]

Now, if you happen to commute with a ton of payload every morning, or need to travel over terrain that would be inpassable by a car[1], the SUV is probably more efficient.

You have observed here something I like to call the "to be truly efficient you need to use the appropriate tool for the task" philosophy. That was why I mentioned that

The more important question is not "can we make SUVs more efficient" because they are already as efficient (if not more so) than cars but "do we really need to move things this big?"

in my original post. The problem is not so much inherent to SUVs or whatever, but in the people who use them for inappropriate reasons. Unfortunately it has been demonstrated throughout history that no amount of technology or legislation can solve that problem.

PS: regarding

[1] Unlikely, given that most sport "utility" vehicles are unstable and lack torque and handling

I'm not sure I agree with you on the "lack torque" thing "unstable" requires an operating definition of under what conditions stability must be maintained - I can make any vehicle tip over if I have no constraints on what maneuvers through which I can put it. My problem is that people think changing the C.G. of a vehicle will eliminate tipping over, but tipping over is a function of 3 things: speed, radius of turn, and ratio of height of C.G. to the wheel spacing (okay, there is some stuff in the equation about shifting the center of mass, too, but I'm keeping things simple). If I change the height of the C.G, I can still come up with a speed and radius combination that will flip the vehicle. Which combination do we need as a safety specification? I admit that I don't know.

Basically that's a long way of saying that while I agree that cars and SUVs handle differently I don't know that means SUVs "lack handling". There's no way to make them handle the same (well, you could make cars handle *worse* of course), so (dare I say it?) until the public realizes that they have to act appropriately for a given set of conditions, they will still flip vehicles, get in wrecks, etc.

Oh, wait, didn't I already mention "appropriate action" a couple paragraphs ago?

Athlons and Pentiums

[Brento]

In a related story, the University of Utah pointed out that modern desktop computer processes consume roughly 14 tons per hour of running SETI, a popular screen saver. "At some point, you have to wonder just how important it is to find alien life," said Professor Ima T. Hugger, "when you're killing so much life here on our own planet just to find out. One little green man simply isn't worth twenty redwood trees - try shutting down your machine once in a while, or switch to that nice screen saver with the rotating Windows logo."

When asked about the energy required to create his polyester pants, Hugger refused comment.

Inefficiency?

[worst_name_ever]

Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

I agree that regular gas-powered cars could be made more efficient, but don't the numbers above point more towards the "inefficiency" of the prehistoric plants --> crude oil deposits process?

Re:Inefficiency?

[pkiguruman]

Yes, from the article:

...only about one-10,750th of the original carbon in ancient plant material actually ends up as oil...

Re:Inefficiency?

[pavon]

These numbers say nothing interesting about effeciency of our cars or plants. All energy paths are inefficent relative to 100%; what matters is their efficency relative to other paths. Gasoline engines are the most efficent way to power a car that we have yet to develop. If you want to talk about inefficent, look at the energy path for an electric (ie fuel cell) car and remember that energy is lost at each step: sunlight -> chemical -> thermal -> mechanical -> electrical -> chemical -> electrical -> mechanical. And before you criticise the efficency of dead plants remember that burning them is still more efficient than our attempts at getting energy from sunlight itself. Oil and gasoline engines are the the most efficent things we have for transportation.

What these numbers do say is that there is a certain natural amount of energy in the earth's ecosystem, and we consume far more than that. Therefore it is foolish to think that natural energy sources can sustain our unnatural consumption. There are two options - we use an unnatural energy source such as nuclear (unnatural to the teran energy cycle at least), or we limit ourselves to a natural amount of energy consumption. Most likely outcome is somewhere in the middle - we use some natural sources, some unnatural, and we don't use quite as much energy because it becomes too expensive.

Re:Inefficiency?

[DaZedAdAm]

My thoughts exactly, but honestly, who could expect such plants to be efficient at those times? It's not like anything else was.

98 tons of biomass

[ChipMonk]

And 98 million years to accumulate it. Your point?

If it *is* plants

[HarveyBirdman]

There's an idea that some oil comes from deeper sources, and has an abiogeneic origin. There are hundreds of wells drilled more than 5 km deep, below the levels of prehistoric plants (what is called "basement rock"), and they are still productive.

Here's a starter link: Link

Re:If it *is* plants

[Greg151]

Thanks for bringing up Thomas Gold. There is really little evidence to go along with the fossil theory of petroleum, and increasingly more to support Thomas Gold. See this link

Re:If it *is* plants

[mikerich]

There are hundreds of wells drilled more than 5 km deep, below the levels of prehistoric plants (what is called "basement rock"), and they are still productive.

Basement usually refers to ancient metamorphic or igneous rocks. AFAIK there are no productive wells in such areas.

Sedimentary rocks can be pushed down beyond 5km in so-called downwarps. In fact they are almost essential since the oil formation process requires the source rocks to enter the so-called 'oil window'. As rocks get buried, the temperature rises, theories suggest that between 80 and 140 Celsius is optimum for oil production - going up to about 200 with decreasing yield of oil (but increasing natural gas production).

The average geothermal gradient is around 25C per km, meaning that the oil window sits comfortably in the 5 to 6 km depth. In many places (particularly those where mountain forming is going on), the geothermal gradient may be as low as 15C per km) - meaning that oil production can go on at even deeper levels in the Crust.

5km wells are highly unusual simply because oil tends to migrate upwards into traps much closer to the surface.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:If it *is* plants

[Tony]

"Robert O. Russell, a wellsite geologist at the first well in North America (at Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada) drilled into crystalline basement granitic shield rocks for the express purpose of commercial hydrocarbon exploration, has pointed out that there are more than 400 wells and fields worldwide, both off-shore and on-shore that produce or have recently produced oil from igneous rocks." (Quoted from here)

There is really no evidence supporting an organic origin of petroleum. At one time, it was the best explanaition we had; now, with oil drilled from beneath basement rock, and from 3B-year-old sandstone, there is no longer any reason to just assume organic origin. Too much evidence points to non-organic origins.

Does it say

[Kohath]

Does it say how many tons of plants have existed in the last billion years or so?

I bet it's a lot.

Re:Does it say

[dynoman7]

Does it say how many tons of plants have existed in the last billion years or so?

Nope. I can't find a full list of assumptions either.

Hybrid Car

[kacp]

I just bought a Honda Civic Hybrid, and yes I'm getting the 40-odd MPG. It does so by basicly recycling the enegry expelled. Rather than lose energy in normal cruising conditions and breaking, it stores it in the battery for future use. You use the energy from the battery to power the engine, and you recover a bit of that back.

I know that it still uses gas as its primary source, and that due to thermodynamics I'm never going to be able to recycle all the energy, but the system, I think, is a step to making cars more efficent.

Now, if only Detroit would make such a car, but that's another topic...

Re:Hybrid Car

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could drive a 1985 Honda CRX conventional and get 40-45 mpg.

Large numbers

[Manos Batsis]

Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

Actually I've been wondering how can all these tons of oil can even exist underground. The whole process under which oil is generated, makes the picture impossible IMHO.

It's just a conspiracy I say. Bring in the hydrogen.

What's the Problem?

[clinko]

I don't see a problem here. Plants aren't that big, and i'm sure humans are worth more in fuel than a few plants.

So the few people that survive will have plenty of dead humans to use with the amount of polution we use...

Re:What's the Problem?

[Free_Meson]

soylent gas is people!

The inefficient thing is...

[jcrash]

Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

I think the inefficient part in the process is the break down of the plant into hydrocarbons. One gallon of gas comes from just a few gallons of oil. So, the weak link isn't the car.

not so sure

[happyfrogcow]

a few years ago, my thermodynamics professor at ohio state who was very in to the debate on the "oil crisis" we are in, bluntly stated that it was not this prehistoric biodegrading plant/animal matter that created oil. Since I can't remember his name or website, this isn't much use.

Re:not so sure

[happyfrogcow]

ah, found it and take it half back. it was just decaying animal matter. Plants yes. Read section 2
http://rclsgi.eng.ohio-state.edu/~korpela/opmat alk .pdf

Fuel efficiency...

[Code-Ex]

"My car gets fourty rods to the hogs head and that's the way I likes it." - Grandpa Simpson

oil bad

[bananaape]

Perhaps yet another reason to move away from oil based car engines.

One gallon of oil weighs 3.26 kilograms.
Last time I checked, kilograms were a measure of mass, not weight.

only about one-10,750th of the original carbon in ancient plant material actually ends up as oil
The rest of it has to go somewhere. Coal maybe? It just doesn't disappear.

I would like a little more basis from where he pulled these numbers.

Re:oil bad

[Colonel Cholling]

Last time I checked, kilograms were a measure of mass, not weight.

Strictly speaking, this is true. However, the accepted practice in countries which use the metric system for everyday measurements is to use the kilogram as a de facto unit of weight equal to the amount one kilogram would weigh at 1G. This is fine for practical purposes, since there are not yet any grocery stores in orbit. Even in metric-using countries, you would search in vain for a product sold by the newton as opposed to the kilogram.

Re:oil bad

[bananaape]

Good point, but in a science article for a university he should at least use it properly.

For metric system addicts:

[Anonymous Coward]

25 mpg

Sweet!

[Quixadhal]

So that means I just crammed 1274 tons of biomass into my gas tank, I feel so empowered.

My car is a vegetarian?

[didipickles]

My car is a vegetarian?

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

So it takes 98 tons of biomass to make a gallon of gas. What happens to the rest?

About half of a gallon of crude oil can be made into gas. The rest is made into kerosene, deisel oil, motor oil, asphalt, plastics, and other stuff. Basically all of any gallon of oil extracted is made into something useful.

The other 97.99 tons never leaves the ground. Its not as if we chopped down 98 tons of living trees. The plants are gone, and the oil is there, whether we use it or not. This doesn't show our inefficiency at using plants, but Nature's inefficiency at making oil out of plants.

UH, one thing

[argoff]

INAG (I am not a geologist) but my understanding is that the theory that oil came from old plants and animals is today considered wrong. Instead it is produced by ultra high temperature bacteria energized by heat from the earths core.

PS, if you really care about the environment - go nuclear

PSS, that is not a troll

How many tons of hydrogen

[wowbagger]

OK, so how many tons of hydrogen had to be fused in order to make a gallon of gas - don't forget that fusion is not 100% effecient, so it takes many kilotons of hydrogen to make a ton of carbon (the rest being pissed off as heat, as helium/lithium, etc).

Also factor in the tons of carbon that never leave the star that made it. /bullshit mode off

Now, what does ANY OF THIS have to do with ANYTHING?

OK, you want to critize our current usage of mineral oil vs. making biodiesel, great. But let's try to compare apples with some form of fruit, not compare apples to rocks!

Re:How many tons of hydrogen

[tbone1]

Not only that, but how much land would be opened up to agriculture if all our fuel came from crops? Would forests be leveled, swamps drained, topsoil eroded, etc?

Everything comes at a prices, monetary or otherwise. Most environmentalists (or at least, journalists writing on environmentalism) don't seem to grasp this.

Re:How many tons of hydrogen

[Thomas M Hughes]

Most environmentalists (or at least, journalists writing on environmentalism) don't seem to grasp this.

I think most environmentalists who've thought about things for more than two seconds have grasped it, quite fully. This is why you see them doing things like riding their bikes places, giving up meat and dairy products, and cutting down on as much of their activity that could be associated with waste. These people know quite well that everything comes at a price, and their decision to be environmentally conscious has required rather significant changes to their lifestyle.

The people who don't grasp it are the ones driving a giant SUV down the coast of California, while at the same time saying its criminal that they spoiled the beautiful coast with oil wells. Those people aren't environmentalists.

Re:How many tons of hydrogen

[Anonymous Coward]

A quick back of envelope calculation suggests that if the US were to rely solely on Bioethanol as a replacement for oil, an area of approx 5 Billion acres would need to be industrially farmed.

Note that the above estimate, does not include the energy inefficiencies in farming and manufacturing the ethanol.

Once these are taken into account (using a rather generous total emergy ratio of 1.2) the area required would be 30 billion acres).

It's worth pointing out that the land area of the continental US is about 2 billion acres.

Re:How many tons of hydrogen

[CommieLib]

I think everybody understands it, more or less, and people simply have different values. That's the price of freedom.

Re:How many tons of hydrogen

[pmz]

Everything comes at a prices, monetary or otherwise.

I still like my ideology reactor idea. For example, putting PETA members into a room with laboratory scientists would certainly generate some sparks.

Re:How many tons of hydrogen

[Anonymous Coward]

BRILLIANT! Wait a minute, there's a problem with that. Why would sparks fly between laboratory scientists and the People for the Eating of Tasty Animals?

This isn't just about inefficiency of cars.

[Derek Pomery]

But also about inefficiency of natural fossil fuels.
Key Fact.
Since only about one-10,750th of the original carbon in ancient plant material actually ends up as oil, multiply 4.14 kilograms by 10,750 to get roughly 44,500 kilograms of carbon in ancient plant matter to make a gallon of gas.

google cache of old-news biofuel breakthrough

Note they are claiming they can eliminate dependance on oil importation with agricultural waste alone. No other cultivation necessary.
And the point is. Once we use the biofuels, we are in the carbon cycle. No more pumping carbon out of the earth.

Re:This isn't just about inefficiency of cars.

[butane_bob2003]

I wonder if the human race can fit in the carbon cycle. If we did not use fossil fuels at all, would there be enough cheap energy to sustain such a huge population? Is there enough cheaply convertable biomass waste product available? Or would there be more leveling of jungles and forests for cash crops to feed the US's SUVs?

Re:This isn't just about inefficiency of cars.

[Derek Pomery]

Why use forests?
Why not a gigantic floating farm of blue-green algae?

There's way more ocean surface, and you don't need to hassle with cutting down trees.

use biodiesel

[Anonymous Coward]

Typically I bike commute, but when I need to drive I use my car which runs on biodiesel (it is a VW Jetta TDI).

Biodiesel is produced from vegetable oil crops such as soy or canola. It is also currently being produced using waste vegetable oil (mostly frier oil from fast food resturants). There is research showing that algae crops would be an even more effective crop for producing the fuel. 1 acre of cropland produces about 100 gallons of fuel currently. My car gets about 40 miles to the gallon for city driving (50 on the highway) too.

burn the bean!

Re:use biodiesel

[Anonymous Coward]

Biodiesel is produced from vegetable oil crops such as soy or canola.

Unless these crops are grown without petrochemical fertilizers, you haven't eliminated your dependence on fossil fuels.

Re:use biodiesel

[DaveWhite99]

I'm there, too. Been burning biodiesel for over a year now in my 2002 VW New Beetle TDI and love it !! Great stuff.

1 day of cars = 1 year of plants

[Saint Stephen]

Gee, that means 1,000,000 years of plants will only last us 2,737 years! And we all know the prehistoric period wasn't measured in hundreds of millions of years!

[For the record, I support Hydrogen so we can tell the Arabs and Environmentists to go jump in a lake and quit bugging me.]

Re:1 day of cars = 1 year of plants

[Dun Malg]

[For the record, I support Hydrogen so we can tell the Arabs and Environmentists to go jump in a lake and quit bugging me.]

I'd love to tell them to go jump in a lake too, but hydorgen ain't gonna do it. Hydrogen isn't an energy source, it's a delivery system. Where, pray tell, will the hydrogen come from?

Re:1 day of cars = 1 year of plants

[weave]

Where, pray tell, will the hydrogen come from?

Millions of little children in third world countries huddled around a bucket of water for 14 hours a day carefully separating hydrogen out of water for use by rich uncaring Americans. In fact, perhaps Michael Jordon should be commissioned to do a commercial to improve the public image of hydrogen extraction. We could pay him just slighly less than all of their collective wages for a year.

Re:1 day of cars = 1 year of plants

[Dun Malg]

Where, pray tell, will the hydrogen come from?

Millions of little children in third world countries huddled around a bucket of water for 14 hours a day carefully separating hydrogen out of water for use by rich uncaring Americans. In fact, perhaps Michael Jordon should be commissioned to do a commercial to improve the public image of hydrogen extraction. We could pay him just slighly less than all of their collective wages for a year.

Hah! Let's do it! Maybe then they won't take all of those valuable help desk jobs away from 'mericans when they grow up.

Re:1 day of cars = 1 year of plants

[Anonymous Coward]

From magic hydrogen fairy farts, of course.

Re:1 day of cars = 1 year of plants

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Hydrogen isn't an energy source, it's a delivery system. Where, pray tell, will the hydrogen come from?

Solar power and nuclear power. Both could sustain our current energy needs until the sun burns out

(at a somewhat higher price, mind you...)

Re:1 day of cars = 1 year of plants

[einTier]

Except that we don't have really efficent methods of converting sunlight to usable energy yet, meaning that to supply us with enough energy to meet our current needs, we'd have to literally blanket the United States with NASA's superior (and highly expensive) solar cells.

Plus, the same people who are against fossil fuels also tend to be against nuclear energy as well. There is no current 'magical' solution.

Re:1 day of cars = 1 year of plants

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes....

1. Build enourmous Solar Power system at an enormous cost.
2. ...
3. Profit!

Without profit, nothing is possible.

fat=inefficiency

[Madcapjack]

someone ought to calculate the increase in fuel efficiency we'd gain in the U.S. if we weren't a nation of over-weight Big Mac eaters.

Re:fat=inefficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, i'm an underweight big mac eater. :(

Prehistoric Plants?

[phorm]

While I do agree that currently vehicles are inefficient and that we are eventually heading towards insufficiencies in our supplies of fossil-fuel, one must also consider the vegetation of the eras that became the fossil fuels of today. From what I can gather, many plants were rather humongous in comparison to today. I mean, if say during the period of dinosaurs, plants had to be big enough to feed a pod of 10-15 meter behemoths, I'd say we had a lot of vegetation going at that time. Forget how many plants it takes to power a car, how much did it take to fuel a dinosaur?

And besides, aren't fossil-fuels the product of not only plants, but animal-life as well? I could be wrong on this one, but I think everything was part of the good ol' life-to-petrol cycle.

Re:Prehistoric Plants?

[ender81b]

THe 'plant material' they are talking about is rather specific, the only thing that produces large deposits of petreloeum is phytoplankton. I.E. floating plants in the ocean. The stuff they use to float eventually breaks down and forms petro. So, you are talking about billions upon billions of microscopic floating plants feeding our cars, not a tree or something.

And I thought

[OverlordQ]

rods to the hogshead was bad enough, now we got Plant ton/(km|mi)!? WHEN WILL IT END!?

Re:And I thought

[cloudship_tacitus]

backup to the comment

here

Big surprise.

[Feren]

Yep, our cars are inefficient. You know it, I know it, your neighbor's pet cat knows it. Some cars (SUVs) are much worse than others... but even if you buy a Dodge Colt that can get 45 miles per gallon on the highway you've still got an engine that's simply not realizing maximum efficiency. I for one would welcome a better solution -- something a great deal more fuel-efficient, more environment friendly and less costly to maintain (Oil changes are expensive).

But what is the point of this article? So our vehicles utilize a material that took a monumental amount of material over a monumental timeline to create. The supercar we keep waiting for hasn't arrived yet (I wouldn't mind flying around like George Jetson, complete with crazy sound effect) so what exactly are we supposed to do beyond what we already do (carpooling, not buying Hummer H2s, etc)?

Time for Biodiesel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Atleast it should keep the proportion straight,
apart from protecting the precious fossil fuel
for our future generation. Think about a
small blender sized apparatus that could make
diesel(bio) on demand. It could be a killer!.

Auto fuel

[germinatoras]

I don't know what you guys are talking about. My car runs on Oxygen, which is produced all the time by plants around the world.
Sure, it uses some kind of fossil fuel to catalyze a chemical reaction, but it's oxygen that spins the flywheel.
If fossil fuels get depleted, that's a very bad thing - but there's always plenty of oxygen. All we need to do is find a different catalyst.
(don't believe me? Look under your hood - you'll be surprised to learn that your "gas pedal" is not controlling the amount of gas going into
your cylindars, but it's regulating the amount of air flowing through the intake manifold. It's an Oxygen pedal, not a gas pedal.)

Re:Auto fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure you have this 180 degrees from the truth.

Re:Auto fuel

[danb35]

Well, in my case, the accelerator does directly control the fuel quantity--but then, I drive a diesel (no throttle plate in a diesel). However, your point that the fossil fuel is a catalyst is simply incorrect. A catalyst, by definition, facilitates or speeds a chemical reaction without itself being consumed in the reaction. Gasoline (or diesel fuel, or whatever else) is consumed in the operation of the engine, which is why we have to keep filling the tanks. It isn't a catalyst; it's one of the components in the chemical reaction that drives the engine (oxygen is another one).

Re:Auto fuel

[Colonel Cholling]

Sure, it uses some kind of fossil fuel to catalyze a chemical reaction, but it's oxygen that spins the flywheel.

What are they teaching those kids in chemistry class these days?

A "catalyst" is a substance whose presence speeds up a chemical reaction, or causes it to take place at a lower temperature. It is not itself consumed as part of that chemical reaction. Combustion is the rapid combination of fuel with oxygen. The fuel is not a catalyst because without the fuel you wouldn't have any combustion whatsoever. Furthermore, it is the chemical energy stored in the fuel which is converted into heat and kinetic energy during combustion. I don't know where you get the idea that oxygen is the source of the power. And when a carburettor allows more oxygen into the cylinders, it is increasing the rate at which the fuel combusts, causing more chemical energy to be converted into heat and kinetic energy in a given amount of time. It's still the fossil fuel doing the actual work.

So?

[SlamMan]

What's the big deal? Its not like this 4 tons of dead plants are doing anything else if I'm not using it.

More Perspective

[jimi1283]

Even if this was way overestimated, 1 years worth of plants per day is a tiny amount when figured over the hundreds of millions of years of prehistoric plants that ever were. 365 years worth of plants used per year is a paltry sum when viewed in the right perspective.

Re:More Perspective

[Qrlx]

I don't disagree, I just want to know what that "right persepctive" is. Is it the one in which all the pollution from buring fossil fuels blots out the sun? Or the one where, after consuming resources 365x faster than they were made, we run out?

Or does the right perspective include some sort of "light at the end of the tunnel" like when we get fusion up and running. Of course then we'll have to do a calculation for how much water we atomize in a day vs. how long it took to accrete on primordial Earth.

Okay, my examples are extreme, but I am not seeing the paltriness of our burn ratio.

Re:More Perspective

[jimi1283]

I just mean that billions of years of planet-wide biological waste is a very large number. Billions of years times billions of tons world-wide is a lot of dead plant and animal matter. I know it wont last forever though, which is probably why we're slated to run out of oil by 2050, so yes it is imperative for ecological and sociological reasons to get off our oil dependancy ASAP.

To be fair to our cars

[Illserve]

This figure incorporates the added inefficiency of the process that converted plants -> oil. That was probably a very lossy process.

Welcome to pseudo-science

[n1ywb]

I hate fossil fuels. I build solar cars. But this study has played some games to get hugely inflated numbers.

The crux of his "theory" is that only one-10,000th of the ancient dead plankton carbon that got deposited on the seafloor got turned into oil. He considers the other 9,999-10,000ths to be waste, or something.

From a more logical viewpoint, all that other carbon that didn't wind up as oil is completely irrelevant to anything and everthing. It shouldn't even be considered in the equation. It still sits underground in some form, we haven't affected it in the slightest by pumping out oil. So how can it be considered "waste"?

Since only about one-10,750th of the original carbon in ancient plant material actually ends up as oil, multiply 4.14 kilograms by 10,750 to get roughly 44,500 kilograms of carbon in ancient plant matter to make a gallon of gas

NO!!! The carbon matter that wound up NOT as oil simply LEFT THE BUILDING! It had NO EFFECT whatsoever on the carbon matter that DID become oil. It's not like the non-oil-producing carbon got CONSUMED or something, IT'S STILL THERE UNTOUCHED. They are two separate and distinct groups of carbon matter.

The rest of his equation seems plausible.

Re:Welcome to pseudo-science

[Yartrebo]

A lot of it has 'left the building'. Something like 99% of natural gas and a similar amount of all oil formed finds its way to the surface where it gets broken down by bacteria (oil) or mixed into the atmosphere (gas).

Natural gas and oil reservoirs are formed only when you have the old plant material AND and an inpermeable layer of stone formed over it (like limestone). The reservoir must not be tipped over or broken open (say, by mountain building) for the hundreds of millions of years between the time it was formed and now.

Also, most plant material decomposes. Only a small fraction that is buried very rapidly in anaerobic conditions gets turned into oil or gas. The rest gets decomposed into water and CO2.

And last but not least, the oil can get broken down by oil-eating bacteria if there is a supply of oxygen (doesn't need much, as they have millions of years to do their work).

One word: bioethanol

[Fnkmaster]

That's right, there are great solutions out there that are far more efficient. But the unfortunate reality right now is that the economics of pumping shit out of the ground is very, very hard to compete with. The cost basis of oil (formed mostly by transportation, corruption and cronyism) vs. any harvested biological feedstocks used to make ethanol or biodiesel may be closer to competitive these days, but it's unlikely that the harvested feedstocks will ever win out by a large enough margin to encourage the capital investment necessary to switch over the huge established infrastructure without substantial government intervention.

No, I'm not talking about corn ethanol here, so please stop the silly arguments about how ethanol is inefficient - making it from corn is just silly. There are lots of cheap, far more easily harvested cellose-based plant products that can be broken down with slightly more effort into ethanol, and could provide us with a cheap, plentiful, and substantially more efficient means of storing and transporting biological energy to power our big ole' gas guzzlers.

This is a substantially more realistic and cost effective solution than hydrogen, and it doesn't require us to build massive amounts of new infrastructure (just a limited number of bioethanol plants) or a totally new kind of transportation and distribution network to handle hydrogen. Ethanol is stable, easy to transport, and holds up quite well to most abuse (well, except the drinking kind). It still takes a lot of cellosic material to make a gallon of bioethanol, but it's a lot less than went into that gallon of gas - it's just that the input of biological material happens in the here and now instead of millions of years ago - so we have to bear the cost ourselves. But it's renewable, predictable, and would remove the sick political imperatives behind the distribution and availability of fossil fuels. As an added bonus, no more terrorists.

Re:One word: bioethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

If it allows me to pick winning lottery numbers, dream in binary, and burn twice as many calories--I'll take two!

But seriously, if you're going to spout sensationalist stuff, at least provide some links so people with an IQ above the number of holes in their underwear can go see where your snake oil claims come from.

Re:One word: bioethanol

[general_re]

But the unfortunate reality right now is that the economics of pumping shit out of the ground is very, very hard to compete with. The cost basis of oil (formed mostly by transportation, corruption and cronyism) vs. any harvested biological feedstocks used to make ethanol or biodiesel may be closer to competitive these days, but it's unlikely that the harvested feedstocks will ever win out by a large enough margin to encourage the capital investment necessary to switch over the huge established infrastructure without substantial government intervention.

Assuming, arguendo, that I accept that this is really a problem in the first place, then the only thing substantial government intervention will do will be to make something that's inevitable anyway more expensive. Eventually, whether it's 50 or 500 years from now, the world will run out of oil to pump out of the ground, and as oil gets scarcer and scarcer, the price will rise. Eventually, the comparative economics will be such that resources that are currently uneconomic by comparison, will be economically viable, which they aren't now. And at that point, if and when biodiesels or ethanol or fuel cells or whatever become cheaper than scarce oil, you won't need substantial government intervention to get people to change - they'll do it all by themselves. The only thing trying to speed that day up does is make it more expensive in the long run by forcing people to spend money that they currently don't have to spend, and would generally prefer not to spend if someone wasn't making them do so.

And if that day never comes, for whatever reason, and oil continues to be the cheapest source of energy available...so what? I've yet to see anyone explain why expensive energy is inherently better than cheap energy. Certainly we can take steps to mitigate the pollution issues associated with fossil fuels, but if it still turns out that oil is the cheapest energy source available, what then is the incentive to switch?

Re:One word: bioethanol

[Fnkmaster]

Yes, yes, I understand that you can make a perfectly fine laissez faire argument against government intervention on a purely economic basis. I was not arguing that the government _should_ intervene based on economics, I have merely suggested that the government _should_ intervene in the free market for political reasons. If our government is willing to spend hundreds of billions to protect our oil supply, you can't argue that they currently let the market take care of itself. I am merely suggesting that an alternate investment of a small portion of the money spent protecting our current oil supply, say a few billion dollars a year, would go a long way toward cultivating a viable ethanol infrastructure here in the US, which would encourage people to purchase existing, already available FFVs. Once a critical mass of FFV ownership were achived, and a critical mass of ethanol fueling stations and production infrastructure existed, I don't see any reason that the government should or would continue to subsidize it's production, and think of all the taxpayer dollars saved by not having to deploy our military every time the oil supply is threatened.

My point in my first post was simply that alternatives exist. I don't really give a shit about how many tons of this or that are used if it makes sense economically, politically and environmentally (or rather, I think environmental impact should be factored into overall lifecycle cost analysis). In terms of arguing that oil is cheaper, it's only cheaper when you ignore the sociopolitical impact and costs that are hidden at the pump because they are incurred at the federal government level, in the way your taxpayer dollars and the wealth of the First World is allocated to defense spending.

Re:One word: bioethanol

[Fnkmaster]

I don't think I spouted anything sensationalist. I thought we all knew how to use Google here.

I'll start you off with this overview link. Then I'll direct you here to read an energy security justification of the Biofuels research program at the DOE. If you are interested in reading a technical and economic assessment of one such program in this area, I encourage you to read this report from the NREL (big PDF warning) which has lots and lots of numbers to backup a feasibility analysis of large scale bioethanol production. Search around the ott.doe.gov/biofuels page, you'll find tons and tons more research and useful information, and hopefully you won't think this is just "snake oil".

Re:One word: bioethanol

[general_re]

Once a critical mass of FFV ownership were achived, and a critical mass of ethanol fueling stations and production infrastructure existed, I don't see any reason that the government should or would continue to subsidize it's production, and think of all the taxpayer dollars saved by not having to deploy our military every time the oil supply is threatened.

Probably not as much as you think. You're going to wind up deploying to many of the same regions anyway, for the very simple reason that radical Islamists (as opposed to moderate Islam) hate you regardless of whether or not you buy oil. It does not require billions of dollars of oil wealth to purchase five coach-class tickets and a set of box cutters, and then steer the plane into a building.

In terms of arguing that oil is cheaper, it's only cheaper when you ignore the sociopolitical impact and costs that are hidden at the pump because they are incurred at the federal government level, in the way your taxpayer dollars and the wealth of the First World is allocated to defense spending.

That's all fine and good, but at this point you're arguing in an informational vacuum, so to speak. Unless and until you can put a number on the hidden costs and sociopolitical costs you assert exist, and a number on the benefits you assert will be reaped, you simply have no way of knowing whether or not the presumed benefits even exist, let alone whether they outweigh the costs involved. And there is very definitely a cost here - making energy more expensive literally makes everything else produced more expensive as well, which means a reduction in everybody's standard of living, not to mention the opportunity cost associated with paying more for energy.

Now, it may be the case the the benefits outweigh those costs, as you suggest, but at this point, I don't know that - and no offense, but neither, I suspect, do you. And I think it's important to really know, as much as is possible, that the benefits aren't completely imaginary, especially when we know that the costs are very real.

Re:One word: bioethanol

[kabocox]

But it's renewable, predictable, and would remove the sick political imperatives behind the distribution and availability of fossil fuels. As an added bonus, no more terrorists.

It would just transfer the political imperatives from overseas to our farmers. Generally, I think this a good thing. Political imperative will always be there. There will always be terrorists. As long as a government some where exists, there will be those that rebel against it. Oh, they may not be as well funded as the Middle Eastern kind, but they will still exist.

Re:One word: bioethanol

[drinkypoo]

Let us not forget biodiesel, which takes in waste fat (or any kind of food grease really) and turns out water, diesel fuel, glycerin, and methanol, plus of course some waste solids which weren't really part of the oil in the first place, and most of which can be removed by filtration.

One of the advantages to hydrogen (which I think can be produced plenty cheaply, but which does require additional infrastructure) is that it can be burned in most ordinary gasoline engines if you add a supercharger to the system to increase compression, so ordinary cars can be converted. Most gasoline engines cannot reasonably be converted to burning alcohol. (They do it in racing all the time, but they are purpose-built engines which are meant to be replaced or rebuilt after just a few runs.) Diesel engines can be converted, but we can already run them on biodiesel.

Re:One word: bioethanol

[vanza]

Just as an example, take Brazil. Ethanol, distilled from sugar cane, is widely used as fuel there, since the 70s (or early 80s? Can't remember).

Ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline, is much cheaper (down there, at least, even though right now it's mixed with a little gasoline), and cars are generally a little bit more efficient (power-wise), at the cost of being a little bit less efficient (mileage-wise) and being more corrosive than gasoline. Also, I guess there would be problems in places with cold weather - even in the not-so-cold temperatures of southern Brazil during the winter, cars would have problems starting up (which I think was fixed when they started using electronic fuel injection systems in ethanol-burning engines also, but I don't really know).

Unfortunately vehicles powered by ethanol are becoming less and less popular with time (something I really don't understand). Which isn't a bigger problem only because Brazil is now almost self-sufficient in oil production.

Now they've come up with an engine that can run with any mix of ethanol/gasoline (instead of only working with mixes close to the government-mandated 22% of gas in the ethanol right now, I think), but I don't have many details about efficiency of these models (since I'm not living there at the moment, and they're pretty recent).

Re:One word: bioethanol

[Fnkmaster]

In the US, these kinds of cars are called "FFVs" or Flexible Fuel Vehicles. They are nearly identical to a normal gasoline engine in terms of efficiency burning gas, and I assume roughly comparable to an ethanol-only engine when burning ethanol. The versions here in the US switch combustion modes, fuel-air mixture ratios (and maybe compression ratios? probably not yet, but they should) depending on the ethanol/gasoline mix ratio they detect in the tank. It's basically a normal gas engine, with some smart electronics controlling it, and materials designed to store and burn across a range of mixtures and temperatures.

We have well over a million FFVs on the road in the US already, but very few people even realize that they have them, because few manufacturers actually market the fact that their cars have FFV engines. They simply make them with FFVs for the tax breaks they get making reduced emission or alternative fuel vehicles. Unfortunately, the result is that very few people outside of certain areas (like parts of the midwest where corn ethanol is produced in bulk) know about this, or ever use ethanol in their cars.

Re:One word: bioethanol

[merky1]

I would make a bet that most of the FFV powered vehicles exist only in rental fleets. I'm sure that this would make a great tax writeoff.

