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Dept. of Energy Rejects Corn Fuel Future
eldavojohn writes "The United States' Department of Energy is stating that corn based fuel is not the future. From the article, "I'm not going to predict what the price of corn is going to do, but I will tell you the future of biofuels is not based on corn," U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell said in an interview. Output of U.S. ethanol, which is mostly made from corn, is expected to jump in 2007 from 5.6 billion gallons per year to 8 billion gpy, as nearly 80 bio-refineries sprout up. In related news, Fidel Castro is blasting the production of corn fuel as a blatant waste of food that would otherwise feed 3 billion people who will die of hunger."
In related news, Fidel Castro is blasting the production of corn fuel as a blatant waste of food that would otherwise feed 3 billion people who will die of hunger.
He only wants to keep them alive so he can have a fresh supply of warm brains.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
They are both correct. An odd moment of clarity from DoE and Castro.
They (like sugar cane) all grow in a 2d space. In addition, a log of energy goes into growing corn and sugar. In addition, these crops are basically batched. You may plant and then lose it all in the end.
Instead, ethanol and bio-deasil will come from algae or other microbes. The simple fact is that it allows for a continual stream of fuel as well as feeds on our waste. Finally, the amount of fuel that it uses is a fraction of regular crops.
Have to laugh at what castro is saying. There is plenty of food for the world. The issue is one of distribution. Correct that, and we could cut back on crops.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That three billion people die a year from hunger. HOLY CRAP!
How come aren't there any diesel hybrids available? They should provide even more mpg than a prius.
While I'm thinking about it, why aren't the car engines run like the train engines, with the diesel motor running at a more or less constant rate refueling the batteries that run the electric motors that actually turn the wheels - the diesel engine could be much smaller than normal because it won't have to peak to provide power - just a nice steady constant - wouldn't even have to be a normal 4 stroke engine - it could be a stirling engine that is highly efficient but has problems speeding up - though Ford managed to get it's 0-60 speed down to 17 seconds while experimenting with alternate engines during the 70s oil crisis - making it's marriage to this application ideal.
Any thoughts on this? I admit I don't have much knowledge in this area and probably missed something very basic that is wrong with the idea.
http://www.starvation.net/
Even if you buy their generous estimate of 35K deaths/day, that's over 200 years to reach 3 billion deaths.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The only thing more pathetic than being a living fossil from the cold war is making puerile jokes about one. Are you afraid from him?
^[:q!
I'm actually surprised the DOE come to a logical conclusion. I could be wrong but with the current technology, the amount of energy that we can produce from corn (or grass, ...) doesn't even equal the amount that we use to produce it (converting it to ethanol or whatever...). There is some promise with genetically engineered bacteria producing ethanol, but what happens when that stuff gets into the wild (which is inevitable given what happened with genetically engineered food).
Personally I'm still looking towards solar or fusion....
Are you really that ignorant?
I don't think jobs are the problem, but the supply of food.
Not everywhere is like the land of the plenty were the supermarkets are stocked with food.
Sugar cane ethanol is the viable alternative, if you are going to use biomass based fuel. Brazil is doing it since the seventies, it already works on most cars that use gas with little to no modification (Fiat, GM and other auto companies already produces them in quantities there) and it is almost a closed cycle, using barely to no fossil fuel on its production. This (warning, PDF) is a good summary on the benefits of sugar cane ethanol, of course we can wait for hydrogen or whatever is the technology of the future, just like we are waiting since the seventies, but if you want something that already works, sugar cane ethanol is the way to go.
Do you know that the only reason that makes U.S. not to get more ethanol from Brazil is protectionism via subsides and import quotas? Fidel got it right on this one, in order to protect the few (and rich) local corn farmers (not to mention the oil barons), U.S. impedes cheap sugar and ethanol to reach the U.S., artificially increasing the demand of corn for ethanol production, driving corn prices up and, this way, making things harder for poor people on U.S. itself and, indirectly, on Mexico too (thanks Nafta). Check this article and see, it is past the point of speculation and conspiracy theories.
Law of unintended consequences in action here. It could be different. Unfortunately, I'm not a citizen of U.S., so, I'm not part of the democratic process there. But a lot of you are, and only you could make the difference. You can wait for the Tesla electric car all your lives (maybe it will fly too, if you wait time enough) while complaining about dependence on fossil fuels and financing wars on it, or you can make the difference now and take a stand on it.
Before you say it, no, we don't need to think of the children. Industrial hemp contains less than 0.3% THC, as opposed to the 20%-30% that is found in unfertilized female plants that are grown for drug use. But God forbid anyone grow hemp: we all know what evils marijuana can cause.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
I mean, when you eat corn, it's pretty much in one end and out the other, anyway, right? Just make everyone in America eat a cob of corn every day, and let the sewage treatment plants separate the fuel from the... Well, you know.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
a sop to farmers and farm state congressmen.
No, it's much more about massive corporate welfare for ADM (price fixer to the world.)
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The news here is not that corn is a bad way to make ethanol. Everybody who isn't in the pocket of agribusiness knows that. The news here is that a true blue bushie (or should I say true red bushie? how did Republicans become red?) has reached this conclusion. Which is going to upset a lot of people. Which means they're up to something. What? Is Bush going to invade Iowa?
Them's trolling words. In other words, now we pay farmers far more than we currently do to plant stuff again and we somehow "save tax dollars".
He seemed kind of adamant that corn fuels were the way to go...
Biodiesel. You're absolutely right.
+++ATH0
...we wake up from this corn ethanol farce. Corn ethanol hasnt gotten close to breaking even and isnt expected to do so. Meanwhile viable alternatives like sweet and brown potatoes which can yeild just as much ethanol as sugar cane per volume are given the blind eye. Potatoes grow easilly, have few enemies, and require next to no fertilizers.
I would really like to see automakers push more diesel engines in America. Bioiesel production per energy breaks even with nearly every method. It also has greater energy than gasoline per volume, unlike ethanol which has about 2/3's as much as gasoline.
Ultimately the defining factor of energy infrastructure is the technology itself and demand for innovation of that technology. Today, automakers are focused on riding out low compression engines to the very end instead of focusing on more efficient and powerful diesel technology. But as already pointed out, it was never about energy independance, but rather kickbacks to the agriculture business. So we will not see soon a Manhattan project for more efficient engines, nor will we see the same fervor put into biodiesel prduction that we currently have for the ethanol pipe dream.
Thanks Congress. You are awesome.
So we need a Soylent green fuel.
After the starved folks die, we catalyze them into either a fossil fuel, or a biofuel....
Is it possible to create oil from biowaste? That is where it came from any way right?
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
It takes more energy to grow and process the corn into biofuel than you would get from using the biofuel produced. The only reason why corn has been considered is because lobbying concerns have been pushing for it to increase the bottom line of big agri-businesses like ADM. The US already has massive corporate welfare programs for the 'poor farmers' of corporate agri-business and I'm surprised that the DoE has taken this stance.
Ethanol is not the way forward, the BBC has an interesting article on this, some excerpts:
So it seems the right decisions are being made here. I'm quite suprised as I thought lobby groups were already springing up around so-called 'green fuels', I've seen some suspicious adverts for ethanol fuels on Canadian TV recently.
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
Think about the total amount of food grown and the land used to grow food. The average person eats about 2000-2500 kCal per day in food. The average person consumes about 36,000 kCal per day worth of oil (just oil, not including coal, nat gas, etc.).
Is the Earth big enough to provide 15-20 times the current food production level of biofuel-grade plant material? And if we plant more energy crops won't we be planting less food crops?
The US will be fine, but any one who eats food grown on land that could be used to grow an energy crop will see higher food prices.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Why don't we just switch to using cane sugar for our food and have the farmers sell all that excess corn for biofuel? It might make us a little less fat, too.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Have people been suggesting corn as a source for biofuels, and I'm not aware of it? I thought we had all pretty much agreed long ago that cornoil-based biodiesel is cute for demonstrations involving frenchfry buses and wowing people into supporting the cause, but any serious implementation would depend upon algae farms, or at least one of the more prolific oil producing plants (industrial hemp, for example.)
