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Ethanol Demand Is Boosting Food Prices Worldwide
hereisnowhy writes "The rising demand for corn as a source of ethanol-blended fuel is largely to blame for increasing food costs around the world, the CBC reports. Increased prices for ethanol have already led to bigger grocery bills for the average American — an increase of $47 US compared to July 2006. In Mexico last year, corn tortillas, a crucial source of calories for 50 million poor people, doubled in price; the increase forced the government to introduce price controls. The move to ethanol-blended fuel is based in part on widespread belief that it produces cleaner emissions than regular gasoline. But a recent Environment Canada study found no statistical difference between the greenhouse gas emissions of regular unleaded fuel and 10 per cent ethanol-blended fuel. Environmental groups have argued that producing ethanol — whether from corn, beets, wheat, or other crops — requires more energy than can be derived from the product."
George Monbiot wrote about this 2 months ago in the UK Guardian:
you had me at #!
Any fucking idiot could have foreseen that. Well, except for the blind idiots.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
I've heard that our heavy dependence on corn as an additive (e.g., corn syrup) is one main contributor to the lack of affordable, healthful food options in grocery stores. Might this work to reverse that trend?
-dave
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Heh, the conflict...the conflict.
are rejoicing. Not only has the US government mandated the use of corn and corn derived products in just about everything that US consumers use, now their profit margins will soar above whatever they were being subsidized for. Most corn in North America is big business farming, so they are off and running toward all those dollars, no matter how inefficient using corn is for fuels.
All we have to do now is declare corn growers as reducing global warming, and that every stalk of corn planted saves a child to make the headlong rush toward bio-diesel an unrecoverable flop.
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it said 'live green go yellow' and it had lots of like smiling hipster types. i mean, thats what i want to be. a smiling green hipster type. and all that. so i dropped 35 grand on an e85 car. and like. now youre telling me im wrong!?!?!?!
screw it im going back to a Hummer.
Of course your not going to find a statistical difference between the greenhouse gas emissions of regular unleaded fuel and 10 per cent ethanol-blended fuels. Because those gases make up ONLY A TINY percentage of green house gasses. And as any grade school experiment will show you, it's the water vapor idiots.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
farmer's subsidies and any Government imposed quotas, and then, we will see what the true prices are. Until then, all of the agricultural markets are, well, phony - they're a creation of the host's Government.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Would it really have something to do with the rising gas and oil prices? It seems to me I'm paying about $1 US more at the pumps than last year.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Farmers have been unable to support themselves by farming because of the insane cheapness of food, and high fructose corn syrup being so cheap is one of the big parts of the obesity epidemic. Anything that raises the price of food means portions will need to be reduced, and farmers will be more likely to be able to support themselves by growing crops.
I frankly don't give a shit whether the emissions are "cleaner" with ethanol. If it means I'm not forced to shovel money into the pockets of Arab governments, Russia, Venezuela, etc, just to continue to make a living and survive, then I'm all for it.
They should make ethanol from unhealthy foods instead, like Twinkies, eclairs, or Jolly Ranchers. I find my car runs on the watermelon flavor the best.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
But a recent Environment Canada study found no statistical difference between the greenhouse gas emissions of regular unleaded fuel and 10 per cent ethanol-blended fuel. Environmental groups have argued that producing ethanol -- whether from corn, beets, wheat, or other crops -- requires more energy than can be derived from the product.
Who cares if it requires more energy or not? If the greenhouse emissions are equivalent, then it comes down to which is cheaper. If ethanol is less or the same cost as gasoline at the pump, then I want ethanol. I might even pay a little MORE because it gets OPEC's huge cock out of my ass. The US is one of the largest corn producers in the world. If we can make our own alcohol fuels domestically then we should pursue that.
Look, I don't give a wet fart how green the fuel that makes my car goes is. The simple fact is, the mere act of existing has negative consequences on something. So I don't really care if my car is "green" or not.
All I want is the cheapest fuel possible. At the very least, I don't want to be tied to a single source for the fuel. Especially the Middle East.
The day oil ceases to be a major fuel source is the day the whole Middle East dries up like a popcorn fart and blows away in the wind of irrelevance.
I hope to not have to buy a car again for another five years. When the time comes, though, I won't consider any car that doesn't get at least 60 MPG. Hopefully it will be electric instead. Give me a SmartCar that is pluggable, does 100 miles at 70 MPH between overnight charges, and I'm there.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
First of all, pasting the entirety of the comment is not only rude, but unnecessary, and illegal (the least of the three concerns in my book, but YMMV.) Think before you do these things.
Second, a five year moratorium on biofuels is not what is needed. A permanent moratorium on growing plants in soil as a biofuel feedstock is what we need.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If the oil companies would reduce what they are charging for oil, then this wouldn't be happening in the first place.
But no, record profits isnt enough for them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well, that's what we get for letting hysteria and politics shout down environmental science. And many of the more strident environmental groups have no one but themselves to blame - they embraced the politics and hysteria because (in the short term) it furthered their agendas. Politicians and the corporations (including big agriculture) that bribe^H^H^H^H^H contribute heavily to their campaigns are far from stupid, however, and will twist things to their advantage. The corporations make money and "be green", and the politicians can sucker voters by "being green" and both laugh all the way to the bank. My favorite one was how DuPont got all green over Freon - because they owned the patents on non-CFC-based refrigerants that would replace it. Nice of "t3h world is going to end!!!1!!" crowd to get the government to force everyone to replace their patent-expired Freon with something much more profitable, never mind that this raised the cost of refrigeration and decreased the quality of food supplies in poorer countries.
In the long run, the most outspoken members cause the rest of the environmentalist community lose credibility (because the world doesn't end), and the politicians will just look for the next sucker cause to exploit. Too bad for the environment.