Re:One word: bioethanol

[dharmawan]

"Most gasoline engines cannot reasonably be converted to burning alcohol."

they can be, and its not even a hard or expensive modification to make

http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/

ethanol is without a doubt the best fuel to use in combustion engines. even henry ford envisioned it to be the main fuel for cars.

the only thing stopping more widespread use of ethanol is a slightly higher price compared to oil, which will be offset either sooner or later (later by peak oil and rising oil prices, or sooner by taxation in favor of less polluting fuels)

ethanol i definitely the way to go for combustion engines, while we are still waiting for hydrogen based fuel cells.

Re:One word: bioethanol

[dharmawan]

i've been thinking about the same thing - i don't think gas stations owned by oil companies would have a motive in selling ethanol fuel.

there may be other already in place infrastructure for distribution to consider though - widely spread chains like supermarkets, which WOULD sell denaturated ethanol fuel if there is a profit to make.

25Mpg reasonable?

[EnglishTim]

Since when was 25mpg reasonably efficient for a car?

1983?

Re:25Mpg reasonable?

[perly-king-69]

1983 sounds about right. My 1990 Volvo estate does 30mpg around town, better on the (motor|free)way.

Re:25Mpg reasonable?

[Zog The Undeniable]

The average mpg of the US car fleet is at its lowest for 22 years despite improvements in engine technology. Blame aircon and the tendency towards trucks rather than cars...plus, at the price of gas in the US, there's no real incentive to do anything about it.

Re:25Mpg reasonable?

[slappyjack]

Actually, congress set 25 mpg as reasonable for SUVs quite some time ago, after being lobbied to death by the automotive industry.

http://www.energyfoundation.org/national/FactShe et Auto.cfm

"Congress established Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards in 1975"

also see:
http://www.policyalmanac.org/environment/arc hive/c rs_cafe_standards.shtml

"Refocusing on Fuel Economy:
SUVs, OPEC, and Kyoto Recent developments have focused fresh attention on the CAFE standards and fuel economy in general. The sharp increase in crude oil and gasoline prices that began in 1999 has brought into higher relief the continuing loss of market share of passenger cars to the larger, multipurpose sport utility vehicles (SUVs) that are subject to the less stringent light-truck fuel economy standard. A 1996 study conducted for the Department of Transportation found that consumers valued the larger vehicles for their versatility and roominess, and the availability of four-wheel drive. The increasing market share of these vehicles, combined with their lower average fuel economy, has contributed to a lowering in overall average fuel economy since the mid-1980s. "

A truly interesting statistic of this article states tthat US gasoline consumption equates to roughly 9 million barrels of oil PER DAY.

[Personal Note]
Take your SUV and shove it in your ass
[/Personal Note]

Re:25Mpg reasonable?

[j-turkey]

Since when was 25mpg reasonably efficient for a car?

25 MPG is completely reasonable when compared to the current average (not CAFE -- but average of cars on the road right now). Furthermore, I'm not sure that it's competely reasonable to expect all cars to get better gas mileage with time. In many cases, the opposite is true. It's not as much a matter of technology as it is a matter of what the market demands. We knew what we had to do to make cars more efficient 20 years ago. Problem was (and still is) that most folks would rather drive a heavier car with a larger, more powerful motor than a lighter car with a smaller, less powerful motor. Aerodynamics also play a huge factor in efficency at high speed (this is something that we've improved on over the years).

In order to make a lighter car (which is absolutely necessary for fuel economy), you need to make use of strong, lightweight materials in the construction of the vehicle (aluminum, carbon fiber, kevlar, titanium). Problem is, these materials are all far more expensive than their alternatives. The average car buyer still has to be able to afford their vehicle. Will the average soccer mom buy a 2600 LB minivan with a 135 HP 1.8L Turbodiesel I4 for $89,000? Hell no (even if it gets 45 MPG). She wants the 4200 Lb. behemoth with the 3.6L V6 for $36,000 (loaded) to "protect" her kids.

Now -- back to my point of fuel economy getting worse over the years. There have been two major regulatory fronts for car makers to overcome in the past few decades. Safety and emmissions. Together, these items add a significant amount of weight to a vehicle...as much as 700 pounds. Combine this with the fact that emmissions equipment robs a car of its power and you've got slow cars that nobody will buy. As the regulations (and subsquent weight) grew and the relative power shrunk, the only solution was to start using larger motors again or move to forced induction (turbo/superchargers), neither of which do much for fuel economy.

While the 4-stroke internal combusion engine can operate more efficiently than it could in years past, cars are simply gaining weight at a greater rate than engines are gaining fuel efficency. At the same time, consumers demand greater performance (looking at the power/weight ratio as being the the most critical element of vehicular acceleration) -- well, with weight increasing, there's only one thing to do...even more power (less economy). The point is that fuel economy is not necessarily an upward trend. That being said, there are new economical cars on the market today (Hybrids), partly because of regulation, partly because the market has demanded it. Funny thing: they're still not as economical (fuelwise) as some of the straight-up diesel econoboxes from 20 years ago.

What's the solution? Some would say "more regulation" -- people should be made to drive smaller, lighter, more efficient cars...regardless of the cost. Others would say "screw cars" -- the idea of personal transporrtation is selfish and not compatible with our future. People should be using public transportation -- maybe we should have some tax incentive for people to use PT and a penalty or car-drivers. And there's the people in the "why regulate" camp who say that if people want stuff like airbags, they'll buy them. The people who don't can save 40 pounds and $1500 on their car. The same goes for efficent cars -- if the public wants it, someone will provide it (for a profit). I'm not sure that there's a "right" solution. I tend to lean towards the side of letting the people buy whatever they want...fuel isn't subsidized -- I pay for that out of pocket. So if I want a 6000 Lb Super Sport Ute with a 440 ci supercharged V10 that gets 6 MPG -- it's my business. I'm the guy footing the bill for gas...eventually, fuel will become expensive enough so that I can't afford to operate my beast...and I'll either have to use another vehicle, or another source of fuel. Finally, both Americans an

In other news

[onyxruby]

Human eat large quantities of food each year as well. All those hamburgers we eat come from cows that have to eat grass you know. Even worse if your a vegetarian, for then you eat only vegtables, and those require a lot of space.

Not only that but some of those culinary delights you call dinner require foodstuffs from several continents. This requires that planes, ships, trane and trucks all be in operation to support this thing you call dinner.

And all those vehicles require things too you know. Just try and get a vehicle that doesn't use parts from several continents. All those parts require factories, and they require electricity. Electricity requires source material like coal and natural gas. Those also come from long dead plants.

Face it you can't win! You cannot exist on this planet without consuming things, it's called the cycle of life. Your going to use resources regardless, so go drive somewhere, have a nice dinner, and remember that someday you too will end up in somebodies gas tank.

Now can someone please explain to me why I'm supposed to feel guilty for exploiting the long dead biomass of a bacteria, plants and dinosaurs?

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Now can someone please explain to me why I'm supposed to feel guilty for exploiting the long dead biomass of a bacteria, plants and dinosaurs?

How about global warming? How about habitat destruction? How about smog? There are all things that affect you directly due to our lifestyle. We are using resources that took hundreds of millions of years to produce in the few tens of years we have been using the automobile. It's not a sustainable cycle. It's not the cycle of life, but a path to destruction. We have the know-how to fix it. We only need the determiniation to do so.

BTW, being a vegetarian is more efficient than being an omnivore. Fewer resources are used to grow plants for our consumption compared to feeding cows, chickens, etc.. to feed us. I couldn't go vegetarian completely, but I do try to reduce meat in my diet.

Re:In other news

[MKalus]

Now can someone please explain to me why I'm supposed to feel guilty for exploiting the long dead biomass of a bacteria, plants and dinosaurs?

I agree with your observations, but to answer your question: You should care because this stuff can be used for something way better, for example in the hospital or the computer you're sitting in front of right now.

Reality is that (as massive as it is) the amount of gas we burn in our cars each day pales in comparision to the amount of energy we waste by trucking our food half way around the world.

Maybe someone can explain to me how it can be that an apple from California is cheaper than one that is grown here in Ontario? How can it be that trucking something (that is mainly water) a couple of thousand kilometres makes it cheaper than just buying it locally?

M.

How inefficient cars are?

[Performer Guy]

Makes me think how inefficient trees are at making gas more than how inefficient cars are at burning it.

Oil doesn't come from plants.

[computersareevil]

This article is baloney. The current thoery is that most oil was created during the formation of the planet or shortly thereafter, and does NOT come from plants/animals/whatever. So we are burning a totally non-renewable energy source.

And so what? The computers will take over the earth and kill us all long before we run out of gas.

Walking

[isa-kuruption]

I hear walking is much more efficient. You can walk a mile on only a small meal, prob the equivalent of 1/2lb of vegatables. This, of course, makes it more efficient.

Of course, if you have a 60 mile commute like I do, I'd need to eat about 30lbs of vegatables.... as well as allow approximately 12 hours of commute to walk those 60 miles. Which means I would have to leave for home the second I get to work in order to leave in time to get to work ontime the next day. Oh boy...

Re:Walking

[DaZedAdAm]

>> You can walk a mile on only a small meal, prob the equivalent of 1/2lb of vegatables.

Sure, but what about prehistoric vegetables? I'm betting you wouldn't care to eat too much of them.

Re:Walking

[MKalus]

I hear walking is much more efficient. You can walk a mile on only a small meal, prob the equivalent of 1/2lb of vegatables. This, of course, makes it more efficient.

You get roughly a mile to 100kCal... Your average choclate bar has between 200 - 300 kCal so on a choclate bar you could walk ~3 miles.

For your 60mile commute I guess you would need to eat quite some choclate.

Re:NO WONDER THE THOSE DINOS DIED!!

[Anonymous Coward]

on a side note; I am sure (when it is caculated, and it will be) I could probably drive around Australia a couple of times with the energy that has been expended on "first posts" - and useless N.Bs like this one.

everything wastes energy

[Anonymous Coward]

The sun burns away trillions of tons of hydrogen every second. Human bodies are only able to convert about 25% of food to energy. Somehow the world continues to exist. If we could get 100% energy or even close to it out of anything a cup of coffee could probably power the US for a year.

Could you use International Standards please?

[Slowleggs]

I'd rather have litre than gallons, and kilometer or real mile ( = 10 kilometer) than your old 'miles'. I know it's hard to change your ways, but please, I should not have to learn the old 'empire' standards too?

The REAL inefficiency...

[insensitive_clod]

The real inefficiency is the conversion of biomass to fossil fuel. 98 tons only makes 1 gallon of gas? If took 98 tons of biomass now and used it to produce methane for fuel, we'd do a hell of a lot better than the equivalent of one gallon of gas.

Our gasoline powered cars may not be efficient, but the fact that 98 tons=1 gallon seems pretty irrelevant.

We're the top of the food chain

[sammyo]

Isn't this just implied by being a the top of the 'pyramid'? So how many 'trees' does the average wolf consume in a year? Maybe it will help if we stop the wolves from eating meat?

Yes this is a troll.

But a troll against fuzzy statistics.

today

[jvj24601]

Rode my bike to work today. You all owe me.

Keep in mind...

[birder]

These were VERY big plants. 4 Tons was probably 1 fern.

If only.....

[FrostyWheaton]

The big three automakers would stop covering up the REVOLUTIONARY SUPER CARBURETOR that I read about in the back of Popular Science, we could get that number down to 1pptpm (Pre-historic Plant Ton per Mile)

american view

[monkey_jam]

Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

No, i like to think of it as:


Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient the gasoline production is.

Re:american view

[Qrlx]

I look at it this way: Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient the Industrial Revolution is. Or Western Civilization is.

Don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

99.9% of that tonnage is all water anyway. This report is a bit misleading.

New Services from BP

[fuzzybunny]

This is pretty cool news, actually. It means that the brambles from my mom's backyard should suffice to power my TT for about, oh, 50 trips around the earth.

Maybe Amoco or Shell should offer gardening services. Let's face it, few of us have the time or desire to really take care of weed-whacking on weekends. Why not drive up a big fat truckfull of those enthusiastic ("do people really care enough to cart off John's piles of compost to use as a renewable energy source? People do!") petroleum geologists, equipped with hedge trimmers and shovels--the owner of the yard gets to keep 50% of all the biogas created from the crap recovered from his garden, the rest is sold at gas stations.

I mean, it'd be a lot easier than bolting a Mr. Kitchen to the back of my car, like the De Lorean in Back to the Future, and shoveling 25 tons of rotting blackberry stems into it every time I want to take a trip.

10 quadrillion hydrogen atoms to get your tan

[gelfling]

So what?

Conversion Efficiency

[Keighvin]

Plant matter is quite ineffecient for producing heat, especially when taking into consideration that 80% of a plant's mass is taken up by water - last I was made aware, water is not a particularly good source of fuel unless you can get the hydrogen out.

Alternatively, plants can be refined to a better state of consumption, i.e. vegetable oils for diesel engines:

http://www.greasecar.com/

How many "ATOM BOMBS"....

[callipygian-showsyst]

...worth of energy each day are being used to generated a few measly KW hours of electricity on my home Photovoltaic system?

Geological POV

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a geology student and this piques my interest. To say that vehicles today are inefficient is a given. But to toss around asinine numbers like the U of U has done is just not good science. Here are the factors we have to consider:

Petroleum production is special. Not all plant material that has been on the earth becomes oil. Furthermore, Plant material becomes COAL, not oil. Oil comes from sea deposits that have been "cooked" by special conditions. If this is the biomass they are speaking of, then they do not take that into account. They use the asinine assumption that the carboniferous age and subsequent terrestrial plant life became oil.

The factor of time alone invalidates their argument. Few people truly understand time and how much time really has passed here on this earth.

Very true

[heironymouscoward]

There are several theories that hydrocarbons come from something else than compressed rotting plants.

The evidence is mainly circumstantial, and based on the observation that oil & gas seems to be linked to geographical formations like volcanoes and thin crusts rather than being tied to (e.g.) coal deposits, which would seem more likely.

Coal, after all, does contain plant remains enough to prove that it's most likely compressed peat and bogs.

But oil is a bit wierd. My theory (and it's probably not original) is that hydrocarbons are remains of annobacteria colonies that live off sulphur compounds deep in the earth's crust. Such bacteria are known to exist, observed around volcanic vents in the ocean floor, for instance.

Now imagine _really_ large colonies of such bacteria, living in hot porous sulphur-rich rocks, and dying to rot and produce oil and gas.

Seems more likely than (oil = compressed dinosaur bones and cabbage) to me.

Which also implies that oil is a much more massive resource than previously thought, it won't run out soon, but instead the problems it causes (global heating, oil-driven warfare in poor countries) will continue for a long time to come.

Re:Very true

[Anonymous Coward]

Also may result from techtonic plate subduction. Ocean floor sediments contain much carbon hydrogen & oxygen. These sediments are subjected to massive pressure & heat, & may also be acted upon by bacteria that thrive under such extreme conditions; to produce crude oil.

Not saying this is true, but possible.

Re:Very true

[ender81b]

Oil comes from rotting algae and phytoplankton. The compound they use to float eventually breaks down to form oil.

Not dinosaur bones and and cabbage. When you consider the scale and massive amounts of algae that exist in the ocean it's not hard to figure out why.

Re:Very true

[fluffy666]

There are several theories that hydrocarbons come from something else than compressed rotting plants.

'Hypotheses' is the correct term. Since the mainstream theory (backed by a somewhat huge pile of evidence) is that oil comes from a fairly restricted class of algae in only a few rare circumstances during the earth's history, 'rotting plants' is something of a misnomer.

and based on the observation that oil & gas seems to be linked to geographical formations like volcanoes and thin crusts

That would be news to the oil and gas industry. How many volcanoes do you know of in Texas, Saudi Arabia, Northern Alaska, the North sea, West Siberia, Nigeria, etc, etc, etc..

Oil is found in rift basins, especially (indeed almost exclusively) those where ocean circulation was cut off during their formation, thus allowing anoxic conditions to form at the bottom, leading to the preservation of the algae mentioned above. Currently active rift basins (i.e. the Aegean Sea) contain no oil, showing that it forms after active rifting has ceased.

rather than being tied to (e.g.) coal deposits, which would seem more likely.

Why? Coal is a suitable source rock for natural gas (and frequently is), but yields little oil. Oil deposits are tied to suitable source rocks (The Kimmeridge Clay being one of the better known)

Now imagine _really_ large colonies of such bacteria, living in hot porous sulphur-rich rocks, and dying to rot and produce oil and gas.

Now find some hot, porous, sulphur-rich rocks in a suitable location. Given the LACK of association of volcanoes and oil deposits, you can't use volcanic vents. Explain the presence of rocks which can on heating produce oil with the same geochemical characteristics as the oil found.

Seems more likely than (oil = compressed dinosaur bones and cabbage) to me.

Well, you're not a geologist, are you?

Which also implies that oil is a much more massive resource than previously thought, it won't run out soon.

US production peaked in 1970; Indonesia 1973, USSR 1987, Argentina 1998, UK 1999, Norway 2001 (+50 odd more producing countries). Oil does, in fact, run out. We've drilled deeper; we've drilled though pack ice; we've drilled in several kilometers of water; we've drilled practically everywhere in the globe. We've used every possable technique to squeeze oil from the fields found, with exponentially diminishing returns. If there were great volumes of undiscovered oil out there then, believe me, we would have found it.

But NOT my Prius

[Anonymous Coward]

But NOT my Prius

Straw Man

[Cranky_92109]

This is a cute, sensationalistic sound bite that I'm sure we'll see used time and time again.
It doesn't really matter what comprises a gallon of gasoline. It's not plants anymore is it? It's oil, and there is still a lot of it left.
I agree that it's time to move on and we should be focusing more resources to that end; but this article is informative but pointless.

25 mpg != efficient

[jdreed1024]

For a reasonably efficient car, riding 25 miles per gallon, this translates to 4 tons of prehistoric plants per mile, or more than two tons per kilometer.

That's efficient by the standards of an SUV maybe. My car does about 31-35 mpg on the highway, and even that's considered pretty poor by European standards. I always marvel over the fuel efficiency of the cars my relatives in the UK own. 44-52 mpg - and not terribly small, either. Of course, they have to be fuel efficient due to the high gas prices there, but man, I wish I could get a car with European fuel efficiency in the US. (well, I can, but the savings on gas is offset by import and shipping costs). I'm beginning to think it's a conspiracy, like DVD region codes.

Re:25 mpg != efficient

[TheLink]

I hope you've taken into account the fact that the UK gallon is not the same as the US gallon.

Re:25 mpg != efficient

[Diphthong]

> but man, I wish I could get a car with European fuel efficiency in the US.

Well, you aren't gonna get something as cool as a 74mpg Lupo over here, but you can get a VW TDI-engined car which will get you a good 50mpg on the highway. Things like the Civic Hybrid and the Prius aren't looking too shabby either. :)

Another article on this

[richg74]

This research is also reported in the current issue of The Economist, October 25-31. It is on page 73 of the print edition; here is a link to the online version.

25mpg reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you crazy Yanks ;-)

Use current plants instead.

[Xiver]

Discover has an interesting article on how current waste products are begin turned into Texas lite crude. Too good to be true?

Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year

Here is the company's link.

Re:Use current plants instead.

[Another MacHack]

Turkeys aren't generally known for being all that bright, I'll grant you, but I didn't think they were usually considered plants.

Re:Use current plants instead.

[Xiver]

Hehe... true true, however I was talking about agricultrual waste in general. The plant in the article just happens to process turkey.

Forgot the entropy?

[prgrmr]

Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

Yes, I agree that today's internal combustion engines are ineffienct. However, this is a classic apples-to-oranges comparision gone bad. The prehistoric plant matter in question went through a whole heck of a lot in its journey to becoming crude oil. As another poster already pointed out, a non-trivial part of that transformation was loss of most of the water in the plants, and hence much of their volume. That means his figures for the weight are already suspect.

It would be much more proper to first examine the plants-to-petrol transformation process, and comment on how efficient that process is first, then the petrol-to-MPG process.

This is simply more cargo cult science, and we can and should do better, IMO.

Oil may not come from plants at all

[semanticgap]

Check out this link (Not sure where the original article is, there is probably better articles on the subject, this is just one I found).

The point is that the assertion that fossil fuels come from plants is just a theory, there may well be a lot more oil undergroung than we ever thought there was, and it may be something that existed prior to any plants.

efficiency of a thermodynamic system

[sangmin]

one thing to note about the efficiency of a thermodynamic system. because of entropy, the max efficiency of a thermodynamic system isn't very high, i think it's around 40%. this is known as the Carnot Cycle. therefore, it is not physically possible to have internal combustion engines with efficiency comparable to electrical systems.

Fossil uel may not be fossils after all

[steven-x]

Some researchers have speculated that hydrocarbon based fossil fuels may be of geological origon as opposed as from plants as most assume. one point in their favor....most all larger planets in our solor system have heavy concentrations of methane (natural gas) in their atmospheres....it would seemn to reason that hydrocarbons were also present in the early eath atmosphere. it also seen logical that a percentage was trapped in rock far below ground, and perhaps converted to heavier hydrocarbons by heat and pressure not unlike the process used to convert hydrocarbons today.

That's interesting, but the real question is...

[pulse2600]

...how many Libraries of Congress is that?

Re:That's interesting, but the real question is...

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

Well, according to this site, it takes about 2 tons of wood to make "942 100-page, hard-cover books" - now, the Library of Congress has "approximately 115 million items". We can assume that the items average out to about a 100-page hardcover book (how nifty, makes my job easier). So, 115,000,000 divided by 942 equals 122,080, which, mulitiplied by 2 tons of wood, equals 244,161 tons of wood. At 98 tons per gallon, assuming a one to one ratio of plant matter to wood, it takes .04% of the Library of Congress to make a gallon of fuel.

If you get 25 mpg, and you drive 12,500 miles a year, you use 500 gallons of gas a year, and so, you consume 20% of the Library of Congress a year.

Still here? OK then, if you drive from age 18 to age 75, that's 57 years of driving. Assuming (obviously grossly innaccurate here, given different fuel consumption at different times) that you drive that 25 mpg car 12,500 miles for all of those 57 years, you have consumed 11.44 Libraries of Congress. You animal. Have you no restraint?

You are responsible!

[fredrikj]

For every mile you ride in your car, God kills an innocent tree!

Shame on you!

No, what it really is

[Don'tTreadOnMe]

It's not really about how inefficient our automobiles are. It's really about how inefficient the damned plants are at making fuel. There's the tragedy in this !

Atomic energy will save us...

[dpbsmith]

...don't worry, we'll soon have energy too cheap to meter. We'll unleash the limitless, endless, bountiful power of the peaceful atom to provide an inexhaustible supply of energy for all mankind.

A single aspirin-sized pellet of uranium will provide Mr. and Mrs. America with enough power to run their car for a lifetime. And soon, the peaceful atom will provide a propulsion source that will make family helicars practical and affordable.

Scientists expect this to happen in a few short decades--perhaps before the end of the sixties.

At least, that's what the science teacher said when I was in junior high school.

Re:Atomic energy will save us...

[Thavius]

I actually wonder if some japanese scientists have that idea with the nuclear battery recently posted here. Although I'm not sure how keen people would be having a nuclear reactor under the hood of their cars. But hey, if a 6' long shaft of uranium can generate electricity 30 years, couldn't they scale it down to fit in a car?

Maybe people are still waiting for hte 35 degree C superconductor and cold fusion.

Re:Atomic energy will save us...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem with this is that the reactors cost >$100,000 and need a pipeline into permafrost. But apart from that, great idea!

Re:Atomic energy will save us...

[Richthofen80]

The sad thing is, the science teacher was absolutely right.

Uranium, pound for pound, will give you more energy in a nuclear reaction than almost any other substance will give you through combustion. The reason why the Atomic Age never really happened is two-fold: Political and Economic.

Political, because people are scared of nuclear energy. They get scared when a proposal for nuclear power comes to town. Never mind that coal, oil and natural gas power facilities have killed 10 to 100 times the people that nuclear power plants would ever kill. People don't protest coal plants the same way, they don't know the 'coal' symbol like they know the nuclear fallout symbol. There are no 'coal' weapons that obliterate people.

Economic, because nuclear energy became incredibly regulated. There hasn't been a new nuclear plant since TMI, (three mile island) since the cost of building and maintaining one is absurbly expensive. Now, I'm not saying nuclear plants shouldn't be regulated, but perhaps the regulation should be reviewed to make it economically feasible.

Electricity and batter power , not combustion, will be the method of auto transport in the future. and the only way that becomes cheap is to make electricity dirt cheap. the only way to do that is atomic energy.

Re:Atomic energy will save us...

[ftzdomino]

They get scared when a proposal for nuclear power comes to town. Never mind that coal, oil and natural gas power facilities have killed 10 to 100 times the people that nuclear power plants would ever kill. People don't protest coal plants the same way, they don't know the 'coal' symbol like they know the nuclear fallout symbol. One of the bigger ironies is that radiation exposure from living near a coal plant is about 400 times greater than from a local nuclear plant. Unless of course it melts down. That is why I'm all for the regulation of nuclear plants until we come up with safer designs or figure out what to do with all of that spent fuel.

Re:Atomic energy will save us...

[Herger]

There are new designs out there. Check out, for example, the pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR). A Web search on CANDU will turn up another design. Unfortunately, for political and economic reasons stated in a parent post, these will probably never be developed in the USA, even if the above-mentioned PBMR is built in South Africa as planned. We're going in the wrong direction; a program at Argonne National Laboratory to reduce atomic waste by transmutation was scrapped by Al Gore and company in 1995, and G.W.Bush's energy plan revolves almost entirely on developing natural gas and oil resources with only token mention of atomic, solar and wind energy.

Re:Atomic energy will save us...

[SofaMan]

Political, because people are scared of nuclear energy. They get scared when a proposal for nuclear power comes to town. Never mind that coal, oil and natural gas power facilities have killed 10 to 100 times the people that nuclear power plants would ever kill. People don't protest coal plants the same way, they don't know the 'coal' symbol like they know the nuclear fallout symbol. There are no 'coal' weapons that obliterate people.


And it many ways, that fear is not unreasonable. Remember, when nuclear facilities/devices fail, they fail catastrophically, and it is a big fat mess. Coal and petroleum/gasoline facilities and devices are far easier to keep safe, and far less catastrophic when they do fail. Whatever the long term/short term benefit ratio is, people will, quite naturally, shy away from catastrophe.

A very good example of this is that way more people die in a year in the US from the flu than died in 9/11, but 9/11 was a catastrophe, so consequently attracts far more attention and government money than the humble flu, which is far more damaging in human terms. Go figure.

Really long term problem-- Run out of CO2 !!

[Greg151]

Hi all,

The really long term problem is the loss of CO2 in the atmosphere, as more is put into Limestone over the millenia. We are worried about Global Warming over the short term ( which could easily be related to solar output, rather than man made activities), but over the course of millions of years, we have had steadily lost CO2, and the planet has become increasingly cooler.

Are cars inefficient, or...

[Vardan]

Is it the conversion process of plant matter to fossil fuels that is inefficient?

I'm not saying that cars are the most efficient things on the face of the earth, but these numbers don't necessarily imply that cars are uniquely inefficent among all our technology. It just implies that most of our technology relies on an inefficient process (the conversion of normal organic matter to fossil fuels) to power it.

I'd like to see how much prehistoric plant matter it would take to cook my Thanksgiving dinner on my stove, or heat up the water for my 10-15 minute shower in the morning.

Oh, the waste!

[Syberghost]

If only we stopped using gasoline, all of those prehistoric plants would spring back into life!

Wow, what a specious article?!

[devaldez]

The writer's thesis is clearly that internal combustion cars are bad. While that may be true, alternate technologies are more inefficient and polluting.

30% of the electricity in the US is generated by coal (citation, Coal Association advertising in local newspaper). When some idiot discusses "Zero Emissions Vehicles" in the same breath with electric cars, you should smack them. Their ZEV is a remote emissions vehicle, likely polluting Utah or other states with signficant electrical generation.

I agree that hybrids are better. I even agree that alternative sources of fuel would be better, but using corn pollutes more. Hydrogen has this pesky habit of exhibiting the Stockholm Syndrome, making liberation very costly (more energy in than generated).

Show me an alternative and I'll buy the hype, but at this point, I haven't seen empirical evidence of a better alternative. And by the way, I bike commute in Oregon year round (25 miles)

Real comparison anyone .

[BESTouff]

I'd like to compare that to how many tons are used to make biodiesel or other bio-carburants nowadays. someone has figures, please ?

Death Trap.

[DAldredge]

That car would not survive a headon collision with a large drop of rain, not to mention an eighteen wheeler.

Re:Death Trap.

[riedquat]

Um, no, it wouldn't play chess well either. Your point?

Re:Death Trap.

[Anonymous Coward]

That BMW "death trap" is becoming more and more dangerous not because of its design but due to people who have no consideration for others (SUV drivers). Plus, SUV drivers are now making it more dangerous for SUV drivers by constantly driving up vehicular weights. A small SUV is no better and even worse than an equivalent weight car in terms of safety. Remember, everyone is a pedestrian sometimes and you probably ride in smaller cars every so often. Plus, everyone knows somebody that they care about who owns a smaller car. Overall safety would improve dramatically if people drove cars instead of SUVS.

http://poseur.4x4.org/reasons2.html#Safe

Re:Death Trap.

[Anonymous Coward]

That statement is just silly.

Show me any consumer vehicle that would survive a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler, never mind the passengers. I forget if it was drivers' ed. or physics class where I picked up that the acceleration of passengers in a car that hit a stationary object at 55mph was (more often than not) fatal. Add the momentum of a loaded 18-wheeler into the mix and there's just not much hope of surviving the incident whether you're driving a Hummer (not those aweful H2s) or a Geo Metro.

Of course, without a given velocity, your comment is even more meaningless. My bike and I would fare quite well against an 18-wheeler at 10mph or less. :-p

Re:Death Trap.

[Rogerborg]

But neither would a Hummer. I guess we'll all have to drive eighteen wheelers to be safe.

You think you're metric but you're not

[yo303]

this translates to 4 tons of prehistoric plants per mile, or more than two tons per kilometer.

If we're going to start measuring car mileage in terms of prehistoric plant mass, shouldn't it be tonnes per kilometer? Or, tonnes per hundred kilometers...

Actually, I don't buy a lot of the numbers he used in the calculations. Oh well... it's not science but it's fun. Coming up next from the University of Utah: a study of how much energy is wasted around the world when people have sex that does not lead to babies.

yo.

Numerology

[fruity_pebbles]

Why is this in the science section? It sounds more like something you'd hear from a Bible Code freak.

Even more inefficiency if you want....

[Anonymous Coward]

now integrate over the total surface area of the plants and over time they were exposed to the sun (for photosynthesis). calculate the total amount of energy absorbed by the plants and create a ratio between that and the amount of energy the sun put out in that period. now you can include that in how inefficient gas is - look how much is wasted on all the non-plant-light-absorbing part of the 8 light-minute shell of energy from the sun! py jingo, cars are inefficient! sheesh.

Umm...hello?

[cybermace5]

The blogger who posted this doesn't get it.

The whole point of the research was to show how inefficient the oil production process was, not how inefficient cars are! It says right there that only 1/10,750th of the plant matter made it to oil and natural gas. So actually, the plant matter represented by one gallon of gas is about 18 pounds.

Go look up ethanol production and other plant fuel oils under development. It doesn't take 98 tons to make a gallon.

No, Mr. Blogger, this does not make me think about how inefficient cars are. That was not the point of the article.

plants are inefficient

[TheSHAD0W]

You know, plants convert less than 1% of the sunlight falling on them into utilizable energy. The worst solar cells do much, much better than that.

Frankly, I think we start building nuclear reactors again. They produce a lot fewer environmental pollutants than current generation plants.

Small numbers are good too!

[hey]

Oh, come on. Small numbers are better than big numbers. How about 6 -- the Smallest Perfect Number

Re:Small numbers are good too!

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the Smallest Weird Number, better.

Re:efficient? That would be a Yank car I take it?

[Anonymous Coward]

In any civilised country a car doing 25 mpg would be taken for a service, or you'd be looking for where the tank leak was.

American cars sooo suck

poor science

[Anonymous Coward]

First, we don't really know where oil comes from.

This is "science" that is only meant for political posturing. By his theories, coal is a better source of energy because it took less plant matter to make it.

Re:poor science

[Tony]

Oil has been retrieved from beneath 3B-year-old sandstone indicates that oil predates prokaryotic life. There existence of hydrocarbons on Titan, in asteroids, and in the Kuiper belt, all indicate that oil is of non-organic origin.

The current hypothesis is simple: hydrocarbons (including oil and natural gas) are remnants of the formation of our solar system, our planet.

This, however, doesn't negate the fact that internal combustion engines are not good for our environment, at least on the scale we use them. The article may use falsehoods for rhetorical purposes, but that doesn't disqualify the concept and evidence of petroleum-based pollution.

I'm just glad...

[Stultsinator]

...I'm doing my part in ridding Mother Earth of that black poison called "oil" polluting her crust. The sooner we all chip in and convert this into harmless CO2 and water the better.

Good News!

[IronTomFlint]

Why, if we have millions of years' worth of plants as the source of our oil, and if we only consume a year's worth of plants for our cars each day, then we've got enough fossil fuels to last for centuries!

Let's pretend that we've got just 5 million years' worth of plants as the source for all the oil. That gives us 13,000+ years of oil for our cars. Even if we assume that all other uses of fossil fuels amount to 10 times as much use per year, that still gives us well over 1200 years worth of energy.

Maybe by then the eco-whacko Left will allow us to build nuclear power plants again. I know, I know. Call me a dreamer...

Re:Good News!

[br0ck]

The research paper saying that cars consume the biomass equivalent to a year's worth of plants growth leaves out that only a very small portion of each ancient years growth eventually became usable fossil fuel. Just the fact that oil is concentrated in certain regions shows that it didn't come from the concentration of entire continents but from the plants growing in that region. The biggest argument for this is that it seems pretty clear that we aren't finding anything close to 13,000 years worth of gasoline.

Of bigger impact than just running out of fuel is the release of millions of years worth of stored CO2 directly into the atmoshphere.

Re:Good News!

[Anonymous Coward]

While I more or less agree with the sentiment, it is worth mentioning, your back-of-the-matchbook calculation makes a lot of assumptions. Such as that all plants make it into "fossil fuels" (why narrow your case unnessecarily?), that when they do they tend to pool together rather than disperse widely, that the pools that do form are all accessable or will be, and that use remains constant.

Its also worth noting that even a small shortage, for a short time causes considerable economic damage.

However, damn skippy on lighting up the nuke plants.

Cool

[the_Bionic_lemming]

60,000,000 years worth of plants divided by 365 to see how many years worth of gas we get equals 164,383 years at our present rate of consumption. Where's the problem?

petroleum is vritually inexhaustable

[Anonymous Coward]

It bubbles up from the core of the earth. What we call petroleum is just eaten up by bacteria and we just think it's made by prehistoric plants.