Maybe I'm out of the loop.
I see, so *everybody* who is born from now on will starve to death, right? Because we have absolutely no arable land left to feed anyone...
It's called "Iowa". Eliminate the Iowa caucuses as the "first in the nation" that every Presidential candidate must suck up to (and convince his party to suck up to) and you'll never hear about corn-based ethanol ever again.
> But ethanol is such a poor fuel compared to biodiesel I am amazed it gets the attention it does.
Why on earth would a multi-billion dollar corporate welfare payout to ADM surprise or amaze you? You don't think it actually has anything to do with whether ethanol is any good or not, do you?
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
yeah, it's amazing the debate around alternative fuels isn't more levelheaded and scientifically based. i know all the corn-belt politicians and hippies hyping ethanol have advanced degrees in chemistry, so they certainly know better. it's almost like politics and political agendas are getting in the way of this important issue. we should check into this, because if so, al gore will certainly want to hear about it.
And diesels sound soooooo cool. Thump Thmp Thump Thump :-) nothin like stump pulling power !! they sell B99 here in Arcata and boy it smells good!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
But ethanol is such a poor fuel compared to biodiesel I am amazed it gets the attention it does.
There's no technical reason for it. It is pure politics and the media exploiting(mocking) the anger with the petroleum companies. And it's putting more rainforests at risk. I don't what it does to the soil. I'm sure it will make Monsanto rich. As long as we continue using our present day jalopies, biodiesel is the one true fuel for rapid oxidation. And for the best bang for the buck(best yield per acre), algae is the way to go(about half way down the page). Heck you can grow the stuff in(on) the ocean. No need to use up valuable real estate, but in case you want to anyway, "More recent studies using a species of algae with up to 50% oil content have concluded that only 28,000 km or 0.3% of the land area of the US could be utilized to produce enough biodiesel to replace all transportation fuel the country currently utilizes. Furthermore, otherwise unused desert land (which receives high solar radiation) could be most effective for growing the algae, and the algae could utilize farm waste and excess CO2 from factories to help speed the growth of the algae."
What?
I expect the real reason is that diesel is perceived to be "dirty" and hybrids want to be seen as "clean".Perhaps is is more a marketing issue than anything else.
Stirlings are very interesting. I have two model sirlings. They are very effective for some applications but tend to be pretty heavy for the power they produce making them less than ideal for automotive applications.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Not everywhere is like the land of the plenty were the supermarkets are stocked with food.
Yeah, well it would be if everybody would stop shooting at each other for a second.
What?
I think that some of the best evidence that corn ethanol is a big wasteful takpayer subsidized scam is that the plants that are being built to convert the corn to ethanol are all powered by fossil fuels.
The editorial, straight from cuba.cu website. In spanish, of course, but at least the exact words, without anything lost in translation.
If only... If we halved the population, the global ecology might have half a chance at rebounding before the current Mass Extinction Event claims too many species.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Shouldn't be surprised here, but no one seems to have read the article at all. His point isn't that getting ethanol from corn is going to be abandoned in favor of algae sugars or biodiesel , but that getting ethanol from corn sugar isn't going to work out, getting it from cellulose is the way to go in his mind. As several have pointed out ethanol from corn sugar is a very minor improvement, giving a small boost (on the order of 10%) over gasoline in terms of carbon emmission/mile or however you want to spin it. If a cellulosic process can be made to work this changes A LOT. And it applies equally well to sugar cane cellulose, so all you sugar fans can be happy. The goal here is to take material (stalks, leaves and the like) that would otherwise be discarded or burned and turn it into fuel. Corn is a good candidate for that because it can be grown pretty densely, and the yield of food to overall biomass is pretty small.
-sk
I know that you can't be 100% efficient, but 95+% is too low?
95% efficiency in changing the rotational energy of the motor to electricity followed by 95% efficiency back to rotational at the wheels would be 90% efficient. The diesel engine only wishes it was so efficient. Add in that the diesel can be run in it's optiomal RPM range 100% of the time and you get a few more percentage points.
90% is better than many areas. Oh, and that's for a premium efficiency 250hp motor, I'd imagine that a train engine would be even bigger, and they increase in efficiency by size.
But, yeah, given the expense and weight for the transmission/differentials for a train gearbox; the series method makes sense. In many ways you could consider it an electric transmission.
I don't read AC A human right
what about hemp as a solution? you can get a lot more ethanol out of hemp
I come from a country that has a lot of poor people. I can't imagine corn and sugar being used to run cars instead of feeding starving people. I'm glad the DoE pointed this out. Vinod Khosla and all the other entrepreneurs that have invested in this better take note and stop pushing their agenda.
Good for them. I'm glad they realized that corn isn't viable from an energy standpoint. The article mentions cellulose ethanol too, but when I researched it for debate, there really wasn't much material on the subject. It's definitely still far in the future, if it it viable at all.
/would/ actually work.
Sure, you can fool around with fuel economy standards, and maybe save 20% if you're lucky. Sure, you can use ethanol, which takes almost as much energy to grow as you get out. No, the real solution is to give up those cars. Even the tiniest british cars have way worse efficiency (in people miles per gallon) compared to a full coach bus. If they really wanted to save energy, they'd make mass transit mandatory.
Of course, that isn't going to happen, but unlike most scenarios, it
Yes, but sadly religious extremism beats common sense. It's wonderful stuff, would fix the problem nicely, and wouldn't result in hordes of drug-fueled zombies. But it's not going to get through congress. It'll have to be left to a more enlightened country to threaten the US economy with hemp-based biofuel before the congress-critters do anything about it.
:v)
Vik
If I/you can grow my/your own fuel who would profit?
Algae, in the desert? Seems like the water consumption would be a big problem; we're already terribly short of water in former-desert areas that have been converted to agriculture as it is. I'm not sure that swapping petroleum shortages for water shortages is really a great plan. I suppose it fixes some of the foreign-policy issues associated with petrodollars flowing to the Middle East, but it still puts us in a precarious position.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
ADM and the DOE didn't find ethanol economical WAY back in 1997.
Not even with the 51 cent/gal federal subsidy.
http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/pdfs/adm_cs.pdf
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
Oh, the hemp guys again. Funny how they're never into the other coarse-fibre plants, like jute (used to make burlap), sisal (used to make twine), bagasse (leftover sugar cane, sometimes used to make wallboard) and kenaf (sometimes used to make paper).
Obviously, we just need some way of bypassing the middle man in all this, and converting poor people directly into fuel!
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
When I went to college (in Morris, Minnesota) there was an ethanol plant in town and I researched ethanol production just to provide some context to the awful smell (think rotting sileage) that hit my apartment complex when the wind was right. Even back in 1990 there was little justification to use ethanol because of the high energy use for production, the increased end-unit costs because of the need to blend at the POS (because ethanol absorbs water it needs to be mixed into the blend near the end delivery point) and the other implications for vehicles (reduced power/volume, injection issues, etc). The investment that the government has made has been misplaced. It purely subsidizes this waste instead of promoting the development of more efficient production/end product. The plant in Morris is still producing the exact same product in the exact same way, the only difference is now (16 years later) they are making money hand over fist.
Finally, corn requires a tremendous amount of water to grow. When we grew corn we didn't irrigate but big corporate farms cannot resist. The Oglalla aquifer is draining, which is a big deal. Irrigation for crops of all sorts are the primary culprit but the impact is larger -- most of the 'breadbasket' of the US is dependent in many ways on the viability of the Oglalla aquifer.
I am stunned and pleased that the DOE has stepped up and stated what should be the obvious. I hope that people following the stories realize that subsidies without measurable and definable goals have no place in our "free trade" economy (tongue in cheek there).
If there's one thing I won't stand for, it's intolerance.
Gasoline barely cost $1.25 a gallon in 1997. Efficiency and running out of cheap oil was the last thing on our minds.
Actually making ethanol from sugar cane is more than 6x more efficient than corn. it actually has a huge net gain in fuel. the factories in Brazil do an amazing job of creating power both to power the plants that make the ethanol as well as for the general public.
several of the sugar plantations in the states are considering this as well, since it is so much more effective.