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If I'm not mistaken, that means $47 per year. Which really isn't that bad when you notice the price of gasoline lately.
Ethanol is not really chosen for its environmental friendliness. The environmental models I know of are based on the fact that the increased crop production produces a greater number of carbon sinks. Increases in carbon sinks won't show up in the EPA testing.
The real reason for choosing ethanol is its availability. It's easy to come by and is currently cheaper than gasoline. The US also has a great deal of surplus farming capacity from which to draw greater yields. (Though folks generally argue about how much surplus capacity there is, and how much can be brought online before food production is seriously impacted.)
Actually, that comes from the US Government's ethanol studies done in the 1970s. Dr. David Pimentel headed up those original studies. Since then, technology has improved and the US Government's studies have shown it to be energy positive. However, Dr. Pimentel has continued to rely on the outdated figures in attempts to discredit the newer findings. So the ethanol community is in a bit of a flux, with Pimentel rallying his forces against the idea that ethanol is a sustainable energy source.
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But yeah, it's all about biofuels.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Price controls, while always a popular move, seldom work. Mexico, for a place with so much promise, is such a disaster economically that millions of people risk their lives to leave for completely non-war related reasons. I wouldn't use them as an example of anything that applies to the rest of the world.
The move to ethanol-blended fuel is based in part on widespread belief that it produces cleaner emissions than regular gasoline. But a recent Environment Canada study found no statistical difference between the greenhouse gas emissions of regular unleaded fuel and 10 per cent ethanol-blended fuel.
Does this take into account the air that is "cleaned" by the growing of the plants used in the first place, minus any downside effects in the refining process as compared to gasoline? I suspect not. The conclusions are too simplistic for a true model here.
requires more energy than can be derived from the product.
This is something that can be fixed with more efficient cultivation and conversion. Also, it doesn't address what forms of "energy" are used in the process. For example, it may require more energy than it releases, but if that energy was solar, you'd still be coming out ahead.
It also doesn't address what we'll use when we run out of gasoline. Whenever that day arrives, best to be prepared with alternatives well ahead of time.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The same is true of virtually all other sources of biomass fuels.
Basically companies like ADM have, after clearing the people off their farm lands, decided that it is unnecessary to feed people so long as they can get government subsidies.
As far as I can see, the only potential biomass replacement for fossil fuels is oil from algae -- but even that has severe problems, as is pointed out by the head of the algae pond experiments for NREL.
Some sort of combined use system is necessary in order to pay for the infrastructure costs, but if the engineering challenges can be overcome the payoff can be enormous: a reduction of ecological footprint of a factor of 1000 for developed (and soon to be developed) nations.
Seastead this.
...that most fertilizers and pesticides applied to corn are derived from petroleum bases. Farming equipment also uses diesel/gasoline during the planting, cultivating and harvesting of corn. Adding to this, natural gas and propane are commonly used to run corn dryers used to reduce the moisture content of the harvested corn. At one point in 2005, the cost of the fuel for these dryers was more than the revenue produced from the corn itself, making it a wash to even bring the corn to market.
Sure, the price of corn is being driven up by its use for ethanol production, but let's not forget that the cost of growing corn has risen sharply as well in recent years, mostly due to the rising price of petroleum based products.
Gee, what a shock. To me, this is just an example of how we can't use biofuel stupidly, specifically we should not be using corn oil. Corn is a food staple, it is foolish to tie that together with transportation, at least at this level. If we can't just take the excess corn that our government pays farmers to make and then leave to rot in piles, then it isn't worth it.
Now the thing about emissions, that's kinda not the point. Burning the fuel may not be particularly cleaner (get it, particle... n/m) but the thing is we aren't releasing carbon that's been stored in the ground for millions of years. Releasing carbon that was absorbed from the atmosphere the previous year to grow the corn to make the fuel that we burn isn't bad, because then we have a self-sustaining cycle. Releasing carbon that wasn't in the atmosphere recently is what is bad.
As far as more energy put in than we get out, well that's not unusual, even with the help of the sun for an outside source of energy. Especially since much of the corn is grown in the midwest where the land is less viable than it used to be and petrochemical-derived fertilizers must be used. Which means we are still releasing long-sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere, partially defeating the whole point.
Brazil seems to be doing better with their sugar cane based ethanol program. Now I don't think of sugar as a food staple, though I could be wrong. I'm just thinking it's a matter of the whole economic situation being different.
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Ethanol is added to gasoline to reduce carbon monoxide emissions and ground-level ozone as an alternative to MTBE. Greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide) have nothing to do with it.
The reality is that the radical environmentalists are right: the worlds population needs to be reduced to 1 billion souls. The remaining 5 billion along with the livestock and industrial infrastructure needed to keep them going need to vanish.
IMO, biofuels are just one way that environmentalists want to cull the herd.
Now that I have gotten that conspiracy theory off my chest, green friends have told me that bio-fuels are carbon neutral because they do not add any net new carbon to the cycle, but they do accelerate the cycle. Fossil fuels are bad because they add net new carbon, sequestered millions of years ago, to the cycle. Ironically, due to the industrial infrastructure & processes, materials and transportation required to build a Toyota Prius, the vehicle is actually very bad for the environment.
In the midwest, it's impossible to find a gas station that DOESN'T have 10% ethanol blend. Even if it did burn cleaner, I've heard that my car, specifically, gets 2-3mpg more when filled up at stations without ethanol. But I don't have a choice to go with the more effecient burning fuel, because farmers had legislation to encourage the sale of ethanol. As an above commenter pointed out, farmers are rejoicing. Demand is up, profits are up, everybody's happy. Except everyone else. The people who have to pay for everything. Frankly, I hadn't thought about people starving because of increased prices. I find it disgusting, and don't know how companies rationalize starving people for increased profit margin. Are companies not run by people? People who know what's going on in the world, people who know that their policies are killing people? /rant.