It's not about the dead plants, it's about us

[ianscot]

Interesting little synopsis of the usual environmental debate, your post.

Environmentalist: We're running out, and our current wasteful practices mean we're running out fast!

Apathetic response: Who cares about a bunch of dead plants anyway?

The answer being, as we (literally) burn through these resources, they not only produce waste that endangers the place we live, they also become more scarce -- leading to the places that have the dead plants, in the form of oil, receiving quite a lot of value for what's left. Scarcity and value, see? Take a look at the extreme wealth of Saudi Arabia's ruling family, examine the Wahaabist faith they've backed using that wealth, all the result of a scarcity of these old dead plants in the world, and then tell me -- is it a potential problem for oil to be the scarce resource we're relying on? Do we want to continue to use inefficient methods of blowing through the oil we've got left, making it more scarce, increasing the upheaval caused by things like Opec's production targets? Or not?

So, see, when environmentalists are worried about this, it's not some tree-hugging lovey-eyed thing on their part, it's self-interest. Similarly, when scientists fret over an oncoming mass extinction, they're worried because no previous mass extinction has allowed the currently dominant group of species to continue in that role. It's not that they're only worried about black-footed ferrets or whatever; they also see that human survival is at stake.

That being the point. Not that "really big numbers" is necessarily the best argument, but human survival is the point.

Re:It's not about the dead plants, it's about us

[drinkypoo]

I think the point is that you don't care about the plants. The plants, at this point, are entirely irrelevant. From the media that I've been exposed to since I was a kid, it seems like they had way too many plants in prehistoric times anyway. I mean, just a shitload of jungle, right? Everyone says panagea was covered with plants. So what's the problem? Besides which, those plants are dead.

Focus (like the Bush administration(s)) on oil. Forget the plants. We all know oil is made primarily from dead plants, but the number of trees per mile doesn't help because the trees by the side of the road will likely never become oil. If they did, maybe you could say, "for every mile you drive, n trees should be planted" or something, but since it doesn't work that way, leave the trees out of it. They don't matter, not one bit.

Re:It's not about the dead plants, it's about us

[Shalda]

However, the article was mostly number whoring. And most of it pretty meaningless at that. Now, an acre of corn can produce about 400 gallons of Ethanol a year. The cost of ethanol is (depending on whose numbers you use) between $1.50 and $2.00/gallon. Point being, ethanol is a viable fuel once consumer prices reach about $2.20 or thereabouts. OPEC could push oil prices higher, but above $35/barrell, biomass starts to become affordable and they become irrelevant. And let's not forget about nuclear, solar, hydro and wind power either. On the whole, I'm not terribly concerned.

Re:It's not about the dead plants, it's about us

[dekashizl]

No, you're completely missing the point of the grandparent post, and in fact trolling pretty hard, though perhaps accidentally.

You just spewed a typical set of "dependence on oil is bad" arguments followed by an irrelevent reference to mass extinctions and self-interest.

The point is that those dead plants aren't being used for anything else, so it's not a convincing rational argument to invoke the number of them that went into producing the oil. If anything, it serves to stimulate that instinctive tree-hugging feeling many of us feel, but if you think about it, it's an interesting statistic, but doesn't matter.

If you feel that it does matter, feel free to contribute your reasoning and make for a good discussion, but don't insult our intelligence with deceptive logic techniques.

Re:It's not about the dead plants, it's about us

[dffuller]

Actually, not only does he not care about the plants, he doesn't care about how quickly the resource is being used. He doesn't want it used at all. When you look at this from an economic standpoint instead of the typical environmentalist standpoint, you understand that there will be a day in the future in which alternative fuels will be cheaper than the fossil fuels. At that point, we will start moving to alternatives. Until that point, we will (mostly) use fossil fuels.

Re:It's not about the dead plants, it's about us

[CycleMan]

Environmentalist: We're running out, and our current wasteful practices mean we're running out fast!

Apathetic response: Who cares about a bunch of dead plants anyway?

Your response: John Ashcroft cares! Because when you buy two tons of dead dinosaur plants, you're driving with terrorists!

My response: If they're extinct, why do I care? How about getting upset over kids starving in Africa instead? If we can feed them with two tons of dead dinosaur plants, let me know. Until then, vroom!

Re:It's not about the dead plants, it's about us

[Anonymous Coward]

When the price of oil rises the price of ethanol will rise. I'm not sure it will ever be cheaper. They say it takes more oil to produce than the ethanol replaces, when you count fertilizer, pestisides, as well as oil/gas for energy.

Re:It's not about the dead plants, it's about us

[anthony_dipierro]

Environmentalist: We've got to stop using oil now, or there won't be any left!

Apathetic response: Huh?

Not that "really big numbers" is necessarily the best argument, but human survival is the point.

Humans don't need oil to survive. We'll survive just fine when we run out of oil. In the mean time, let's enjoy ourselves while we've still got it.

Re:It's not about the dead plants, it's about us

[Anonymous Coward]

There's one part of your post that I'm not really following. Why would environmentalists be upset that we have limited reserves of oil? I thought environmentalists were unhappy that we were using oil and other fossil fuels because of the fact that burning them leads to pollution. If we run out of oil, we won't of course be burning it anymore, and that'd be the end of pollution from fossil fuels, wouldn't it?

Of course, if we assume that there is in essence a fixed amount of oil left in the earth and no more is going to appear after we pump it all out, then we will go through it all eventually. If we cut our usage of fossil fuels in half, we'll still most likely go through all that fossil fuel eventually, so all this means is that it will take us twice as long. Is better for the environment or worse if we take a fixed amount of oil and burn it in 100 years, or is better if we burn that exact same amount of oil over the course of 200 years?

I think you're completely right about the idea that dependence on oil will lead to difficult situations once we start running out of it. However, I don't think that's necessary a bad thing. Sure, some chaos will come as a result of it, but the way the world works as of right now in 2003 is that alternatives are adopted when market forces make it necessary. If the cost to refuel a passenger car goes from $20 to $500, there will suddenly be a very active interest in alternative energy sources.

In fact, that is how I believe it will happen. I don't think we'll hit a wall with oil reserves. As it becomes more and more scarce, oil fields that were too expensive to operate will come online and there will be a big spike in oil exploration and drilling technology. These things will mitigate the effects of scarcity, but still prices will continue to climb. Over the course of a decade, fuel costs will double or triple (even after adjusted for inflation). Then the next decade they'll double or triple again. Automakers will start making cars that use an alternate energy source. As the price continues to rise, people will start realizing it already is or will soon be too expensive to operate their gasoline-powered cars and will look to replace them with something that's cheaper to operate. And whatever the hell that is, that'll be the new winner.

In fact, whatever replaces gasoline will actually be the Next Big Thing. Everyone will need to replace or heavily modify their vehicles. Some infrastructure will need to be built to distribute the energy. Whether that's bigger power lines or modified gas stations pumping out hydrogen, it'll be a big changeover. Since I believe this will be driven by skyrocketing oil prices, it'll be a very profitable enterprise. Electric cars, etc., are not cheap now, and whatever replaces gasoline engine cars won't have to be cheap either once it's the Next Big Thing, because it'll be competing against something whose price is only going up. New companies will be formed and grow extremely fast, while some old ones will struggle to survive. The huge amount of change will stimulate the economy the world over. Every company involved in making it happen will be able to rely on steady growth and a steady stream of incoming orders, so they'll spend spend spend and hire the few qualified people at high prices. The effect will cascade across the entire economy.

Eventually, after a decade or so, the massive investment in change will be mostly done. Economies of scale and improved technology will be applied to the new kind of vehicle, and prices will drop all across the board. The new kind of vehicle will eventually become refined and cheap enough that even the late adopters will decide it's obviously time to switch. Finally, the boom will be over, and people will occasionally turn to each other and say things like, "Remember that old car you used to have -- the gasoline one?"

Re:It's not about the dead plants, it's about us

[drinkypoo]

This is absolutely correct, and it is why we need to continue to make fossil fuels more expensive. People will turn to the alternatives regardless of what the big automakers are doing when they have no choice. This includes me, I'm fond of gasoline burning internal combustion engines, and powerful gasoline engine generally means relatively inefficient too, though that's not really true until you get outside certain limits. It's just a lot easier to get power without being efficient, as funny as that sounds.

Re:It's not about the dead plants, it's about us

[King_TJ]

No matter what the motivation, it's (to an extent, at least), an incorrectly placed concern, IMHO.

Why do we rely so heavily on oil to power our vehicles and heat our homes? Because it's relatively convenient and cheap/plentiful. When it gets to the point where that's no longer true, alternatives will take hold. Nobody's going to drive around a car that costs $10 or $15 per gallon to fuel up.... Long before that happens, it will be more cost-effective to use a different fuel!

The extreme wealth found in Saudi Arabia was attained because their country was willing to drill for as much oil as they could. Right here in the United States, right now, we probably have as much (if not more) oil we could pump out of the ground as they do. Only thing is, our country has had an attitude of "Don't tap into it until the other guys start running out and can't sell to us anymore!", plus environmentalists prohibiting drilling left and right, because of concerns it will damage the wildlife/environment.

The current situation is very much created artificially by politics.

More propaganda disguised as science

[b-baggins]

From the article: ...To determine how much ancient plant matter it took to eventually produce modern fossil fuels, Dukes calculated how much of the carbon in the original vegetation was lost during each stage of the multiple-step processes that create oil, gas and coal... .

In other words, this guy calculated the efficiency of the formation of fossil fuels from the original plant material, then used his result to proclaim, with lots of exclamation marks, just how horrible automobiles are.

His whole argument suffers from the fallacies of false analogy and exclusion.

This is nothing more than a piece of propaganda by a guy who is most likely, from the title of the paper, one of these idiots who think that solar power is actually a workable alternative for a high-energy economy and civilization.

If these are the kinds of papers that pass for valid PhD work at the U of U, remind me to never send my kid there for an education in critical thought.

And 1 gram of Uranium = ... miles

[j_dot_bomb]

So would the people who put this out be thrilled to have electric cars that get powered by nuclear power ? Yeah I understand the point that the oil will run out.

Re:And 1 gram of Uranium = ... miles

[InfiniteWisdom]

1 gram of Uranium = ... miles
A moot point... nuclear fuel is renewable. The problem is disposal of radioactive waste.

Re:And 1 gram of Uranium = ... miles

[catherder_finleyd]

The French have solved this problem. For more, check out:

http://www.cogemalahague.com

Re:And 1 gram of Uranium = ... miles

[InfiniteWisdom]

So what are we waiting for then???

Large numbers = oil economy sustainable

[feelyoda]

"The research paper also mentions that everyday, we are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plants growing during a whole year just for our cars"

Note that there have been hundreds of millions of years for these plants to accumulate, which implies that cars should have ample gas for centuries :)

This highlights the fact that supply will NOT be a reason why petroleum products will no longer be used. I think that only a change in the bottom line to consumers and businesses will change any policy towards the environment. For instance: a car tax [only on 'non-green' cars] going towards research of alternative methods.

Note also that this idea is a subset of having the final cost of products (i.e. waste management) incorporated into the retail cost, where today it is not. This is from Marshall Brain:
http://marshallbrain.com/etq-landfills.htm

Re:Large numbers = oil economy sustainable

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, actually, according to estimations based on increasing oil usage and total available oil, we only have about 40 years left. Compound that with a diminishing curve on oil production and you have a critical point that is actually quite a bit more near than 40 years. I think I read somewhere that usage is already exceeding output, which would fit in with the projections that show output peaking any day now.

I am also wondering how much of the oil in that total estimate is actually reasonably accessible? I guess that is factored in to the diminishing curve. Regardless, it is all downhill from here. A decade of denial and then the truth will start to set in to the people who don't even care. Probably in the form of ever increasingly realistic fuel prices.

And what can we do about it?

[aggressivepedestrian]

The cover story of The Economist this week is about the development of alternative sources of energy, and how little the Bush administration is doing to encourage that development. Rather than implementing policies to decrease the demand for fossil fuels and increase the supply of alternatives, the government's policies, including the new Energy Bill, simply focus on increasing the supply of fossil fuels.

Sigh.

CANYONERO!!!

[tonyMontana69]

"Can you name the car with four-wheel-drive?
Smells like a steak and seats thirty-five!
Canyonero! Canyonero!
Well, it goes real slow with the hammer down.
It's a country-fried truck endorsed by a clown.
Canyonero! Canyonero!
Twelve yards long and two lanes wide,
Sixty-five tons of American pride!
Canyonero! Canyonero!
Top of the line in utility sports!
Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts.
Canyonero! Canyonero!
She blinds everybody with her super-high beam.
She a squirrel-squishin', deer-smackin' drivin' machine!
Canyonero! Canyonero!"

Model T

[FrostyWheaton]

Hmmmmm...

1200 lbs, 20 horsepower

vs.

2400 lbs, 200 horsepower, power steering, A/C, Automatic Transmission, etc.

Yeah, I'd say we've gone nowhere in the last hundred years.

let's be realistic

[BigGerman]

14-16 mpg is the "reasonably efficient car" around here. Something like Dakota light truck.
Most of SUVs are even worse.

I asked someone the question, just the other day

[kfg]

"How many acres of weeds do you think it would take to make enough hydrogen to run your car for a week?"

And voila! Here we have the key to the answer.

Yes, yes, I know, this isn't hydrogen, but the answer is still going to be rougly similar. Probably rather worse actually, for the reasons I expounded in that rather fractious thread. Biomass for fuel will not save us.

Nor is the problem the efficiency of our cars. The problem is the efficiency of our cars. That is to say making our cars 35% efficient instead of 25% efficient still won't change the essential vast quatities of plant matter needed to run them. It's the car itself, as we know it, that is the problem.

Not to mention how we use them. See Douglas Adams, re "bypass."

Mass transit won't be our saviour either. Trains are more efficient than cars. Trains used to run on biomass. We stripped forests bare to power trains, that's why we switched to fossil plant fuels for trains in the first place. No more damned trees. Nearly one quarter the people in the US in 1900 too, and far fewer of them used and significant mechanical means of travel on a daily basis. Now we have four times the people and more cars than people.

Myself, I've found that one pound of plant mass is sufficient to take me 20 miles, but only a few of us are willing to take that route.

Today.

Tommorow you may have little choice in the matter. They ain't makin' petroleum crude as fast as we're using it.

KFG

Again?

[Anonymous Coward]

*yawn* [monotone voice] wow this is just too thrilling [/monotone voice].

So, automotive vehicles aren't effecient - we didn't need this paper telling us that...

Instead, how about a paper on the solution to get automotive manufactuers to actually sale (more then 5 I mean) the more effcient less prehistoric-based vehicles? Or the consumer to actually buy them? Now there's an interesting paper...

What?

[SoupaFly]

Building more buses to combat traffic congestion is like buying a bigger belt to combat obesity

The wonderful thing about cliche arguments is that they are always so easily turned upside down.

Yeah, except that the original quip actually made sense. Increasing the availability and utilization of mass transit actually *does* combat traffic congestion.

Ass.

Re:What?

[MKalus]

For that matter, here in the US, a first-class postal letter costs $0.37. According to your logic, a postal carrier picks my single letter out of my mail box, drives it all the way to California, or where ever, and delivers it to the destination mail box, all for $0.39.

Okay, let's see what has to go into the price calulation:

1. Fuel Cost.
2. Maintenance Cost
3. Employee cost.

Those are the "obvious" ones by which they calculate their price, right?

But what about hidden costs?

- Usage of Roads
- REAL cost of the fuel
- Real cost of raw materials
- Real cost of energy

etc. etc. etc.

The way we pay for our products are not "real" in that sense, and no, economy of scale doesn't work their either.

Let's look at the tuna again:

For 77 cents (that was the last price I paid), I receive:

- A can
- Paper banderol
- tuna

So how does it get on my table?

Trawler is going out and fishing, for that the trawler needs to be build, maintained. The people on the boat need to get paid.

Then the tuna get's unloaded, those people need to get paid, it needs to get cleaned and cut up, more people who need to get paid, next you have to package it, this isn't done by hand so you need to buy and maintain those machines (don't forget the electricity to run those), then it needs to be put on flats, which are made out of cardboard and wood, which again has to be produced, with energy etc. etc.

You get the picture. The reality is that the true cost is hidden from us, and I still don't think that at 77 cents I pay the true cost, to the enviroment or to the people who do it.

There was a research paper I read a while ago, but I couldn't find the link on google, that explained these quite nicely, there are reasons why stuff is so cheap and the main reason for this is that someone else is making up the shortfall. Be it the taxpayer of taiwan who pays to get the fish re-stocked or be it us who pay for the road construction because the heavy trucks have destroyed them. The matter of fact is that most of the food we are buying these days does not reflect the actual costs.

For every kCal that is consumed in North America, on average 5 kCal have been used to produce it, and that doesn't even count the sun, just the fossile fuel sources we plunder for this.

Re:What?

[SubtleNuance]

But you are not paying for the very real and tangible costs of the *roads* themselves, of the traffic deaths associated with truck congestion, of the health costs (literal $) spent on lung ailments (pollution) etc etc etc.

These externals are *real* costs. The article clearly states that we burn Stored Energy at an astonishing rate. THAT is the point. You cannot sell your capital and call it positive income. What do we do if we *waste* all our petrol shipping apples from California to Ontario? What do we do when need that petrol? The POINT is our present Capitalism *isnt* paying for all the costs. Our present system EXTERNALIZES COSTS (roads/pollution/health/safety) and Internalizes benefit ($profit).

Re:What?

[rainer_d]

[snip]

While you have a point, currently, the consumtion of natural resources is not priced correctly.
Think of it, even here in Germany, where the taxes on fuel more or less triple the price for it, it's still too cheap when you consider that this still doesn't pay for the effects on nature (pollution, CO2-effect, forrest dieback, urban sprawl, ground-sealing by the roads etc. pp.)

Just ask yourself one question:
What's the replacement-value of 1 litre of oil ?

Because one thing is sure: nobody can bring back all those fuel-drops that the gas-guzzling SUV-monsters, big BMWs, S-class Mercedes etc. burn every second. As such, the replacement-value of fuel is more-or-less infinite.
Additionally, the amount of oil on earth is finite. We can't make any new, and hydrating coal (as done by Germany during WW2) doesn't look too promising either.

Re:What?

[SubtleNuance]

Fuel taxes pay for road construction and maintenance, at least here in the United States.
hahahha! Fuel taxes DONT pay for the EXTERNALITIES! They dont pay for ill health associated w/ pollution. They dont pay for health costs of traffic accidents. They dont even *really* pay to maintain/build the roads! The taxes pay for some, but not nearly all of even the direct (maintain/build) costs!

Re:What?

[SubtleNuance]

Here's a question for you: what cost-effective and economically-viable alternative method do you propose for providing the people of Ontario with apples?

Well good question. I live in a city. So, I would probably petition the planting of an apple tree in my neighbourhood garden... oh, there is no basic foods co-operative program in my city?

So, I would plant an apple tree in my yard and trade apples for peaches with my neighbour. I havnt any land as I live in a highrise?

I would goto the local Farmer's Retail Markets and come home with a basket of apples. No Farmer Owned Retail market?

I would phone the local farmers assocaition and ask who raises apples. I would find out to whom he sells them, and go there. The only buyer is regional food-terminal? That ships his produce far away to who-knows? Sorry, no sale.

I buy peaches (see above).

My desire to live well, in a responsible manner causes me to (very rarely) exercise such a scenario. Most often than not, i can buy whatever I want grown within 50 kilometers of my home. Am i allowed a 'treat' every now and then? say, citrus from florida? Sure, no problem. I just dont make it a staple of my diet. I eat locally grown, seasonal produce. Alot of it.

I buy eggs from a small organic chicken farmer that I work with. I buy bread from a baker whom I bike to. I buy pasta next door to that baker. My beer brewery (and distillery (Canadian Club is made 4 blocks away)) are within 4 blocks. Cheese is made accross the city but I buy it from a small grocer. etc etc etc. I get exercise, I even drink the local organic fair-trade coffee from an indy cafe a few blocks away...

Many hear this stuff and say, "but i dont have all those vendors so near to my home" -- and I say "move out of suburbia".

Re:What?

[Inebrius]

What is the replacement cost of anything on this planet?

Gold? Topsoil? Fish? Trees? Clean atmosphere? Minerals? Silicon? Plastic?

Whenever we use a natural resource that we take from the planet, chances are it would cost more to replenish (manufacture) that resource than to mine it. Otherwise, we would wouldn't mine it in the first place.

It is hard to determine what the cost is to the commons (public resources), however, I think that the example given is a poor one.

Fuel/energy/transportation costs are all included in the end cost of products. Where I live, we pay $.36 a gallon plus sales tax. And we also pay a fee that goes towards roads (registration). Commercial vehicles also pay additional fees based on the weight they are allowed to carry. They pay extra fees when they purchase or re-tread tires. This is one case where some of the external costs are included in the price.

When it comes to fuel, regardless of the use, there are external costs that our society bears. And it is not just commercial transportation. We use plenty of fuel on our own for heating, commuting, travelling, and recreation.

The best thing you can do if you want to save the planet is don't have any kids. If I am excessive in my usage, drive an SUV, constantly heat my home, and use buy goods for far away, I will not come close to causing the same damage to the planet as those of you with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 kids. If people had to bear the external costs of their own production (offspring), there would be far fewer problems with overpopulation.

FYI - I only plan on having 1 child, in maybe 5 years. Unless you have 1 or fewer offspring, shut up about my SUV.

Re:What?

[ahdeoz]

So finally you get to your real concerns, which I share with you: 1. The companies that are contracted to maintain/build roads and paid with tax dollars are being paid too much due to graft, corruption, and government cronyism 2. The insurance companies and/or government health care programs have skewed the true cost of mdeical treatment so that people cannot afford it, and it is not feasible to provide proper health care to most people. Where we seem to still disagree is whether: 3. A per-unit tax is a fair way to distribute the cost of road usage on vehicles, thereby encouraging fuel efficiency and reducing pollution.

Re:What?

[RichardX]

FYI - I only plan on having 1 child, in maybe 5 years. Unless you have 1 or fewer offspring, shut up about my SUV.

Thanks for the invitation. As it happens, I have 0 offspring, but even if I had 5, I wouldn't "shut up about your SUV"..

It's very simple, really. You're saying we'd all do a lot less damage, and have more resources per person if there were less of us.

Well, yes, but...

Let's say, just pulling figures out of the air, that this planet can just barely support 6 billion wasteful people. You're suggesting we drop the population to, say, 3 billion. Still 3 billion wasteful people, mind, but who cares, they're comfortable.

Well, what if.. and brace yourself, this is a really radical idea.. what if we were to be.. less wasteful! So instead of just barely supporting 6 billion wasteful people, the planet could very comfortably support 6 billion eco friendly people?

Just a crazy thought, mind...

Re:What?

[cyril3]

If people had to bear the external costs of their own production (offspring), there would be far fewer problems with overpopulation.

This argument falls apart a bit if you consider the areas of the world where population is rising beyond the local capacity; Africa and Asia. Neither has much government support for families so they do bear most of the costs of their produce that would be externalized in Western society.

I will not come close to causing the same damage to the planet as those of you with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 kids.

So me and my wife and our three kids who have about as much money to spend as you, are going to do more damage with that money over the 20 years we live together as a family unit than you. Perhaps, but I doubt if its anywhere near 5 times as much.

Perhaps the figures break down after 8 or 9 kids. I know I certainly would.

And my wife ... well we won't go there.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

well look at africa and asia a little closer. most off the childer then don't live to adult hood in the areas without public assistance from the government. also the government in one of those areas were ofrceing abortions after the first child was born for quite some time.

also in those areas. the satandard of living is different than in the us. it is common to see 2 and 3 generations in the same house of a size that a 2 adult and one child family in the states would feel cramped in.

i actually like the argueing from the enviromental wako's (yes you) and those that think the earth is becoming overpopulated. your constant bickering with other is entirely too funny. i enjoy getting a laugh out of it and art the same time i can look at my pathetic life and smile because it has to be better than your's, or at least from the opinion i get when watching wako's make an ass out of them selve. kinda like watching jerry springer, you soon realize your better off because you actually saw someone worse than you.

anyways, the earth has it's own ballance that we cannot control at anyn major level. if we stoped using fossil fules entirely we woulnd't make an impact in it's grand scheme of things. hell we couldn't even destroy it, the best we could hope for is wiping out a few species (that acording to evolution should re-apeer) and maybe make it inhabitable for the majority of us.

goood day and thanks for the laugh.

Re:What?

[cyril3]

well look at africa and asia a little closer. most off the childer then don't live to adult hood in the areas without public assistance from the government.

The fact that so many die before adulthood rather proves that there is no government support. But the population in those areas still rises. This supports my broad point that wearing the external costs of children does not reduce population growth. Its arguable that it in fact increases population.

also the government in one of those areas were ofrceing abortions after the first child was born for quite some time.

I presume you said forceing so you are referring to China. The one child policy was selectively enforced in rural areas, again areas where poverty and the withdrawal of government facilities was most noticable after the liberalization started. And again support for my point.

i actually like the argueing from the enviromental wako's (yes you) and those that think the earth is becoming overpopulated.

I don't know how you came to this conclusion based on my post. I don't think at all that overpopulation is an issue except in areas where it destroys the enviornment.

. kinda like watching jerry springer, you soon realize your better off because you actually saw someone worse than you.

The difference between you and me is that I get that feeling from comparing myself to the audience, not the guests.

the best we could hope for is wiping out a few species (that acording to evolution should re-apeer) and maybe make it inhabitable for the majority of us.

Which shows how little you understand about science, how much you underestimate human capacity for stupidity, and how much you overestimate your chances of being one of the survivors.

goood day and thanks for the laugh.

No, thank you.

Remaining Oil

[Anonymous Coward]

Some posters have asked how much oil is left. The current consensus is EUR (Estimated Ultimately Recoverable, the amount of oil that will ever be recovered from the Earth) is between 1.8 and 2.2 trillion bbl.[1] So far we have consumed 850 billion bbl.

Current world consumption is around 75 million bbl/day.[2] This might lead one to believe that oil will last our current rate of consumption for another 35+ years.

Unfortunately, there are two problems. Firstly, oil consumption is increasing globally at around 5% annually. Secondly, and much more seriously, oil production is unlikely to proceed at a increasing rate until the last drop comes out of the ground.

The shape of the oil production curve is subject of some debate, but a popular model is the "Hubbert Curve" named for the Shell Oil geologist who, in 1956, used it to successfully predict that oil production in the lower 48 would peak in the early 1970's.

Using the Hubbert Curve for global oil reserves, Kenneth Deffeyes predicts peak global oil production will occur between 2000 and 2007 before beginning an irreversible decline.[3] Other geologists have given more optimistic forecasts, pushing out the start of the decline several more years.

Sources:
[1] World Resources Institute
[2] Energy Information Administration (part of the Department of Energy)
[3] "Hubbert's Peak" by Kenneth Deffeyes, Princeton University Press, 2001.

This says nothing of car efficiency

[Jay Bratcher]

Rather, it says that fossil fuel, and the process it goes through to get to the point that it is useable for a fuel (including the several thousand years it spends underground), is inefficient. The same cars running on grain alcohol use considerably less, as far as I know - I can't imagine 4 tons of corn being used to produce a gallon of grain alcohol...

Its not the cars that are inefficent

[MindSlap]

"The research paper also mentions that everyday, we are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plants growing during a whole year just for our cars. Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are." I dont think its the 'cars' that are inefficient... It's the 'plants' that are inefficient... Its the *plants* that ultimately yielded only 1 gallon of fuel. We need better plants..not cars... :D

Re:efficient? That would be a Yank car I take it?

[boy_afraid]

My car my suck at 20 mpg, but I love my Lexus RX300 SUV. It rides VERY smooth, VERY comfortable, VERY luxurious. I can afford it easily, so why can't I have it. There are many similar things I can say about smokers and how bad it is for the individual, but it's thier right to kill themselves. I know I know, but it's not right for me to kill my planet. As soon as there is an alternative source available to me to use with my RX300, I'll switch. Remember, I said available to me, not in some lab or in 1 service station.

So Incredibly Stupid

[Jameth]

This study says nothing, except that only a small portion of decaying plants went into fossil fuels.

Does it say what happened to the rest of those plants?

No. Odds are THEY WENT SOMEWHERE, seeing as things don't just cease to exist.

So, your fuel came from part of plants, and the rest went SOMEWHERE ELSE.

OOOooooo! Scary!

Solar & Wind are great...but not portable

[djh101010]

Yes, it could. However, wind or solar directly to electricity, for fixed sites, is much more efficient than converting them to hydrogen & using it for a mobile source. You lose quite a bit in converting to hydrogen, and then another "quite a bit" in consuming it, so it's not a very efficient way of using that wind or solar power.

Re:Solar & Wind are great...but not portable

[Anonymous Coward]

So?! It's still going to be inefficient no matter what conversion method you use. At least wind/solar/hydro or whatever is a start.

Re:Solar & Wind are great...but not portable

[djh101010]

Sure, but if you're going to go with wind & solar, which are barely cost-justifiable at this time, why then waste 2/3 of it converting to and from hydrogen rather than using it directly? You can get all touch-feely about it, but fact is, that doesn't sell technology. "Here; use this, it costs more and is 1/3 as good" is rarely an effective sales pitch. "Here; use this, it costs about the same, is just as good, and it's a cleaner technology" will sell systems. Initially, those who buy it are the ones who feel strongly about the technology or about the "green-ness" of it, which makes the cost come down, but not enough folks will adopt something that has built-in, systemic inefficiencies preventing it's use.

Re:Solar & Wind are great...but not portable

[WOV]

Good thinking, but you didn't go far enough. Yes, you lose some of the energy converting to and from hydrogen - so why bother? Because batteries suck so hard.

I'm about as lefty-Green as you can be while still maintaining some logical coherency, and I'm willing to concede that electric cars don't work...the reason being that the only cost-effective storage for vehicles are lead-acid batteries, which are very heavy and very costly. So they render the car unworkable and hugely expensive. Hydrogen fuel cells look like they'll be considerably less heavy and expensive for the same performance, which more than compensates for lower thermodynamic efficiencies.

At the end of the day, pure thermodynamic efficiency generally turns out to be a useful tool for estimating the viability of an energy system - but completely inadequate in and of itself. To be a really effective engineer, you can't delude yourself into thinking that it all comes down to one mathematical variable, and that those considering other factors are necessarily fuzzy-headed or missing the point.

Re:Solar & Wind are great...but not portable

[djh101010]

Who said anything about batteries? Use wind & solar directly - right to the inverter & to the load.

As far as cars and other mobile power units - wouldn't it make more sense to pursue the hybrid approach? Use a fuel-consuming device to turn a generator, which then runs motors at each wheel. You get the regenerative braking and all those benefits, while using a fuel that can be delivered by the existing infrastructure. There are no hydrogen stations at this time, but you sure can buy diesel and gasoline - great. Let's encourage use of those; might even be nice to emphasise biofuels that are compatible with the existing vehicles, and the hybrids.

Now, you've got a bunch of hybrids running around. Yay. You're getting road-time on the technology, economies of scale start working for you, and public accpetance improves. This isn't just a technical problem, after all, and the whole world doesn't think like engineers. Get 'em used to the idea of a motor indirectly running their electric cars, and make it convenient for 'em by letting them fill up wherever the heck they want to.

*then* is the time that the hybrid technologies are viable, accepted, and efficient enough, and it's time to roll a new fuel into the mix. Maybe it is hydrogen, maybe not. Get part of the system changed at a time - changing everything at once introduces too many new technologies at the same time, each of which come with an efficiency hit, a public understanding/acceptance hit, and a cost hit.

Like any new technology, a staged approach is the way to go. I think hybrid autos using existing fuel sources are a logical starting point.

actually..

[annisette]

it is about 20-22 pounds of grain per pound of beef.

Here is some research you'll be interested in.

[Xiver]

Anything Into Oil Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year.

According to the above article the U.S. could end its dependancy upon foreign oil and not have to worry about EVER running out.

Re:Here is some research you'll be interested in.

[Anonymous Coward]

...600 million tons of turkey guts...
...not have to worry about EVER running out.

Until we run out of turkeys that is. On second thought, there's no chance of running out of "turkeys" in this country. :)

Re:Here is some research you'll be interested in.

[Politicus]

U.S. could end its dependancy upon foreign oil and not have to worry about EVER running out.

This can't end America's dependence on foreign oil. It says so right there in the article

Just converting all the U.S. agricultural waste into oil and gas would yield the energy equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil annually. In 2001 the United States imported 4.2 billion barrels of oil.

According to that arcane knowledge of arithmetic, 4 does not exceed 4.2 ! Therefore, the US will continue its energy dependence on foreign sources.

But wait, there's more...

That's at current domestic oil production levels and present day agricultural efficiencies. Both of these trends do not bode well for the US.

It's interesting that the article used humans as an example:

If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water.

Just about the only resource that is growing around the world is people.

Perhaps in the future, the rich will literally be driving the poor.

Re:Here is some research you'll be interested in.

[Anonymous Coward]

If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water.

Let's see...38 pounds of oil per person...roughly 5 gallons. There are roughly 6 billion people in the world, approximately 5.725 billion of whom who are not Americans... I see possibilities here...

-Don Rumsfeld

Re:Here is some research you'll be interested in.

[Xiver]

I'm pretty sure that the oil industry in the U.S. produces more than .2 billion barrels annually.

Re:Here is some research you'll be interested in.

[Politicus]

Ignorance is bliss isn't it?

This already takes into account domestic production which peaked back in 1970. The US, once a major oil supplier, is now a major oil importer.

This is what happens to finite resources. They get used up and you need to look elsewhere. The earth is drying up like a kid's slurpy and all the 7-11's are out of business.

Re:Here is some research you'll be interested in.

[Xiver]

Ignorance is bliss isn't it?
I don't know, you tell me.

I work in the U.S. oil industry and based on how much we just pull out of the gulf of mexico 200 million bbls is drop in the bucket.
Besides these estimates are also based on a product in its infancy. I'm sure it will become more effeicent over time.

But since this is all speculation anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Re:Here is some research you'll be interested in.

[tkg]

It figures that when someone comes up with a method to reduce our dependence on foreign oil sources, all it gets is criticizm for not being the 'perfect' solution.

Of course your comment about the human resource brings to mind an interesting idea. We could depolimerize dead bodies for their oil rather than inter or cremate them(interment wastes precious real estate and cremation is a complete waste of energy with no beneficial return). The Fremen of Dune reclaimed the water of their dead, given its precious nature. Why couldn't we do it for the oil. It would take a bit of social and cultural reengineering to get the majority to embrace it though.

Re:Here is some research you'll be interested in.

[Politicus]

It figures that when someone comes up with a method to reduce our dependence on foreign oil sources, all it gets is criticizm for not being the 'perfect' solution.