You're correct. Most episodes of famine in Africa over the last, say, 30 years, were the direct result of armed conflicts, ethnical genocide and force migrations (our african dictator friend's version of Hitler's final solution). Take for example Ethiopia, there's plenty of water and soil there, still, after the conflicts caused by their incompetent socialist rulers, they underwent the dramatic famine we all witnessed in the 80's.
Your ad could be here!
Is a shame that jokes are being wasted on slashdot, when there are 3 billion other people in the world who aren't laughing. We're suffering as serious sense of humour shortage here, maybe ethanol is the answer?
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
A hybrid would work very good in a city bus, with the stop and go action, if it has regenerative braking. Another advantage, at least where weather is a problem, is the ability to keep the engine running while stopped, so the heat and air keep working.
You mean Detroit and DC don't have food on the shelves?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
There are a few technical problems with getting the algae to grow properly, unfortunately. Theoretically a good idea, pragmatically a little tough to implement. Sad to say, of course.
My little site.
Future conversion processes will most likely involve bioengineered bacteria and similar processes to create biofuel from any biomass available, from foodstock leftovers to waste products to... corpses.
Sugary and cellulosic biomass is best for eth.
- Switchgrass
- Sawdust
- Beets, etc
Oily biomass is best for biodiesel.
- Vegetable oils, such as soy, hemp, rapeseed, etc. whether pre-or post consumer (these still leave the seed itself as feedstock after oils are extracted.)
- Tallow/animal fats
- Algae
Ton of Reference materials halfway down this page:
http://squidb0i.livejournal.com/profile
As for corpses:
http://squidb0i.livejournal.com/114822.html
~!J!
Cellulosic ethanol is a proven technology, the only issue now is ramping it up to industrial scale. Iogen and SunOpta (both Canadian biotech companies) have already built pilot plants, and are selecting sites to build industrial scale plants (In Iogen's case, they're contemplating offers from the US, Canada, and European countries to host the plant, which would produce 50 million+ gallons of ethanol a year.)
The great thing about sugarcane and cellulosic ethanol production is they don't require outside power to run, unlike corn ethanol plants. They take a byproduct of the production process and use it for fuel.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Has anyone conducted a study to determine the net BTUs from converting corn into ethanol? I mean, it must take an awful lot of energy to clear the fields, plant the seeds, add fertilizer, pump the water, reap the crop, sort the seed from the chafe, distill the usable stuff, dispose of the waste, and voila -- E85. To my thinking, we must use a lot of energy in the process. What's the net?
It's like saying that electric vehicles don't pollute. Yeah, right. If you assume that generating electricity is completely non-polluting. Recent studies show that E85 might, ahem MIGHT supplant 5% of our foreign oil imports. How much oil will be used in producing that E85?
signature pending slashdot approval
Look, corn isn't the most efficient method of producing ethanol by a long shot. But that it takes more energy to produce simply isn't true.
This used to be true when talking about old inefficient ethanol plants. Today's corn ethanol production sees a net gain in energy. It's roughly a 1:1.3 ratio of BTUs in to BTUs out. These are well substantiated and accepted numbers. That paper put out by Berkley that everyone uses to spout that old myth wasn't accurate. It made a lot of assumptions to the low end of crop production, and efficiency, but high assumptions for fossil fuel based fertilizers and diesel farm equipment. It was set up to make corn ethanol look worse than it was, and quickly moved towards an anti agribusiness bias.
I realize that 1:1.3 is barely more, but consider that the goal isn't so much to remove our dependence on fossil fuels, but foreign oil. Natual gas and coal are what fire the distilleries, not oil. So essentially, when using corn based ethanol, we are using coal, natual gas, and a little solar energy to fuel our vehicles. I'm OK with that for now. We have a lot of it. Eventually, other better crops will supplement and perhaps replace corn. The distilleries don't really have to do a lot of retrofitting and changing to take new sources of carbohydrate.
Hey dude, you can't burn all the grass to run your cars, what we gonna smoke then?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Well, it definitely isn't growing corn, a crop that is a net energy and carbon loser when converted directly into ethanol.
Nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
We can only hope that the new ULSD (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel) now required in the US will usher in a boom of popularity for diesel passenger cars now that emissions are less of an issue. The diesel Jeep Liberty is a step in the right direction -- we might even dream of someday buying an American passenger car with a diesel engine in it... I'm not holding my breath, though.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
The unstated point of the whole question of "alternative" fuels probably has something to do with "global warming" (which probably IS happening) and the underlying assumption that we human critters have a gnat's-ass of influence on said warming (which we do - have a gnat's-ass worth of input, i.e. not much.) Google "The Great Global Warming Swindle" for some interesting links.
You can choose a "side", but think about it a bit first.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Ethanol isn't as good as biodiesel, but it's still pretty good.
The important part, though, is that cars run on ethanol right now, not biodiesel. Making gasoline 15% ethanol right now would work in nearly every existing car, and would basically eliminate the need to import oil from the middle east.
Of course, that's a bit of a simplistic view of the market. In reality, imports will continue, but prices will simply just drop, but they should do so drastically.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Nowadays they are called "glitches". Everything we do requires a few changes from the original plans as we go along. That's to be expected and hardly should be considered a show stopper.
What?
He is ignorant, but you sort of are too if you think that we somehow can only do one thing or the other with corn. The US is practically a wasteland of unused land. More to the point, however, is that there's plenty of food in the world to feed everyone. It's just that not everyone is getting it.
If you're starving, it's not because they're using corn to power a truck.
And why the fuck do we care what Castro says? He's a communist dictator, a criminal, and hopefully he'll be dead soon.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I figure that people burning enough "hemp" don't really care about where auto fuel comes from, or whether they have any fuel for that matter.
anything that uses less fertilizer than corn is good. How much oil is needed by Monsanto and DuPont to produce their fertilizers and corn seeds? It's absurd.
The oil we think we're taking away by switching to biodiesel will end up being used to produce fertilizers, genetically modified seeds, and similar farming requirements. The end consumer won't notice the swap but will ultimately feel good thinking they're not harming the environment as they're stuck in rush hour traffic sipping on a 32 oz Starbucks beverage in their SUV.
I run pretty well on corn liquor so I'm sure cars will run fine. The hardest part is wasting it on the car. Might be a good way to get people to conserve. You got your choice drink it or run your car on it. Might force some people to ride bikes.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
What the GP is saying is that we are fast approaching or have exceeded the sustainable population limits of the planet. You are being deliberately obtuse in suggesting that everyone born from now on will starve to death. There is, however, a growing population base that lives in regions subject to famine. These are the people who will face starvation. The only reason the west has the ability to avoid these conditions is because it also has the political and economic clout enabling imports to cover any shortages. So third world populations are doing the starving for us.
The reality is that the affluent western lifestyle is unsustainable 90+th percentile standard of living, which cannot be shared at current population levels. This will become particularly obvious when the increasing energy demands of the emerging middle class from China, India et. al. begin to approach supply limits.
It is unlikely that fossil fuels alone will sustain the next 50 years of projected growth in energy demand, and just as unlikely that adding the (agriculture based, fossil fuel subisidsed) biofuels industry to this will help much either. Something will have to give and unfortuately, in the short term, it will probably be the remaining forrested land area that will be sacrificed. In the long term, expect to see some starvation in the western world too, particularly during extreme drought conditions, as the capacity of normally arable land is adversely limited.
Perhaps you don't recall what was the Dust Bowl of the 1930's? Be assured that we will see something like it again at some point. Imagine the economic devastation when both food and fuel is dependent on agriculture.
No. That's comes after World War II. I wish I was being sarcastic. We spend way too much time talking about the Civil War to leave room for discussing any of those icky parts of history where America might've done something controversial like the Bay of Pigs invasion or the Vietnam War. (At least, that was my experience growing up in a former Confederate state.)