If food costs more, farmers (which is what most of the world does for a living) will make more money. More people with more money will spend more money on other things, improving the economy. It's a win win.
without prejudice,
M. Gregory Thomas(tm), Network Redundancy Administrator;
Mundt Administration of Network Redundancy:
Look up information derivative on the Joe Cell. They found that a homebrew cell that simply charged water as an electrolyte does induct energy from the "ether", and with the charged electrolyte put under the vacuum of a combustion engine would draw an unknown combustible power source with infinite energy efficiency. Stemming from the Joe Cell experimentation were results of greater potention, Electrolysis of water; nothing more than 12-volts DC at less than 500 mili-amperes would efficiently split water into HHO, whereby its combustion yielded more energy than that which was collected to split the molecule.
Stainless Steel alloy 304 and 316 were commonly used, and not as efficient as when Stainless Steel alloy 306 was used to construct the cylinders and chamber. It costs no more than USD 30 to build one, and I've bought some stainless on eBay for less than that; look for someone that owns prefereably the SS-306 and it is more cost effective to build more than one chamber and that the seller cuts the tube or rod to the length needed (just for practicality of their having the tools and cutting-discs on hand).
There are many more projects claiming for the 50-cent Joe Cell that used Aluminium. Any projects that claim the production of Hydrogen is too expensive or requires more than USD 50 of parts is a champertain or trying to derive money or a Servicable function out of an inexpensive matter that should return to daily life cheaper than a solar panel system: inexpensive energy from free sources, not the "free energy" that we would think it to be.
without prejudice
- The cost of fresh produce increased in price in terms of real dollars by over 40% between 1985 and 2000 whereas soft drinks using corn syrup declined in cost by 23%.
- A dollar buys you 1200 calories of cookies or chips but just 250 calories worth of carrots.
- The top subsidies are for corn, rice, wheat, soybeans and cotton. There often translate into cheap meats and dairy as most of this gets reused as animal foodstuffs.
- Most estimates are that subsidized US corn has displaced over 2 million Mexican farmers who move north to get jobs.
Blaming ethanol production for these ills is just plain stupid. Follow the money of the farm bills for real answers.There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
>I might even pay a little MORE because it gets OPEC's huge cock out of my ass.
:)
I wish I could give you all my mod points for life.
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You can get mexican coke (cane sugar, sweeter, less carbonated) easily at any mexican grocery. If you live somewhere without mexican grocery stores, you can buy it online. I've only seen it in small (355ml), tall glass bottles.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Weren't these the same environmentalists that have been telling us for years to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels? Were they right then? Or are they right now?
Or are most prominent environmentalists simply argumentative to the point where they will contradict themselves for the sake of opposing the inexorable progress of technology and industry?
I've long since dismissed the environmentalist movement for exactly this kind of thing. No matter what we to do try to placate them, we will be wrong. Giving them any consideration anymore is an exercise in futility.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I've always found the concept of growing food to pump into our cars instead of eating kind of disturbing.
He can't be wrong. He has an MBA!
The big donors to US political parties are not corporations. They are unions. Auto workers, trial lawyers, and teacher unions all contribute more than big oil, big pharma, or all of your other bogey men. Even more damning to your argument is the fact that corporate contributions are actually fairly evenly split among the two parties, while union donations favor one party at around 10:1 a ratio (I am sure you can guess which party this is, and now understand why they are beholden to special interests).
One of the consequences of diverting corn production to biofuels, and of the subsidies reaped by American farmers, is that the price of corn is skyrocketing in Mexico. And it's driving a lot of starving Mexicans to sneak into the States to eke out a living.
Can't blame them; they're only starving, ferchrissakes. In the meantime, we also have sugar tariffs and subsidies that prohibit a far more efficient crop for use in biofuels.
So, the next time some idiot farmer in Iowa spouts about illegal aliens to a presidential candidate, you may want to remind him that his livelihood is part of the problem.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
What? You never heard of public transit? You started talking about cost; least cost and least emission per person is usually mass transit.
These "solutions" will make a grand total of zero impact on anything, aside from providing an excuse for everyone to meddle in everyone else's business. I can't wait for the CFL inspector to come knocking on my door to make sure that I don't harbor any illegal standard light bulbs. Never you mind that CFLs contain toxic levels of mercury, so that whey they are tossed in a dump, the mercury can contaminate the soil and groundwater.
Even if global warming is frighteningly real (perhaps) and man made (doubtful), the only thing we should be doing about it is learning to cope. Return to a nativist lifestyle is not an option, and these solutions cause more problems (mass starvation anyone?) than they solve.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
The motivation for corn-based ethanol is political. While Washington advocates "free markets", American politicians of all political persuasions advocate subsidizing the production of corn-based ethanol because American agribusiness nearly owns the government.
Generally speaking, subsidies cost taxpayers dearly but do not pose a hazard. Corn-based ethanol is an exception. It drives up the price of corn and could lead to severe malnutrition in Mexico and other poor countries which cannot afford higher prices for basic food items. Subsidies for corn-based ethanol could indirectly kill people (via starvation) in the 3rd world.
Do American politicians care? No. They care only about making American agribusiness happy.
I can understand this being an issue if every or most cars were running off ethanol. But face it how many of these cars do you see in a day? Month? Where is this demand for ethanol coming from?
...is that corn ethanol is such snake oil and yet the corn lobby keeps managing to buy off those traitors we call Congress.