That's the point. There is no perfect solution! Although TDP is an excellent way to recover resources from waste, ultimately, when natural resources run dry, there will to be a decrease in energy consumption and hence a drastic drop in waste generation.

The US has no policy to deal with this. There isn't even a policy to limit energy consumption growth.

The best solution is not even technical, it is socio-economic. Reduce people and reduce per capita consumption.

There is ZERO political awareness of this issue!

Re:Here is some research you'll be interested in.

[ivan256]

This already takes into account domestic production which peaked back in 1970....This is what happens to finite resources. They get used up and you need to look elsewhere.

The peak being in the 1970s want for technical reasons, and is not due to a lack of oil in the ground. It's all about political will. Sure the oil will run out eventually, but not soon.

Re:Here is some research you'll be interested in.

[Politicus]

US domestic oil production peaked in 1970 well before the OPEC problems as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1972-1973.

Of course there is oil in the ground. There will be oil in the ground when we "run out of oil". It's not even economics, but rather the energy return on energy invested. The oil in the ground will be left there because extracting it will consume more energy than the oil can provide.

American Cars

[nmg196]

For a reasonably efficient car, riding 25 miles per gallon....
...this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are

Yes - I often think how inefficient your cars are.

carbon just recycled.

[tmroyster]

But the carbon that would be lost during the
conversion from plants to fossil fuel would
eventually be recycled back into plants, which would
be converted into fossil fuels...

etc. etc.

Diesel engines?

[Gordonjcp]

In diesels, the accelerator pedal directly controls the amount of fuel injected. There isn't a "throttle" as such, the air intake is wide open all the time. Even at idle there's a massive airflow through the engine, which is why turbocharged diesel engines can be so efficient and responsive.

We Are Star-Stuff

[TrueJim]

I wonder how many tons of stars it takes to make prehistoric vegetation? If we could figure out how many stars need to nova to make a ton of raw materials for plants (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc.) then we could show how inefficient cars REALLY are. Wow!

Re:efficient? That would be a Yank car I take it?

[FrostyWheaton]

In any civilised country a car doing 25 mpg would be taken for a service,

You mean Like the BMW 525? (20 city, 28 highway)
Or the Saab 9-5? (20/29)
Or the Volvo V70? (20/26)

It appears that european cars "sooo suck" as well.

european and asian cars more efficient

[Anonymous Coward]

our situation in america is so bad because we have the least efficient, most gas-guzzling cars. i recently compared the fuel efficiency of major u.s. cars with european and asian autos, and hell, they are waaay better.

196,000 pounds or 98 tons

[Anonymous Coward]

When my parents were at school, 196000 pounds only made 87t 10cwt!

196000 lbs / 112 lbs in one cwt = 1750 cwt
1750 cwt / 20 cwt in one ton = 87.5 t
0.5 t = 10cwt
giving 87t 10cwt.

Of course, if you used the rough approximation of 1kg = 2lb, then the 196000 would be in error, because one olde englishe ton {2240 lbs, or 1016.064kg} is about equal to one megagramme {metric tonne}.

So what? We will never run out of oil

[Helevius]

I don't see the point of this post. We will never run out of oil. Why? Economics. Assume oil began to become scarce. No new supply is replacing the oil taken from the ground. Assuming fixed demand, the price of oil would rise as the supply diminished. (If demand rose, the price would rise even more.)

As prices rise, alternatives to oil become financially viable. Suddenly fuel cells or wind power or any other technology currently more expensive than oil looks attractive to investors. Those who can afford oil buy it, while others turn to the alternatives. Assuming no new oil is discovered (to address the supply issue), eventually no one cares about oil as everyone has transitioned to other forms of energy. The remaining oil sits in the ground unused.

Of course this adjustment must take place over the mid- to long-run. Short-term adjustments are called "oil shocks," such as we had in the 1970s or during the early days of most recent wars.

Helevius

It's interesting...but...

[HardCase]

It's kind of interesting, as trivia goes, but what of it? Given that the large amount of lawn clippings, leaves and such that I put into my composter ends up as a much smaller mass, I'm not surprised that some massive amount of vegetation was required to end up with a gallon of gas.

"Staggering"? Not really. Most of what used to be a plant was water. And if, as the article says, only 1/10750th of the carbon from the plan makes it to become oil, the rest served as fertilizer (to help other plants grow and become oil (and more fertilizer)).

If the idea is to point out that gasoline engines are inefficient, well, duh! If the idea is to point out that oil is an unsustainable energy source, well, duh! If the idea is to point out that we need to develop new energy technologies, well, duh! But "98 tons of plants per gallon" is kind of a red herring. Plants die, the water evaporates, the plant mass decomposes and serves as fertilizer and a little bit, over a long period of time, ends up as oil. As a system, it's somewhat inappropriate to pick out a single element the way that the author of this paper did. Yes, it did take quite a large amount of plant material to make a gallon of gas, but if more of the plant material turned into oil, then less would have been available to enrich the soil and provide for the growth of new plants. The numbers are interesting, but they only tell part of the story.

Oh, and to add to the conclusion of the article, the author left out nuclear power from "other technologies".

-h-

Not only that...

[kindbud]

The steel used to build your car's frame and body was produced in a supernova over 5 billion years ago. Only a tiny fraction of the energy generated by fusing at least 4 solar masses of hydrogen went into the production of the iron, chromium and carbon that was used to make the steel. A whole solar system was likely destroyed in the process.

Automobiles are far more inefficient than even this article implies.

Re:Not only that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks - I haven't laughed that hard in a long time :-)

Re:Not only that...

[Anonymous Coward]

But we recycle old cars into new ones, since when has anyone recycled the emissions out a tailpipe into new gasoline?

Cars inefficient?

[misleb]

Seems to me that "4 tons of plant material per mile" speaks more to the massive amounts of energy that modern technology and societies require than to its relative (in)efficiency. The average internal combustion engine is, what, 25% efficient? Thats not terribly bad. Lets say you made it 100% efficient. You'd still be using the energy equivilent of 1 ton of plant material per mile. Numbers like this really put into perspective the feasability of switching to renewable sources of energy on a global scale. Can we really expect to generate the energy equivelent of one years global plant growth every day from diffuse sources such as the sun, wind, and ocean? And that is just for our cars. I think it is safe to assume that as we increase efficiency we will also increase total consumption. There are a whole lot of people in teh world that don't own cars, but would love to...

-matthew

in other news

[Anonymous Coward]

donald rumsfeld accuses rain forest pygmies of harbouring weapons of mass destruction.... the fact that todays trees are tomorrows oil is obviiusly nothing to do with the subsequent invasion and failure to find any WMD, but hey, the trees are safe from the brutal opressive pygmy regime

And I say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Kumbaaa - yaaaa..... my lord.... kuuuumbaaa yaaa...

Re:And I say...

[Anonymous Coward]

did you read the article? what kind of ignorant twit are you..?

Who cares?

[untaken_name]

So, if we weren't using all that degraded biomass to power our cars, what would it be doing? Sitting in the ground, being useless. So what if we burn up 2 tons of what was once a fucking plant? It's not like we're cutting down 2 tons of CURRENT living biomass for each gallon. I mean, sure, look for more efficient energy sources; might as well, right? However, using old biomass that isn't doing anything else is better than, say, converting people into fuel. Of course, I can think of some people who would be more useful powering my car than in their current existence.

Try oatmeal and bicycles for an example

[not-him-again]

This morning, I ate 1/3 cup instant oatmeal (plant matter, if you like), and bicycled 5 miles to my job. Now that's efficient!

I don't think that the words "car" and "efficiency" belong in the same sentence.

Driving = squandering resources. Once squandered, you get this.

Re:Try oatmeal and bicycles for an example

[ncc74656]

I don't think that the words "car" and "efficiency" belong in the same sentence.

I'd like to see you bike 15 miles each way when it's 110 (or hotter) outside. Then again, your coworkers wouldn't as they'd be stuck with your b.o. all day.

Re:Try oatmeal and bicycles for an example

[ChrisMaple]

Or in snow, or a severe rainstorm, etc.

Re:Try oatmeal and bicycles for an example

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously never heard of "showers".

Re:Try oatmeal and bicycles for an example

[Anonymous Coward]

Or in snow, or a severe rainstorm, etc.

I'm not the original poster, but i do bike about 20 miles each day (to get to work, stores, family/friends) in Michigan. It tops out around 98F and bottoms out at around -20F. I bike through those temperatures, through rain, snow, ice storms - hail is kind of fun. If i'm feverish or hungover it's rather a pain, but still doable.

It is neither impossible nor smelly. Take a change of clothes along, be smart. When i first started, i did not believe i could, but i like to stress my constraints.

Re:Try oatmeal and bicycles for an example

[ncc74656]

You've obviously never heard of "showers".

WhereTF are you going to take a shower while at work? Last time I checked, the average office isn't suitably equipped. Go troll somewhere else.

Re:Try oatmeal and bicycles for an example

[PCM2]

How do you manage the weather conditions on a bike? Do you have snow tires etc.? I'd be concerned most about safety, especially in those northern states where most people are in cars and aren't expecting to see bikes on the road in bad weather.

Yet another reason to start using TDP!

[Mysticalfruit]

a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=83454&ci d=7299978">my original post the other day"</a> sums it up.<p>However, since most slashdotters are lazy, I'll explain it in __ words.
<p>
TDP or Thermal Depolymerization is the process of using heat and pressure to turn any carbon based organic material back into its original components. Basically it does what the earth does, just it does it in minutes, not millions of years. Hydrocarbons go in, oil and water and raw materials come out.

Re:Yet another reason to start using TDP!

[Mysticalfruit]

Man, I love over the counter cold medicine! Lets try this with HTML this time!!!

my original post the other day" sums it up.

However, since most slashdotters are lazy, I'll explain it in 52 words.

TDP or Thermal Depolymerization is the process of using heat and pressure to turn any carbon based organic material back into its original components. Basically it does what the earth does, just it does it in minutes, not millions of years. Hydrocarbons go in, oil and water and raw materials come out.

Sweet

[pw1972]

my gas guzzling SUV eats up even more then 4 tons/ mile. I need a bigger engine that gets even worse gas mileage now because lord knows I love to be on top.

The point I got from the article and comments

[UrgleHoth]

Is that, if we assume that oil commes from prehistoric plants (as opposed to this idea brought up in this discussion), then oil IS a renewable energy source, just not on a timescale that humans like. So use up that oil, but leave the forests alone, and we'll have a new batch in another few hundred million years.

Whence the oil?

[jabber01]

I thought that the theory that dinosaurs (and prehistoric life) were the source of oil had been debunked...

Peak Oil

[sbot5000]

Some interesting material... YMMV (no pun intended) ---

Mike Ruppert/FTW

"The Party's Over

"The PARTY'S OVER Oil, War and the fate of Industrial Societies By Richard Heinberg When Mike Bowlin, Chairman of ARCO, said in 1999 that "We've embarked on the beginning of the last days of the age of oil," he was voicing a truth that many others in the petroleum industry knew but dared not utter. Over the past few years, evidence has mounted that global oil production is nearing its historic peak. Oil has been the cheapest and most convenient energy resource ever discovered by humans. During the past two centuries, people in industrial nations accustomed themselves to a regime in which more fossil-fuel energy was available each year, and the global population grew quickly to take advantage of this energy windfall. Industrial nations also came to rely on an economic system built on the assumption that growth is normal and necessary, and that it can go on forever. When oil production peaks, those assumptions will come crashing down. As we move from a historic interval of energy growth to one of energy decline, we are entering uncharted territory. It takes some effort to adjust one's mental frame of reference to this new reality. Richard Heinberg has distilled complex facts, histories, and events into a readable overview of the energy systems that keep today's mass society running. The result is jarring. The Party's Over is the book we need to reorient ourselves for a realistic future. - Chellis Glendinning, Ph.D., author of Off the Map: An Expedition Deep into Empire and the Global Economy"

It makes you wonder

[Spamalamadingdong]

If most of the "lost" carbon from the original plants escaped relatively quickly, then it would have been available for other plants to consume in the same time frame. Some tiny fraction of their carbon remained fixed, but the rest became available for more plants....

The result is that the fossil fuel inventory would have been constructed from a very slow "skimming" of the dregs of the process of carbon fixation. Of course it was inefficient; laying down deposits wasn't the purpose for which the plants evolved!

Agricultural waste

[WoodstockJeff]

This is a problem I've had with biofuels... There really isn't as much "agricultural waste" as many people seem to think.

In modern farming, much of what is thought to be "waste" is reused already. Most silage gets re-incorporated into the soil, to replace or reduce the need for chemical fertilizers. Other silage is used as animal bedding (as is used paper, in some cases), and the "soiled" bedding gets used as fertilizer. Many other forms of "waste" are find their way back into the soil.

Take away this "waste" to make biofuels, and it has to be replaced. That means chemical fertilizers which can run off more easily, and cause problems downstream.

I guess this is just restating that there is no such thing as a "free lunch". Biofuels are likely the most efficient way to utilize solar power for the foreseable future, but fossil fuels (which will still be fossil fuels, even if we don't burn them) are an important part of our lives today.

Plus, just think - burning fossil fuels is returning to the atmosphere all that CO2 that those prehistoric plants scrubbed out eons ago; we're just returning earth to where it was a few million years ago!

Re:Agricultural waste

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, just think - burning fossil fuels is returning to the atmosphere all that CO2 that those prehistoric plants scrubbed out eons ago; we're just returning earth to where it was a few million years ago!

Cool point. The thing about global warming is, the planet will survive just fine. It's been warmer before. And it's survived much more sudden and drastic changes, such as the asteroid strike 65 million years ago.

The problem with global warming is that it will cause humans an awful lot of hassle. If the prime crop-growing climate shifts to different locations, we're in for a heap of pain.

Re:Agricultural waste

[Derek Pomery]

Yeah, I have no doubt that while that makes a cool catch-phrase, if we do go biofuel, there are more efficient ways than agricultural waste. Could devote whole fields to plants.
Screw hydrogen. We have an efficient means of collecting and distributing solar power with no change to existing infrastructure.

Even more sources.

[IPFreely]

Things like this indicate that organic compounds can be formed in deep space. It has already been shown that some comet material contains organic molecules. They usually distinguish themselves by having lower oxygen content than earthly coal. Subterranian oil is more like cometary organics than coal. Coal is definitely earthly organic in origin, because of fossil remains, but also chemical composition.

Thomas Gold's theory is that most of the organics were accumulated from comets hitting the earth during formation and are slowly rising up from the deep into pockets. When pockets form, some types of bacteria might start growing in them. But the bacteria is not necessarily the source.

Re:Hydrogen-powered cars

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think the gasoline fueld bomb you are driving now is so much safer?

Actually it's really efficient

[n-baxley]

It also took millions of years. However, since the dead plants can't really be used for much else, and we don't since the "processing" time has alread elapsed and the end results are ready for "consumption", then the production process from live plant to oil is already 99% completed. We're just here to pick up the end result.

That's small potatoes

[CatOne]

I mean... you realize the metal in the car had to be generated by a SUPERNOVA explosion right? Which means it had to "burn" in a star for billions of years, and then explode cataclysmically, and then cruise around the universe, and accrete around our star, and eventually for a planet, and go like that for a couple billion years, before it was extracted from ore and made into your car.

How monumentally inefficient! We should all be living as hunter/gatherers, like the Bushmen of the Kalahari. :-/

Re:That's small potatoes

[Peyna]

We should all be living as hunter/gatherers.

Yes, actually, we should. Read some Rousseau or other similar works (Rousseau might have some specifics wrong with regards to Anthropology, but he had the right idea.). A more recent author to speak on the subject would be Daniel Quinn.

Who is your audience

[Catskul]

Unless you are intentionally preaching to the choir, I suggest you take a look at the audience you are trying to convince and adjust your arguement.

Unless I am mistaken, its the "Capitalists" you are trying to convince of your position. You would do well not to insult your intended audience by sticking them all in an intellectually small group and distort then exaggerate their position for the benifit you your rhetoric.

No matter how wrong someone is, you will never convince them of it by insulting them.

That's specious reasoning!

[cavemanf16]

Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

Yes, my car is so inefficient because it can get me from point A, to point B (1000 miles away) in under 16 hours (provided I obey the speed limits). Any human would burn plenty of calories, poop a LOT, pee EVEN MORE, and eat a bunch of food to cover that distance on foot over the course of a FEW MONTHS! Let's face it, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. All this crap about "killing the environment" is really pretty lame, despite the concern that we're 'not doing good enough.' Sure, let's all go back to "prehistoric days" when we all lived to the ripe old age of 30 and had no means of communicating with those outside of our own tribe. Besides, think of all the COMPLETELY inefficient uses of raw materials back then!

you assume too much, methinks

[tkjtkj]

You assume that gasoline/oil come from plant matter, and i dont think this has ever been proved.

Which is why biofuel is a red herring ...

[fygment]

... though perhaps that wasn't the intent of the article. Although perhaps blown out of proportion, the article highlights the sheer amount of biomass required to generate fuel. It is doubtful, except in niche markets, that there is a will and a way to convert adequate amounts of agricultural resources (incl. the "waste") over to biofuel production sufficient to meet our current (and future) fuel needs. It seems the dead plants prove the point.

Re:Which is why biofuel is a red herring ...

[Edmund Blackadder]

Creating biofuel artificially would be much more efficient (in terms of biomass used) than the natural process of fossilization.

25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[dentar]

...not on your life!!

My PREVIOUS car got 35MPG on the highway and had plenty of power. They don't make cars like that anymore..

Congress, with all its lip-service about ending our dependence on foreign oil, THIS YEAR, voted DOWN a bill requiring car companies to adhere to higher mileage standards.

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

heh. Americans.

Over here in Europe, most of our "reasonably efficient" cars average 40 - 45MPG. At the moment, mine is averaging 49MPG.

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[daveo0331]

My PREVIOUS car got 35MPG on the highway and had plenty of power. They don't make cars like that anymore..

Actually now they make cars that do better than that.

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[odin53]

Are you sure about the conversion? This is MILES PER GALLON we're talking about. This article, admittedly from 2000, says that the average MILES PER GALLON fuel economy for cars in Europe is 25 mpg (28 in UK). I'm not from anywhere in Europe, so I'm not sure, but an average of 40-45 mpg sounds almost too good. Interestingly enough, 40 KM is ~25 MILES and 45 KM is ~28 MILES, so it really does sound like you're talking about kilometers per gallon. I don't know, though, why a metric system user would use gallons, so that's why I'm asking if you're sure about the conversion.

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[rizzo]

I wrote my rep (Tom Petri R-WI) and he replied saying he voted against it because it would require lighter cars and lighter cars will result in more fatalities and more severe injuries in the event of a car crash. Ugh!

I also just last week wrote to my senators (Russ Feingold and Herbie "Goes Bananas" Kohl) asking for a full tax rebate on SLEHUV/Hybrid vehicles like they give for SUVs. SUV owners also get a 20% _annual_ tax rebate after the initial purchase. I love having legislation go to the highest bidder.

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[ShavenYak]

I wrote my rep (Tom Petri R-WI) and he replied saying he voted against it because it would require lighter cars and lighter cars will result in more fatalities and more severe injuries in the event of a car crash. Ugh!

Thus proving that, like most of his colleagues, he is an idiot. If the average weight of vehicles goes down, the average collision will involve less kinetic energy and thus cars will be safer overall. There are several recent studies showing that when you look at fatalities caused both to occupants of a vehicle and occupants of other vehicles involved in their collisions, SUVs and large pickup trucks are the most dangerous vehicles on the road. Luxury import sedans and minivans are the safest.

But this is still a moot point, since there are plenty of ways to increase fuel economy without making cars smaller and lighter. Just having engines shut off at red lights would dramatically improve economy for the average American SUV driver who spends half their driving time sitting in traffic. The new Toyota Prius averages well over 50MPG, is nearly as big as the new Camry and weighs in at 3000 pounds. It looks to me to be a heck of a lot safer than a Ford Explorer.

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[JimBobJoe]

Over here in Europe, most of our "reasonably efficient" cars average 40 - 45MPG. At the moment, mine is averaging 49MPG.

That's because diesel is a lot more popular in Europe. Diesel cars are much more energy efficient than gasoline (and with today's technology, there is little performance compromise.) Indeed, diesel has some amazing torque qualities, which is why big trucks always run on them.

Only Volkswagen sells diesel vehicles in the US, and it's not that many. (I don't believe even Mercedes sells diesels in the US anymore.)

Indeed, we used to have a lot more diesels...but..

a.) Pollution control became more important to us much faster than it did in Europe. The technology to keep diesel emissions low are relatively new...by the time they came around, no one in California has had a diesel car for ten years.

b.) Much of the US gets colder than it does in Europe. The technological innovations to deal with cold weather also came a bit too late...people were tired of always needing to plug their diesel cars in to an electrical socket when they park so that the oil wouldn't freeze. That had a pretty negative effect on diesel for the northeast/great lakes (where large populations of Americans live.)

c.) By the time a.) and b.) were solved, we already gave up on diesels, and then it became even harder to find gas stations that sell diesel. (Though if you got some big gas stations nearby, you're usually fine. I know of several I can go to that have diesel.)

d.) American automakers have no particular reason to create diesel engines for US consumers unless they think they'll start buying em. Same for the Japanese. (who build different cars for europe) And the europeans don't think it's worth exporting them (since they are almost all premium brands that don't sell that many cars anyway) except for VW, who is the only automaker who sells enough diesels in the US to justify exporting them in.

But in contrast (from what I recall) 4/5 new cars sold in Europe are diesel.

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[pmz]

Congress, with all its lip-service about ending our dependence on foreign oil, THIS YEAR, voted DOWN a bill requiring car companies to adhere to higher mileage standards.

The best thing Congress could do is end the subsidies of highways from non-intuitive sources. For example, all the money that goes towards highway infrastructure should come from weight+milage property taxes plus perhaps gasoline sales tax. This would automatically build in an incentives structure that favors smaller, lighter, and alternative fuel automobiles.

It doesn't even take placing mandates on the auto companies! Just create a realistic tax structure for these things, and the market will sort itself out accordingly. The real problems, today, is that each person isn't paying in accordance to their usage and impact on roads and the environment. In effect, each one of us is living a lie.

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[Peyna]

The bill requiring the higher mpg standards was opposed by most of the major auto manufacturers on the following grounds:

1. It would cost so much to implement what was wanted in the time that it was wanted; that it would result in having to cut a large number of production vehicles.

2. Since rather than redesigning the engines, the easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to make a car more fuel efficient is to make it lighter, and thus less safe.

And a few other reasons too.

Think about it though, it's the same thing with the government passing laws with regards to other technology. They have a clue what they're doing and how it will affect what really goes on. In this case, they would be forcing companies to do something that is in their long-range plans to do, but that they could not possibly do within the constraints requested in a reasonable time without pumping millions into those companies.

These automobile manufacturers know that efficiency is a great concern of the public, and are working on it as best as they can; but it is a long and difficult process to rework all of that to make a car that is truly more fuel efficient (say, 50-60MPG)

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[pwiebe]

I'm an expat American living in Europe, so I'm sure I've done all the math right.

I drive a Diesel car that optimally gets about 70 mpg on the highway, and about 60 in the city. It never gets less than 50 mpg.

It has a top speed of about 115mph, and really good acceleration.

It's a Seat Toledo. Seat is owned by Volkswagen, and you could compare this car with a Volkswagen Jetta. It's very good quality car, that's solid, practical and not expensive.

It's not true anymore that diesels are slow, smokey and vibrate excessively.

It's not necessary to drive a car this efficient. It's also not necessary to drive a diesel, or a small car instead of an SUV. It's not necessary to drive a hybrid or electric car. There is no reason for anyone to drive any vehicle, of any sort, that gets less than 50 mpg.

If Americans demanded the big automakers produce 50 mpg SUVs, they would. The technology is there. Driving an efficient car does not mean driving a crappy car.

Making the best use of current technology now, would do much more to conserve resources than investing huge amounts of money on using alternative sources of fuels.

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[10Ghz]

b.) Much of the US gets colder than it does in Europe. The technological innovations to deal with cold weather also came a bit too late...people were tired of always needing to plug their diesel cars in to an electrical socket when they park so that the oil wouldn't freeze. That had a pretty negative effect on diesel for the northeast/great lakes (where large populations of Americans live.)

I bet Finland gets even colder than most parts of USA does, yet diesel-cars are pretty common in here. Yes, we do plug them in to electrical sockets at night, but we do the same for gasoline-cars as well. People use diesel-cars jus t fine in here even when the temperature drops to about -40C.

But in contrast (from what I recall) 4/5 new cars sold in Europe are diesel.

I think the actualy number is about 30-40%

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I'm not. We use Miles here in the UK. My car, a Renault Clio 1.2 16V (here), does 49MPG (on average). My Girlfriends car, a Renault Megane 1.6 16V, does (on average) 53MPG. I was talking of our "average reasonably efficient" car, not "average car" - there are still a lot of old gas guzzlers around, but they are gradually being culled.

Re:25 MPG reasonably efficient?

[JimBobJoe]

I bet Finland gets even colder than most parts of USA does, yet diesel-cars are pretty common in here. Yes, we do plug them in to electrical sockets at night, but we do the same for gasoline-cars as well. People use diesel-cars jus t fine in here even when the temperature drops to about -40C.

Ahh yes, but in Finland it gets so cold that everyone plugs their cars in, no matter if its diesel or gasoline. So there is no advantage to having a gasoline car.

Here (and I'm from the great lakes area) people with diesel have to plug in, and those with gasoline don't (it's not that cold yet.) So plugs are not easy to find....

What good does oil lying around do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say we don't use it. What good does that do (other than the acknowledged poluution reducing)? Do plants use it to feed off of? Does it act as some karmic glue for the planet? Or does it just lie there, being wasted energy. Or is it only good for one thing, to be used as energy?

Re:What good does oil lying around do?

[Anonymous Coward]

The oil will just lie there as "wasted energy'. By using fewer non-renewable resources - which BTW takes tens of millions of years to produce - we can save them for future generations. Instead of having only 60-80 years of oil left, we could have thousands of years of use.

Re:What good does oil lying around do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plastics and pharmaceuticals are a better pat answer.

Want to kill oil as an energy resource? A two pronged attack of developing fusion, and a CHOOH to electric generator (non-toxic with a 10 year life and good energy density) would just about do it. I asked my magic eight ball when I could expect either, it said I should, wait, get married, have a kid, and tell my grandson to ask again when he grows up.

Misplaced Blame Shows Ecopolitical Bias

[blair1q]

The inefficiency isn't in automobiles, as they are something like 30-50% efficient at retrieving the chemical-bond energy from gasoline.

The inefficiency is in the production of oil from dead plant matter. Oil is one of the lesser byproducts of decaying vegetation undergoing geological stresses. Coal is much more plentiful. And then gasoline is only about 45% of the matter in crude oil. For each gallon of gas you get 1.2 gallons of methane, kerosene, tar, paraffin, etc.

So don't blame Otto, blame Gaia.

Re:Misplaced Blame Shows Ecopolitical Bias

[SofaMan]

The inefficiency isn't in automobiles, as they are something like 30-50% efficient at retrieving the chemical-bond energy from gasoline.

That may well be the case, but how much of that is actually used to provide motive energy for the car and passenger? I understand that the estimates are that only about 20% of the energy in gasoline/petroleum provides motive power for the vehicle, the rest is lost as heat or unburnt fuel. Of that 20%, about 95% is used to move the car itself. So out of your original fuel load, only about 1% of its energy is used to actually move the car's passenger/s, which is the whole point of the automobile.

Now let's talk about inefficient.

Re:Misplaced Blame Shows Ecopolitical Bias

[blair1q]

30-50% is the calculated mechanical efficiency of the engine vs. the chemical bond strength (I'd give a more precise number but I'm too lazy to look the little fucker up).

Also, I move my car when I move me, as it brings along all of its conveniences and cachet. Otherwise, I'd just get a moped.

We Need Better Plants

[msheppard]

Maybe the PLANTS should work on their efficency of converting sunlight to gasoline. How much sunlight goes to waste?

Won't someone think of the children?

M@

Re:We Need Better Plants

[BigBadBri]

One word.

Hemp.

Fuel, fibre and fun in one simple to grow crop.

WWGD?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would a geek do?

People want to drive SUVs. But SUVs use too much gas and pollute too much. What is the proper geek response to this dilemma?

A. Make everyone walk, take the bus, and drive smaller cars.
B. Invent an SUV that gets 100 miles to the gallon (preferably a gallon of H20).

It amazes me how many geeks reach for the social engineering solution instead of the ingenious, creative technical response that is the hallmark of geekdom.

Re:WWGD?

[meta-monkey]

Excellent, excellent response, sir. If I had mod points, they would be yours.

Re:WWGD?

[rthille]

but a SUV is (sort of by definition) big and heavy. The heavy part can be reduced by advanced materials, but only at great cost. Also, SUV drivers partially purchase/drive SUVs to make themselves feel _powerfull_. So, the solution of putting a little 4cyl diesel into a big Expedition, and making it take 15 minutes to accelerate to its top speed of 67 miles per hour and still having it sell would require just as much social engineering as solution A. A more geeky option of perfecting Mr. Fusion(tm) or some other mater to energy conversion (ie, non-chemical energy) which would allow you to drive 100 miles on a gallon of H20 would require technology which doesn't exist today. Also, a SUV which gets 100 miles per gallon doesn't solve the other problems with SUVs such as traffic congestion, accident fatalities for drivers of smaller cars, obesity, etc.

So, Geeks pick 'A' because it's a _better_ solution, not because either 'A' or 'B' are achievable.

Re:WWGD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr. David Beall, a micro-chemi-biologist invented a way to take a compost heap and creat ethanol. He genetically engineered a microrganism that ferments all types of cellulose into ethanol. We put out on "Yard Waste" day enough energy to sustain all of our driving needs. We don't even need new engines, all internal-combustion engines will work. The best part: the two by-products are H2O and CO2, the two things plants need to drive photosynthesis. A perfect Carbon cycle, but big oil isn't interested in a change.

Re:WWGD?

[spoonyfork]

B. Invent an SUV that gets 100 miles to the gallon (preferably a gallon of H20).

Working on it.

Re:WWGD?

[Dirtside]

It amazes me how many geeks reach for the social engineering solution instead of the ingenious, creative technical response that is the hallmark of geekdom.

SUVs still take up too much space, are a danger to smaller vehicles, and even at 100 MPG would STILL be less efficient than smaller vehicles (which would also make use of the 100 MPG technologies). Technological coolness is not the only criterion for judging a solution's worth to society.

Re:WWGD?

[nathanh]

A. Make everyone walk, take the bus, and drive smaller cars.
B. Invent an SUV that gets 100 miles to the gallon (preferably a gallon of H20).

It amazes me how many geeks reach for the social engineering solution instead of the ingenious, creative technical response that is the hallmark of geekdom.

Three comments.

If the heavy bulky SUV gets 100MPG with this "creative" engine then a smaller lighter compact car will get 250MPG. Building a better engine never justifies carrying 2 or 3 tonnes of car around with you.

It's a mistake to expect technology will fix all of societies problems. You can't sit on your hands, doing nothing, hoping that some brilliant person somewhere will invent the solution.

The truly geeky solution involves no cars at all. Everybody would be using sliding platforms like in Asimov's Caves of Steel. Or cities would be designed in modular fashion where everything you need is within walking distance. Or public transport would be so damn good that you simply don't want to have a car. A better SUV is not creative.

Re:WWGD?

[broter]

Saturn too

Re:WWGD?

[PurpleWizard]

Most geeks I know reach for the right tool for the job. There are not many jobs for which a fuel hungry SUV is the right tool for when picked from the available range!

Pass me the screw driver dear I want to hammer this nail in !

Re:WWGD?

[ahdeoz]

A is unachievable B may be possible People drive around big SUVs that get 15-20 miles to the gallon, even though I'm sure they feel alot less powerful than they would if they were getting the kind of gas mileage a 1970s era station wagon got (say 6-8 mpg.) The geek solution is to solve the problem, not avoid it.

Re:WWGD?

[rthille]

Hey, my Mom's 1972 Pontiac 455 cubic inch V8 wagon got 12MPG, would tow a boat at over 100MPH, and did 0-60 faster than a 1980's BMW 528i, even though the wagon had 9 people in it and the BMW had only the driver. Now that was power, especially for a teenage boy!

Correction

[hey!]

I meant 1lb food :: 5 lb animal.

The ratio is better for aquatic animals, since they don't expend energy overcoming gravity.

Re:Correction

[cens0r]

It's a little more complex than that... 1lb of beef requires about 7 pounds of grain. But 7 pounds of grain requires 1000 pounds of water. so (assuming the cow doesn't drink) it costs 7000 pounds of water to get one pound of beef. Now the earth doesn't loose or gain much water, so on the surface this doesn't look bad, but remember that every time we put the water on the plants it picks up pesticide and fertilizer pollutants... not a real good system.

Re:Correction

[blitz1725]

Umm, you either have a math problem or a measurements problem here

Your statement

IF 1lb meat = 7lb grain

AND 7lb grain = 1000lb water

THEN 7000lb water = 1lb meat

is not adding up

You may have meant 1000lb water = 1lb meat

however, I would really like to see where you got those numbers from, not saying your making anything up just curious as these types of things are interesting for me.

Re:Correction

[cens0r]

sorry, i meant it takes 1000lbs of water to produce 1lb of grain... my fingers went faster than my head there.

Re:Correction

[hey!]

Which goes to my point. It makes a great deal of difference how the beef is produced. The main problem with beef production is the feed lot system. Within limits, range fed beef is pretty sustainable. CO2 and nitrogen are fixed by plants, converted to beef, are eaten by people, then returned to the atmosphere via respiration and exretion and breakdown of waste.

A pound of range fed beef requires zero pounds of feed corn and no expenditure of pesticide or fertilizer, and very little water. When you get into corn, you get into fertilizer, pesticides with their related runoff problems, as well as the need to feed the animal antibiotics. You are also using land that could be used for other agricultural uses.

It really is too bad Americans are such sissys when it comes to trying something a little different from the food they're used to. I would buy range fed beef at a considerable premium over corn fed beef it were available at the local market. It's not only leaner the fat composition is also lower in saturated fats.

Re:Correction

[cens0r]

I agree... I think all meat should be produced free range and all vegetables should be grown organically. The fact that we feed chickens, pig, and euthanized pets to our cows is deplorable.

Shamelessly wasteful!

[guacamolefoo]

A staggering 98 tons of prehistoric, buried plant material is required to produce each gallon of gasoline we burn in our cars, SUVs, trucks and other vehicles.

Next thing you know, they'll be saying that it takes hundreds of tons of hydrogen to fuse to allow a solar powered car to drive a mile. How wasteful!

GF.

I drive...

[Anonymous Coward]

...a 4WD coal-burning monster truck, you insensitive clod!