We're just lucky to get a very small warning about McCarthyism and some coverage of the Civil Rights movement. All US history south of our borders post-Spanish-American War is pretty much not taught in high school -- especially anything critical of our actions during the Cold War. Too much of what is going on today can't be understood if your knowledge of world events pretty much ends at WW2. Why the US's enemies are enemies and why many of our allies who don't share our values at all are allies is pretty much a mystery to the vast majority of the electorate.
It gets me depressed about the future every time I think about it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It's not the supply of food that's the problem. It's the distribution that's letting people starve. There's plenty of supply.
My Mercedes turbodiesel runs great on pure corn oil. :)
All this talk about corn is making me hungry. I better eat up quick before its all gone!
It is pathetic how seriously you take the internets. It really is.
Are your cheeks burning yet? You might not be smart enough to know WHY you should be embarrassed, I'll grant that.
Poor little boy who never grew up.
+++ATH0
More recent studies using a species of algae with up to 50% oil content have concluded that only 28,000 km or 0.3% of the land area of the US could be utilized to produce enough biodiesel to replace all transportation fuel the country currently utilizes.
The problem is that those high oil content varieties of algae are less competitive than the more common types that are more like 10% oil content. The algae would have to be grown in a controlled environment in order to keep low oil content algae from taking over, which would be way too expensive. Just growing the low content algae would be cheeper, but it would still not be economical.
They would have to genetically engineer high oil content algae that is still competitive with normal algae even though it doesn't grow as quickly because it is using more energy producing oil and less reproducing.
Never complain about history classes. Not only is said that "history is written by the victors", but it is heavily culturally based. I'm not talking about propaganda, just about the focus that you get in school. Now, I have read much more about American history on slashdot than I had at school. I, however, got fed the whole creation of the European Union with all its boring treaties and whatnot. Americans probably get that as a summary "The EU was created in as the ECSC in 1951 and evolved (or Intelligently Designed) from there on". My contemporary history consisted mainly of EU blah-blah, and at least I understand my part of the world thanks to it.
Overlaps are probably in history are the things that happened a real long time ago: pre-historic times, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans. The sole exception would be World War II, which still differs from content. Europeans get the mantra "look how, horrible, horrible, horrible, it was... let's never do that again", Americans get the mantra "Evil Hilter! We, heroes, had to get over there to save the World".
Geography is the same: we got to learn the name of every country of the world and their capital, plus the internal structure of our own country", you do the same (I hope)... The internal structure is just different ;-) I expect a Frenchman to know about his Departements, a German to know about his Bunderlander and an American to know about his states. I don't know them, because I'm neither. So don't ask me what the capital of Utah is. I don't know... If you're an American, you should though.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
You mean he's still alive?.... huh. Cool.
And because the problem with starvation isn't one of not being able to grow enough food, it is one of politics. The nations with massive amounts of starvation are basically all ones with really screwed up governments. Take Zimbabwe. It used to be called "The bread basket of Africa," and was a large net exporter of food. However now due to Mugwabe's extreme mismanagement and tyrannical policies, they are a net importer of food and have starving people.
We have the technology and the resources to grow plenty of food. The problem is getting it to those that need it. It isn't like you just drop it in a mailbox and send it off, there are real issues to contend with. The opening scene in Blackhawk Down? An accurate portrayal of the kind of thing that really happens.
If you've got a solution to that, let's here it. If not then please back off of the self-righteous BS ok? The problems of the world are quite not easy to fix.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevy_Volt
This car would be the equivalent of a diesel-electric locomotive.
For large motors, it's hard to incorporate discrete gears. On a gear change where the ratios are significantly different, the clutch/transmission would not be able to absorb the energy dissipated unless it's very large. So either the diameter of the clutch plate must be enormous, or the ratios must be very close. Continuously variable gearing is also problematic due to heat dissipation, unless the power conversion is _very_ efficient. Diesel-electric coupling is a pretty good solution for large motors, since no gear changes are needed.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
The food arguement makes no sense. Why is corn suddenly the most important food, as if we can only eat corn and drink corn syrup?
That's ridiculous. In fact, we have so much corn that theres corn syrup in everything, and this Fidel is telling us we should put more corn syrup in our food? Fidel can drink his coke, his pepsi, and enjoy his corn syrup. I'd prefer that stuff in my car, or fueling our economy.
3 billion people won't starve, we have no shortage of food, never had a shortage of food, we have shortages of clean water and education but free food is everywhere.So this arguement that we need our corn syrup, for the sake of starving children, I think is utterly ridiculous, it's like telling us we need junk food in the school cafeterias, because our kids would starve if they didnt have their daily supply of junkfood. Corn is the primary ingredient in all junk foods.
I think corn is the best choice to fuel our cars. It's the best choice because corn syrup and all those corn products, are designed for cars, not people. These products were made in a lab, why don't we just start drinking gasoline and then complain that all our food has gas in it and we can't disrupt that?
I think it would be better for the markets and for our health to make corn into fuel, and bring sugar back as a sweetener. I don't think the food industry depends on corn. The food industry goes in whichever direction is cheapest, because they just want sales. They'd sell piss if it were cheaper than cornsyrup and sweeter. The point is, if the prices of corn goes up, the food industry will either go back to sugar, or invent something else. The farmers would benefit the most because if the price of corn syrup goes up, it helps the farmers. If the price of sugar goes up, it helps the farmers. If the food industry thinks it's too expensive then they'll stop using sugar and corn syrup and use some of the alternative sweetners. So it would be diet coke instead of coke, so what?
The US is the #1 country for corn crops, we should use our excess corn to create fuel. Why do you want to pay more to get it from Brazil? And what exactly are we going to do with the excess corn if we don't use it as fuel?
Can anyone give me a valid reason why we MUST eat corn?
Why should the corn industry care how we consume it as long as we buy it and keep paying higher prices for it?
I'd think ethanol is better for the corn industry. Why? Because more people would be buying corn. The alternative, is to just put corn syrup in drinking water and force everyone to drink it.
Which do you prefer?
I'd prefer we put it in our cars. I'm not concerned about American eating habits, we have shitty eating habits to begin with. We should focus more on how we can turn our excess foods into cash. If we can turn corn into cash, thats perfect. I don't care what we do with it, I don't care if we turn it into syrup and put it into our cars instead of our bodies, what difference does it make to you and me where the fuel is used or how it's used? If we own corn stock what difference does it make to us how the stock rises or falls?
I honestly could care less as long as the corn becomes the cash. So the first thing we have to get rid of, is this irrational food fetishism, where we think we must eat certain crops and not others. We need to diversify our eating habits.
Also, the fact that corn is genetically engineered, shouldnt we use our genetically engineered crops in our cars? Or would you rather eat it?
Exactly. It goes good with cheddar.
There is always food. People could eat ants, or other insects, worms, or raise chickens and eat other grains like wheat which grow better than corn.
Why is corn so important that you want to force everyone to eat it?
The real answer to the "future of bio fuels" is not to use as much as we use now. There is no magic thing that will make the problem of resource depletion go away. The stark truth is we've used more than we had in the first place and now we're basically fucked if we go on this way. You can shift the problem about at a huge cost to all, or radically change lifestyles.
I don't mean go and buy a goat though: I mean we need to reorganise cities and suburbs so that people stay in their local area to get as much as possible of what they need(shops, work, socialising etc). This will mean much less car use. And in the states, they could get as efficient as Europe had to in the 70s and get used to higher fuel prices as has happened in Europe too, and that would already reduce the amount needed.
I think for now the only biofuel that's actually "5-star green" is the recycling of biomass, plant waste etc to produce very limited transport - like EU nordic countries for example. Latest issue of "The Ecologist" has an in-depth section on the US's bio fuel plans and it's current and potential effects, and proposing bio-gas as the only acceptable solution that's viable now (yes microbes may be viable one day - let's see that research money). I think sweden has a bus service running on this.
And diesels sound soooooo cool. Thump Thmp Thump Thump :-) nothin like stump pulling power !! they sell B99 here in Arcata ...
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Completely agreed. I have a SMART Diesel and I run it with soya oil (or any other vegetable oil that is cheapest at the moment)
No need for refineries or biodiesel crap or whatever. Most Diesels can use vegetable oil.
Rudolph Diesel's first engine ran on peanut oil.