Facts on Ethanol:
#1 - It rots fuel lines. Ethanol - aka Ethyl Alcohol, aka Grain Alcohol, aka drinking alchohol - is one of the few substances that actually reacts with the rubber that fuel lines are made of.
Well, what did you fucking expect? It's corn alcohol. All you're doing is pouring whiskey into your gas tank. It's not that good for you either, but you at least have a liver to process it in. Your poor car doesn't.
#2 - It clogs injectors. Ethanol, as well as the residue from the aforementioned degradation of fuel lines, builds up and gets stuck in the injectors and decreases their performance. Been in a gas station and seen all the bottles of injector cleaner that are stocked there these days? Ethanol is your reason why.
#3 - it takes 1.8 units of energy to produce and distribute 1 energy-unit of Ethanol to the consumer.
You're paying extra in grocery bills, and extra $$$ at the gas pump, so that your gas can be polluted with a product that gives no environmental benefit whatsoever and reduces your gas mileage, causing you to buy more gas.
And the corn lobby/gas companies are laughing all the way to the bank.
Do they need to buy a fscking clue ? Of course there's no difference. The combustion products of ethanol are pretty much the same as those of gasoline. Why do they need to do a fscking study about something that's covered in Organic Chemistry 101 ?
"A permanent moratorium on growing plants in soil as a biofuel feedstock is what we need."
And the alternative is....?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I hope that nobody is surprised by this. It is simple supply and demand. Since the ethanol craze is creating a huge demand the price is going to go up. Corn farmers can demand a much higher price in return and they are getting it.
This was predicted years ago on the basis of simple economics. It is going to put a larger gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots', as those without money are going to have a much harder time finding food.
This isn't going to affect just tortillas. Corn is used to feed livestock as well; expect a jump in meat prices. Also, corn syrup, which is found in almost every carbonated beverage and candy, is going to be more expensive, driving those prices up as well.
Aside from food being more expensive, what about over-farming soil?
Whoever decided that corn-based ethanol - especially government mandated amounts thereof - was the Best Idea Ever didn't think it through very much. I think it is going to do much more harm than good in the long term.
We do need alternative energy sources, but this is not one that we should pursue in its current state.
Love sees no species.
Ruined ecosystem, oxygen-blocking tanker spills, infusing US dollars into countries that support terrorists. In principal, ethanol and other biofuel can be produced using bull-mounted plows and manure as fertilizers, from plants that are not viable as food crops and are hardier and easier on the land than regular agriculture. We don't have to replace all fuel with ethanol to reduce net CO2 emissions. Just because agriculture can not supply ALL our energy or because a particular implementation is flawed doesn't mean that we should abandon the whole concept.
Really, are you sure that it isn't due to the rising cost of energy? It costs money to run farm equipment, and to transport the stuff. Or is it just due to inflation?
I believe that core inflation (excluding energy) in Canada is 2.5%. The price of energy is rising much faster than that. (I believe that the cost of fuel is up 10 - 20%, though I cannot find year-over-year numbers).
You should also note that inflation in Alberta (where lots of grains come from) was 5.5%.
3.8% more for food doesn't seem much out of line.
Try living in the U.S. somewhere other than downtown metropolis. Public transportation is only a functional solution above a certain population density.
"The day oil ceases to be a major fuel source is the day the whole Middle East dries up like a popcorn fart and blows away in the wind of irrelevance."
You realize of course that the Middle East was relevant long before oil wells existed, right? So it probably will continue to be. The US will just find another boogy man to entertain our hawks and distract the masses.
Fossil fuels until nuke facilities are built and can supply the energy.
But a recent Environment Canada study found no statistical difference between the greenhouse gas emissions of regular unleaded fuel and 10 per cent ethanol-blended fuel.
No shit. Ethanol releases carbon dioxide while it burns, too. However, its carbon dioxide was already in the atmosphere, absorbed by the plants, then released again when burnt. That makes it carbon neutral*, even though the emissions are the same.
Or, did they mean to take that into account? Who knows, the article is incomplete or misleading.
* I'm talking about the carbon in the plant, not carbon used in production. That's next.
Environmental groups have argued that producing ethanol -- whether from corn, beets, wheat or other crops -- takes more energy than is derived from the product.
No shit. Unless it violates certain laws of thermodynamics, of course the energy derived is less than the energy required to produce. But they don't talk about where that energy comes from. Maybe it's all from the sun, or from other renewal resources. Do they mean that the same amount of net fossil-fuel based carbon is released? Who knows, the article is incomplete or misleading.
Re: Food prices
The US subsidizes farmers who grow corn, because corn prices have been historically too low to support production. Now, corn prices are higher, and we're complaining about what it does to food costs? How about we take away the subsidies - clearly no longer needed - and give the money to food programs. Then, we look into the side effects of corn being the majority of all American's diets. See some of the repercussions in the recent documentary King Corn. Maybe we could find something else that could substitute for corn in some foods. Like, say, sugar, if we'd remove our tariffs. (Hey, if folks from other countries could sell their sugar to the US for food, they'd have more money to buy our more-expensive corn.) Then, maybe we could find something better than corn to use for ethanol. Like, say, hemp or switchgrass. I'm sure if corn gets too expensive, some entrepreneur out there will start looking for alternatives.
But all of that would be constructive work toward making our planet a better place. It's far better to rant and rave and use single points of change as excuses to throw up our hands and give up.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
A permanent moratorium on growing plants in soil as a biofuel feedstock^W^W^W^W^Wcorn subsidies is what we need.
Environmental groups are complaining about ethanol use? Corn prices have doubled? This article is as absurdly FUDdy as it gets.