Not surprising... read Bucky Fuller

[Anonymous Coward]

In Buckminster Fuller's 1980 book "Critical Mass" he had also calculated that one gallon of gas comes at the expense of $1,000,000 (1980 dollars) worth of solar radiation, based on the average rate of solar radiation conversion into GDP in 1980.

Whichever number you choose, $1,000,000 or 98 tons, they both are large enough to induce great amounts of guilt in me every time I get behind the wheel.

I like the mention of human-scale urban planning mentioned above. That's the kind of thing that we need to get people out and part of their communities again.

lots of days left...

[clambake]

The research paper also mentions that everyday, we are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plants growing during a whole year just for our cars.

Considering that we have about, ohhh, I'd say, at leat 50~500 billion days of solid plant-growing prehistory behind us, I fail to see how this metric means to worry anyone. Post again in 150 million years and we'll talk.

Uh Oh!

[Punchcardz]

If we continue to use fossil fuels at this rate.... we can't replentish our oil supplies fast enough.... meaning oil might not be a renewable resource!!! Someone call the Department of Energy!!!!!

The unavoidable ...

[Anonymous Coward]

did you just say you are a terrorist? ;)

I would like to subscribe!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop making people, institute widespread culling of humantiy

I, too, am in favor of Global Thermonuclear Warfare. The friendly radioactive dust will have the added benefit of increasing mutations helping us to evolve more rapidly into our new distopian future; in which we welcome new overlords, who may or may not be apes, or have psychic powers.

Similar study reported in the Economist

[fiannaFailMan]

I was just reading the very same thing this weekend in The Economist. There was a similar study carried out by some guy from the University of Massachussetts. From their article:

" ROMANTICS in the coal-mining industry (or, at least, their public-relations flacks) sometimes refer to the black rock that powered the industrial revolution as "buried sunshine". As far as the energy in it is concerned, that is precisely true. It is all the result of photosynthesis. But, perhaps surprisingly, just how much photosynthesis it results from has never been the subject of enquiry.

That has now changed. Jeffrey Dukes, of the University of Massachusetts, in Boston, has attempted to do the sums and work out how much photosynthetic effort lies behind the useful energy that people are able to extract from coal, oil and natural gas--fossil fuels that ultimately derive from the bodies of long-deceased organisms.

Full story...

It raises serious questions about the long-term sustainability of the oil economy.

The Economist also had a large section devoted to ways that governments could use to break out from the tyranny of oil. From that article:

" THE Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil." This intriguing prediction is often heard in energy circles these days. If greens were the only people to be expressing such thoughts, the notion might be dismissed as Utopian. However, the quotation is from Sheikh Zaki Yamani, a Saudi Arabian who served as his country's oil minister three decades ago. His words are rich in irony. Sheikh Yamani first came to the world's attention during the Arab oil embargo of the United States, which began three decades ago this week and whose effects altered the course of modern economic and political history. Coming from such a source, the prediction, one assumes, can hardly be a case of wishful thinking."

So there you have it. No bleeding-hearted wooly liberalism required. Even a Saudi Oil expert sees the writing on the energy wall.

How many LOCs is that?

[jonbrewer]

Come on, put this in terms we all understand! How many Libraries of Congress does it take to make one gallon of gas? And thus how many miles per LOC do our cars get?

Even if we do have unlimited focil fuels !!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you people really want to use them all ???
I mean after all its the duity of every geek to
go against any capitalist driven enrgy source .
What happend to emproving effeciency of even
focil fuels ? Have we gotten anywhere past
the initial stage of development ???? where is
the multiple cycle engines that use a combustion
in one cylinder, heat expansion in another and
stuff like that . And please dont tell me that
they have tried and it doesnt work . Because
power generation plants have been using this
cycle for a long time . Say using exaust heat
to drive a boiler that drives another turbine
and such . And thats just old tech !!!!!!!
Cmon geeks wake tha fuck up !!!!!!!
Its up to us to change the world .

Devil's advocate also using big numbers:

[pmz]

The earth has a mass of sextillions of tons. Oil reserves measure in billions upon billions of barrels. That oil was made over hundreds of millions of years and is essentially captured solar energy in a hydrocarbon form.

The fact that we don't use it efficiently is another matter entirely.

Brazil does it right

[theolein]

Here is a link to some info on Brazilian use of sugarcane to make ethanol which is used as fuel for Brazilian cars. Renewable, provides jobs and doesn't pollute as much, and makes Brazil a lot less dependant on oil and oil companies.

Wierd thing is that they're the only country to ever have done this. This would give Africa and asia valuble export resource that is renewable.

what about that compressed air vehicle?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was an article here on it a while back. Used compressed air as it's energy storage medium. Actually exhausted cleaner air than it sucked in. The guy was offering factory franchises too.
Last time I checked their page was a bunch of broken links. Heard the inventor got death threats from oil barons. Did they kill him?

MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

NT

Let's get real here

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps he is unaware of catalytic abiogenous synthesis of hydrocarbon masses in the earth's crust. (don't know? then research)

Thermal depolymerization

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm skeptical about these numbers. Discover Magazine recently ran a feature on thermal depolymerization, a process that can turn practically any form of waste material into oil, natural gas, water, and minerals. They said that just running our agricultural waste alone through these machines would eliminate our dependence on foreign oil.

This isn't theoretical, this is working technology that replicates the process that created the oil in the ground. So these numbers come from actual measurement of input and output. The Utah guys, I have to conclude, are full of it.

(By the way, fundamentally, TD is not a new technology, but before it was inefficient and poor quality. Now it's 80% energy efficient and makes good oil. A pilot plant is just now going into production, turning leftover turkey guts into fine #2 fuel oil.)

Re:efficient? That would be a Yank car I take it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Theses numbers are to be correlated to the proportion of this type of cars.

Most of the european car are small cars (for ease in the old fashioned cities). Most of these cars are around (and often more than) 47.0429169 miles per gallon (google: 5 liters per 100 kilometers = 47.0429169 miles per gallon).

ARGH

[RMH101]

"i can afford it, so why can't I have it".
Perfect. You can afford it, but the world can't afford to have a load of idiots like you in it pissing our natural resources up the wall.
Tell me a convincing reason why helping reduce the damage we do to our environment isn't worth you making a switch to a smaller, more efficient car. Can you not live without your heated leather seats? FFS, THINK.

The V2 rocket was not so bad then

[Anonymous Coward]

According to a sign on at exhibit at the Peenemunde rocket museum (where the V2 - pretty much the precursor to all present rockets) was developed:

"It took 30 tonnes of potatoes to produce the alcohol mix rocket fuel for each V2".

Peenemunde to London ~ 600 miles, that by my reckoning was 1/20th of a tonne per mile. (The oxidiser was (if I remember correctly) LOX, and I have no idea how many potatoes were required in its production ;-))

Re:The V2 rocket was not so bad then

[BigBadBri]

The Germans must have had a pretty impressive fermentation plant then - there were about 4.5 tonnes of alcohol in a V2, and that means that nearly all the carbohydrates in the original 30 tonnes must have been converted (average carbohydrates in a spud are ca. 16% - which would give 5 tonnes for conversion).

At that rate, potatoes could be one of the best biofuels, and Idaho could become the centre of the known universe!

Re:The V2 rocket was not so bad then

[ShavenYak]

That makes sense, since almost all the carbs in a potato are simple starches, which would convert easily into sugar and then ferment into alcohol.

Which makes you wonder why all the vodka nowadays is made from grain instead of potatoes, but I digress....

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[Bytesmiths]

I cut out the middle man. To me, it isn't the amount of plant matter consumed by cars as it is the millions of years it takes to convert it to petroleum products. All that carbon has been sequestered for millennia, and we're just shooting it into the atmosphere.

So I do away with the process of turning plants into petroleum, and burn the plants directly in my engine. Anyone can do it! You only need:

• a diesel powered vehicle, and
• a way to thin vegetable oil, either
  • alcohol and a base catylist (typically methanol and lye), or
  • a heater to bring vegetable oil up to about 80C (180F).

With either method, waste vegetable oil from restaurants can be used, solving two problems at once!

With the exception of nitrous oxide and CO2, vegetable oil powered diesels are MUCH cleaner than petro diesels. Yes, they produce climate-warming CO2 in similar quantities to petro-diesel engines, but the CO2 they release was taken out of the atmosphere last year, NOT millions of years ago.

It is unlikely that Big Oil is going to embrace this, but you don't have to go it alone. Co-ops for producing and/or distributing biodiesel are sprining up like rapeseed oil plants. Google for "biodiesel," "SVO," "WVO" for more info, or visit www.GoBiodiesel.org for more information.

Holy crap!!!!

[khenson]

Congratulations! one of the few posts I've read yet on this subject that shows a reasoned, intelligent and well articulated opinion (not to mention absolutely correct) - hat's off to you!

Re:Holy crap!!!!

[wondafucka]

Ahhh Sarcasm.

Excellent article!

[Anonymous Coward]

A pity the author used totally brainf*cked (see, I am polite!) units, so I cannot have a good estimate of what he's talking about.

Hey, Google, are you sleeping or what? When will you do that unit conversion tool I asked before? You already have "Google calculator" so it must not be that difficult to "translate" a moronic article in feet to proper human-readable units like meters.

And no, I don't have the time to code: I'm busy having ideas...

Re:Excellent article!

[aderusha]

google calculator already does unit conversion.

4 Tons of Red Ink Per Page

[Anonymous Coward]

The research paper also mentions that everyday, we are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plants growing during a whole year just for our cars.

How about using the right words? That's "every day," not "everyday."

WTF are you running the Range Rover on?

[Gordonjcp]

On normal 95 octane (very low octane unleaded) they should get 20-odd mpg. And I think you'll find that the 4.6 Range Rover engine produces a damn sight more than 300HP. Don't forget that in the US, HP is usually measured at the flywheel, without things like alternators, water pumps or aircon compressors, whereas UK BHP figures are taken on a rolling road (so it's BHP at the wheel with engine in "production" trim).

Re:WTF are you running the Range Rover on?

[throbbingbrain.com]

Octane rating doesn't affect fuel economy, unless the fuel has a drastically lower octane rating than what the vehicle requires.

A 4.2L Range Rover V8 produces 200HP at 4850rpm and achieves 12/16 mpg.
A 5.7L Chevrolet V8 produces between 285-345HP, depending on the vehicle (Camaro vs. Corvette) and achieves 22/28 mpg. Both figures are rated at the wheels, not crankshaft.

I mentioned the Range Rover because it's listed as the worst gas guzzler. It's worse than even the largest of U.S. SUV's.

In the 1960's, automakers measured HP at the flywheel, with a balanced and blueprinted engine and no accessories or exhaust restrictions. After 70's gas crunch and 80's insurance crunch, they began rating output at the rear wheels of a showroom stock vehicle instead.

Thus, a 1972 Pontiac Trans Am 455HO is rated over 400HP (crankshaft). A 1989 Pontiac Trans Am 3.8L Turbo V6, rated at 250HP (rear wheels) will beat it in a drag race.

Re:WTF are you running the Range Rover on?

[Hoser McMoose]

Note that the only reason why it's listed as worse than the largest US SUV's is because the largest US SUV's don't list their fuel economy. You'll notice that neither the Ford Excursion or the large-engine Chevy Suburbans are listed. The Excusion definitely gets worse fuel economy, roughly 11/13mpg. Also, the Cadilac Escalades is tied with the Range Rover for worst fuel economy of those listed, and the Dodge Durango is only one notch better (12/17mpg).

Hydrocarbon fuels may not be decomposed plants

[akuzi]

There are many alternative theories for petrolium formation, many are 'abiogenic' theories that say that 'fossil fuels' are actually primordial, that have existed since the Earth was created.

For more info read see this and "The Deep Not Biosphere" by Thomas Gold of Cornell university.

Re:Hydrocarbon fuels may not be decomposed plants

[Alomex]

Another one is that they are the result of active bacteria processes, and it takes a lot less time and raw materials to be created than currently thought.

Ethanol isn't perfect, either...

[abb3w]

One minor difficulty with use of pure (or near-pure) ethanol in an IC engine is energy density. A bit of poking with google yields numbers claiming gasoline has 132e6 joules per gallon, ethanol only 80e6 joules per gallon; in any case, I recall from one class that it's rather less. Another problem is that gasoline (being oily) helps with engine lubrication and increase engine part life, where ethanol does not.

Neither of these are insurmountable engineering problems, nor are any of several others. On the other hand, the problems are non-trivial enough to make ethanol less than a "Great solution". It's more of a "possible good solution".

In the long run, I suspect a designer-gened plant that makes some petro-like compound directly would be much more efficient. Given state of the art in genetic engineering and the time scale involved in major infrastructure switches, I suspect this would be a better path to pursue.

Re:Ethanol isn't perfect, either...

[Fnkmaster]

Ethanol isn't quite as dense an energy storage medium as gasoline, but the numbers I recall are that ethanol combustion yields about 33% less energy per unit volume than gasoline (though your numbers are a bit less favorable than that). However, strangely, in practice, E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline - as you point out, using some gasoline affords other benefits in terms of viscosity, operating temperature range, and engine lubrication) powered FFV vehicles seem to get only about 15-20% fewer miles per gallon in normal operation than when burning gasoline. So yes, you have to use roughly 20-25% more fuel, but that's hardly a deal breaker, and is well within normal variations within existing vehicle classes. As long as the ethanol fuel pricing reflects this fact (i.e. 20% cheaper per gallon than gasoline, so your cost per mile travelled is comparable), I don't think the average consumer would really care.

The nice thing about ethanol is that it's quite efficient and inexpensive to make, relative to the biodiesels and other lipid-derived heavy fuels that can also be made from biological sources. The amount of government subsidy and capital investment required to transition to ethanol is tiny compared to switching to hydrogen, or to making biodiesel or similar fuels cost effective (see the current numbers on biodiesel from DOE and NREL - it is still a factor of 2-3 away from cost competiveness, whereas bioethanol is perhaps 20%-30% away from cost-competitiveness).

Fossil Fuels

[Treacle Treatment]

You can bitch all you want but as long as fossil fuels are the most economical way of getting places and doing things that is what will be used. Complaining that it takes X number of trees to get Y number of miles down the road affects NO ONE.

Reasonably efficient?! off topic perhaps, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

For a reasonably efficient car, riding 25 miles per gallon...

Er, since when has 25mpg ever been associated with the word "efficient"?! Having a look around at some of the new cars here in the UK recently, its not unusual to see cars getting over 75mpg, some are even pushing 80mpg (this is extra-urban, urban is typically 45-50mpg). So travelling along the motorway at 70mph, using just over 1 ton of biomass per mile doesn't sound so bad, especially since the majority of plant biomass is just water anyway. A 1 metre cube of water is a metric tonne. Being generous with the figures, 1.5^3 volume (a random figure I came up with to get a tonne of biomass) of plant biomass is pretty small considering.

Still, roll on the fuel cell...

say no to idiots

[blitz1725]

First, I assume you are typing this on your "green" pc that is being powered by you turning a crank on the generator you built out of sticks while you are sitting on a rock in your cave. If not you're just as much a part of the "problem" as everyone else.

The SUV argument is always my favorite, my JEEP(you call it an SUV if you want if I do it it becomes tempermental) is almost 30 years old and it still gets 21 mpg, now while I realize this isn't earth shattering, consider the number of new vehicles that people haven't had to buy(and therefore have manufactured) over the years because of it. I look at some of the new lightweight fuel efficient cars around now and it's ridiculous how easy they are to total out in a wreck, requiring a new car to be built, and if they are fixable you don't just pound the dent out and repaint, no you tear that part off and replace it, but hey their enviro friendly because they get 35 MPG, horseshit!!

The biggest problem I have with most "enviromentalists" is that they are all for things that are a help in their eyes but anything they view as bad is bad and there's no changing it not matter how good the argument and how much proof you give them.

Dead plants

[rmcrob]

But the plants were already dead. What else were you going to use them for?

environmental extremism

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if thine car offend thee, walk then.

Divine Provenance

[Anonymous Coward]

designed that particular conversion process. And you question its efficiency? Wait until you find out how many tons of plants it takes to keep the fires of Hell burning which is where you'll be going, blasphemer.

:)

12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[mooman]

I've heard two statistics about the inefficiency of beef. One is that it takes 20 pounds (9 kg) of grain or soy to make one pound (0.45 kg) of beef. The other is that it takes 12 pounds (5.5 kg) to make that one pound.

I'm not sure which is more accurate, but either way you're talking about 92% to 95% waste compared to consuming the soy directly.

This is in fact the number one reason I became a vegetarian... mostly to reduce the environmental impact of the food I eat. So I opted for a diet that relies mostly on that grain and soy itself... (pastas, rices, tofu, seitan, soy milk, etc.. Pretty much the polar opposite of a low carb one)

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the conversion into kilograms, but I somehow doubt it's necessary. If it takes 20 pounds of grain to make 1 pound of beef, it seems obvious to me at least that it takes 20 kilograms of grain to make 1 kilogram of beef.

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Rogerborg]

But now you'll live for 400 years, you selfish bastard. Eat beef and die young, I say.

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Abm0raz]

Well, I'm allergic to soy (and soy based products) as well as peanuts (and based products). So, I'm making up for the animals you aren't eating cause it's about all I can eat.

-Ab

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Suppafly]

I'm not sure which is more accurate, but either way you're talking about 92% to 95% waste compared to consuming the soy directly.

Those kinds of statistics aren't really important though, the same way the fact that you need to eat a couple of pounds of food a day isn't. Any living thing over the course of it's life eats several times it weight in other things. Raising a plant requires several gallons of water, but you aren't going to see vegetarians complaining about the amount of water wasted to grow a plant.

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Minna Kirai]

Those kinds of statistics aren't really important though,

Not important? 14,000,000,000 human lives aren't important? Because that's how many additional people the planet could support if no one ate beef.

Raising a plant requires several gallons of water, but you aren't going to see vegetarians complaining about the amount of water wasted to grow a plant.

They don't complain because there's no plausible way for humans to survive without eating plants. But living without eating animals is quite possible.

There's a step of the (water + dirt) -> (plant) -> (cow) -> (human) food chain that can be safely skipped with modern nutrient + agriculture technology. Dropping the cow out of the sequence removes a 95% inefficiency factor, reducing the amount of plants needed to feed the human, as well as the water needed to grow those plants, etc.

The saying is "The richs' desire for beef is stronger than the poors' need for grain"

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you except the extinction of the cow as a consequence? [An entirely domesticated animal]

Here's the other point -- do you want another 14B people? Don't you think we already have the capacity for 14B people?

Lemme put it this way: in 1900, the world would have been overcrowded w/ 3B people. We've got 6 now and the Dakotas are still empty.

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure which is more accurate, but either way you're talking about 92% to 95% waste compared to consuming the soy directly.

Trust me. You cannot process grain and soy any more efficiently than a cow.

Of course, we would also be innefficient processing beef, but 92% is not reasonable.

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're saying that like you punny humans only have one stomach.

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Inebrius]

14 billion is too many people for this planet. I personally would like to see the U.S. population stabilize or cap at no more than 300 million. And the U.S. has a huge area to spread all these people out.

I don't care to go vegetarian so people can have more offspring. The only real incentive for me would be to feed the current population when we are able to live much longer lives.

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Suppafly]

Not important? 14,000,000,000 human lives aren't important? Because that's how many additional people the planet could support if no one ate beef.


Haha.. Last I checked, we weren't running out of space on the earth due to eating beef or any other reason. The entire population of the earth could easily fit in an area the size of texas and oklamhoma with the entire rest of the earth left over to grow crops and beef.

Even if everyone in the united states stopped eating beef, this would have no effect on starving vegetarians on the otherside of the world. It's rather idiotic to assume that meat eating in prosperous countries is related to starvation in poor countries.

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[mooman]

Not important? 14,000,000,000 human lives aren't important? Because that's how many additional people the planet could support if no one ate beef.

Or, in lieu of more people, we can work toward preserving the natural resources that we currently have and try to trim down our "burn rate" (to coin a dotcom term). Most of the reason I am a vegetarian and an environmentalist actually has little to do about my quality of life. I'm actually doing for my grandchildren, great grandchildren, and so on, and your great grandchildren.

Things aren't too bad now, but most trend charts show we certainly can't sustain the current consumption and destruction rates we're engaged in. All I'm trying to do is my little bit to prolong what we've got. I sold my SUV and got a little 4-banger (but actually take a bus whenever possible), went vegetarian, compost all kitchen scraps, recycle about 80% of what comes into the house, cancelled a lot of unnecessary magazine and catalog subscriptions, and other similar efforts.

My next goal, when I can afford it, is to see if I can make my house "off-grid" and start generating some of the electricity I consume.

Now, I'm no saint, and certainly could be doing a lot more, but if even a very small fraction of the [over-consuming side of the] world's population made a similar effort, we can be just a little closer to ensuring quality of life and environment for generations down the road...

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Minna Kirai]

Or, in lieu of more people, we can work toward preserving the natural resources that we currently have and try to trim down our "burn rate"

The interesting philosophical question is, how much better is it for 5 billion humans to survive 10,000 years, versus 50 billion lasting 1000?

From one point of view, the total accumulated "man hours" all that matters. From another perspective, the members of a smaller population will have more enjoyable lives, since they have more personal space allocated to each one.

However, choosing to keep a small population living a long time creates the risk that some external factor will destroy the planet before we've fully expended the resources, and some of the savings will have gone to waste.

PS. Note that I only said "14,000,000,000 people are important". I didn't say if that's good or bad, but that an astronomical number of human lives is an important topic.

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Minna Kirai]

Last I checked, we weren't running out of space on the earth due to eating beef or any other reason.

We're not running out of space at all. An enormously bigger concern is food. And fuel is an order of magnitude more worrisome than that, since growing food takes fuel. And spreading out across Texas and Oklahoma demands a huge amount of fuel to cover those distances too.

Even if everyone in the united states stopped eating beef, this would have no effect on starving vegetarians on the otherside of the world.

It would free up $900,000,000,000 annually, which could be used to feed the entire rest of the planet. And since the only reasonable explanation for the US to turn veggie is pathological idealism, that's probably what they'd do with the money.

It's rather idiotic to assume that meat eating in prosperous countries is related to starvation in poor countries.

Meat eating is just one of the major luxuries enjoyed by the people of the US and Europe which contributes to deprivation around the rest of the world.

The only thing idiotic is to assume that ANY two things on this planet are unrelated.

Re:12 or 20 lbs of feed.

[Suppafly]

It would free up $900,000,000,000 annually, which could be used to feed the entire rest of the planet. And since the only reasonable explanation for the US to turn veggie is pathological idealism, that's probably what they'd do with the money.


But it wouldn't be used to feed people. You are attempting to use those circular vegetarian arguments that appeal to people's feelings, rather than making arguments that are based in reality. If it makes you feel better not to eat meat, more power to you, but don't be deluded into thinking you are making the world a better place.

solar effeciency.

[twitter]

If you think the conversion from biomass to milage is bad, just try the conversion solar to biomass. Can you imagine how many billions of gigawatts the sun has to produce, just to grow a stinking weed? I shrink to think of how much hydrogen that takes.

OK, I can't do much better than the week yet. When I die, I doubt I'll even make good petrol. If only I had my own little fusion reactor, I could do much better before I rot. Let's see a plant do that.

Re:solar effeciency.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine how many billions of gigawatts the sun has to produce, just to grow a stinking weed? I shrink to think of how much hydrogen that takes.

Umm, roughly 380 million billions of gigawatts. Four million metric tons of matter are converted to energy per second.

Dead cows are nothing next to the simplest atom.

[triskaidekaphile]

No, hydrogen is. Gram-for-gram, the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium produces the most energy of any physical reaction that we know. If we could produce fusion without using radioactive hydrogen (deuterium or tritium), then such a process would be perfectly clean.

Put nuclear fusion aside, the chemical reaction of hydrogen with oxygen to make water is clean and also produces more energy than any carbon-compound solution.

The feasibility of both of these methods have been studied for years. The latter is used to launch objects into orbit. Success of either method, however, would appear to threaten the business model of certain corporations as well as the personal power that their respective executives and large stockholders have. Human nature being what it is, my hopes are high but my expectations a bit lower.

logical problems

[HBI]

Since only about one-10,750th of the original carbon in ancient plant material actually ends up as oil, multiply 4.14 kilograms by 10,750 to get roughly 44,500 kilograms of carbon in ancient plant matter to make a gallon of gas.

Umm. Does anyone see a problem with this, given the fact that we aren't even sure of the process by which petroleum becomes petroleum?

Is this shocking?

[kevlar]

I don't find this at all shocking. Nobody has ever argued that there is an infinite amount of naturally produced oil on the planet to consume. It is very obvious that we will eventually need to evolve our society to a completely nuclear electric dependant one, unless we have significant developments in the arena of cold fusion. Either way, Electricity and/or fuels based on electricity, such as electrolysis to produce hydrogen will more than likely be the resulting type of energy consumed *eventually*.

mynuts won: morebid

[Anonymous Coward]

whatever. you're such a fauxking corepirate nazi phonIE anymore robbIE.

you must continue to pretend eye gas.

A better use for prehistoric plants?

[c77m]

Why don't we try to extract information from the crude oil so we can recreate the plant life and build an island where... nevermind. Or, we could let the tons of pre-historic plants sit around and turn into.... hmmm... oil. Or... we could use this resource that nature has given to us and continue to power civilization with it. Talk about pollution and alternative fuels is great, but please don't bother me about "wasting" plant life that have been dead for millions of years.

... and their math is wrong.

[Harik]

Assuming that it _DOES_ take 98 tons of plant material to produce one gallon of gasoline, they're still wrong. Gas is just one of the things that comes from crude oil. Think they just throw the rest away? Nope. It all gets used: Grease, Fuel-grade oil, Diesel, whatever. There's a market for every grade. How many plants does it make for a gallon of crude? And how much of that becomes gasoline? That's the real number that matters.

it doesnt matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you have a cost effective replacement, It really doesnt matter...

Give me a 1 ton solar power dually pickup and Ill be happy. Till then, Keep sucking Dino parts out of the ground.

plants make coal

[Guipo]

i thought plants made coal, while animals, (dino's, etc.) made oil. Am i wrong?

How much is moisture?

[nolife]

Not to take away from the figures, but how much of that weight figure is moisture? I'll make a non scientific WAG and estimate 90% of plant life is water and probably 90% of thier figure.

Local and experience

[SolemnDragon]

With a little effort and an afternoon to spare, a friend and i paid $9 a peck for apples. We went apple picking. Seems a little pricey still? We got 8 different varieties, some of which we'd never seen, like winesaps. They are some of the best apples i've ever tasted.

The capitalist model WORKS with local, especially if you consider that you're 'buying' more than stuff. You're building a local economy that will help you out when you're looking for a job by having jobs to offer. Yes, really, and not just the Mcburger kind. You're paying for the world you want. If you want fitness and environmental stability, buy a bike as well as a car.

Ride when you can. I'm physically unable to ride a bike (apple picking had to be slightly modified as an adventure to include my physical limits, like not being able to reach above lower branches) so i take the subway.

My point is not that i'm an ecosnob, because i really do believe that for most things, effort should be made to bring ecologically sound products into the lower price ranges. BUt i also believe that wherever possible, i should be willing to pay a little more to buy the ecological benefit 'added on.' One way or another, we're paying for it, and i'd rather pay up front as a preventive than more afterwards for a repair. We think about food having too much that's bad for us; it sounds like you're on the right track thinking about where your food comes from and whether it's good for what's outside of us, too.

and for the record... it was wonderfully worth it to go apple picking. Season's about over now. The place makes wine and the like, too, so there may be a return trip... and i'm going to be feasting on cortlands and winesaps and whatever these green-striped apples are for a long while...

Re:Local and experience

[MKalus]

I am with you on this one. I try hunting for local stuff, but sometimes it seems just bizarre.

Thinking of it, it just strikes me at times to stand in a supermarket and just look at the amount of food that is in there, I tried to picture someone come from a 3rd world (or even 2nd world) country and see all this.

Must be mind boggeling.

M.

Re:Local and experience

[SubtleNuance]

Try this on for size: Goto the local SuperMarket and watch them stock the produce shelves... see the sign marked "Product of Ontario" coming from boxes from California...

One of my favorite things to do is make the manager come down and explain why I they are misleading me -- i explain my interest in knowing where my food comes from (local economies/reduced pollution) -- then tell him im not coming back. There are big fines for mislabeling produce on the shelves in Ontario.

BTW, MKalus, your right on the money wrt externalities. People dont realize that their conumption is *not* simply what they have in their hands but the transport, the belch @ the producer, the cars of their employees etc etc etc. One solution is to consume less, more simple products, made locally.

Re:Local and experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether you two want to believe it or not but your behavior is an example of the market economy working. It's just that you two value some qualities of a product more so than others. You want to support your local economies more than say California, where those apples came from. Nothing wrong with that. But don't give me sanctimonius crud about there being something wrong with the market because I want just want inexpensive apples.

As for market externalities, they're not nearly as large as you might think but they're one reason why we have governments. If people don't care enough about government to participate then the market externalities, et al aren't that bothersome to them. Since they are a big deal to you, perhaps you can get involved in that aspect of political discourse.

Re:Local and experience

[MKalus]

One solution is to consume less, more simple products, made locally

That's pretty much what I am trying to do, now if my company would let me work downtown instead of up in Markham I might actually be really happy (and spend less time on the DVP and in my car).

M.

Re:Local and experience

[SubtleNuance]

But don't give me sanctimonius crud about there being something wrong with the market because I want just want inexpensive apples.

Dont give me sanctimonius crud about your wanting highways and biways to move stuff... or complain when I demand clean air, lower taxes for health spending from pollution/accidents/obesity, lower taxes to stop sprawl. etc etc -- its *not* about crazy attachments to nature -- but as the article describes, it is about the insane over-consumption our present culture. "Inexpensive" in todays economy is a broken idea -- look at the subsidy your 'transported apple' gets so many regards... this is *not* an inexepensive apple.

its kinda funny to argue about an apple, no?

Plastics are from fossil fuels too

[xyloplax]

the fact that we are all reading this on plastic computers (unless you are using an old metal AT) makes us all guilty.

This is irritating crap

[j-turkey]

This kind of article is pretty irritating. It appeals to pop environmentalists who have no real interest in the science of it. This article is just for the "we're all doomed, and it's the SUV people's fault" people. The numbers are stretched a little thinner than reasonable, and are based on presumptions that can't be proven (ala, where oil comes from).

Sure, cars are a glaring issue for the ecological folks (and a really easy target), but it's not something that's easily remedied. Even if we could just change the cars, there is hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure dedicated to our cars that would take more than a decade to change. In this case, whining about doesn't help.

Maybe we need something more than just an easy target. Maybe, instead of blaming cars for our environmental problems, we should take another look. Maybe it's not worth it to spend 5,000 (total guesstimate) calories on shippping a 50-calorie orange across the country. Maybe we should be doing things like supporting our local farmers and buying what's in-season and local. Maybe those farms should employ fallow strips to curb eutrophication in our water systems...and more importantly, maybe we should worry more about what human waste is doing to these water systems and try employing similar tactics to not disturb that balance. I'm sure that there are a hundred reasonable things we can start doing that will help us more than just blaming cars for all (or even most) of our ecological troubles...especially when immediate change is just not possible. Instead -- employ what change that you can individually...maybe this guy should take the time spent on bitching about cars doing something contructive -- I'll be he will accomplish a whole lot more.

However, when it comes to cars, the fact is that although we are all part of a larger community, and we are social beings -- humans are still highly individualistic creatures. This means that as soon as we had both personal transportation and mass transit, we figured out which one we liked better (hint: not mass transit). We like cars. Cars are a part of North American and European personal identity (can't speak for other continents...I haven't been there). Individual transportation will never be as efficient as mass transit...but when given the choice, I'll put dollars to dimes that 9 out of 10 would rather be isolated from everyone else, in a soft leather-clad vehicle, with the climate control set to their preference, climate-controlled seats...and with their music on in the background. Especially when you contrast the happy car experience to having to sit (if you're lucky...I had to stand msot of the time when I took the subway to work) next to some smelly, hairy guy on the bus/subway while he eats some weird (somehow smellier than he) meat-on-a-stick -- at the same time, some screaming freak is angrily walking up and down your car ranting about his violent experience in prison which just ended...just now. Hell -- I'd definitely take the former in a heartbeat.

--Turkey

Meaningless Statistics

[blackbear]

And if they hadn't all died-off to make that miracle product crude oil then we would all be dead of asphyxiation.

Please invent a car that goes fast(100+ mph), is fun to drive, cheap to operate, relatively save, can haul my entire family around even in the snow and sand, and is affordable enough that I can own two. While doing everything that my SUV does, this future vehicle must not pollute. Please do this so I can buy one. Oh wait, I already own two SUVs that can do all of these things, and I don't really care that they pollute (I live in an uncongested area) so why should I buy a new car?

Anyway you need to make this new vehicle better than mine so I have a reason to buy it. Or maybe you should just get a law passed forcing me to spend the money now so that I have a reason to buy the new car and line the pockets of the lobbyists, politicians, and auto manufacturers for doing nothing of value. Let's further fuck up the economy by placing additional artificial restraints on the markets. Then we can all sit around and complain about how we can't afford anything because we all just bought new cars and couldn't get any value on the trade-in because it's worthless. And now that they are forcing auto dealers to pay you for your old car, the prices are outrageous. Oh, and since they gave the auto manufacturers incentives and tax breaks to lesson the burden on them and insure that they wouldn't simply quit the business, my already burdensome taxes have gone up. I sure hope those people who live on the other side of the country are enjoying the clean air I'm paying for. It's too bad they couldn't solve the problem on their own and had to make my family pay for it.

But please invent that car, I WILL buy one if it's better than mine. I don't want to pollute. I just don't really care that I do because there's no compelling reason not to.

One last observation: this is supposed to be news for nerds. Why do so many nerds want to solve problems by compelling the behavior of others rather than compelling the forces of nature?

Re:Meaningless Statistics

[Raptor CK]

I think the issue is the behavior of others these days is more and more irresponsible.

I personally have nothing against SUV drivers in certain cases. You mentioned snow, sand, and hauling your family around. Y'know, that sounds like a pretty good argument for a light truck, alright. I wouldn't want to drive a Civic through more than 6-8 inches of snow. I certainly can't fit more than 4-5 people, plus gear, into a Civic, and I can't carry a lot of stuff if I do.

From what you've indicated, you're not the problem. You're a valid target market for an SUV. The problems are the idiots chugging along in an SUV in urban traffic, getting 10 miles per gallon because they're stuck behind a red light every few minutes, taking up a space and a half to park, driving with no respect towards anyone else on the road.

The typical suburban soccer mom needs a minivan. The urban hot-shot would do better with a sedan or a coupe. The off-roader who takes his kids with him NEEDS the truck. The height, the 4-wheel drive, etc., are all important.