>>...and boy it smells good!
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Like Kentucky Fried Chicken actually.;-)
http://www.ravenfamily.org/andyg/vegoil.htm
But try convincing all his left wing fanboys in the west of that. Its amazing how thick the blinkers on socialists can be and how quickly they get put on when it comes to realising one of their own perhaps isn't the golden boy everyone thought.
Actually, I (American) never learned about the EU in high school or college history/geography at all. I never even heard of it until several years later. Also, most Americans could guess the capital of Utah because it is the only city in Utah they ever heard of (Salt Lake City), but I bet most couldn't tell you the capital of Washington. In fact, I bet most recent high school graduates in California couldn't tell you what the capital of California is.
I know, typical comment about how uneducated we Americans are, followed by typical comment about how, no matter how dumb we are, Californians are even dumber than the rest of us.
Diesel electric locos exist simply because of the difficulty of building a mechanical transmission for them. The contortions the driveshafts and gearing would have to make from engine to wheels would be horrendous, not to mention the sort of gearbox required would have to be so robust that the expense wouldn't be worth it. This is why electric and hydraulic transmission is used on locos , not for fuel efficiency reasons. In fact you lose quite a bit of efficiency converting from rotary to electric then back to rotary power again. Hydraulic transmissions are a bit more efficient I believe but if they spring a leak you're screwed plus they're not suitable for high speeds.
...but it would weigh the same as a hummer. Batteries are *heavy*.
Alge blooms are generally bad for everything else near them in the ocean. They suck up the surrounding oxygen and block sunlight, both of which are detremental to near coastal species (crab, striped bass, as well as everyones favorite pinnipeds). Furthermore, swimmers, surfers and divers can no longer use those areas without risking getting sick and obviously it harms the local fishing industry. Besides all that, I assume it would require 28,000 sq km of surface area, which comes out to a square approx. 165 km to a side. That translates to about a third of the Gulf of California. Another way of thinking about it is that 1 x 28,000 km long strip would stretch from the Mexican Border to somewhere just around the Canadian Border.
In reality you would have to break it up into many small chuncks on both coasts which would make local production easier, but with hurricanes and winter storms mobbing up and down the east coast and the storms coming from the Gulf of Alaska and generally the whole Pacific Ocean arbitrarly pounding the crap out of the West Coast, added together with every frigging ex-hippie with a bmw and an ocean view bitching, it would cost more to produce and do more damage than anyone could ever imagine. I don't think it really seems like such a hot idea.
Another suitable crop is known as High-Energy, Multi-use Plant. It grows efficiently, is drought tolerant and produces a wide range of industrially useful materials for food, feed and fiber, including energy-dense oils and resins.
Unfortunately, The Man doesn't want people to grow High-Energy, Multi-use Plant, for some reason...
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
I was hoping we could float them out in the middle of nowhere. If these giant pools were attached to a tug boat with all the processing equipment on board, they could be kept out of the way of bad weather. A strip along prime coastline is the last thing anybody would want.
Suck up oxygen? I thought they produced oxygen.
What?
There is no future that would allow everyone on this planet to drive around at will, fly around at will, eat strawberries flewn around the globe and tons of meat at will at the same cost and with equal or less ecological impact as/than now.
This is simply not possible, mathematically. Either we want to utilize some renewable energy, then the sheer area of land needed to grow the apropriate crop would not be ecologically acceptable. Or we find a better and cheaper way to exploit still more fossile energy: that would further increase the amount of CO2 released to the atmosphere. Finally, even with some "magic" endless form of energy the future looks dim: if e.g. fusion or something similar would finally work then the cheap and endless supply of energy would make it possible to sustain an even larger number of people and give them the means to drive around at will, fly around at will, eat strawberries flewn around the globe and meat at will which would in turn indirectly lead to the exploitation and destruction of an even bigger part of the environment (all these people living in luxury need natural resources, produce waste, produce toxic substances, need their own houses, roads etc.)
So, in order for people living on this planet without eating it up, destroying most of their fellow species, and totally covering it with artefacts and trash at some point, the only chance really is that energy gets more expensive and more precious. The only way to prevent utter destruction is that energy is costly and not available to everyone in huge quantities.
As far as I can see, with a more long term vision of "future", nothing can be the future except precious, expensive energy.
Nowadays? The Irish Potato Famine wouldn't have been a famine but for British economic theory. It was so absurd that famine relief could only be given by the British authorities as pay for "work", hence the construction of "famine roads" and the workhouses.
Absolutely disgraceful, and it is a pity more people don't appreciate the same thing continues to happen today; local crop failure but food in the markets that locals have no money to buy it with.
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Ah - I should really have read the quoted text in the parent post... oh well...
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How to make yourself unpopular on a US based system...
However, seriously, between 1845 and 1849 Ireland had successive years of record harvests, and in each year exported huge amounts of grain. What's famous about those years? Yes, that's the Great Famine. People worked all day producing wheat which they couldn't afford to buy, so it was exported and they starved. There was no shortage of food in Ireland during the famine; there was a shortage of food ordinary Irish people could afford to buy. Similarly, in the Ethiopian famine of the mid 1980s which led to the formation of Live Aid, Ethiopia - so plagued with drought that it could not feed its people - was exporting so many water melons to Europe that it could afford to buy helicopter gunships with the proceeds. Again, people starved not because there was no food, but because they could not afford the food that was plentiful.
The world's agricultural system is at full stretch at present producing enough food for (most of) the world's population. But our machines consume far more calories than we do ourselves. So if we switch our machines from consuming fossil fuels to consuming bio-fuels, then all the worlds agricultural land put together is not enough.
One of the inevitable consequences of capitalism is that it distributes scarce goods inequitably. In a drought, the poor go thirsty while the rich water their golf courses. In a famine, the poor starve while the rich put biodiesel into their SUVs. This flies in the face of every system of ethics we know, and yet it is the inevitable consequence of capitalism. Ghandi said 'the earth produces enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed'. Personally, I think he was an optimist; but nevertheless, one person's biodiesel is - inevitably - another person's hunger.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Here's another link for you: Motor efficiency by load.
.2), We're loosing ~8% over it's max, which is 93-94% efficiency. Around 86% efficient.
;)
Sorry about the pdf format, couldn't really find it elsewhere.
Taking a 'Best Case' 75-100 hp motor, at 20% load(15hp) would be 95% as efficient as at full load. We're down to about 90% efficient. Still pretty good. If we drop to a more realistic econobox level motor, 30-60 hp(6 hp at
One oddball thing: the 75HP motor is likely to be just as efficient in the 30-60 hp range than the one operating at full load. It started higher, and hasn't really started to loose efficiency yet.
Cars run over a much wider load range, and typically operated at between 20 and 40 percent of max load.
That's for a gasoline engine. Due to a gasoline engine's power factors, in order to give quick starts you have to massivly overpower it. Also, a gasoline engine is rated at it's maximum horsepower. A electric is rated at it's highest sustainable horsepower. Please not that the efficiency scale goes beyond 100%. It's perfectly possible to overdrive an electric motor quite a bit. While the chart only goes to 120%, it's possible to go way beyond that for short periods. Heck, run air through the motor to keep it cool you can raise the max sustained horsepower. Now where would I get air pressure at 75mph...
With the combination of 100% torque at 0 rpm and overdrive capabilities, the conventional sizing rule of thumb for people who convert cars to electric(sorry, no link atm) is to get comparable performance you need an electric motor of 1/3-1/2 the horsepower of the gasoline engine. So you size it to be able to sustain the car at 75-80 mph(use overdrive to get there), that puts your 20% level around 25 mph. You remain more than 80% efficient through the whole range.
Besides, if you're hanging around 25 mph for extended times, odds are you're not going to stress a 150-300 mile range.
I don't read AC A human right
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
The use of food for fuel production is a blatant immorality and illustrates the complete disregard of common sense by the US government in the face of political and industrial need. It further illustrates the reason not to allow environmental emotion to stampede us into badly thought out "solutions" to environmental problems.