I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for a nuclear energy source that passes prominent environmentalists' litmus test.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Save some on fuel, spend more on groceries. Great deal if all you're concerned about is OPEC's "cock" but some people can't afford to spend more on groceries and use public transportation. You and I might live in an area with a car:person ratio of 1, but cities like NYC have A LOT (millions) of people who don't.
I like basketball!!1!
It needs to go at least 300 miles or else it's irrelevant for anything but commuting, and I gave up on commuting by car a long time ago.
I believe that food demand is artificially keeping prices for Ethanol high.
If we could eliminate 90% of the demand for food, wouldn't ethanol prices fall?
Can anyone produce an economically sound argument to the contrary?
Yeah, deer corn is up, too. We feed year 'round.
Another bad thing is that forests (rain forests, too) are being cleared to make way for more corn production.
Oops I replied to you by quoting something from a post above yours. Oh well, the two of you share sentiments so it's all good. You might be less concerned about the cock than the other guy, I'll give you that much.
I like basketball!!1!
Monbiot is an idiot.
Deleted
I've been told that corn tortillas are made from white corn, while ethanol is made from yellow corn. The shortage does not have anything to do with ethanol production unless farmers in Mexico have decided to plant different crops (for which they get the same amount of money). Please enlighten me if I have been misguided.
the poorest people i know have been the farmers that grow corn.
i don't mind if they make a little money off of me.
there are worse places the money can go.
Nor does it take into account agricultural surpluses that likely still exist, and the food destruction. I have no idea what state the world is in now, but I know that even 10 years ago the issue was not food, but getting food to the poor. Nor does it take into account the corn is only one means of ethanol production, an inefficient form that in fact exist only because it is promoted by the famously independent and conservative farmers who are used to suckling at the government teat, and there are other sources, such as prairie grass, that might work just as well.
One interesting thing is that the US has a corn economy, and corn ethanol, though not perfect, is a good fit as it requires minimal effort, since we have so much corn infrastructure to begin with. As a transitional step away from fossil fuels, it is quite rational. As a effort to continue burning hydrocarbons, it is not rational. But such burning, if we are in fact concerned with the poor people that cannot even afford corn, is not justified. The death toll to get the hydrocarbons is not small. The subjugation of the Nigerian people, the deals made with the Saudi monarchy, the tens of thousands dead in Iraq. Really, how can we compare such real and present destruction with a theoretical problem that, at it's most practical level, is meant as method to help reduce the level of the comprimises we must make for energy.
One last thing. Oil is a commodity. It does not matter where the oil that one uses came from. If any oil field shuts down, even if it not an oil field that supplies the local pump, all prices increase.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Food is too cheap because farmers get big subsidies.
Deleted
Three things:
First, corn is NOT the only way to make biofuel. Sugar cane has already been used successfully elsewhere (it just doesn't grow well in the U.S.). It looks like switchgrass may be another. Corn is not strictly necessary; it just happens to be plentiful in the U.S.
Second, I have to wonder if changing our farming practices might allow for a high enough sustainable yield to feed people AND power vehicles. The Native Americans of Peru were able to build farms that remained fertile for over 4,000 years, WITHOUT industrial farming tools, and they were able to adequately feed their ENTIRE population (at least until the Spaniards showed up). We know how they did it (we call it "biodynamic" farming), and it's clearly superior to our current practices, but nobody's doing it. Why not?
Third, it seems like everyone who detracts biofuel is stuck in a "central supplier" mindset. Oil only exists in certain parts of the world, but anyone with some land can grow some sort of crop that can be turned into biofuel. So why do we need centralized production? Wouldn't it be more efficient to have lots of small, independent biofuel producers that each serve a small geographic area, instead of a few large producers that have to transport their stuff over thousands of miles?
One option is hydroponics. The most promising crop is algae. A study done at Sandia said some years ago that growing algae in foot-deep concrete "raceway" ponds (a circular stream) agitated by paddlewheels suggested that it should be economical before diesel fuel hit $3/gallon.
Another option is to only make the fuel out of waste oils and cellulose. Biodiesel can be made out of waste animal fat, but honestly that can only provide a small portion of the demand. Tyson Foods is currently engaging in a trial in Ireland with ConocoPhilips. Cellulosic biodiesel is rapidly approaching as a viable technology.
You could also ignore the possibilities of biodiesel and go straight to butanol. Butanol is made by bacteria in the "ABE" process, in which a specific organism originally isolated as an aid to making TNT can be used to make fuel. ABE stands for Acetone, Butanol, and Ethanol. All three of these things can be burned in an ordinary gasoline engine, but Butanol is the most interesting compound in this regard as it is a direct one-to-one replacement for gasoline. The ABE process can be used on any organic matter.
You could go all-electric, which would require building more nuclear plants, and building breeder reactors to supply them with fuel. Using the proper types of reactors prevents the use of the systems to produce weapons-grade materials; all breeders are not the same (no pun intended.) But this would be in many ways a more major undertaking than the other options because the infrastructure to transport and dispense biodiesel or butanol already exists - precisely the same means used to transport diesel and gasoline, respectively.
Ultimately, the answer can only be a combination of these and other ideas. But it's easy to see that topsoil-based fuels are utterly and completely wrongheaded. They deplete soil, techniques used in mass-farming create hardpan and reduce diversity in soil, killing off the majority of organisms found there, and so on. Everything about modern farming techniques is wrong! It's simply not a sustainable activity on its own. Depending on it for fuel will cause a crisis rapidly. Certain parts of the world cannot feed themselves today because of their agricultural activities in the past. The Amazon is approaching a crisis state in which it can no longer support itself and it collapses entirely - eliminating the source of some 25% of the planet's oxygen.