I still believe that anyone driving an SUV with no passengers and no real cargo in the midst of a densely packed city deserves to be launched into the Sun.

News at 11 incredible Solar Energy inefficiency

[p7]

Recent studies show that Solar Energy is grossly inefficient. Scientists at a leading University have determined that solar powerer 100 watt light bulbs use 590,000,000 tons of hydrogen for every hour they are on. Scientists do say that they efficiency will get better as we cover more and more of the earth with solar cells, however they doubt we will ever get to the equivalent efficiency seen with the 78 tons of plant matter to a gallon of gasoline. These results have led many to question the use of solar power.

Re:News at 11 incredible Solar Energy inefficiency

[Mybrid]

The research paper also mentions that everyday, we are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plants growing during a whole year just for our cars.

I've also read that all the plants on the earth rely on an equilibrium already in place with regards to the energy heating the oceans and feeding the plants. Any significant harnessing of Solar energy will lower heat in oceans or on land and cause the inverse of global warming, global cooling.

There is no such a thing as a free lunch or free energy.

Re:News at 11 incredible Solar Energy inefficiency

[pmz]

Solar Energy is grossly inefficient.

Yes, but the Sun ain't going away anytime soon. Using solar cells might not be the ideal solution, but there are other ways of harnessing the sun, even ones that we haven't imagined, yet.

false shortages

[Syphilis]

> The research paper also mentions that everyday, we are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plants growing during a whole year just for our cars.

if a day of driving consumes 365 days of plants...

a year of driving consumes 365 years of plants...

so we have another million years of driving to do before we've used up the 365 million years plants have been around

Q.E.D.

Just being contrarian :)

[HarveyBirdman]

I'm not sure I buy the theory yet myself. I've read Deep Hot Biosphere, and he does have some compelling stuff on his side. It's one of those fringe theories that just might pan out.

I have to think the environmentalists would be opposed to this idea. The idea that we really have a potentially *unlimited* supply of oil could keep them up at night with visions of the 28-wheel Hummer H5. :-o

Re:Just being contrarian :)

[Luyseyal]

When environmentalists finally get smart enough to hire a marketing department, people will finally "get" air pollution. Everyday people don't care about global warming. You have to do a "won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?!" commercial for anyone to pay any attention... something with a baby huffing soot from a tailpipe would probably do the trick.

$0.02USD,
-l

Re:Just being contrarian :)

[Greg151]

Hey Harvey, if you read the Wired article, Mr. Gold refers to finding oil 5 miles down through Granite shield material in Sweden. That sounds like a whole lotta proof to me. It shouldn't be there, if it did derive from fossil material.

Re:Just being contrarian :)

[HarveyBirdman]

You know that air pollution and global warming are two completely diffferent thing, right? You can have one without the other.

CO2 is not a "pollutant" as the word is normally used. I mean, we humans *exhale* CO2. It's a normal component of the atmosphere. What's up for debate is the safe level of it.

Sorry. Not arguing the reality of GW or anything. It's just a pet peeve of mine.

Re:Just being contrarian :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that's not as meanigful a distinction as it might seem. Volatile organics, particulates, nitrates, all are a normal component of the atmosphere created by "natural" processes. We call them pollutants because our technology also produces them, and at levels above safe. The same is true for CO2, so why shouldn't it be considered a pollutant?

There may still be a case for terminology as you use it, but I argue it's not nearly clear-cut enought to have a pet peeve over.

Re:Just being contrarian :)

[Luyseyal]

CO2 is not the only bad emission from car exhaust. You've heard of smog, right? Ozone? Ever rolled down your windows in traffic and drawn in the fresh city air? :)

Unnecessary ground level pollution is a pet peeve of mine!
-l

Speed of travel

[pommiekiwifruit]

I regularly walk faster than cars or SUVs travel on my way to work, and I am not a fast walker. The idea of a car travelling at 70mph on my road (at 9am anyway) is a bit of a fantasy (on school holidays they do travel faster than walking speed though, so I catch the bus).

Damn cyclists are certainly the fastest vehicles on that road (or rather, veering all over the footpath next to the road) at that time of day.

don't believe the hype

[Syphilis]

> The research paper also mentions that everyday, we are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plants growing during a whole year just for our cars.

if a day of driving consumes 365 days of plant life...

then a year of driving consumes 365 years of plant life...

then it will take us another million years of driving to consume the last 365 million years worth of plants life

Q.E.D.

The guy who wrote this seems a bit optimistic

[FearUncertaintyDoubt]

"We would have to choose between our rain forests and our vehicles and appliances."

Timmmmmmberrrrrr!

Re:efficient? That would be a Yank car I take it?

[dissy]

> My car my suck at 20 mpg, but I love my Lexus RX300 SUV. It rides VERY smooth,
> VERY comfortable, VERY luxurious.
> I can afford it easily, so why can't I have it.

I can afford the fine I would possibly get if I came up and pissed on your front door. It doesnt effect me in a bad way at all, matter of fact it effects me in a good way assuming I had to go before doing so.
But out of concideration for whos door that is, I would not, as would not most people.

You are not taking in concideration our planet, which is not yours, and no you can not afford.

I'm far from saying you should switch, or there are better (or really any realistic) other options right now, and I am glad to see you would change if there was another option, but your attitude not only is greedy/selfish, but the root cause why so few people are even looking for options, and thus why so few other optinos exist.

So let's kill more plants

[Pedrito]

You know, a lot of people have been complaining about the slash and burn of the Amazon rain forest, but I think people are really just thinking ahead and trying to make more oil. You guys are so short-sighted.

I'm not Slashdot's leading environmentalist...

[ThisIsFred]

...But I have to confess that I despise the fossil fuel economy. I hate smelly, filthy, unreliable and expensive cars, and I hate having only two choices to heat/power my home: Fossil fuels or electricity (most likely produced from burning fossil fuels), and I hate the fact that I don't have a clean, reliable and affordable alternative to put at least some of my energy generation into my own care.

As I face the prospect of having to pay another four-digit figure to heat my apartment this winter, I'm wondering when there will be something else available. And I laugh when I hear those radio ads for oil heat, "clean and dependable." Yeah, that's why a technician has to come to my house every year to replace furnace parts clogged with soot, change two filters, and wipe down the smelly black oil tank coated with a petroleum goo.

The novelty of personal transportation has long since passed for me. After a decade and a half of changing oil, replacing expensive parts to save money, dumping gas into the tank every week, replacing tires, paying auto insurance and making car payments almost equal to my rent, I'm ready for a change. I have an almost perfect commute: My office is within walking distance, but unfortunately the other campus is on the other side of town. I can't walk because I need to lug equipment around, and it would take too long to get from on side of town to the other.

I'm waiting for the new, cheap solar panels that will hit the market in the near future (I'm hopeful anyway). Although they appear to be another petroleum-derived product, It would be something I'd be willing to try even on a small scale; The missing piece of the puzzle still being storage. But I've done everything I can. Since de-regulation in my state, electricity prices have gone up 50%, and reliability has stayed about the same. I replaced every light bulb in my house with higher-efficiency fluorescent models. I don't leave the TV on, I don't run air conditioners in the summer, I only leave on a light in the room I'm occupying. My bill will not go below $60, even if I just sit and read under a 14-watt bulb during nights.

What I see when I go through towns in my area is a people stuck in a 1950s way of doing things. No one wants to change their mindset, even when the "advantages" aren't what they were. Now that everyone has a monster furnace to heat their 3,500 ft^2 American Dream Homes, they have to contend with the monster oil bill created by high demand. Now that everyone aged 16 years or old has a car, traffic is bumper-to-bumper on the Main Streets of every town, and auto insurance just goes up and up. I now consider it a major inconvenience to have to get in my car to go somewhere, and have to put up with all the traffic and road construction. Please spare me the "how else would you get there" argument; It's a tad too one-sided because there aren't any alternatives.

So I guess what I'm saying is: Even though I've been dismissive of environmentalism and environmental scare tactics in the past, I'm seeing (or paying for) the disadvantages first-hand, and I want change in my lifetime.

Economic Nonsense!

[JCMay]

There is something horrificly wrong in the way the market works I'd say.

Let's look at your argument: Since your (inexpensive) produce is grown in far-away places and brought to you, something must be wrong with the "market."

First, have you considered that it might not be feasible to grow the things you want locally? Ever grown citrus in a non-tropical climate like you've got there in Toronto? They don't do well in the cold and it often gets too cold even here in Florida: freezing weather harms the trees and can destroy the fruit. Now I imagine that huge greenhouses could be built to grow citrus and other tropical-climate crops in, but you'd find the cost of those greenhouses would have to be ammortized into the selling price of the fruit, and that fruit would be much more expensive as a result.

Manufacturers want to maximize their profits, that is true (think: maximizing return on investment, ROI). One method of controlling profits involves unit (car, banana, whatever) pricing. Most people versed in economic principles know that the price-profit curve is an upside-down saddle shape, sort of like a upside-down parabola. Extremely low prices mean no or even negative profits, no matter how many units they sell. Extremely high prices mean that nobody buys their products, and no profits are realized. By pricing their products optimally, or at the top of the "hill," their profits are maximized.

Another method of controlling profits is to control manufacturing and delivery costs. You seem to be proposing that manufacturing costs be traded for delivery costs: make things locally (lower delivery cost), no matter what infrastructure may be required (manufacturing cost).Here in the United States, many people bemoan the fact that many manufacturing operations have moved overseas, but we'll stick with agriculture products. By concentrating production of climate-specific crops in their natural climates, higher yields are grown for less money.

Sure: I could grow peaches here in Florida, but I'd have to do it indoors with a greenhouse I can cool to freezing weather for about a month (peaches need the cold weather to set fruit). You can grow oranges in Toronto in a greenhouse if you want. It's just not economically feasible to do so. Coffee and cacao only grows in areas like the mountains of Central America and West Africa, unless somebody pays to build a greenhouse that can simulate the high-altitude conditions those crops grow in. When's the last time you saw a Canadian-grown Macadamia tree or date palm?

Re:Economic Nonsense!

[MKalus]

Let's look at your argument: Since your (inexpensive) produce is grown in far-away places and brought to you, something must be wrong with the "market."

Let me put it this way: If I pay 65 cent/l for gas (as of this morning), I get 9l to a 100K, then I can see quite clearly that somehow 87cents (no matter how cheap the bulk rate for fuel is) will pay for the transport alone. I would say someone is someone giving money to allow this stuff to be so cheap, no?

Now I imagine that huge greenhouses could be built to grow citrus and other tropical-climate crops in, but you'd find the cost of those greenhouses would have to be ammortized into the selling price of the fruit, and that fruit would be much more expensive as a result.

And I guess the fruit just "beams" itself from the tree into the supermarket? There is also energy cost involved, and yes I agree, a green house would not be a good idea (especially considering the amount of food that would need to be grown).

You seem to be proposing that manufacturing costs be traded for delivery costs:

Actually my point is that what we pay for our produce at the register is not an accurate reflection of the true costs. There is a lot of hidden costs (e.g. Transportation) that we obviously don't seem to pay for.

Having said that, the question would be: Who is paying for that?

When's the last time you saw a Canadian-grown Macadamia tree or date palm?

I didn't, but you obviously missed my point, it was not about "is it feasable to grow a pineapple at the waterfront in Toronto", but rather: "How can it be that the gas is more than I pay for the can?"

You haven't answered that, someone is going to pay for that and the question would be if it makes ecological sense to subsidies such absurdity on the scale we do right now?

Re:Economic Nonsense!

[sessamoid]

Good grief. Of course, it's going to be expensive if you transport them one apple at a time. Also, most of the journey is done via transport ships, which are far more fuel efficient for long haul transports than ground transport. How many apples do you think they can fit in one of those big ship containers? Now multiply them by the number of containers on the ship (several hundred?).

For simplication, let's take your car at $5.85 / 100K. How many apples do you think you can fit in your car? My car is a roadster with less storage space than a large kangaroo, and it can hold probably about 2000 apples by my quick calculation (50 cu. ft divided by ~0.025 cu. ft per apple, I'm American--so sue me for not using metric). So using a no-storage-space sports car, I can transport apples at about $0.003 per 100K. I'd guess that the big transport ships can achieve at least an order of magnitude better fuel efficiency in long hauls.

Remove the tinfoil hat. There's no conspiracy here to put your domestic apple growers of business.

Re:Economic Nonsense!

[MKalus]

Remove the tinfoil hat. There's no conspiracy here to put your domestic apple growers of business.

I still think you oversimplify things.

Re:Economic Nonsense!

[sessamoid]

What part of my napkin-scrawled estimate do you disagree with? Just accusing me of oversimplifying things adds nothing to the discussion.

Re:Economic Nonsense!

[SubtleNuance]

Did you read the article? The point is *real* costs - REAL COSTS.

Pollution is "Free" today. Roads are "Free" today. Shit (again please read the article) Petrol is nearly free today.

Re:Economic Nonsense!

[MKalus]

Pretty much the notion that at the end of the day the money I pay at the regist is accounting for all the costs that are incurred.

M.

Re:Economic Nonsense!

[sessamoid]

I read the article. That isn't what the poster I replied to was talking about. He seemed to be talking only about the pump price of fuel, and how he couldn't imagine that you could transport an apple for that price.

I did a minor in economics. I understand about externalities. That wasn't the issue. REALLY.

Re:Economic Nonsense!

[RichardX]

Remove the tinfoil hat.
You'd like that, wouldn't you.. nice try, but the hat STAYS.

Ride a motorcycle.

[laugau]

1) It is MUCH more fuel efficient.
2) You can go between cars and ride in commute lanes
3) Since the tolerance for error is much lower, we could eliminate all the moron drivers on the road through survival of the fittest.... this would reduce pollution by reducing commuters.

I have been riding for a number of years and enjoy a healthier check book and the confidence that I am at the top of the vehicular food chain.

As an aside, we could take the courpses from the drivers that don't make the cut and turn them into fuel for the survivors.

Re:Ride a motorcycle.

[Ummon]

Except it sucks to ride a motorcycle in the snow. And the rain. I'd love to ride my motorcycle ('02 VFR800) 365 days a year, but here in Colorado the weather only cooperates about half the year. I saw a vehicle in Europe that was an enclosed 2 person motorcycle and haven't been able to find out who manufactures it. If I could get one of those, I'd ditch my car.

Re:Ride a motorcycle.

[laugau]

It might suck, but then again, that would help us weed out the poor drivers even faster....

Could you imagine someone dumb enough to ride their 1200CC Ducati through some Aspen highway before it was plowed? Don't laugh prematurely... you KNOW it would happen.

People who think that there is no simple answer to problems like this are not thinking simple enough. I don't think there is any problem that a few good predators couldn't fix.

Re:Ride a motorcycle.

[Ummon]

True, but if everyone had to ride a motorcycle they'd end up like cars. A million safety feature to protect the idiots.

I'm so bummed it is such a pain in the ass to import some of the very high efficiency compact cars from europe because they don't meet the dumb ass american safety standards. They should levy a safety surcharge on cars based on gross vehicle weight. Not everyone needs a fscking tank to protect their 2.4 kids.

By the way I found that enclosed bike (http://www.peraves.ch/turboe.htm)

Re:say no to flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

good god. How come you aren't modded as flamebait.

So basically what you are saying is that everything we do creates pollution, in the name of profit [gasp!]. Which amounts to TWO HUGE EVILS [sound of children screaming].

They are ROBBING the planet

First to be robbed you have to be sentinent ie cappable of possesion, which unless you believe in the Gaia theory, the planet is not. (Note: If you do believe in the Gaia theory then I am wasting my time, you are beyond help) Which brings to the point who owns the planet? Well your religious types might say God. But I think that most people here will agree with me in the assumption that humans own the planet. (note for philosophically impaired, humans are made of induviduals, I did not say humanity. That would imply some sort of society ownership, and I am not a commie) So there are a bunch of people who own pieces of the planet and low and behold they are trying to make something of it. They are using (or exploiting) the land for many selfish and greedy causes. Pumping evil black liquid from the depths and then burning it in hellish furnices to provide gigawatts of energy to sprawling miles of 3 bedroom homes filled with children. Whew, I almost had an aneurysm comptemplating this evil situation.

I really want to rant, but I just can't take you seriously

Re:So what? We will never run out of oil

[Black Parrot]

> I don't see the point of this post. We will never run out of oil. Why?

Because we can't use up all the oil until we've used up half the oil, and we can't use up half the oil until we've used up one quarter of it, and ...

Big Oil....

[pkp_gl211]

If you really want to do mother nature a favor get a car with an engine that gets 1MPG so that we can rid this beautiful earth of this horrible black oil forever!

Re:Big Oil....

[TheShadow]

Am I the only one that hates terms like: "Big Tobacco", "Big Oil", "Big Caffeine"? It just sounds so stupid.

Wait! this means Oil is a renewable resource!

[zibix]

And even with rough calculations... this means that we have enough oil at current rates of use to easily last for the next 100,000 years or so... Wow... Oil Makes Sense!!!!!!!!

Re:efficient? That would be a Yank car I take it?

[Politburo]

I know I know, but it's not right for me to kill my planet.

Close, but wrong. It's not right for you to kill our planet. And oddly enough, for all your raving about your lexus suv (even though this is probably a troll), you don't even mention going off-road with it.

Re:So what? We will never run out of oil

[Helevius]

You're stating one of Zeno's Paradoxes and might not know it. If you did, you'd know it is possible to solve the problem such that all of the elements of the series can be summed.

Helevius

Bah!

[Black Parrot]

Plants, faugh. I don't burn anything but the finest dinos in my Hummer.

Mine gets 27, but it gets 0-100 km/h in 5.5s

[pr0ntab]

And seats 6 comfortably. Thank you Subaru.

Fuel doesn't come from fossil

[Anonymous Coward]

that is a old myth perpetuated by oil companies. there is no such thing as fossil fuels, anyone who thinks oil comes from dinosaurs is an idiot. Post the chemical reactions that show this is possible.

What about the metal?

[XNormal]

The metal from which the car was made existed as oxides and had to be liberated with the help of a lot of carbon - both for reducing and generating the necessary heat. This emits about as much CO2 into the atmosphere as the car will emit through its exhaust pipe during its entire usable life. Yes, some of that metal is recycled, but not all of it.

Kilocalories

[Anonymous Coward]

It might take 40 acres of fossil plant growth for a gallon of gas -- I don't know enough to dispute the plant matter to petroleum conversion efficiency.

But 40 acres of farmland sure as heck produces more than 115,000 BTU's of food calories. A BTU is heating 1 lb H2O by 1 degree F. A food calorie (kCal) is 1 kg of H2O 1 degree C -- rougly 4 BTU's to the food calorie, so there are about 30,000 food calories to the gallon of gas.

Figures I have seen are that you can grow 50-100 gallons of vegetable oil per acre in corn or cannola, and vegetable oil is 3000 food calories/lb or 12000 BTU's/lb: this suggests that you can grow 30-60 gallons of gas per acre energy equivalent.

Of course the oil pressed from seed is only skimming the cream of the biomass energy -- the real bonanza is if you could convert plant waste to methanol.

Cat and rat farm

[guacamolefoo]

Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year.

This brings to mind the old "cat and rat farm" idea my grandfather talked about. We never knew how to make the profit selling the cat skins, but now there is hope for this idea again:

1. Raise cats and rats.
2. Feed rats to the cats.
3. Feed dead cats to the rats.
4. Keep the cat skins.
5. Use the cat skins to make oil.
6. Profit!!!

GF.

1% of engergy

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L Hunter Lovins, only one percent of the gasoline that is used in a car actually propels the people in the car down the road. The other 99% of gas is taken up by inefficiencies and to move the actual car down the road.

What?

[JCMay]

Let me put it this way: If I pay 65 cent/l for gas (as of this morning), I get 9l to a 100K, then I can see quite clearly that somehow 87cents (no matter how cheap the bulk rate for fuel is) will pay for the transport alone. I would say someone is someone giving money to allow this stuff to be so cheap, no?

In a word, NO. Welcome to the world of economies of scale. Cans of tuna are not delivered from the packing plant to your grocer's shelf individually in personal automobiles. They're packed into flats that are loaded onto pallets that are then carried by ship and/or truck to the final destination. Although road tractors don't get stellar fuel economy, they carry a massive amount of cargo and the transportation costs are divided among the entire payload.

For that matter, here in the US, a first-class postal letter costs $0.37. According to your logic, a postal carrier picks my single letter out of my mail box, drives it all the way to California, or where ever, and delivers it to the destination mail box, all for $0.39.

Actually my point is that what we pay for our produce at the register is not an accurate reflection of the true costs. There is a lot of hidden costs (e.g. Transportation) that we obviously don't seem to pay for. Having said that, the question would be: Who is paying for that?

You are! All costs associated with bringing the product to the shelf, plus the fraction of the operating expenses for the store (personnel, electricity, insurance, etc) for you to buy are wrapped up in the purchase price!

What's inefficient, cars or nature?

[Phat_Tony]

From the article- "makes you think about how inefficient our cars are"

Umm, just pointing out how many tons of plant matter went into making a gallon gas is irrelevant to how efficient cars are- unless someone can engineer a car that will start manufacturing gasoline more efficiently from plant matter.

The efficiency of cars is only determined by how much of the available energy in the gasoline is put into useful work in the car. Figuring out how much plant matter went into producing the gasoline is a measure of the energy efficieny of the natural process that made the gas, not of the vehicle.

-Phat Tony.

What's inefficient?

[Wordman]

Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

No. It makes me think of how inefficient plants are. If plants contained more chemical engery, they would make more gasoline per ton. Plus, it's not like the only product of these 90 tons of plants is the gas. Refining gasoline from crude oil produces a number of other outputs (plastics, etc.)

Re:So what? We will never run out of oil

[Elladan]

This is correct, only the actual situation is even more so.

It's possible to produce oil from other sources, such as coal or some kinds of shale (or in the ultimate extreme, pure synthetic). It's simply more expensive to do this than it is to pump it out of the ground.

Hence, once the price of oil reaches a certain point, it'll simply be cheaper to make it some other way. And the conversion costs based on, say, coal aren't really very prohibitive at all, so the people who can afford a 7mpg SUV probably won't stop driving it in the least.

Of course, it should be rather clear that this isn't exactly a good thing, since this means that the environmental damage from fossil fuel emissions has no end in sight. But it is clear that the world isn't going to grind to a halt any time soon.

Of course, at some point, it won't be a net energy win to use fossil fuels (purely synthetic production clearly will require more power than you get out, for example), so we'll have to transition over to other more sustainable and cleaner sources of power such as nuclear fission, solar, and geothermal.

Did you not RTFA, or just not understand it?

[sean.peters]

Some people will have you believe that this is pointless because we couldn't grow enough oilseed rape or whatever. I say let's try it and find out.

The whole point of the article was that using raw plant material as fuel (whether you do so inefficiently using fossilized plants or more efficiently using current biomass techniques) would require such vast quantities of plants that you'd have to choose between eating and driving. I don't think we can afford to "try it and find out".

Sean

BIODIESEL BABY

[thetonka]

YEAH BIODIESEL BABY.

Im looking at a 1 ton ford pickup with a diesel and plan on setting up my own little biodiesel production facility. $.60 a gallon, harmless emmisions and a big truck to pull all my toys. I just love the idea that I can drive a gigantic truck and do less harm to the environment than your typical gas commuter car. THATS TECHNOLOGY!

MIke

Re:So what? We will never run out of oil

[Anonymous Coward]

thank you. great post. people get so histerical about "running out of oil". its such a pointless thing worry about.

i would also like to point out the hipocrisy of liberals who want to mandate the use of alternative energy sources and at the same time are constantly preaching and worry about the 50% of children living below the poverty line or whatever the latest rediculous statistic is. alternative energy is going to cost more for the consumer. and that becomes yet another hurdle for the poor to get to work. let the markets work out these things. government can never allocate resources as efficiently as the market. i also think its arrogant that big government advocates think they know better than the average person how to spend that person's money.

Oh, but they are...

[sean.peters]

They're sequestering carbon that would otherwise be adding to the greenhouse effect. Burning them pumps all that CO2 back into the atmosphere.

Sean

25 mpg is "reasonably efficient"?

[Rogerborg]

Allah preserve all the nations of the world that are currently squatting on America's foreign oil reserves. I'd call 35mpg reasonable, I'd want 40 upwards.

Just because you can get monster trucks masquerading as family cars that are appalingly inefficient doesn't make it reasonable to settle for fairly inefficient as an average.

You can help to change US foreign policy by change your assumptions right here and now. Yes, you over there, I'm watching you.

Re:25 mpg is "reasonably efficient"?

[zenst]

Though when you do a comparrision that you only require a few apples too give you the energy to walk 25 miles then you see how inneficient they are in the context of people transportation.

Re:25 mpg is "reasonably efficient"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rubbish. It took you at least 18 years to grow to a size where you could do that, and I assume that took a bit more than 3 apples.
Hippie.

At what point should we have stopped developing?

[InOverMyFeet]

We've all seen the specials on the Discovery Channel about cave men; dragging wives around by the hair and clubbing a mammoth to death for food. Should man kind have been content living that way? He was certainly producing a minimal amount of pollution. By most environmentalist theories we could have lived to infinity.

But he didn't stop there. He started utilizing his environment to better his way of life; cutting down trees to build structures and mining metals from the earth to makes things. Was that too far? Should he have stayed in caves and settled for what he could fashion from flint.

Was a horse drawn buggy not good enough for man kind? Couldn't we still do business at the speed of how long it took you to get from settlement to settlement? Horses don't eat that much do they?

What about trains? Should we have stopped there? Sped things up a lot but from what I've seen in western movies they produced some awful black smoke. Was that okay? Should we have stopped right there......farms, saloons, whore houses......what more could we have needed? If we have stayed like that how many more years till the world ends would we have had?

What about the first automobiles before mass production? Should we have stopped there? Personal transportation.....it seemed harmless enough. How many more years would we get back from dooms day if Henry Ford had not started producing cars on an assembly line?

What about flying? Should we have left that to the birds? Those big planes......I've seen some pretty mean exhaust coming from them. How much longer could my great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren live if they weren't spewing Jet-A fumes into the air?

Why is the SUV to blame for destroying the earth? The average fuel economy was in the teens in the '70's way before the arrival of the SUV. Was that okay? The bottom line is, unless you're part of the Imbuti tribe in Africa, pretty much everything that you do contributes in some way to pollution. How much pollution was produced as a result of manufacturing the computer you're on? Was that an acceptable level? What about geeks with several computers.....is it still acceptable? What about that bicycle you ride? Where did the Chrome-Moly come from to make the tube frame? From a big 'ole polluting factory. Is that okay? If everyone were riding bikes instead of driving how many more years would we have to live? Is that enough? What about that Frisbee you toss around on your lunch break.....I bet it's made of plastic. Is that okay? Plastic is a petroleum by-product......but Frisbees are so much fun aren't they? How do you stay warm in the winter? Don't heaters seem like a waste of natural resources? Shouldn't we just put on another sweater? But you have to stay warm.....staying warm is okay right? How many more years would we get back if we only used natural resources for heat? What about all the goods that you've ever purchased in a store. Wouldn't it have been better to have gone and gotten them in your hybrid/electric car instead of them being delivered from factories by those polluting 18-wheeling monsters? You could pick up more in your SUV and save several trips. Would they be okay then? If we used them instead of semi tractor trailer rigs.

At what point was it too far?

Re:efficient? That would be a Yank car I take it?

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

I can afford it easily, so why can't I have it.

Ah, but can you really afford it? Or have some of the costs been hidden (or transferred to others)? The only time I can really take the environmental lobby is when they stick to the basic fact: The total cost of many items is not accurately reflected in the price sticker -- if we correctly apportioned costs, everyone would become "environmentally conscious" because it'd be the obvious selfish thing to do...

Yes, but...

[sean.peters]

The key is that prices for energy are going to rise - and the equilibrium price for energy is likely to be high enough to force significant changes in Western lifestyles.

If the price of gasoline has to rise to $5.00 (USD)/gallon before these alternative energy sources become viable, that's going to put a significant cramp in people's style. That's the "so what".

Sean

Re:Yes, but...

[Kohath]

They want to tax it so it costs $5/gallon anyway.

They don't care about cramping people's style. They care about "the Earth". People don't matter.

Re:Yes, but...

[Ed_Moyse]

They want to tax it so it costs $5/gallon anyway.

They don't care about cramping people's style. They care about "the Earth". People don't matter.

I'm not sure who you're talking about when you write things like this, but I think that in general you're completely and utterly wrong: perhaps "they're" just worrying about their descendants as well.. Maybe "they" think that saying "well it won't affect ME, so I can pollute as much as I want" is a pretty selfish, and shitty attitude to have?

Re:Yes, but...

[Kohath]

Maybe "they" think that saying "well it won't affect ME, so I can pollute as much as I want" is a pretty selfish, and shitty attitude to have?

I think it beats "we should make ourselves artificially poor, so we can conserve resources so our children can grow up to also be poor".

I'd say we should continue to live free and develop new resources and technology to provide for a better future. Conservation doesn't achieve this. Hunkering down and fearing the future doesn't achieve this.

Making myself poorer only makes someone else richer in the mindset of an extreme pessimist. Anyone else would consider the possibility that maybe everyone can be better off, not just one person or another.

Environmentalism used to be about problem-solving. Now that the problems are mostly solved, environmentalism has become pessimistic, negative and self-serving.

Re:Yes, but...

[Ed_Moyse]

But who says we should be artificially poor? That's like saying ... why worry about credit card bills now? Let's just spend spend spend and it'll be okay in the end.... we'll probably win the lottery or something

The point is new technology MIGHT provide solutions, and obviously we should develop it ... I'm certainly not suggesting that we "hunker down and fear the future", not would most sensible people. However it's also sensible to act cautiously when we KNOW that polluting our environment, and squandering our resources, have possible bad outcomes, and we have no guarantee that there is a solution in sight. I refer you back to my lottery example.

The correct path (IMHO) is not to be some technophobic luddite, yearning for a golden agricultural era (that doubtless didn't seem so golden to those living through it!) but neither is it to bury ones head in the sand, and assume all will be okay.

Re:Yes, but...

[Kohath]

But who says we should be artificially poor?

The whole energy conservation movement is based on people being artificially poorer.

A person would be better off using the energy. He can afford to pay for the energy. He's supposed to forgo the energy use, making him worse off -- artificially poor. He's supposed to do that so future generations have energy to use.

But the energy conservation movement has no other answers for the future generations. So the conservation movement wants people to experience this artificial deprivation forever. Their philosophy is destructive.

Similar things could be said about the anti-pollution crowd, but at least they had a real problem to solve. All the real pollution problems are largely solved now, so the activists are focused on fearmongering about non-issues and hyping unproven shadow-concerns to keep the cash contributions coming in and to wield political power. Meanwhile, they're hurting people and, again, making people artificially poor.

None of it is the least bit optimistic.

bio fuels

[TheLastUser]

I guess this puts an end to the bio fuels (ethanol, bio-diesel, etc.) solution. If we burn more in 1 day than plants produce in a year....

Re:bio fuels

[iggymanz]

no, we can convert plants to fuel much more efficiently than this ridiculous number (which has nothing at all to do with the efficiency of an automobile, it just says, if true, a very tiny fraction of ancient plant matter becomes useful fuel) It takes 26 lbs. of corn to make a gallon of ethanol, with the benefit that we're only using solar energy that would have hit the earth in the same year, and not adding net carbon dioxide to the earth, as burning stuff out of the ground does.

Re: Light bulb == inefficient

[TeknoHog]

A traditional 100 watt light bulb gives out only 5 W of visible light. I hope you didn't mean this when talking about inefficiency. Fluorescent lighting is much better, I'm right now using a bulb replacement that consumes 20 W but gives the same light as the aforementioned bulb.

Irrelevancies.

[lysium]

Okay, it's fraudulent. Let's just ignore the valid point the article was making, and instead argue about plant-matter-to-oil ratios. Who the hell cares what happens to the human race after we step out of it, eh?

============

Re:Irrelevancies.

[ivan256]

Under no circumstances is it valid to distort the truth in a non satirical fassion in order to make a point, no mater how valid your point. Distorting the truth to make your point when the point can be made with straght up valid information is even more dispicable.

Re:Irrelevancies.

[lysium]

I disagree, and I will explain why: It is more important to illuminate abstract concepts to those who might not understand their full import; in this case, that every mile driven by every car uses x tons of biomass. This sort of imagery will make it through even the thickest math-phobic skull on the planet.

Remember how the stuff you learned in grade-school and high-school were shown to be false or simplistic, and then explained correctly at the college level? This is no different -- or should high-school physics include air viscosity into future calculations? We are misleding the youth of tomorrow, after all.......

===========

Actually, it does require new infrastructure

[Anonymous Coward]

Because ethanol can mix with water and become useless, it can't use the same kind of pipes and infrastructure as oil. A small amount of water seperates from oil so present day oil pipage isn't perfectly dry. Ethanol would require a much dryer piping and pumping system.

If this wasn't so, ethanol would already be part of the system.

That's Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

More oil and meat for me! Thanks.

Corn to ethanol

[Junior J. Junior III]

Anyone have a stat for how many tons of corn it takes to yield a gallon of ethanol? It'd be really interesting to see a direct comparison of the next closest competitor to oil.

Re:Corn to ethanol

[iggymanz]

heh, it takes about 26 pounds of corn to produce 1 gallon of ethanol, but with only the energy of 0.66 gallon of gasoline. I wonder why you thought tons - think about using a still to produce whiskey at about 110 proof or just over half alchohol.

By the way, I call baloney-sausage on the idea of tons of plant matter to make 1 gallon of gas - the mechanisms & means for the production of "fossil fuel" is still the subject of many competing theories.

Re:Corn to ethanol

[iggymanz]

oops, forgot this

Re:Since when is 25 MPG reasonable?

[ShavenYak]

Moderator on Crack alert! Why is the parent post modded Troll? I'll use my bonus to get it visible again....

----
This is NOT reasonably efficient. 25 MPG is horrible and should be the absolute minimum allowed to be manufactured. No automobile company should be using the "we can't make safe cars that are efficient" excuse. They don't care about safe, they just care about cheap and high margins (SUV loving morons).

My old "reasonably efficient" just-shy-of-midsize 4 door from 8 years ago got 32 MPG mixed driving, 35 highway (real numbers, not listed). My "truly efficient" hybrid gets 52MPG mixed, 58 highway (again, real numbers).
----

freedom and choice

[Anonymous Coward]

it should be up to the individual consumer whether they want to purchase a product and whether it is the best use of their money or not. its elitist and arrogant to think you have some special ability that allows you to decide what someone else should or shouldn't buy. even if it is a low quality product, this is supposed to be a free country and individuals should be free to make choices even if you happen to think they are the wrong choices. what can be more free or more democratic than letting people vote with their hard earned money? who is going to spend money on things they don't want or don't agree with?