Farmers have been the foundation of civilization for 10,000 years because of their production of surplus food stocks; but now they seem to have decided, with government help, that that position is no longer sufficiently important to them and like everyone in our society today, the pursuit of the very last buck is the only honorable and "smart" occupation for them too.
Let me point out that this problem actually occurred previously in the history of America. In the early years, alcohol production led to shortages of grain for bread. And during the American Civil War, The southern states had to outlaw the use of grain for alcohol production due to shortages of grain. This shows that, even in a time of war, farmers and distillers will put profit ahead of bread for the population.
Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana.E Proelio Veritas.
That controlled environment you refer to is also known as the modern farm (ok, different techniques, same principle). All domesticated cultivars would be unable to outcompete wild flora, but somehow they always manage to make enough food to feed the whole world. Why would this be different when is is about wet farming instead of land-based?
A system of concrete ponds/gullies is easy enough to clean once in a while, and if you cover it with polyethene tunnels, you could enrich the CO2 content for faster growing and harvest fresh water (condensate from the tunnelwalls) as a byproduct. In the end it doesn't matter that much what variety is the most prolific: it matters that your CO2 is converted into biomass that is harvestable.
The next step is to extract the primary oil content for the biodiesel, and the rest (cellwalls, proteins, sugars) can be converted to more diesel-like fuel and gas with a proces like Thermal Depolyremisation or Thermal Conversion (Proces). That also recylces the anorganic content (algae/plants nutrients), that you can feed back in to the algae ponds or sell to other farms.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Biofuels only 'work' as a concept if you're one that is reflexively opposed to fossil fuels in the first place.
We already have serious issues of deforestation in the Amazon due to agriculture - does anyone think that will DECREASE if the value of sugar cane is increased by world demand for biofuel?
Further, in the US we already have problems with overtillage, exhaustion of the soil, loss of topsoil, and excessive pesticide use. Again, does anyone think that the widespread use of biofuel will help any of those situations? Particularly (regarding pesticides) when the corn isn't going to be consumed by anyone, so there is no food-quality issue to restrict the severity and frequency of pesticide use?
No, I'm thinking at some point we're going to look back and see biofuel (from grown crops) as a stupid, dead-end choice that wasted a lot of time & money.
-Styopa
My wife doesn't like sad movies. When we were watching Peter Jackson's King Kong, right about the point where the ape is spinning on the frozen pond in Central Park, and the army is setting-up, she asks, "Nothing bad happens to him, right?" I didn't know that she didn't know how King Kong ends. So that's where we stopped it. As far as she knows, King Kong ends with a happy beastie butt-skating in Central Park.
If you do that same thing with U.S. History stopping at WWII, we look pretty decent.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Today, the Washington Post is featuring a article from President Lula addressing this issue. Here is the link:
c le/2007/03/29/AR2007032902019.html?hpid=opinionsbo x1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
There is plenty of food to go around, and there almost always has been. Starving people are not starving because of a lack of food, they are starving because the food never gets to them (usually rotting away in some government surplus warehouse), either due to corruption, negligence, crappy transportation, lack of caring, or some combination thereof.
While food supply is surely a concern, energy supply is no less a concern, unless we want to go back to the dark ages. Saying we should sacrifice one or the other is idiotic. There is a happy medium.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
The algae themselves don't cause the decrease in oxygen. Algae are photosynthetic organisms. Oxygen is depleted when the algae die and are subsequently decomposed by various bacteria.
One would assume that the rate of algal growth would be controlled by limiting the input of some nutrient like phosphorus, thus eliminating the issue of blooms and die-offs.
Ethanol, burned to produce an equal amount of energy to a specific amount of octane is going to produce an equal amount of carbon dioxide. The whole motivation to use ethanol as fuel is completely misguided. (Or a not so clever ploy.)
...equalised by mols of CO2:
Heats of combustion of Ethanol vs n-Octane from my 1989 CRC Handbook (in kilogram calories per gram molecular weight):
Ethanol: 326.68 (~327 kcal/mol ~= 1367 kJ/mol)
n-Octane: 1302.7 (~1303 kcal/mol ~= 5450 kJ/mol)
Complete combustion reactions:
Ethanol: C2H5OH + 3 O2 = 2 CO2 + 3 H2O (-1367 kJ/mol)
Octane: 2 C8H18 + 25 O2 = 18 H2O + 16 CO2 (-5450 kJ/mol)
Ethanol: 8 C2H5OH + 24 O2 = 24 H2O + 16 CO2 (-10.9 MJ)
Octane: 2 C8H18 + 25 O2 = 18 H2O + 16 CO2 (-10.9 MJ)
So, you can see that to produce equal amounts of energy by combustion of either fuel, one must produce equal amounts of carbon dioxide.
In fact, ethanol from corn will produce more carbon dioxide overall, as the carbon dioxide produced by fermentation of corn to produce ethanol will more than offset the benefits of its relatively clean combustion.
Burning ethanol does nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is a convenient way for the petrochemical industry to prolong its inevitable death. A number of petro stations in Canada have been selling gasoline with up to 15% by volume ethanol for decades now (Sunoco in particular).
Granted, gasoline is of course not pure n-Octane, and contains lots of other crap. Its mostly the toluenes and related aromatics that give gasoline its smell, pure octanes have very little aroma, slightly minty if anything.
Combustion of gasoline is less likely to be complete, so burning ethanol is going to be cleaner in terms of emissions and will produce fewer toxic byproducts of combustion, but will do NOTHING WHATSOEVER to help global warming. I find it amusing how easily the public and businesses are fooled.
Now, what does make some sense to me is to produce biodiesel from rapeseed (canola) or hempseed (marijuana), in terms of ease of production and sustainability, but again, burning these fuels for energy is not going to help global warming, the same amount of CO2 will be produced.
The answer obviously is CANDU nuclear reactors and electric/flywheel vehicles, but this would destroy the profits of many powerful corporations, and so will not happen under democratic capitalism. The market indices must never decrease, regardless of the cost, even if that cost is the future of humanity. We are on a path to self destruction and violent revolution is the only way out, but I fear that will never happen.
The price of corn has nothing to do with it, feeding the poor has nothing to do with it, its all about protecting the financial interests of those in control. The future of man be damned.
Sleep well.
For the next harvest it looks as though central planning will lead to reduced soy and cotton in favor of corn: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/business/30wire- corn.html. Funny how the State of the Union Speech
gets so many mixups.s -selling-solar.html
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Solar: It's more Efficient! http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
There are farmers that would rather plow under their healthy crops than sell it unprofitably.
There are farmers that would rather grow illegal crops for drug production than sell current unprofitable food researves to be given to countries (that make NO efforts on population control or social resposibility).
Farmers in starving countries are going bankrupt from the free food given to the country so future food supply in that country is greatly harmed.
More free food to starving countries that have no population control simply equals more starving babies and children... a never ending story of starvation and poverty for both farmers and poverty stricken countries.
BioFuels helps the War against Drugs and fighting poverty world-wide.
You mean the war of northern aggression don't you?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The problem, of course, is that when you have millions of people fighting over something, some of them are fighting for different reasons. It's very hard for people to grasp, but there it is. Also, if I remember my history right, South Carolina seceded after Lincon was elected, but before he was president (and it looks like Wikipedia also disagrees with you).
As near as I can tell (and it looks like I know more about it than you) the Civil War was fought because the South wanted to preserve the rights of its states and it way of life (read: slavery) and the North wanted a whole country, not just part of it. The North wasn't fighting to end slavery, it was fighting to maintain a unified, powerful country (but that doesn't sound nearly as heroic). Partway through the war, though, they realized that by freeing slaves they could gain additional troops and destroy southern morale. (Lincoln was also anti-slavery, but he didn't want to alienate the South completely at first).
Anyway, my point is that your son is at least as informed about the issue as you are. Wikipedia has some good article about it, and there should be plenty of books at your local library.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
No, its not a free market and if it was, nobody would have to make this choice. The decision of "to use corn for fuel or food" would be made naturally and the best possible outcome would occur without any government intervention. Our Government can't fix this problem.. why can't they just let us decide whats fuel?