If we don't get a grip on agriculture now, it will all be a moot point soon, because we won't have oxygen to breathe.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
#1 Any car made past 81 can take 10% Ethanol without rotting fuel lines, chances are you're running E10 in your car right now. Newer cars can handle the Ethanol without a problem. "Rubber" isn't really used in fuel lines any more anyway.
.7 to 1. And this isn't a constant. New bacterias and yeasts are bringing this number down. Purdue has a GMO bacteria that can breakdown celluose, thus drastically reducing the costs of materials and energy. It can take wasted sawdust and turn it into fuel.
#2 - Dead wrong. It cleans injectors, it clogs fuel filters and after running 2-3 tanks through your car, your tank, your injectors and everything else will be squeeky clean. Sure, during the transition you may go through 2-3 filters, but your car will be better off.
#3 - Source please? I've seen quotes of
#4 - It doesn't need to be corn. Ethanol could be produced from sugar, the most overproduced crop in the world. It can now be produced from waste paper.
If you had an argument, it would be that ethanol doesn't produce as much energy per gallon as gas. But that can be overcome with higher compression engines...
The bad news is that the demand for ethanol is driving up the price of corn syrup.
The good news is that I can use most foods directly as fuel (for my car or myself).
You mean fusion power plants ? Because trading oil dependence for uranium dependence leads nowhere.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Environmental groups have argued that producing ethanol -- whether from corn, beets, wheat, or other crops -- requires more energy than can be derived from the product.
News Flash: Environmental groups argue for the second law of thermodynamics!
Really... the whole reason fossil fuels are so compelling is the energy that went into making them was used eons ago. Ethanol requires resources *now*. The big advantage of ethanol (from a climate change standpoint) is it's a zero-sum game with regards to carbon dioxide emissions. We're not taking concentrated carbon from millions of years ago and turning it into an atmospheric gas, we're using plant material that was created, in part, from recently utilized atmospheric CO2.
In my opinion, feeding people now trumps using a fuel source which consumes enormous resources. Let's also not forget irrigation - our aquifers are being depleted faster than then can get restored. I doubt California is going to embrace growing corn, which can require large amounts of irrigation, for ethanol when they are running out of drinking water.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
The sooner cars go electric and we can consolidate our energy sources at the power plant, the better, because it's much easier to make a power plant clean, than to make an internal combustion engine clean. The only thing holding us back is the pitiful state of the Battery. If we spent half the money on battery research that we did trying to make cars run on food, we'd be running silent, emissionless cars before we even ran out of oil.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
The gateway for most countries to get out of the third-world-nation status is agriculture. The problem though is that the US government subsidizes US farmers so heavily that we are keeping the world market prices artificially low. If the ethanol demand increases crop values, the market will demand more crops and more poor farmers out side the US will suddenly have a profitable profession, spreading wealth, profit and MORE FOOD.
Either that, or we're gonna kill a lot of people.
only time will tell.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
This just goes to prove that no matter what you try to do to make life "greener" without making life harder doesn't work. Do you really think everyone will agree to give up their creature comforts that easily? No way. And if everyone in the Western world did, the Eastern world would just nuke us out of existance and live with the radiation.
Something has got to give. I say we shoot all the members of Green Peace and just get on with life.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Chomsky has written about it as well
Published on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 by The International News
Starving The Poor
by Noam Chomsky
The chaos that derives from the so-called international order can be painful if you are on the receiving end of the power that determines that order's structure. Even tortillas come into play in the ungrand scheme of things. Recently, in many regions of Mexico, tortilla prices jumped by more than 50 per cent.
In January, in Mexico City, tens of thousands of workers and farmers rallied in the Zocalo, the city's central square, to protest the skyrocketing cost of tortillas.
In response, the government of President Felipe Calderon cut a deal with Mexican producers and retailers to limit the price of tortillas and corn flour, very likely a temporary expedient.
In part the price-hike threat to the food staple for Mexican workers and the poor is what we might call the ethanol effect -- a consequence of the US stampede to corn-based ethanol as an energy substitute for oil, whose major wellsprings, of course, are in regions that even more grievously defy international order.
In the United States, too, the ethanol effect has raised food prices over a broad range, including other crops, livestock and poultry.
The connection between instability in the Middle East and the cost of feeding a family in the Americas isn't direct, of course. But as with all international trade, power tilts the balance. A leading goal of US foreign policy has long been to create a global order in which US corporations have free access to markets, resources and investment opportunities. The objective is commonly called "free trade," a posture that collapses quickly on examination.
It's not unlike what Britain, a predecessor in world domination, imagined during the latter part of the 19th century, when it embraced free trade, after 150 years of state intervention and violence had helped the nation achieve far greater industrial power than any rival.
The United States has followed much the same pattern. Generally, great powers are willing to enter into some limited degree of free trade when they're convinced that the economic interests under their protection are going to do well. That has been, and remains, a primary feature of the international order.
The ethanol boom fits the pattern. As discussed by agricultural economists C Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, "the biofuel industry has long been dominated not by market forces but by politics and the interests of a few large companies," in large part Archer Daniels Midland, the major ethanol producer. Ethanol production is feasible thanks to substantial state subsidies and very high tariffs to exclude much cheaper and more efficient sugar-based Brazilian ethanol. In March, during President Bush's trip to Latin America, the one heralded achievement was a deal with Brazil on joint production of ethanol. But Bush, while spouting free-trade rhetoric for others in the conventional manner, emphasized forcefully that the high tariff to protect US producers would remain, of course along with the many forms of government subsidy for the industry.
Despite the huge, taxpayer-supported agricultural subsidies, the prices of corn -- and tortillas -- have been climbing rapidly. One factor is that industrial users of imported US corn increasingly purchase cheaper Mexican varieties used for tortillas, raising prices.