Re:freedom and choice

[pla]

its elitist and arrogant to think you have some special ability that allows you to decide what someone else should or shouldn't buy

No, the "elitist and arrogant" label applies far more to those who have no regard for the future of our planet, than for those who want to make sure such a future exists.

Hey, I totally support consumer choice. But what ever happened to the phallically-impaired buying small (and reasonably fuel-efficient) Italian sports cars, rather than so-called "offroad" vehicles that in reality fare VERY poorly offroad - You want to go offroad, get an Outback, or a Trooper, or a Samurai, or some other small but suitable vehicle.

"Choice" has limits. You can very quickly improve your car's fuel efficiency by stripping off all the emissions control hardware. Yet would you consider that just a matter of choice? Fortunately, the law does not.

Article title reminds me of my old Hyundai Excel

[TheGrimace]

It was so dirty that a tree had actually taken root, and was actively growing in the dirt stuck in the door jam.

Do the world a favor

[Anonymous Coward]

kill yourself.

Bring on the teeth knocking my good man.

What About Octane?

[Lagged2Death]

Most cars in the US run on 87 (or even 86) octane fuel. Most filling stations only offer 87, 89, and 91 octane. A few stations will have one pump with 93 for hot rods. Anything higher usually requires a specialty supplier or cans of fuel additives.

I mention this because I gather that cars in Europe generally use higher-octane fuels. (Unfortunately, US and European standards for computing octane numbers are different - I don't know how to compare the numbers directly.) Certainly, the Audis, Benzes, BMWs, Jags, VWs etc. exported to the US generally require the highest-octane (91) gas generally available here, yet they're often less powerful than the European versions. Using higher octane fuel allows higher compression ratios in the engines, which can help achieve higher MPG ratings. However, more crude is required to refine a gallon of high-octane than a gallon of low-octane. So the MPG figures for cars designed for 91 octane and 87 octane aren't comparable, if petroleum consumption is what you're trying to compare. The high-octane cars will look better than they really are.

All that said, though, the US's energy policies and taxes are admittedly, indefensibly, and completely insane. There's no question that we burn way, way more gasoline than is remotely necessary. As a single commuter, I am among the guilty. But I, for one, would support higher fuel taxes - the true cost of the car culture isn't reflected at the pump, and it should be.

Re:What About Octane?

[Hoser McMoose]

A bit more info on differences in octane rating. My understanding is that in North America, we tend to use an "Anti-Knock Index", which is made up of the RON+MON/2, where:

RON = Research Octane Number, a kind of best-case number
MON = Motor Octane Number, a tougher test measured at high engine speed and temps.

In Europe (and Japan), my understanding is that they just use the RON number. The end result is that the numbers are not directly comperable, though US gas with an 87 AKI Octane index is roughly the same as European gas with a 91 or 92 RON octane rating.

You are quite correct though that European cars do tend to use higher octane levels still though. Most cars in Europe use a 93 or 95 RON octane level, which is going to be roughly equivilent to using "Premium" (usually 89 AKI octane) or "Super" (usually 91 AKI octane) gas in North America. In addition to the higher compression ratios, European cars also tend to burn gas less cleanly since, until the past year or two, Europe was quite a ways behind North America in terms of emission standards. The European Union has just started phasing in new emissions regulations that bring it up to (and in a few cases beyond) North American standards.

When you get right down to it though, you can easily see that the cost of gas has a very direct impact on the average fuel economy of the cars that tend to be sold in the country. That is why in Canada we have always tended to drive more fuel efficient cars than the US, even though models available are essentially identical between the two countries (gas in Canada is more expensive than the US, but not as much as in Europe). On the same front, European cars tend to be more fuel efficient still.

say yes to cars

[farmy4700]

who cares about all this polution junk. We will all be dead one day anyway so I will keep driving my big truck and my wife can keep driving her big SUV. If these greenies don't like it too bad. I think if some of them would actually take public transportation instead of just talking about it they would think differently.

Don't Blame the Cars!

[sunking2]

If you ask me, the real problem is that plants aren't very efficient in making fuel. As usual, the tree huggers have to put there 'pro plant' spin on everything. Once we get rid of all the stupid green leafed things we can hopefully start using something a little more efficient in making gas for my SUV. The only thing keeping me from running over all the tree huggers is that their stupid plants make crappy fuel and I run out of gas.

Ignorants in agriculture.

[Anonymous Coward]

While your facts presented may be accurate you are making false assumptions. Cows are raises for their offspring, not their meat. Most meat comes from steers and heifers. For a realistic value you should be looking at the age that heifers and steers are slaughtered, and how much a calfs, steers and heifers eat. Like most /.er's your probably don't even know the difference between a calf, cow, heifer, steer, or a bull.

Tax Nitpick

[Lagged2Death]

I think you mean that 50% of the consumer's fuel bill goes to taxes, not that the tax rate is about 50%. The total tax rate for gasoline in the US hovers around 100%, doubling the cost and thus comprising half of the total cost. But I guess we all knew what you meant, and that's what's important.

Frankly, since that level of taxation doesn't even cover the construction and maintenance of the roads, let alone related costs like traffic police and health care for accident victims, I'd say it's much, much too low. Cars are, in the US, a government-subsidized and money-losing transportation system - Socialism incarnate. I think that's what's meant by "flat tax" in this case - a large portion of the bill is hidden in other taxes, which do not vary based on road use, and are therefore "flat" relative to the project they fund.

Re:Tax Nitpick

[Tet]

The total tax rate for gasoline in the US hovers around 100%, doubling the cost and thus comprising half of the total cost.

In comparison, the UK figure is around 750%. Approximately 87% of the price we pay at the pump goes to the government in tax.

You may begin protesting now...

[BitHerder]

"Save the dead, fossilized plants!"
"Save the dead, fossilized plants!"

Whiny losers.

argh...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nonsense; the rationale is pure nonsense that because 98 tons of prehistoric material is needed to make a gallon then our cars are inefficient. The internal combustion engine, with a century of technology refinement behind it, is considerably more efficient than anything else, just consider why there hasn't been alternatives to it yet.

That prehistoric gunk is there whether you choose to use it or not, it's underground and an available resource to use, not using it would be a waste. Just consider that before oil people used to use coal, and some say if demand exceeds production in oil a return to coal might be prompted, consider then what effect that'd have on the environment! Or would you prefer "nucular" energy!

I don't like the dogma about oil!

What?

[JCMay]

Fuel taxes pay for road construction and maintenance, at least here in the United States. Those taxes are paid (directly) by the shipping companies that operate the trucks and are an operating expense (cost of doing business). Those operating expenses are calculated into the freight charges paid by those shipping goods (oranges, whatever). Shipping charges are an operating expense for the producer that's built-into the wholesale price of the goods we buy, and therefore are automatically part of the retial price.

I can't say it much plainer: consumers pay for everything!.

Fuel is not "wasted" sending apples from California to Ontario. Simple physics tells us that to perform work, energy must be expended. That fuel is doing useful work propelling apples across the continent! This is the most unreasonable argument I think I've ever heard: performing a useful activity is now "wasting!"

Here's a question for you: what cost-effective and economically-viable alternative method do you propose for providing the people of Ontario with apples?

27% ideal

[caveat]

Carnot efficency is (Th-Tc/Th)*100. At a combustion chamber temperature of 2500F and an exhaust temperature of 1700F, ideal efficency is 27%.

Cost of Doing Business

[JCMay]

You are right. We don't know the true cost of your $0.77 can of tuna.

But I will tell you one thing: it's less than $0.77!

Only the insane would willingly and intentionally sell their product at a loss. I don't see any reason to believe that StarKist, Chicken of the Sea or any other tuna canner going out of business anytime soon; they must be making money selling their products. Ya can't make money selling things for less than it costs to produce them!

Perhaps IHBT. HAND.

Re:Cost of Doing Business

[MKalus]

Either you just don't get what I am trying to tell you or you play dumb on purpose.

Sure the producer sells it at a profit.... to him but we (as the taxpayer, human beings, you know) pay a price for it in other ways, taxes, destroyed environment etc. etc.

So no, 77 cents is by FAR not the real price of that can of tuna, it's way too cheap.

Re:Cost of Doing Business

[Dirtside]

He's not claiming that StarKist are the ones paying more than $0.77/can for the tuna. The point is that StarKist's trucks, for example, use public roads that StarKist does not pay for. They put out pollution that StarKist does not pay to have cleaned up. These are externalized costs, in that they are not paid for directly by the people who incur them. Yes, someone pays for it, but not StarKist.

The point is that StarKist can sell cans of tuna for $0.77 each, but the rest of us are shouldering some of the burden that lets them only charge $0.77 per can.

Here's a simpler example. Imagine there were no environmental regulations. You run a factory that spews pollution into the air. Prevailing winds carry the polution a couple hundred miles downwind, to a nearby city. None of your employees live in that city. So all your costs involve paying for your materials, your employees, and your distributors. Meanwhile, health care costs in the polluted city rise by some amount because of the pollution you contribute. That pollution is an externalized cost: someone is paying for it, but not the entity (person or company) who is producing it.

The original point is that U.S. companies externalize a lot of their costs to other countries. (Whether this is specifically true in certain situations is another company, but externalization of costs is a very real thing in economics.)

Re:Cost of Doing Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure the producer sells it at a profit.... to him but we (as the taxpayer, human beings, you know) pay a price for it in other ways, taxes, destroyed environment etc. etc

Guess what, dude. That's the way the world works. If you don't like the TOTAL price, then it's up to you to elect polititians who will pass laws to make sure that total cost is reflected in the selling price. That's why we have fuel taxes in the first place. If you think they are too low, get them raised. Ditto with environmental laws. It's not magic. Put a fair price on polution and those evil capitalists will factor the cost into their equations, and come up with an optimal solution to maximize their profits. Don't blame the capitalists if the pricing system is unbalanced.

Mother nature recycles

[RockyMountain]

Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

Several posters have countered with the suggestion that mother nature is inefficient, using so much plant material to make so little fuel.

But, both the "cars are inefficeint" and "nature is inefficient" arguements miss one important point: That the huge amount of biomass was spread out over millions of years of growth, with the vast majority of the material being recycled from one growth generation to the next. Obviously, just by virtue of the fact that a gallon of petrol weighs a lot less than a small forrest, we must conclude that most of the material didn't become fuel. Most of it became fertilizer/compost, and fueled the next generation of growth.

Adding up the mass of all these generations of plant growth is really just repeatedly counting the same material over and over.

Cows are not "natural" (was Re:burgers)

[rsmah]

This is probably less than optimal if you are trying to manufacturing cow meat instead of robust, self-reproducing organisims that exist in harmony with their natural environment.

You know, it constantly amazes me just how little people know about agricultural history.

Cows do not, and never have, existed "in harmony with their natural environment". Animals which people today would recognize as "cows" did not exist prior to about 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. We (humans) made them. We bred them from, now extinct, animals called aurochs.

Same with grain crops like wheat. What we today call "wheat" is a plant that simply would not be able to survive without humans. They are a mutant strain that does not shed its seed kernals when they are fertile. This is good for us (we can harvest the grain and eat it), but bad for the plant (no seeds on the ground to reproduce).

Almost nothing we eat today existed prior to about 10,000 years ago. We humans bioengineered it all: wheat, rice, apples, corn, cows, etc, etc, etc. Yes, I'm sure you can find a few food staples that exist in the wild, but they are few and far between.

Re:Cows are not "natural" (was Re:burgers)

[Suidae]

Cows do not, and never have, existed "in harmony with their natural environment".

I know that, which is why I didn't say that cows do that. I said that returning large amounts of nutrients is probably not the most energy efficent way to build meat.

Plant Matter != Fossil Fuels

[jgoemat]

I don't know where they get the firgure that only 1 out of every 10,750 kg of carbon from plant life made it into oil...

There is debate on whether oil even comes from ancient plant matter. Scientists have made oil from granite, water, and immense pressure in the lab, they think that the oil we use today could have just as easily been made by that process than by the decay of plant matter, maybe even more easily.

Wait just a moment, what is in efficent here

[DarkOx]

"Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are."

I say its the prehistoric plants that were inefficent, afterall many of them are extinct meaning they were unfit for life on earth and it takes for friggin tons of them just to produce the energy to move a car one mile. 4 tons, if something has to be that big(and or dense) to power one car for one mile its really inefficent weight wise.

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[F34nor]

OK. This is a BAD practice.

1st Soybeans are terrible for the soil.

2nd We are converting farmland back into forest in the US and if we met domestic demand for diesel through vegetable oil we would be back to deforesting and depleting. Bad idea.

A far better option seem to be CWT
These guy say they can change any carbon into distilled water, balanced organic fertilizer and gasoline. This also has the benefit of getting rid of biohazard waste and increases topsoil rather than depleting it.

bad design

[t_allardyce]

Well what do you expect if your still using the same basic engine 100 years on. Cars are very badly designed machines, just look at the clutch - 2 spinning disks grinding against each other every time you start or change gear they wear down abit. Sitting in traffic jams and moving an extra 3 meters every 2 minutes have you ever stopped to think how utterly and totally pointless that is? all that work just to move a large piece of metal 3 meters so it can sit there for another 2 minutes wasting more energy.

As geeks everyone here should understand this and feel it everytime they're in a car, would you run a program on a BASIC interpreter that was running on a JVM that was running on a Windows OS emulation on a Mac OS 9 emulation on Mac OS X that was running on emulated Mac hardware on a PC? no, because that would be bloody ineffecient and would make you feel like strangling yourself (would be impressive tho ;)

Re:bad design

[cr0sh]

While your comment on a car wasting energy while sitting idle is a valid one - the clutch issue is only true if dealing with a standard manual tranny - automatics use a "torque converter", which at idle simply spins (wasting energy, though, in the process).

At one time, before automatic trannys, there were "semi-automatic" transmissions (I think one of the marketing names was "hydromatic" - but I may be wrong here), that used much of the same components as a fully auto tranny, but the user switched gears (ie, tightened/loosened the bands on the planetarys) via a pushbutton selector, or a simple stick mechanism - no clutching needed, but the user still had to "listen" for the engine to know when to shift...

Re:bad design

[t_allardyce]

cool, i think theres a difference - in america people love their automatics but in britain they love their manuals? and sitting in london traffic jams (that congestion charging doesnt do anything to help) makes me go totally ape :P

Re:bad design

[cr0sh]

Personally, I don't know how to drive a stick - but I can see where a manual would be really useful, such as when you want to apply more engine power and stay in one gear (you can do this a little with an automatic - ie, 1st, 2nd), for certain things like uphill/downhill use, off-road, etc.

Most people drive automatics over here because most vehicles have them (not too many front-wheel-drive manual vehicles are made anymore). Trucks and SUV's (and sports cars) are the exceptions, where you can get one or the other (or sometimes *only* a manual). Those "in the know" go for a manual, others stick with automatics. I don't know why it is different in Britain, but it is something I have noticed before (maybe it has something to do with kilometers per litre - automatics tend to be more fuel hungry, manuals less so, provided you drive them right)...

JFC, go live in a tree

[Anonymous Coward]

We have what, 40 million years of fossil plant growth and we're burning, daily, the present one-earth-year equivilent/day? 40,000,000/365 or
roughly 100,000 years worth to burn and we're only just starting our 2nd hundred years with the auto. Put that in your pipe and smoke it with some vegetable matter. Big numbers....How many of you bozos know anything about carbon dioxide cycles on the planet anyway? How many of you are arrogant enough to think you'll be around in 99,900 years to burn the last drop of fucking oil, let alone still have anything resembling technology beyond a
toothpick.

Some numbers

[krysith]

With regards to the above discussion about wastes and the carbon cycle, I thought it might be interesting to provide some numbers in order to provide a bit of perspective.

In 1996, the US used 364.6 million tons of oil.
source

In 1996, the US also generated 209.7 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste, of which 38% was paper, and 13% was yard clippings. source

So it can be seen that the amount of solid, burnable waste which is generated (in municipal areas alone) in the US is the same order of magnitude as the amount of oil, in terms of approximate carbon weight. Interestingly, 30% of that waste was burned in incinerators, adding to our net carbon into the atmosphere. It would appear that if the carbon were converted to a more useable form and burned in place of petroleum, then yes, we could operate in a carbon neutral economy.

Of course, for ~real~ big numbers in energy, look to the atmospheric water cycle. (1.2*10^24 J/year transferred; equal to 2.26*10^14 barrels equivalent/year)

The problem...

[Savagemutt]

...to me is that whichever side I choose, I'm considered a moron by the other side. I suspect I'm like most people in this. I don't understand all the economics and science behind the issue, so I try to go middle-of-the-road...and get called a moron by both sides.

And every argument uses the worst-case scenario...People aren't just driving gas guzzling SUVs, they're driving Hummers. Environmentalists don't just want to close down polluting power plants, they want us to live like frickin' cavemen!

So, I guess for now I'll just continue driving my Tacoma to work. But I'll worry a bit too.

Hummer

[Anonymous Coward]

I can assure you that every Hummer I got was well worth the energy.

How is any of this relevant?

[Gadgetfreak]

I think we should all look beyond the fossil fuel issue here, and the semantics of how these numbers might be "fraudulent" and how everyone else is "ignorant." Bottom line is that we're a world based on fossil fuels. And yelling at people who buy large SUVs is the cliche thing to do recently, but it does little to nothing to help. Nobody regulates how far you drive, or how often you drive, because it's up to you to pay for it. If your conscience pushes you to not use fossil fuels, good for you. You're the vegan of energy usage. You can't guilt a society into fundamental change.
As human beings, we're plenty smart. When the time comes to adjust our energy uses to something new, we'll figure out a way. But there's no use wasting all of our own time, energy, and effort bickering and arguing and lobbying to kick the guy out of his SUV. My co worker drives 86 miles one-way to work, 5 days a week. I drive 12. But if I had an SUV, I'd be "evil" and the "wasteful American." Well, good for you. Go do your own research, and save your own gas money.

What about the combustion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Burning the fuel requires oxygen generated by living plants. What quantity of living plants is needed to provide the oxygen for the combustion? If hydrogen is created by a process other than water electrolysis, it will also need as much oxygen to generate the same amount of energy.

More big numbers

[riptalon]

There is no shortage of energy. There will never by a shortage of energy until the Sun goes nova...

Sorry but that is a ridiculous statement. A shortage is when demand out strips supply. While large amounts of solar energy are incident on the Earth the present demand is truely staggering. US Energy Consumption in 1998 was 94.27 Quadrillion BTU or 9.945x10^19 Joules. 80 percent of it came from fossil fuels. This is effectively solar energy that has been collected and stored by plants over millions of years and concentrated by geology over billions of years. Once it is gone it is gone for ever and we will be forced to survive (on try to anyway) on much less concentrated energy sources.

Solar power isn't even an energy source at the moment. More energy in fossil fuels and human effort is used to make a solar panel than it will ever collect during its lifetime. Economics is no more connected with the real world than Monopoly. The only true measure of an energy source is the ratio of the energy it produces over the energy expended to get it. Oil runs out as an energy source when it takes more energy to get it out of the ground than it will yield when burned. That ratio has fallen from around 100 to less than 10 as the most accessible oil has been tapped.

Not all energy sources are the same. Even physically indentical barrels of oil are not the same. A 1930's barrel of crude from Texas that shot out of the ground when a small well was drilled is a vastly superior energy source to present day oil than must pumped up or forced up by blowing steam down because the net energy yielded is much higher. Globally the amount of energy produced per capita is already falling and has been since 1979. Soon overall energy production will start falling as well.

Once it does start falling there isn't going to be the spare energy available to invest in building vast numbers of wind turbines or solar panels. Renewable energy involves a huge up front investment in energy that is only payed back if at all over decades. Even with technological improvements it is never going to have the 100:1 energy return ratios oil had and it will at the very best allow a steady state. The energy production growth of 8 percent a year seen through most of this century will be a thing of the past. Since modern argiculture is so dependent on oil and as many as 5 billion people are alive today only because of the extra food mechanized agriculture allows the future does not look all that rosey.

Only an idiot would believe that windmills and solar panels can run bulldozers, elevators, steel mills, glass factories, electric heat, air conditioning, aircraft, automobiles, etc.

Re:More big numbers

[chrisbord]

Don't nuclear power plants extract one heckuva lot more energy per unit of fuel than oil? In any case, we have 50 years to come up with alternatives to oil, so why assume that something better than oil and nuclear power won't be developed by then?

Re:More big numbers

[pmz]

US Energy Consumption in 1998 was 94.27 Quadrillion BTU or 9.945x10^19 Joules

Since you have access to statistics: Hoe many BTUs of energy are delivered by the Sun each day? What fraction of that would need to be harnessed by various methods to meed demand?

Solar power isn't even an energy source at the moment.

Agreed. However, this is no prediction of the future.

Since modern argiculture is so dependent on oil and as many as 5 billion people are alive today only because of the extra food mechanized agriculture allows the future does not look all that rosey.

Well, since the USA is so good at making corn (another solar energy producer, effectively), why not see if enough can be made into biodesiel for all the diesel-powered tractors? There are options out there, it's just that the economy, politics, etc. are providing barriers to sufficiently investigating those options at the moment. Eventually, the markets will evolve to the point where the alternatives become not only cost effective but essential for progress. So, time will tell.

Re:More big numbers

[riptalon]

Don't nuclear power plants extract one heckuva lot more energy per unit of fuel than oil?

Per unit mass of fuel yes. But that is not the appropriate measure of their usefulness. For a start uranium is relatively rare and a huge expansion in the use of nuclear power would soon run into problems with fuel shortages. Also the net energy return from nuclear, while postive, isn't vast. Large amounts of energy must be invested to mine and enrich the fuel and to build and operate the reactors. This all cuts into the net energy you get out in the end.

We have 50 years to come up with alternatives to oil

Do you now where that 50 years number comes from? They take known reserves of oil and divide it by present consumption to get years left. However consumption rises at an exponential rate and so would be much higher in the future, shortening the time to exhaustion. Secondly the physics of oil extraction is ignored. You cannot pump oil out of the ground at any rate you like. At first it is easy but as the well empties it be comes increasingly difficult to extract the remaining oil. After half the oil is gone production will fall year on year, whatever you do.

This physical effect for a single oil well is mirrored in the overall oil production figures. It was predicted by M. King Hubbert in the 1950's that US oil production would peak around 1970 and then start to steadily fall. This is what happened and we are fast approaching the peak predicted for global oil production, likely within the next decade. It will be possible to produce oil well past the end of the 21st century but it will be in smaller and smaller quantities. What matters is when oil production peaks and the shortages begin, not when the very last barrel is pumped.

Also as I said before a barrel of oil is not a barrel of oil. The oil that is left in the ground is has less net energy in it than the oil that has already been used because it takes so much more energy to get it out of the ground. The Energy Return On Investment (EROI) of oil has been steadily falling and when it gets near unity, oil is no longer an energy source, no matter how much is left in the ground. Other fossil fuels are affected in a similar way. The EROI of coal has been falling steadily as it becomes necessary to dig deeper to find it.

See these links: 1 2 3 for more info.

Re:More big numbers

[riptalon]

Since you have access to statistics: Hoe many BTUs of energy are delivered by the Sun each day?

Dividing US energy useage by land area I get 0.344 W/m^2 compared to something like 164 W/m^2 from the sun (remembering that the Sun isn't up at night). However solar panel efficiencies are less than 20 percent and are unlikely to improve. The energy cost of making solar panels may improve but their efficiencies will not. However coating a percentage of the US with solar panels would be close to impossible. Especially if your agriculture has suddenly got a lot less efficient and needs more land because you don't have gas for the mechanisation.

If we wanted to go this way we should have started twenty years ago. Solar power itself isn't really viable but wind turbines probably are. Unfortunately it would take a lot of energy investment. You would need to build somewhere on the order of 10,000 wind turbines a year for several decades. Once the oil starts running out there will not be enough spare energy available for such a massive engineering project though.

Well, since the USA is so good at making corn (another solar energy producer, effectively), why not see if enough can be made into biodesiel for all the diesel-powered tractors?

Unfortunately the agriculture thing is a vicious circle. What you are suggesting, using land to produce power to drive agriculture is what used to happen. The grain was feed to animals that then did the work, rather than producing biodesiel but the effect is the same. You lose land for food production for humans. However you slice it once oil becomes scarce feeding six billion people becomes a challenge. I don't think in an ideal world a catastrophe has to happen but we don't live in an ideal world. When oil supplies dry up war and waste will be far more likely than sensible conservation and investment in alternatives.

Re:More big numbers

[pmz]

Dividing US energy useage by land area I get 0.344 W/m^2 compared to something like 164 W/m^2 from the sun

This means at 100% efficiency, we would have to devote about 0.2% of the USA towards energy collection. At 20% efficiency, this would be one percent, which is just a bit bigger than South Carolina. So, while converting South Carolina into a solar farm would finally make that state useful (just joking...partly), I hesitantly agree that pure solar conversion to electricity probably isn't practical. If we extend things out into the oceans, such as harnessing thermal layers in the water, there is probably a lot more potential for practical solar power.

You lose land for food production for humans.

It depends on how much corn would need to be put back into the system. For example, a car engine runs itself once started using gasoline that doens't get converted into useful work. In that case, it is an acceptable inefficiency. For corn-biodesiel production to make self-sufficient farming, someone with enough information would need to do the math to see whether the inefficiency is acceptible. There is already enough food in the world (distribution of it is another matter entirely), so it could work out that biodesiel is practical.

Re:More big numbers

[ahdeoz]

necessary to dig deeper to find coal? You've got to be kidding! There is so much coal, lying on the surface, just waiting to be gouged out of the landscape that it would keep us in fossil fuels at current consumption for millenia. Coal is more polluting and less efficient than oil, that's the only reason we don't use it as much any more.

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[Bytesmiths]

"Soybeans are terrible for the soil."

Who said anything about soybeans? Any plant that produces oil can produce transportation and heating fuel. It doesn't even have to be a wonderful nitrogen fixer like soybeans. (I would disagree they're "terrible for the soil.") Or you can alternate nitrogen-depletors like corn with beans, getting two oil crops that complement each other's soil use. (I grew up on a farm, so please don't tell me what is good or bad unless you can claim the same.)

"We are converting farmland back into forest in the US and if we met domestic demand for diesel through vegetable oil we would be back to deforesting and depleting. Bad idea."

First, I would argue both that we are NOT "converting farmland... to forest" in any significant quantity, and also that any resulting "managed" forest is no better than farmland with respect to environmental factors.

I never claimed that we should get all our transportation needs from farm crops. Indeed, if you re-read what I wrote, I was advocating using WASTE cooking oil. How you got from there to "soybeans" and "farmland" is beyond me.

"A far better option seem to be CWT. These guy say they can change any carbon into distilled water, balanced organic fertilizer and gasoline."

Well, I couldn't find any place where they claimed that!

Their process seems to consume unspecified hydrocarbons and produces various hydrocarbons. It appears to be energy- and water-intensive, with lots of heat and pressure required. It is unclear exactly what the feedstock is and exactly what the result is, except that it consumes a great deal of water and energy in the process.

A hydrogen energy economy is decades away. Vegetable oil diesel can serve as an important part of a transition away from fossil fuels. This can be done with today's technology -- indeed, in a handyman's garage -- using a waste stream that is currently a disposal problem.

Just don't tell me it can't be done, or I'll have to un-drive all those miles I've driven, powered by waste vegetable oil!

Inefficient

[Lt. Pierogi]

Seems to me this speaks more to the inefficiency of the natural process to convert plant material to crude oil than it does to the inefficiency of automobiles.

BioDiesel

[phriedom]

BioDiesel is really just vegetable oil, which burns pretty well and is a fairly dense energy storage medium. It is not as powerfull as petrolium diesel or gasoline, but it is in the ballpark. There is no need to compress it so much that it turns into petrolium oil, and I expect you would expend a great deal of energy in that unneeded process.

The 150F and 20psi quoted in the earlier linked article are just for extracting/refining the oils.

Re:BioDiesel

[DaveWhite99]

I run anywhere from B50 to B100 (50% biodiesel/50% petro biodiesel to 100% biodiesel) in my stock 2002 VW New Beetle TDI. It's only $2.50/gallon, delivered to my door, taxes included. That's a cheap price to pay for "freedom fuel".

Re:BioDiesel

[phriedom]

And the performance is comparable, isn't it? How much performance difference do to see between 100% petrol, half-and-half, and 100% bio?

Wait, I just re-read that. You didn't have to make ANY modifications to your Beetle TDI? That is so cool.

Whom do you buy the BioDiesl from? Can you provide me a link, please? I don't have a diesel yet, but your information is making it much more applealing.

An interesting counter-point to the research

[k9-quaint]

I may be stretching things a bit when I say "research". Here is a fledgling industry that turns pounds into gallons, not tons:
Not just research

Robert Heinlein's Take on Cars

[nlindstrom]

"In transportation, the ox cart and the rowboat represent the first stage of technology.

"The second stage might well be represented by the automobiles of the middle twentieth century just before the opening of interplanetary travel. These unbelievable museum pieces were for their time fast, sleek and powerful -- but inside their skins were assembled a preposterous collection of mechanical buffoonery. The prime mover for such a juggernaut might have rested in one's lap; the rest of the mad assembly consisted of afterthoughts to correct the uncorrectable, to repair the original basic mistake in design -- for automobiles and even the early aeroplanes were "powered" (if one may call it that) by "reciprocating engines".

"A reciprocating engine was a collection of miniature heat engines using (in a basically inefficient cycle) a small percentage of an exothermal chemical reaction, a reaction which was started and stopped ever split second. Much of the heat was intentionally thrown away into a "water jacket" or "cooling system", then wasted into the atmosphere through a heat exchanger.

"What little was left caused blocks of metal to thump folishly back-and-forth (hence the name "reciprocating") and thence through a linkage to cause a shaft and flywheel to spin around. The flywheel (believe it if you can) had no gyroscopic function; it was used to store kinetic energy in a futile attempt to cover up the sins of reciprocation. The shaft at long last caused the wheels to turn and thereby propelled this pile of junk over the countryside.

"The prime mover was used only to accelerate and to overcome "friction" -- a concept then in much wider engineering use. To decelerate, stop, or turn the heroic human operator used his own muscle power, multiplied precariously through a series of levers.

"Despite the name "automobile" these vehicles had no autocontrol circuits; control, such as it was, was exercised second by second for hours on end by a human being peering out through a small pane of dirty silica glass, and judging unassisted and often disastrously his own motion and those of other objects. In almost all cases the operator had no notion of the kinetic energy stored in his missile and could not have written the basic equation. Newton's Laws of Motion were to him mysteries as profound as the meaning of the universe.

"Nevertheless millions of these mechanical jokes swarmed over our home planet, dodging each other by inches or failing to dodge. None of them ever worked right; by their nature they could not work right; and they were constantly getting out of order. Their operators were usually mightily pleased when they worked at all. When they did not, which was every few hundred miles (hundred, not hundred thousand), they hired a member of a social class of arcane specialists to make inadequate and always expensive temporary repairs.

"Despite their mad shortcomings, these "automobiles" were the most characteristic form of wealth and the most cherished posessions of their times. Three whole generations were slaves to them."

--Robert Heinlein, The Rolling Stones

Hypocrites! Use a rickshaw or shutup!

[bs_02_06_02]

Frankly, the article and this whole post has very little to do with the actual problem.
The real problem is hypocrites who are unhappy and lazy. They all want a problem solved, but are unwilling to do anything but complain. That's not a solution. It's arrogant. Arrogance will NEVER solve the problem. If you think anyone will listen, you've got another thing coming.

Who likes a whiner? Seriously. Anyone? Who joined up for the Ariana Huffington fan club? Anyone?
Let's look at Ariana's lifestyle. Limousines, private jets, mansions. Until she starts riding a bicycle or riding in a rickshaw, I don't want to hear her preaching about SUVs or electric cars. I don't see her "living the solution."
As for this post, 99% of the people who complain, but yet still live a lifestyle that doesn't go anywhere near solving the problem.

The people who wrote the article and performed the "research" drive cars. They fly in airplanes. They buy cars, plastic, etc. Sure, they go down to the local market and buy "organic" foods. Once a week, they recylce glass, plastic, and newspaper. Wow!

These people are all hypocrites who are unhappy with the world around them yet are unwilling to do what they suggest.
What stocks do these people own? What investments do these people have? I suspect that that a lot of these people would be embarrassed.

I have a message. Spin the numbers as much as you want, then whine, complain, kick and scream, but until you are a living example of the solution, you are a hypocrite, and your message will fall on deaf ears. In addition, until you publicly disavow any connection (financially) with any company that benefits from the use of non-renewable resources (oil, coal, natural gas, etc.), I will not respect anything you have to say.

Incorrect Premise

[RKBA]

The only problem with the article is that oil is not a product of prehistoric plant material - it is instead derived from materials incorporated in the mantle at the time of the Earth's formation. See http://people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/usgs.html

By far the stupidest logic I've come across today

[gordgekko]

Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.
Let me rephrase part of this thread's introduction:

"Users of solar energy require an energy source roughly 333 000 times the mass of the Earth simply to operate -- and most SE powered devices are incredibly inefficient."

Cars have nothing to do with how much prehistoric plant matter is necessary to create a gallon of gas -- especially since petroleum was around long before humanity was.

Re:efficient? That would be a Yank car I take it?

[boy_afraid]

I know there are hidden costs. Fuel, oil changes, service repairs, yearly registration fees, emissions test, car washes, etc. Again, I've had these fees with my other past vehicles, it's nothing new.

Re:Hydrogen-powered cars

[WOV]

At the end of the day, cars don't blow up, Starsky and Hutch notwithstanding. Think about the times you've rubbernecked or read the paper; how many times have you seen a car get really badly mastered, medevac, extraction, etc. Now compare that to how many times you've seen one of those things actually blow up, movie style. The Ford Crown Vic and some of those side-saddle-tank - pickups being the exception.

I'm pretty confident that they'll be able to generate a non-exploding hydrogen tank for motor use, especially since hydrogen dissipates so quickly.

OT: Yours?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/a/033774.htm

WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

Disinformation.

OIL is not a fossil fuel.

That figure proves why it can not be a fossil fuel.

Look here..

http://www.gasresources.net/

The vested interests don't want this known so it is ignored. Especially by "greens" NWO!

That is, of course an assumption

[that_xmas]

You are assuming that crude oil comes from prehistoric plant matter. Some people believe differently...

Re:That is, of course an assumption

[fluffy666]

Well, as soon as Thomas Gold gets an undergraduate degree in general geology (let alone petroleum geology, of which he clearly hasn't a clue), his opinions might start to carry some weight. Until then, forget it.

I've written elsewhere on this on Slashdot, it's a bit tedious having to re-debunk his stuff every time the subject comes up.