Where these bureaucrats think they get the authority to come out and say.. "Oh.. Don't worry, we know whats best for you." I'll never know.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
I'm an American. I work for a university, so live in a university town. One of the most intelligent guys I have met here never went to college; he moved here when his highschool girlfriend came to college here and stayed after they broke up. Occasionally at parties, if it comes out that he isn't in school and never attended college, some asshat will make some comment about it (interestingly, my friend claims this is much more likely to be a philosophy grad student than anything else). My friend's favorite thing to do is challenge said asshat to name all 50 states. I have seen this happen several times over the last few years; the closest I saw anyone come was something like 45. It's priceless when my "uneducated" friend then rattles off the ones they couldn't come up with. Even better is if someone asks him why he knows them so well. "I've been there." It's a classic example of theoretical vs. practical education.
And oddly enough, I have been to Washington, and do know the capital, even though I haven't actually been to Olympia. I have never been to California, and couldn't remember what the capital was (Sacramento). Short point on a long story, I suspect that most Americans simply don't know about geography b/c they haven't seen much of it. Once you've been there, you tend to remember.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
I personaly think that corn (may have to have some slight genetic modification) might be the right way to go. I mean we have a whole province in canada that prettymich all they do is grow it. And let me tell you...thats alot of corn
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Being able to rattle off any list of given facts has little to do with 'intelligence'.
I think it's called the 'Claven Fallacy'.
KM
Kinda like Moe, but just a little more Kool
I am sorry for being so cold and callous as I enjoy my luxurious life in the US, but why do we fight so hard to have more people living in areas where they apparently shouldn't be living per Mother Nature? I get so frustrated when people talk about the food supply problems and the water supply problems and how are we going to solve all these problems when perhaps, maybe, just maybe it is time to consider that the planet has enough human beings on it and adding to the population isn't the best move? Reminds me of the Matrix and Agent Smith's analysis of the human species as the only one that doesn't live within its bounds.
That's not to mention the millions of motorcycles, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, chainsaws, snow blowers, pressure washers, and other power equipment that still have carburetors and can't automatically adjust to the different combustion properties of ethanol. They will run too lean, which can be deadly for an aircooled motor.
Ethanol is fine, thanks, just don't force me to use it in my older cars and power equipment. Same with biodiesel -- choice is good.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
I wasn't suggesting that my friend's knowledge of the states was proof of his intelligence. I guess there was really no reason to mention the fact that he is intelligent; my point was more about practical vs. theoretical geographic knowledge. Most Americans at some point in middle or high school have to learn all 50 states and their capitals. Unless this becomes applied knowledge through actually visiting these places, most people tend to forget it. Which is also why the average American knows so little about European or Asian geography. A subsidiary point was my experience with fairly highly educated people having very little knowledge of basic geography (for their culture). It just seems to be an overlooked area of education for the most part.
BTW, I REALLY REALLY want "Claven Fallacy" to be a legitimate term.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Who cares about biodiesel when we can use compressed air!!
r essed-Air_Motor/
Engineair's Ultra-Efficient Rotary Compressed-Air Motor
http://pesn.com/2006/05/11/9500269_Engineair_Comp
http://www.engineair.com.au/
Thanks for the link; I had never heard of William Walker.
The history books I read in school talked very little about South America, and when they did, it went something like this:
1. Indigenous people had human sacrifice. The Spanish came and converted or killed them.
2. U.S. took California through Texas from Mexico. "Remember the Alamo".
3. The US helped Panama build a canal and kill mosquitoes.
4. Today the DEA spends a lot of money to help Columbia, Bolivia, etc fight drugs.
Of course, this is partially because my history lessons went like this:
1. US history
2. European history
3. The rest of the world (if time permits)
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Supply of feed corn and sugar cane, yes. MMMmmm, I sure do love me some sugar stew after a hard days work in the fields.
Global agribusiness has solved distribution problems... and *that's* the real problem. The mega-farmer who owns all the land grows cash crops, while his many employees slowly starve to death.
Why does everyone seem bent on making this an all or nothing decision?
Why is there no discussion on the value of having diverse methods of producing fuels?
Lets assume that algea makes is the best source of fuel and California goes crazy with algea prioduction and refinement (or whatever) plants. Alls well until a typhoon hits, cuts production for the year in half and drives prices up. Or Global Warming changes the oceans enough that this algea is not viable.
Corn based fuels arent the most efficient. Fine, I accept that. But there is a reason I dont throw all my money into the one stock that is performing the best today. There is a reason we have stock portfolios, and the same reasons argue for an energy portfolio.
Corn has some other attractions that set it apart from algea or switch grass. The reason corn has taken off is NOT because of the Iowa caucuses. Its because most years there is an excess of corn and the corn producers are looking for a market. This excess is NOT going to feed the starving, its rotting in silos. We have the corn and the production system in place NOW so of course its going to get more attention than things that we dont have in large quantities today. And there is value in having one crop that can can be diverted to either food or fuel production. You cant do that with Algea or switch grass.(I know, I know, there are different kinds of corn for different uses but there is some overlap).
Thats enough for me to feel that this in ONE source of fuel, but there should be others as well.
Except it's not rote memorization for him. That's the point. He has had experience with these places, so didn't just memorize "Washington, Oregon, California, etc." He remembers "That place where I had that chili dog that gave me diarrhea for 2 days straight was in Washington on my way down to Oregon where I met that guy...." For some people, it is just rote memorization, so unless they periodically re-study the material, they forget it. And not many people study the states past high school. Geography in that sense is like, let's say, a car :-) You can read instruction and look at diagrams, but unless you actually change the belt, you are unlikely to remember how to do it a year from now. If you do change the belt, you are unlikely to forget how to do it.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
With the advent of farming technology and the decline of slavery in the United States, we can now grow something besides cotton in the southern part of the country. Really, there's no more need for big men with machetes in sugar cane any more.
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
Google the Texas Articles Of Secession. They make it pretty clear why they wanted out. I haven't looked at the other ones.
The infrastructure is currently geared toward producing corn.
:-) Get 'er outta granny, son, and put it into second.
Well then, it's time to change gears
What?
It's been a very long time now since the government required new cars to accept 30% mixtures of Ethanol, and some companies like GM were doing so even before that. I don't remember exactly, but it's been well over a decade. I imagine the number of cars that will have problems is quite small, and the cheaper gas will more than cover cost of new hoses.
10+% Ethanol is pretty common in CA, and yet 30 year-old lawnmowers continue to work just fine.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
In February 1992, I was a high school junior. I took "American History" that year and "Civics/Economics" the next year (the year the treaty went into effect). I know it doesn't have much to do with American history, but you'd think they would have mentioned it in economics. Also, I watched the TV news to some extent back then, and don't remember hearing about it there either.
\overall, I would grade my public education a D+
\\and I took "advanced" classes
The IP Address is: 76.208.2.84. The host name is:
adsl-76-208-2-84.dsl.sbndin.sbcglobal.net
and stalking/trolling others as well online:
Hmmm. Yeah. I'll just let that speak for itself, APK.
That's so cute that you tried to find my IP. You must really be falling for me, you poor thing. I wonder how you'll react when you discover I'm really a transexual transvestite from Transylvania.
You have made a staggeringly huge fool out of yourself.
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YHL. HAND.
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CARES
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CARES
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
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You really do possess the emotional development of a 13 year old.
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APK's Feature Film, Coming Soon!
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No?
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1) You know, the Latin phrase "non sequitur" means "it does not follow."
(i.e., what does my IP address have to do with my hometown or my gender?)
2) I hate to break it to you, but OSY is alive and well.
Try to get your insane rants straight, K? I do so hate having to correct you all the time.
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Um. No? Mostly because a) that's not my IP address and b) to know when I post, all you have to do is READ MY USER PAGE. This isn't rocket science, which is the reason you can do it.
And I find it highly amusing that you are still in doubt about my gender.