The 1994 US-sponsored NAFTA agreement may also play a significant role, one that is likely to increase. An unlevel-playing-field impact of NAFTA was to flood Mexico with highly subsidised agribusiness exports, driving Mexican producers off the land.
Mexican economist Carlos Salas reviews data showing that after a steady rise until 1993, agricultural employment began to decline when NAFTA came into force, primarily among corn producers -- a direct consequence of NAFTA, he and other economists conclude. One-sixth of the Mexican agricultural
http://use.perl.org
The joke is, ethanol produced in the US now, is not "green". It takes 1.8 units of energy to get 1 unit of energy from ethanol. That 1.8 comes from traditional fossil fuels.
/. posts about a dozen articles a day on "global warming" really highlights the hysteria we're in the middle of.
Why cant people be a little more cynical when Al Gore releases a "documentary" about global warming? His "science" is bullshit, instilling fear and paranoia on a populace that then cant wait to run out and buy a Prius as a third car, top it off with ethanol, and load the trunk with mercury-filled compact flourescent lightbulbs. If they really wanted to pitch in, and used their heads, they'd properly maintain the vehicles they have, instead of having a new one built, they'd shut off lights when not in use, and keep their driving to a minimum, and keep out of the pedal at intersections.
And anybody who starts pointing out the idiocy is immediately branded a "denier", because anybody who's skeptical of a "buy this or you hate Earth" sales pitch must be of the same moral fiber of the holocaust "deniers". Anybody who uses that term is a fucking asshole, I don't care who he's using it against.
It's all name-calling, idiocy, and business as usual for the cats up top pulling the strings.
OH NO, the earth is going to end. QUICK!!!! SOMEBODY SELL MY SOME CARBON CREDITS... Phew... I'm glad the earth is better now!
What a crock of bullshit. The fact that
As a previous poster pointed out, ethanol blended in gasoline is to replace MTBE. Of course there's not going to be a statistically different amount of gases produced...that's the point...Why the study did not include a pure ethanol fuel gas emission test, I don't understand.
Does it matter so much at the moment that (and the study stating this fact is very, very old) the amount of energy used to produce ethanol fuels is greater than the return, if ethanol is still cheaper than gasoline at the moment? As ethanol fuel becomes more readily available, then the production costs will more than likely improve.
You can discredit guys like Pimentel virtually over night if you just remove pork barrel for ADM and the oil companies, charging oil companies importing oil the fair market value for the cost of military enforcement of trade routes to the middle east letting ADM sink or swim in the resulting price environment.
Seastead this.
There's an excellent documentary about this subject called King Corn".
The same climate conditions that are good for corn are good for soybeans too. With the price of corn skyrocketing, many farmers, understandibly, will switch from soybeans to corn. Our free ride with cheap fuels has come to an end.
That's a tough decision. I mean I really like my Hummer, and it's a chick magnet. Nothing better than a hummer in a Hummer. Ya know if we didn't feed the third world, they'd quit breeding so much. I gotta have that gasahol for my ultrabig vehicle to compensate for my small penis size. Now if you'd offer me a choice between beer and ethanol fuel, then I'd have a real dilemma.
If more corn is dedicated to Ethanol production, then perhaps this is a reason to stop putting High Fructose Corn Syrup in everything. It's a lousy sweetener, and inhibits leptin secretion, so you don't know when to stop eating. HFCS is one major reason why America is getting fatter.
More at LewRockwell.com
The fact that biofuels are introducing competition for scarce food resources is a regulatory problem, not a problem with biofuels themselves. There need to be laws in place to prevent the food supply from competing with the biofuel supply. eg. only waste oils/alcohols, oils derived from inedible crops using land not fit for human consumption, etc. should be permissible as 'fuel'. This will be a net positive for the environment, as more existing carbon in the atmosphere will be utilised as unused swathes of land are brought under heavier agricultural development with hardy crops like mustard seed.
Disclaimer: I've read the book, and paid for it. Best book I've ever read.
I've always been under the impression that biofuels were important not because they were environmentally friendly or clean burning but that they brought energy production "back home" to reduce or eliminate US dependence on foreign oil and the cartels that produce it and the wars fought over it.
Well, that and the renewable factor -- you can plant corn every year.
Well sorta... From what I understand (Disclaimer IANAPhysicist) Fusion plants when they are in production will not be using Uranium but heavy water (H30) which is a readily available fuel supply found in many bodies of water in ample quantity to keep them going for some length of time. Eventually we may exhaust our heavy water stocks as well but we have more of that fuel than oil easily...
...in bed
Not necessarily...
It depends entirely on the plant and the location. Plants are simply solar collectors that store sunlight as chemical energy in the form of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins (amino acids). I agree that plants for energy should probably not displace plants for food, but there are a lot of places unsuitable for food plants that may be suitable for fuel plants.
Secondly, even if biofuels were to require more energy to grow than you could get out of them there may still be an argument for them as a portable energy storage medium. This would depend entirely on the source of the excess energy. Say it takes 50% of the energy in a biofuel to grow the fuel and 55% of the energy in a biofuel to refine the fuel. If the refinery energy came from solar then the biofuel could be a decent portable energy storage medium. Possibly better than hydrogen.
This just hit me, with the other folks commenting on corn prices.
Bush's support was from the red states. Not just, you know, the states. But vast rural sections of the country. If you look at the maps of the 00 and 04 elections, county by county, the country is one big red blob, with little blue spikes where all the cities are. since a vast number of the people are in cities, but the electoral system is designed to balance population vs geography (one of the original compromises of the first 13 colonies...), it means he can use this vast rural base to help win the election.
But what are the industries out in these rural places? Growing corn is a huge one.