Blame the plants.

[PenrosePattern]

As a professor Benniger once said - "If you're feeling low energy - blame the plants. They're the ones who are worst at converting one energy form into another."

I think it was because they only convert something like 1% of sunlight to stored energy.

Better plants - problem solved.

Ted

Inefficient?

[Swaffs]

"Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are."

No, it makes me think of how inefficient our plants are.

What else are we going to use it for?

[paulrpayne]

So who cares that we are burning up all the oil? What else are we going to use it for? Once its gone, I'm sure there will be more of an incentive to find other energy sources.

That makes me want to go sailing

[eric76]

By the way, a few years ago, a reporter went out to see Edward Abbey for an interview and was surprised to see him driving a gas-guzzler.

The reporter asked him why he was driving it.

He replied that the faster we used up the gasoline, the faster we'd be back to horse and buggy.

Re:say no to cars?.. the hidden benefits of cars

[G4from128k]

Many environmentalists and not a few posters to this thread noted the hidden costs of cars -- pollution, asphalt wastelands, and urban sprawl are real problems not bundled into the price of cars and gasoline. But nobody talked about the hidden benefits of cars to society. High-speed time-efficient personal transportation both reduces the personal cost of consumer goods and provides a better workforce to companies.

Driving gives employers access to a much larger pool of potential applicants and people acccess to a much larger pool of employers. An article a few years ago in Sci. Am. noted that the average daily commute for people is remarkably the same across time and cultures. Its usually about 15 min to 1 hour each way whether you walk, ride a horse, take a bus, or drive. With a constant commute-time, a doubling of the speed gives a 4X increase in area (and a car is usually twice as fast as mass transit in most, but not all, locations). This greater pool of applicants and job opportunities means that employers find better people and people find better jobs. Imagine if you had to find a job within walking distance of your house -- it would probably suck.

Driving also lets people buy a much wider selection of low-cost consumer goods. Rather than be forced to pay high prices at cramped neighborhood stores, people can find a wider selection of goods at low prices at the big-box stores built on low-cost land at the edge of town. As much as people hate the big corporate retailers on a spiritual level, they love to shop at them. The car makes that possible.

Cars may suck at energy efficiency, but they are vastly superior at time-efficiency -- taking people, their kids, and cargo from any point to any point in the least time. In this day and age, it is labor costs that dominate the equation on both a personal and global-economic level. Until they invent a scheme that lets someone go from work to the store to the kid's school to the kid's after school activities and to home in one fast, easy, wait-free process, the car will continue to dominate.

I'm not even sure how to estimate the economic benefits of 4 times the worker pool or access to low-cost goods, but I'd bet that some economist has estimated it someplace. So whether car and gas are underpriced or overpriced in the bigger scheme of things is unknown.

BTW, for the record, I'm not some assUVhole in the lane next to any of you. I don't own a car and my commute the less than 30 seconds.

Re: Light bulb == inefficient

[p7]

I was pointing out that the sun burns roughly 700,000,000 tons of hydrogen every second and yet we are only getting roughly 450MWatts from it. Do these numbers mean much? No, but does the fact that it took 78 tons of vegetation to produce a gallon of gas mean much more. I don't think so. There is a lot of energy stored up in fossil fuels and we currently rely on it. We know it will eventually go away and we are working on means to eliminate the huge needs we have. I am pretty sure that most alternate fuels we can currently produce are not as "inefficient" as that so I think the only real use of this info is possibly as a question on a trivial pursuits card.

...but the energy budget for ethanol is terrible!

[Cid Highwind]

It takes 26 lbs. of corn to make a gallon of ethanol, with the benefit that we're only using solar energy that would have hit the earth in the same year, and not adding net carbon dioxide to the earth, as burning stuff out of the ground does.
It takes a lot of energy to produce ethanol. Either you're burning fossil fuels (increasing net CO2 emissions), or you're burning a lot of your potential ethanol. Did you actually read the article you linked to three posts up?

"According to the research from Cornell, you need about 140 gallons (530 liters) of fossil fuel to plant, grow and harvest an acre of corn."

So the acre of corn which produces 328 gallons (1241 liters) of ethanol requires burning 530 liters of gasoline (or 795 liters of ethanol) just to grow the corn. There goes 64% of your energy right there. By the time you factor in energy spent to distill, transport, and sell the ethanol, I would not be surprised if the whole exercise ended up as a net loss of energy.

Ethanol as a motor fuel is a crock. In the long run, we need practical fusion or orbital solar stations and electric or hydrogen-powered transportation, and in the short run, thermal depolymerization is a better process for turning organic stuff into fuel.

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[F34nor]

>Who said anything about soybeans?

According to the USDA, the total world consumption of major vegetable oils in 2000 was:
Soybeans 26.0 million metric tons (MMT)
Palm 23.3 MMT
Rapeseed 13.1 MMT

So domestic veg oil equals soybean oil, not much palm or rape in the US.

>First, I would argue both that we are >NOT "converting farmland... to forest" in any >significant quantity, and also that any >resulting "managed" forest is no better than >farmland with respect to environmental factors.

Ok here you are just flat wrong. The US is the only country in the world that is converting farmland back into forest. That's why Bush wanted to get carbon tax credit.

You are right that it is managed forest but saying that "any resulting 'managed' forest is no better than farmland with respect to environmental factors" is insane. I grew up on a tree farm that used to be a dairy farm. Our tree farm is a managed forest that produces cottonwood, oak, ash, Douglas fir, yew, cedar, and western white pine and is not a monoculture, uses local genetics, and uses treated sewage for fertilizer. We improve riparian and sylvan habitat and generally kick ass.

>Well, I couldn't find any place where they claimed that!

Keep reading. It heats water, resulting in steam, which when condensed or cooled is distilled water. The solids generated by the process (they claim) are a balanced organic fertilizer.

You say the process is "water intensive" but all the water is recovered from the process. Also you claim the process is "lots of heat and pressure" but lots in this case is relative. Geological heat and pressure vs. industrial. Yes it high heat and pressure compared to room temp. but low heat compared to other processes currently used to dispose of biological wastes.

Your only real objection here is "Just don't tell me it can't be done, or I'll have to un-drive all those miles I've driven, powered by waste vegetable oil!" This can be reduced to cognitive dissonance, because you have invested a great deal of time and effort into and idea, you are unwilling to believe that it can be flawed. Bio-diesel is a good idea but it would not work if scaled to mass use. There isn't enough cooking waste oil in the use to power our cars. CWT's process works because it draws from a MUCH larger pool of resources, e.g. all the pig shit, cow shit, tires, human shit, ag waste in the US.

Save the historical ecosystem!! Please!!

[writertype]

Not.

I'd call myself a liberal, but I really don't think we need to be all that concerned with the massive amounts of ancient flora that had to die to create the oil we burn. Yes, it's interesting that a gallon of gas required X tons of prehistoric plants, but we don't know how many tons of plants grew each year during the Jurassic, for example. The numbers are meaningless.

All the article (and the parent) seems to imply is that there's a prevalent belief that oil is a renewable resource. Huh? Is there anyone alive that believes we can cut down forests, let the wood rot, and make more oil? Besides the idiots in the White House? No. (And I seriously doubt that even the most conservative of energy policy analysts believes that to be true.)

So, if we all believe that oil is not a renewable resource, let's move on, shall we? We've become sidetracked.

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[gewalker]

People time to stop the ignorance. Everybody knows that the oil deposits laid formed from compressed plant and enimal material were laid down as a consequence of world-wide flooding at the time of Noah.

Since the flood only took 1 year (to subside enough to let the people off the ark), and it also reset the population to 8 people, all that is needed it to have another world-wide flood when we run out of oil, and everthing should be ok for another 4000 years or so.

Unreasonably Alarmist

[A non moose cow]

Who cares how many plants it takes to make a gallon of gas? It's not like the process was decided in a board meeting.

What assumptions are we supposed to make here? Since the process is inefficient, we shouldnt use the oil? It's already there for chrissakes!

Why not instead examine the amount of gasoline we get from one barrel of crude oil? After all, humans actually instigate that process. The current yield of petrol from one drum of crude is slightly below 50%. That's pretty good I think. So, what happens to the other half? Is it wasted? burned up? Dumped in the ocean? No. Most of the rest of it paves your roads, waterproofs your roofs, bags your garbage, and is formed into uncountable different plastic products, lubricants, rubbers, esthers, ethers, etc. There is actually only a very tiny amount of waste from the refineries.

But what the hey, I'll jump on the bandwagon. The next time I pump 1.2 kilotons of dead plants into my Ford, I'll try to remember to curse planet earth for her crappy efficiency.

please.

Hmm... it seems the point has been missed by many

[riprjak]

Perhaps Im too much of an engineer, but the point to this whole thing has been obvious to me since I was a kid.

When you use something faster than it can be made you have a problem. Sure, you may have heaps of stock, but eventually you have to learn how to make it faster or find something new.

AFAIK no-one has worked out how to plant and kill more trees 30 million years ago ;) so regardless of point of view, we need an alternative to fossil fuels because they will inevitably run out.

I vote for building a chamber around my housemate's arse and collecting the gas he generates... Im sure it would power a small nation; course Im fairly sure what he produces contravenes WMD conventions

Of course, there something more complex that I am missing??

err!
jak

This article and a few of you readers

[Anonymous Coward]

are absolutely lame. Let me explain:
Diatoms (no, that's not a new novel by L. Ron Hubbard) live in water, die in water, and sink to the bottom of the lake or ocean and mix in the mud. Over millions of years, they are compacted in the layers of sediments and decay to become oil--not some big pool of oil, but oil droplets mixed into a sedimentary rock such as sandstone. These droplets seep upward unless they are trapped by a more dense rock like a limestone -- particularly if it is domed up as in an anticline. Note that diatoms are not prehistoric fern forests or dinosaurs. They exist today and we will still have oil some day in the future.

Don't use plants

[ahdeoz]

Once upon a time we were taught that our petrolium was the excrement of dead dinosaurs, apparently in an attempt to evoke sympathy for such cuddly man-eating creatures and provoke guilt when driving pre-SUV gas guzzling Ford Explorer II and Cadillacs. But after the debut of the movie Jurassic Park, when little children learned that dinosaurs are NOT YOUR FRIEND, and over-playing of Barney convinced adults of the same, textbooks were re-written to claim massive hemp-like lod growth ferns were the originators of our gasoline, all the while, geologists, archaeologist and evil oil men alike shook their heads in disgust at the deliberately false and naive claims of the self-righteous, ignorant cultists because THE OIL THAT COMES OUT OF THE GROUND DOES NOT COME FROM PLANTS OR ANIMALS!!! It never did.

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[ahdeoz]

Advocating more deep fried foods is a humorous contrast to the parent post regarding obesity.

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[ahdeoz]

Kerosene cometh from ...?

Q about byproducts of oil...

[Slowleggs]

I've gotten this most annoying allergy to soaps (I do not yet know wich components cause them) ...have any of you ever tried to read what's in your shampoo, soap etc? they all seem to contain Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate (seems to be the most dominating component, next to water),parabens (iso-,ethyl-,propyl-, etc) etc etc, all long latinish names that makes paranoid me scared. Cynic me has gotten the crazy idea most of it is byproducts of fossile oil - stuff that they found out they could not sell -in fact had to PAY for having it stored/neutralized - until they though "doh! this stuff separates fat. Let's dump it cheap to the soap industry!" Now, can someone please educate me on what the stuff in my soaps are?

Re:Q about byproducts of oil...

[RichardX]

That's actually a damn good question, let's see what The Great Oracle Of Google has to say about Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate

Well, it seems to confirm that the damn stuff turns up all over the place... after 4 pages of beauty product ingredient lists, we find this.. I've only taken a quick glance at it, as it's 3:40 AM here, and I really need to get to bed, but this phrase popped out at me: "Disodium laureth sulfosuccinate is recommended for use in conjunction with sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) for bath products. When used at 25% SLES:75% disodium sulfosuccinate, the combination shows a much-lowered irritation potential without significant loss of foam"

It appears they have to mix something else with this stuff to reduce it's potential for irritating the skin, so it could well be related to your allergy.. it also seems to be related to the foaming process of the product. Maybe you could try some non foaming or less foamy soaps/cleansers?

Looking at the wrong end of the problem

[Guppy06]

"Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are."

No, Otto and Diesel cycle engines are very efficient at getting the stored energy out of those octane molecules. The inefficient part of the equation is the process that converts that vegitative matter into large hydrocarbons to begin with. And even then I'd say we're getting the better end of the bargain, getting hundreds of millions of years worth of energy storage as quickly as your cylinders (rotor, what have you) can fire.

You're also assuming all of that vegitative matter was turned into fossil fuels. It obviously wasn't (pesky first law of thermodynamics). Quite a lot of it went into being food for other creatures, breaking down into other, lighter compounds, etc. It takes a great deal of time for organic matter to to get low enough to be compressed into heavy hydrocarbons to begin with, so why are we assuming it remains undisturbed all that time?

Supply, Demand and the American Way

[shadow_slicer]

Assuming fixed demand, the price of oil would rise as the supply diminished.

This statement is true in economics, however in economics "supply" is defined differently than the parent implies.
The economical supply is the amount of oil (being sold/ready to sell) on the market (which is continuing to increase, and has actually grown by a factor of 6 in the last 50 years, despite a "diminishing supply").
In short, the world's supply of oil and the market's supply are NOT the same thing. The market's supply is measured in barrel's per year and the world's supply is measured in barrels.

The market's supply is actually based on the costs of production (and not on limits of raw materials). In the long term, the market's supply will increase if the market is favorable (selling products for a profit) and decrease if the market is unfavorable (making a loss) as competitors enter and exit the market or companies expand or contract production. Current market (and government-legislated) conditions for the oil market are favorable, so supply is increasing.

At some point, the limited raw materials for the oil market will raise costs such that supply will fall. For oil (as a raw material), when it occurs, this will progress rapidly (making oil unaffordable to most within a period of 2-3 years I speculate) due to the incredible inertia of everything that runs off of it (since oil is an inelastic good, no matter what the cost, in the short term demand will remain constant regardless of price). This rapidity means that there will not be time for alternatives to take its place without incredible economic consequences (unless everyone has spent time preparing for it.....it's probably like Y2K that way).

People may keep cars 2-3 years (unless you're like me=8-10yrs) but large industries are based off of oil, and would take decades for them to make a smooth transition.

Other, noneconomic factors also will keep the oil prices artificially low:

Political Pressure: Some governments (read US) are in the habit of pressuring other countries to keep prices low. This is remarkably akin to convincing someone to give you a dollar by pointing a gun to his head. He probably won't be worried about whether it's his last dollar at this point either.

Can't build 10K windmills but can drill 50K wells?

[mulp]

In a span of two decades years, the US drilled between 1 and 2 million oil wells.

They didn't make sense other than the tax shelter aspect. And that is currently going on with reprocessing coal by spraying it with oil which results in a tax credit equal to the cost of the "product" (coal sprayed with oil).

But if the US could drill a million oil wells that produced no more than 10 barrels of oil a day, why can't a million wind mills be erected? (The average oil production from US oil wells is less than 10 barrels; the median oil production is 1 barrel of oil per day, and 75% of all the oil produced in the US comes from about 1000 wells. There are currently about 500,000 producing oil wells in the US today. In fact, more than 99% of all producing oil wells are in the US.

More like 10,000 years of oil, but....

[mulp]

I'm sure that oil will be pumped for 10,000 years, but it won't be for fuel.

The amount of time that oil will be able to meet American transportation "needs" is MAYBE 20 years and more likely less than 10. $100 a barrel in 2010 is optimisticly low, but it would probably result in far less oil being used for US transportation than would be the case with oil at Bush's goal of $10 a barrel.

Civil war in Saudi Arabia could bring us $100 a barrel oil in a year or two....

Re:More like 10,000 years of oil, but....

[Biff98]

Not much more than speculation here. Here's some more for ya. Looks like a fellow doomsayer is still talking about oil being harvest in at least 42 countries until 2080

http://dieoff.com/42Countries/42Countries.htm

Remember these curves will do nothing but adjust up as:

- demand grows
- technology improves (more efficient harvesting)
- new sources are found (improved GIS and research)

You care to back up your statement, or?? Civil war? It's always a mess, but the big money will always find a way to get at the black gold...

Re:More like 10,000 years of oil, but....

[mulp]

For two decades, the US attempted to keep oil pumping by drilling more oil wells. In fact, about 2 million oil wells were drilled. There were many tax incentives to fund this drilling. 99% of all oil wells in the world were drilled in the US, lower 48.

But gee, all efforts didn't manage to keep US production in step with growing demand. In fact, all the drilling failed to keep US oil production constant.

So, growing demand, improved technology, and new sources failed to produce the oil needed to meet demand.

The oil embargo brought forth new oil supplies, but those new oil supplies were previously known.

In fact, the most recent oil find of any significance is Saudi Arabia, not a new field in Saudi Arabia, but just oil in Saudi Arabia. That was circa 1950.

The oil in the North Sea was known by then. But the technology for drilling in deep water was not known. And that technology has been used in the Gulf of Mexico.

The areas with the greatest reserves of oil are, not surprisingly, the areas where there is no transparency. In other words, no one has any scientific data about the oil in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Think of all the claims by Reagon about the threat posed by the Soviet Union, or by Bush about Iraq.

If Saudi Arabia fails to meet world demand in 5 years or 3, what are you going to do? Send in teams of geologists looking for the lost or hidden oil? Prove that the oil really exists in Saudi Arabia.

And even if Saudi Arabia actually has 200 years of oil, that is with Saudi Arabia producing 4-5 million barrels a day, but in 10 years the forecast is for world oil consumption to be 100 to 125 million barrels a day.

And if you want to babble on about oil shale, etc, consider that the oil shale production in Canada is going to use most of the available fresh water in the region and also cut gas exports to the US even as Canada brings new gas fields on line. The mineral resources required to extract oil from oil sands/shale are huge.

The cost of extracting fossil fuel is going up and can only go up. All the new technology of the past three decades has not reduced the cost of producing oil. It has merely made it possible to extract oil at a higher price from places were it would not have been possible before at any realistic price. Like drilling millions of oil wells.

Btw, the method used to show growing oil reserves is sort of like estimating the supply of your favorite vintage wine by buying a bottle or two to drink every few weeks. Let's see, I've bought 10 bottles so far, so the proven reserves must be at least 10 plus there were 6 more bottles on the shelf. Two years later, you have bought 200 bottles and there were 4 bottles still on the shelf, although the price is double what it was. So you estimate that the ultimate recoverable bottles of wine are at least 500 bottles because you've struck it rich and you're willing to pay 10 times the current asking price. Surely the higher price will keep the supply of your favorite wine coming for at least another 10 years if not 20. And if you strike really big, well, you'll be able to pay 100 times as much so that the supply of that 1987 vintage wine will increase to at least 1000.

The problem is that when you add up all the wine that everyone else has bought and their rate of buying, the only way that the there will be sufficient supply is if that 50 acre vineyard bottled 1 million bottles in 1987.

Ah, but someone will invent a time machine so you can go back in time and buy the wine in 1988?

400 year old bottles of wine are cheap to drink...

[mulp]

The point of the article is that the oil we pump and burn was produced over millions of years and that the process is, at best, able to turn 1 million Joules of solar energy into 1 Joule of energy from oil.

On the other hand, a solar cell or passive solar can turn 100 Joules of solar energy into 15 Joules of electricity or heat.

So long ago, a lot of solar energy was stored in plants and then stored for millions of years and very little useful energy is available today.

400 years ago, some people bottled some grape juice, which can be drunk today.

The cost of the oil is set based on the cost of pumping it out of the ground.

In like manner, the cost of a glass of a 400 year old wine should be the cost to have a waiter open the bottle and pour it into a glass. Ie, a buck for the tip.

Economists go to great lengths to explain why a bottle of wine, not much different from any other bottle of wine is worth $10,000. But they can't seem to figure out that oil, something that was produced 100 million years ago, and thus far more rare than wine, is worth a whole lot more than the cost to pump it.

Solar viability

[Jennifer E. Elaan]

Photovoltaic solar panels are not now and never will be viable as a source of energy, but this doesn't rule out solar power entirely. A heliostat (an array of mirrors computer-aimed at a central target) is much more efficient in terms of the ROI energy produced, and usually in general as well. A well-tuned heliostat produces nice, clean energy all day long (not just when the sun is up... it melts sodium and uses this to fuel turbines even at night). The total cost per kilowatt-hour is much, much lower than any other solar method.

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[Bytesmiths]

Advocating more deep fried foods...

Wow. You folks sure are good at making up stuff.

I never advocated more deep fried foods.

I never mentioned soybeans.

I never said we should convert farmland to vegoil production for the purpose of powering vehicles.

I only mentioned that there is a simple way to use an existing waste product as a transportation or heating fuel, with the side effect of less pollution than the fuel it displaces, and all you folk who are threatened by new ideas went postal on me!

I'm outta here. You guys are just too willing to put words in other people's mouths.

But the next time you stand on the street and hear a diesel vehicle approaching, and then get a whiff of french fries (or doughnuts, or elephant ears) instead of obnoxious diesel fumes, you can think of me and be greatful that some people are willing to do something now for the environment, instead of sitting at their computer, sniping from the sidelines. Veggie Van Gogh

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[caseydk]

How many tons of plant material is required to run slashdot for an hour?

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[redmoss]

This is only partially relevant to your comment, but:

Why does everyone assume all our hydrocarbons come from dead, compacted plants? There are hydrocarbons all over the solar system. Should we assume that all those hydrocarbons on Titan, the moon of Saturn, came from dead, compacted plants?

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[Bytesmiths]

"Why does everyone assume all our hydrocarbons come from dead, compacted plants? There are hydrocarbons all over the solar system. Should we assume that all those hydrocarbons on Titan, the moon of Saturn, came from dead, compacted plants?"

Certainly, methane can come from many astronomical processes. But I think life is pretty much the dominant player in making large, complex hydrocarbons. That doesn't mean they don't exist in space, just that life is particularly good at making them.

I miss my two stroke street bike

[cove209]

I miss my two stroke street bike... ...Now that was a plant burning, wheelie machine!

That's a lot of biomass?

[mveloso]

4 tons per gallon * the number of gallons used forever = more than the mass of the earth.

What's the deal?

The fallacy of alternative energy

[Frans Faase]

Over and over again, I see people mention alternative energy sources (such as wind and solar power) as a replacement for fossile energy sources. However, nobody seems to understand that those energy sources are expensive because they need a lot of fossile energy to be constructed. Every taken the time to calculate the amouth of energy required to build a wind mill or a solar cell and compare that to the amouth of energy that they will produce, and it will become clear to you that the so called alternative energy sources will become even more expensive when oil prices go up.

Impressive!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually quite impressive if you think about it, since plants don't move on their own.

And it's such a shining example of selfless team spirit, too - those hundreds of immobile plants working together to propel my car.

New Slashdot Poll...

[dnahelix]

What is the most (in US $) that you would pay for 1 gallon (US) of gasoline?

$2
$3
$4
$5
$10
$20
$50
$100

[Silently tearing hair out..]

[fluffy666]

Well, perhaps no so silently..

A number of comments in one.

1). The headline figure of the amount of prehistoric matter required per gallon/whatever is probably correct; it is also very irrelevant.

2). Thomas Gold's stuff about abiogenic oil is extremely wrong, to put it mildly. I've gone through this exhaustively on /. before; the guy simply operates in complete ignorance of general, let along petroleum, geology. Oil is derived from a small number of source rocks which are in turn rich in a particular type of algae; the sources are routinely traced geochemically. Wells are typically drilled well below the expected limits of oil occurance in the search for natural gas, which in itself consititutes several hundred thousand failed tests of TG's theories. Oil as we know it is distinctly finite, we've used about half, and production will shortly (2-10 years depepding on poitics and investment) start to decline.

3). Oil from waste/turkey guts. It's not a bad idea; having looked at and analysed everything I can find on it, it looks like a great way of a) Producing biodeisel, b) Recycling plastic, and c) Disposing of lots of nasty organic waste. However, given that every feedstock for this process (Turkey food, plastic, grease, etc) is in itself directly or indirectly dependant on oil inputs, this process can only ever recover a fraction of the oil used in the first place. It's a good process, but not a solution.

4) Solutions. This is a two part problem; first, where does your primary energy come from, and second, how do you provide energy for transport. In today's world, primary energy comes from Coal, Natural gas, Nuclear, Hydropower and Oil, but transport energy comes almost entirely from oil.

For primary energy (read: Electricity), the only currently viable long term option is Nuclear, hopefully with renewable contributions. Renewables alone are simply too intermittant; coal is too harsh on the environment, and natural gas is running out.

For transport, options are varied. Essentially we have to switch from having the energy source come out of the ground in a convienient, easily used form into making an energy carrier. This imples that whatever the solution, at least twice (and probably more like three times) the current generating capacity of primary energy will be required.

Hydrogen has been heavily hyped but the practicalities of storing and transporting it are proving very, very difficult. Fuel cell cars are very, very expensive and have limited ranges (50-100 miles).

Electric cars have benefitted strongly from the laptop computer - with the latest batteries, ranges of up to 300 miles are mooted, and they are seriously cheap to run. For some reason, however, no car manifacturer seems willing to introduce one to the general market.

Other energy carriers - Methanol from air, Boron, direct hydrocarbon synthesis - could also be viable given sufficient primary energy.

Bottom line is - we do, currently, face both energy and envionmental crises. The solutions to both are the same, and viable, and quite possibly cheaper than business as usual. Getting people to acknowledge this is, however, the real problem.

You're all fools!

[turgid]

Why travel to work when you can telework?

earth is digesting itself

[pensivemusic]

[QUOTE] by heironymouscoward (683461) on Monday October 27, @10:38AM (#7319008) (Last Journal: Tuesday September 23, @07: ...My theory (and it's probably not original) is that hydrocarbons are remains of annobacteria colonies that live off sulphur compounds deep in the earth's crust. Such bacteria are known to exist, observed around volcanic vents in the ocean floor, for instance. Now imagine _really_ large colonies of such bacteria, living in hot porous sulphur-rich rocks, and dying to rot and produce oil and gas. [END QUOTE] ====> well if our theory holds true and IF the earth is just one big super bean burrito, we will be enjoying oil and natural gas for a LONG TIME TO COME. gentlemen, start your engines! [:)]

Re:say no to dinosaurs!

[Anonymous Coward]

And even that is still based on the 100 year old piston-based diesel. There are a few alternatives starting to come out. I don't remember the links for many, but

www.defazio-rotary.com

comes to mind.

Re:Can't build 10K windmills but can drill 50K wel

[pmz]

They didn't make sense other than the tax shelter aspect. And that is currently going on with reprocessing coal by spraying it with oil which results in a tax credit equal to the cost of the "product" (coal sprayed with oil).

These sorts of things are why I find the way taxes are implemented so frustrating. In effect, creating a tax shelter specific to oil wells creates a lie in the economy. The government is subsidizing oil production in a way that creates an artificial and politically-motivated advantage for oil production, when it otherwise possibly wouldn't have existed. The outcome is a short-sighted and selfish tax law from the past causes damage to the free market that lasts decades and probably centuries.

4 tons of plants......

[Anonymous Coward]

All very interesting. For one thing, however, the vegetation-crude oil formation theory has still not been conclusively proven. Direct chemical formation deep in the earth is tantalizingly possible. Anyway, continuing developments should make all this moot. Solar electric generation from our roof surfaces may make electricity very cheap and pleniful; more efficient storage may finally make electrically powered transportation practical. When the nanotechs develop the Ufog, we will be able to effortlessly fly or slither wherever we want. That is, whenever we get bored with our oh so lovely infinienvironment.

Re:4 tons of plants......

[fluffy666]

For one thing, however, the vegetation-crude oil formation theory has still not been conclusively proven.

Yes it has. Geochemically, Experimentally, Practically, through modelling, etc, etc..

Direct chemical formation deep in the earth is tantalizingly possible.

No, it isn't. Conditions have been too oxidising for the past 2.5 Billion years; if the mantle were still as reducing as when the planet formed, there wouldn't be any oxygen in the atmosphere.

Solar electric generation from our roof surfaces may make electricity very cheap and pleniful;

Well, it could give us about 20% of power usage and help reduce air conditioning peaks demand. Cheap and plentiful it won't be.

Re:Dead cows are nothing next to the simplest atom

[Firethorn]

But a kerosene (or similar) fueled rocket is smaller and cheaper to build for it's power. The DENSITY of hydrogen is poor for it's energy. It requires extra cooling (the boil-off for a shuttle launch is in the double digits for percentage of hydrogen that boils off before launch, wasted), incredably tight storage containters (myler vs. rubber balloons), and production is ineffecient (most is made from breaking down natural gas, electrolysis is only about 40% energy efficient).

It's not the car

[Pirulo]

is the nature, ineffectively transforming 4 veg tons into a single oil gallon,

Environmentalist CRAP

[cluckshot]

I read the report. Bad Science. Bad sloppy calculations and clearly propaganda for the left that hates American Freedom and Prosperity.

It also belies the enormous quantities of this stuff out there. Not even their evolutionary time lines produce enough years and material to account for what has already been used at this guys calculation base rate.

Did I mention it has climate control?

[not-him-again]

Five miles each way is actually a pretty short ride. I think I'd top out at 25, though.

When it's cold, I wear fleece, and if I still feel cold, I pedal a bit harder.

When it's hot, I drink lots of water, and go just fast enough for the wind to cool me off through evaporation.

It's an amazing machine, the human body!

Cows, Pigs...

[zealotasd]

I have some venue in livestock. You are accurate on the feed-to-weight conversion for cows.

As to let people know about conversion efficiency for pigs, I have raised pigs that can convert 2.66 pounds of grain to 1 pound of body weight. The best pig I've seen had a 2.33:1 conversion ratio. Of that actual body weight which is meat, that depends upon the genetics of the animal. As for cows, there is a (new?) type of cow, of which I do not have the information to testify at this moment if it was geneticaly manipulated or natural, that is said to grow no matter how much it eats and retain less than 1% body fat. That's near equal to the body fat of turkey!

Verry interesting. Can anyone provide the species or common name of that cow with the verry-low body fat %%? The common name seems to have slipped my mind while I write this...

Re:Cows, Pigs...

[annisette]

Perhaps the texas longhorn has low body fat, they have not been used for beef stock for a while but from the pictures I have seen they do not seem fat. They were popular for being able to graze on scare vegetation. That is about all I know about cow variety other than angus which is what I cook at work.

Re:Cows, Pigs...

[zealotasd]

Thanks for the information. I still don't know the name of the species and only know it is a species of Bovidae from a small area in Europe.

Despite all my searching, I came across this googled page. That article is a collection of articles, and ranges from cannibalism to rare foods. Search for the word "Beefalo" for the beginning of the section that provided me some insight. I don't know how this "mysery cow" I am looking for fits into comparison with Buffalo and Ostritch and Kangaroo. For the life of me, I still can't find the agricultural magazine or agribusiness journal that advertised it.

Thanks anyway! The text of the above referenced article from the URL is provided below...

BlockQuoth Article { "Beefalo & the Steak from an Egg

Health-conscious Californians are among those at the forefront of a trendy new hunger for exotic game and nontraditional meats. Hunted to near extinction by settlers in the 1800s, buffalo is back on the Western frontier, no longer grilled over a campfire, but braised in cabernet and served alongside other dishes typical of Californian cuisine. With 40 percent less fat than chicken, the meat is increasingly popular with health conscious consumers and venture capitalists like Ted Turner, who is said to own the world's largest herd of 150,000. Sometimes dubbed "beefalo," as a nod to the "cowists," buffalo is still a novelty in many regions.

Ostrich, on the other hand, is today marketed more for its health value than for any exotic appeal it may have possessed a decade ago. Often called the "steak from an egg," ostrich is a red meat, not poultry, yet only has half the fat of beef. Kangaroo has them both beat. Regarded by the American Heart Association as the red meat with lowest fat per serving, kangaroo is promoted particularly in Australia, where it's consumed now as a matter of national pride. The marsupial has also hopped onto menus in Europe and the United States, where epicures and dieters are beginning to discover its charm." };

excuse me

[pyrrho]

but I'd have to call bullshit on that. If I was four miles off road across granite after the fall of man with nothing but my Hummer and 500 gallons of gas stashed in a cave near old route 49, as Hummer would be the best way to use energy. It could pull lumber back to my camp.

Obligatory karma-whoring Simpsons quote

[Unominous Coward]

Marge: Homer! That side of bacon was for my bridge game tonight!
Homer: Marge, if you don't mind, I'm a little busy right now achieving financial independence.
Marge: With cans of grease?
Homer: [sarcastically] No! Through savings and wise investment. Of course with grease.

From 5F20.

TROLL! (What do you expect from PhysicsExpert?)

[Daetrin]

There's no problem with making fuel cells "powerful enough" for large vehicles. A fuel cell uses hydrogen to produce electricity. I don't know what the upper limits are for fuel cells (if there are any) but you can certainly have as many as you want in parallel to provide enough electricity for whatever task you want.

No one is making bitumen based engines, unless you intend to make a steam engine whose furnace is fed with old egyptian mummies. The only relation between cars and bitumen is that it's often used in the production of asphalt.

Ford is not building an ion drive based dragster. At the current level of development ion drives are useless under any conditions involving significant amounts of gravity or friction. They're really only good for lightweight space probes. (I seriously doubt if they'll _ever_ be competitive in ground transportation, although i don't know enough about the technology to be absolutly sure)

I haven't bothered picking apart the rest of his statements, although I'm sure they're all equally as faulty.

way way off topic...

[urbazewski]

but thanks for the party invite!

I've finally updated my 'instant friends' guestbook.

oh yeah, and we're having a halloween dinner party tomorrow and then going to see the original (silent) phantom of the opera, so if you're in the midwest, drop on by....

Well actually...

[floydigus]

Did you not RTFA, or just not understand it?

Third option: I read the article but you did not understand my post.

The article is about 'biomass', and my post was about vegetable oil. Veg oil comes from the seeds of plants whereas biomass is the plants themselves (pretty low grade compost type stuff). Veg oil can also be treated to make something called biodiesel.

There is actually real potential in this stuff as fuel;

...Biodiesel, according to the British Association of Biofuels and Oils (BABFO), is the solution to many of the world's ills and could give Britain up to 10 percent of its motor fuel needs...

...The European Commission in 2001 directed that biodiesel make up 3.5 percent of the diesel fuel transport market by 2007...

Taken from http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid /14819/newsdate/4-mar-2002/story.html'

Furthermore, any old veg oil can be used to drive a diesel. For instance, the oil used for frying in restaurants will do just fine, once filtered. So in this case, you get to grow food and grow fuel both at the same time!

I don't actually think that veg oil is a panacea, but it can certainly help.

MOD PARENT TROLL!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

PHYSICSEXPERT IS A PHONY!