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consider me permanently "calling you out." Okay? Consider the default state of my existence to be "laughing at APK and calling him a lying, good-for-nothing, narcissistic fool who has been banned from every place on the internet he's ever become a member of." Whatever you post, anywhere, on any of my Slashdot comments or anywhere else you happen to turn up, by default append a comment to it, by me, much like this one, calling your very existence an insult to worthless fools everywhere. I have officially appended eternal mockery to everything you have ever accomplished, failed to accomplish or hope to accomplish. How's that?
Now you will never be able to stop posting, because you always have to have the last word.
There's no solution to this halting problem, my friend.
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As you would say, "ROTFLMAO!"
UH OH, RETARD! LOOKS LIKE YOU SCREWED UP! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, YOU JACKASS!
Now all of Slashdot and the entire Internet know PROOF POSITIVE that you make up people to "support" you and speak about yourself in the third person ALL THE TIME to make it appear that eeeeverybody in the world backs up good ol' Alex! WOW! What a PATHETIC LOSER you are! How incredibly sad! "LOL!" "ROTFLMAO!"
Oh, well. It's okay, APK. Someday you'll move out of your dad's house. I believe in you!
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FASCINATING. I WONDER WHY.
Do you know how many forums I've been banned from? Precisely ZERO. Why is it that you manage to get banned everywhere you go, Alex? Guess I know why you didn't breathe a WORD when I asked you where all your sycophants from TPU were and why they weren't backing you up -- THERE AREN'T ANY! HAHAHAHAHA! Pathetic.
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What do you call this one? "Mike?" "Steve?"
Every time you change faces you seem to somehow completely miss the fact that NO ONE TALKS LIKE THIS IN REAL LIFE.
You also keep using my name as if it gives you power over me. Every time you have changed faces you have done this. No one talks like that either. What sales class did you take that convinced you this was the way you should talk all the time?
(Before you jump on me for using your name over and over again, it has only been to assert that you are not fooling me and I am quite aware that you are in fact Alexander Peter Kowalsky, the sad, pathetic 46 year old reject who lives with his dad in Syracuse.)
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All those links you cited about his credibility seem to be quite mixed in terms of opinion about him. A few critics does not a complete collapse of reputation make. Hell, unless at least SOMEONE doesn't like you you must be doing something wrong, AMIRITE????
Allow me to sum up your comment:
LOL liar Reimer lol arstechnicans rotflmao you are not a girl starLOSER liar lol!
Truly, you are a paragon of writing accomplishment.
Okay, seriously. Let's drop the act. Okay? Yes? Let's quit pretending. I am quite male. I only said I was female to mess with your head. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maximum culpa. And everyone who has posted in your support... has actually been you.
Can we both admit to that in the spirit of bipartisanship, you dirty terrorist?
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So find me, dork. Show me a picture of my house. Go ahead. What am I doing right now? Where am I?
(That is also not my IP address. Seriously. In fact, it's not ANY of them. Chew on that, you filthy Red.)
And most importantly -- what are you going to do about it? Hm?
Be very, very careful, now. Threats tend to be frowned upon by the authorities you love to invoke!
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I have no detractors. I have no "fans." I do not have an online "presence" of any kind, and I like it that way. I am not a blogger. I am not any kind of online "personality." There is only you and your delusional fantasies.
More to come!
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Give it up. Your ego prevents you from hiding your identity.
What the Jesus are you talking about, Alex? What "words?" I am not any kind of online "personality," and certainly do not aspire to be. I have no ego for you to crush in the way you are attempting to crush it. I am entirely secure in NOT being a "credible source." I have not studied to be a "credible source" in terms of journalism or reviews or what-have-you. What I AM studying to do is become a very credible source in breakthrough computing technology. At some point in the very near future, I might even be able to show you some of my work. We'll see.
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Okay! Let's see how well you fit the template, shall we?
Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior) Check!, need for admiration Check!, and lack of empathy Check!, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance Check! (e.g., exaggerates achievements Check! and talents Check!, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements Check!)
(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success Check!, power, brilliance Check!, beauty, or ideal love
(3) believes that he or she is "special" Check! and unique Check! and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people Check! Check! Check!(or institutions)
(4) requires excessive admiration Check!
(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations Check!
(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends Eh? Maybe. No evidence of this.
(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others No evidence of this either either way, but it wouldn't surprise me.
(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her Check!
(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes Hahaha, check check check!
Wow. I dunno. Maybe you should try some Wellbutrin.
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It's so easy.
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Re:Portrait of a sidewalk psychologist, w/ no PhD!
All I have to do is match your behavior to a list here, APK. No one needs a Ph.D. to do that.
I would certainly need an advanced degree in psychiatry or psychology to determine how to treat you, of course. I have no education in psych whatsoever -- but I do know how to read, and the facts all point to you being a classic case of NPD.
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I'm guessing you grew up in the South- I don't think anyone north of the Mason-Dixie line would call U.S. soldiers stationed at Fort Sumter 'foreigners'. The Civil War was a big mess, and saying that it was fought over the State's right to seperate doesn't really give any clue as to why the states wanted to seperate. Saying that it was fought over slavery is at least as accurate- it's technically correct, but only gives part of the picture. The Civil War was started by a slaveholding south that felt increasingly alienated from its neighbors in the north- especially since the North was now powerful enough to elect a president that wasn't even on most of the Southern ballots. The South realized that if it stayed in the Union its way of life would slowly disapear- the North would make it hard (if not impossible) for slavery to expand, and without that expansion the South felt Slavery would surely die, and with it, their way of life. The South separated to protect their own interests, especially their interests with regards to slavery.
Saying the Civil War was fought over 'the states' rights to separate' is like saying that WWI was fought over the Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. The trigger for a war is rarely the cause of a war- it's just the straw that pushes the countries over the edge, or gives them the excuse they need to fight.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
http://www.windowsitpro.com/articles/index.cfm?art icleid=41095&cpage=190#feedbackAnchor
Where am I on that page?
You're really losing it, Alex. Get help.
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that I go around the internet looking for people to make fun of?
I don't think you understand, Mr. Kowalski. You are a special case. Your complete lack of a sense of humor combined with how seriously you take yourself and your towering ego add up to endless lulz.
Where did I "put you down" on Ars? I ask not because I doubt it happened, but because I'd like to look back and laugh about it.
Also, I don't make a habit of making fun of anyone on Ars or anywhere else. I defy you to find a repetitive pattern of me abusing anyone other than you.
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I don't deny that I'm an Arsian. Why would I? I'm quite proud of it; I've been a member for 8 years now. I've met many of them in person and concluded that most of them are great, interesting, funny people.
I continue to troll you because it amuses me. You are an incomplete person, and it is fascinating to me to figure out what makes you tick. I enjoy watching you vary your responses, and seeing the incredibly limited creativity you have utterly fail you as you attempt to outsmart me.
Another reason I continue is because I want to see if you have a breaking point. I want to see if, pushed to the limits of your ability to react, some kind of epiphany strikes you and you find a way to move on.
Which I suppose makes all of this somewhat altruistic. Clearly you have some talent in IT, though you haven't been able to demonstrate anything you've done recently. Who knows -- maybe if you actually become able to make friends and develop a normal personality, you'll be able to move out of your dad's house. Anything's possible, you know.
By the way, you replace "in this field" with "in this science" and "in this area of the sciences." Very clever, Alex. Can't imagine how I'd see through that one. Consider that perhaps there are memes floating around in your brain, such as "x is a mere student," "x hasn't accomplished anything," "I'm a Fortune 500 consultant," etc. etc. etc., that have become so strong and so self-reinforced that they are prohibiting you from developing as a person. You use the same talking points now as you did when I trolled you two years ago. There is virtually no difference between those two APKs.
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WELL! Clearly this means you have been entirely idle for the past 4 years, spiralling into a desperate whirlpool of friendless, jobless depression!
Because EVERYONE knows that if you can't cite software you've written, you're totally worthless as a human being and unfit to judge whether or not someone else's accomplishments are of any merit.
Right, Alex?
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repeating the same thing over and over again is your way of saying "I'm tired and don't feel like arguing with you anymore, but still want to pretend I 'won,'" isn't it, Alex?
Sadly, you've already lost, and lost days and days ago.
Bye, APK. Until next time your retarditude amuses me, of course...
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