Bush came out recently saying we are gonna reduce gasoline by 20 percent in such and such years. Great. He has also been pushing for ethanol production. double great.
Now, if you are joe farmer, and suddenly you are selling your crop for twice the price you did last year, and Bush is the reason, who are you going to vote for? Bush, goddamnit!
The republican party is bleeding , nay, hemmoraging voters. The 'base' of rural folk is disgruntled with Mr Bush's war, amongst other things. He won the election on getting out the gay haters (sorry 'marriage and family defenders') and anti-evolution nutjobs.... but also by getting out the numerous rural military bases - places like Rapid City South Dakota, the only major city in western south dakota, would not exist without airforce bases that are held over from the cold war... this situation is duplicated across rural america.
But if those issues fall... those voters will not turn out in 08.
Bush has to save the republicans, so hooking his wagon to ethanol, which will pour money into the corn growers pockets, is the way to do it.
Or maybe not. But its an interesting theory, at least to me.
Insightful. Why do you consider him an idiot? Is anyone who disagrees with you an idiot? If so, why would anyone ever choose to debate you in a public forum such as this. That raises (not begs!) the question, why do you even bother posting here?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
As a Pennsylvania farmer put it to me in February: "It looks like we're going to burn up the last remaining six inches of Midwest topsoil in our gas-tanks." I *heart* Jim Kunstler. Here's a link to his piece on ethanol, etc..
To go on a diet. I feel the pounds melting off already.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
I'm sorry, but could you explain why is it rude and illegal? Actually, I found interesting what Monbiot wrote, he was given credit, then what is the problem?
One of the last things I heard Fidel Castro say before really going out of commission due to health concerns was that the stupidest thing a nation could do right now was tie the food supply to the energy supply. Talk about multiplying problems exponentially! Sheesh!
The alternative is to use less.
conservation mining or whatever you want to call it. A penny saved is a penny earned.
Basically it is cheapest, easiest and cleanest to switch off lights that aren't required for useful production. Of course that's subjective, and it might be the bathroom when noone's in there or the porch light while your not home or the advertisement in Times square, but any reduction in energy use is better than none.
Is it true that humvees get only one mpg?
Just use less; all it takes is for the consumer to give a fuck; to care, to notice, to take "responsibility for their actions".
They don't even need to be educated, or to understand the thermodynamics, they only need to know that people and animals die to provide the energy, due to the ways and places it's exctracted.
Yet another example of how environmentalists are blind fools.
These 'faker' environmentalists want people to use more fossil fuels.
Reminds me of the 'faker' environmentalists that had farm land adjacent to the Missouri river confiscated for park and wildlife sanctuary... now that same land is parking lots and river boat casinos...
These days 'faker' environmentalists have their hand in the wallets of big oil and casinos.
When a farmer or residential community is unwilling to sell, environmentalists are not far behind to kick people out and turn the place into another strip shopping center.
If corn prices doubled, then more farmers will plant corn, and it will cause the price of corn to drop. I'm sure at some point there will be a crisis where too much corn is produced, which will cause a plummet of corn prices and another "corn crisis", and less farmers will plant corn, cycle repeats, etc. It will all work itself out.
BTW, ethanol is not added to make emissions cleaner, it was added to replace MTBE. It's a widely held misnomer that it was added to decrease emissions or whatnot.
It is rude because if the author wanted it copied in its entirety, he would have said so. It is illegal for the same reason. Fair use permits the copying of an entire work only where it is necessary for critique. If you are providing a critique of the entire thing, you may copy the entire thing. But this is not a critique. It is quite simply an unauthorized reproduction, and it is illegal on that basis.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Second, a five year moratorium on biofuels is not what is needed. A permanent moratorium on growing plants in soil as a biofuel feedstock is what we need.
I have a hunch that we needed to go with more nuclear plants and hydrogen fueled cars all along. Personally, I'm hoping for a solar and hydrogen revolution because if the technology gets good enough I could produce my own hydrogen locally since I don't think anyone would approve of a nuclear reactor in my back yard.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
This is how the robots will exterminate the human race.
By outcompeting us economically.
This is the one major point that keeps being overlooked. The U.S. and Canada together can create a close to sustainable supply of fuel for their transportation needs without having to import any oil at all.
This is a huge benefit not only to the U.S., but to the rest of the world, which will no longer have the U.S. as interested in their affairs(read: oil).
"This vehicle does not run on food"
And the source of the energy to power your car when you plug it in at night?
Oil, or worse, coal, though possibly nuclear...
Heavy water is not H30. Heavy water is DOH -- Deuterium, Oxygen, Hydrogen. Deuterium, in turn, is Hydrogen with an extra neutron, making it about twice as massive as standard hydrogen. So heavy water has about 19 atomic mass units per molecule while water has 18.
I have a hard time digesting the 10x C02 emissions claimed in the parent's attached article.i on_chart.gif
The reason I started paying a premium for Biodiesel, besides being too lazy to brew my own, was this :
http://www.sqbiofuels.com/images/pollution_reduct
So, does the sqbiofuel chart only consider vehicle emissioins, where the Dutch report considers vehicle and refining emissions. I didn't think there were emissions assosciated with the brewing of biodiesel, though. Or is it the difference between palm oil and soybean oil? Arrrrrgh!
Gawd, this is just like food reports. Coffee's good for you, oh wait no its bad for you, oh on second thought its good for you . . . .
[quote]and illegal[/quote]
Sorry I was busy smoking a joint and downloading a movie. What did you say?
Need Mercedes parts ?
High fructose corn syrup and the impacts on Mexico and the US. Slightly offtopic but a good read. http://faultline.org/index.php/site/comments/fat_a nd_greed/
The upshot being, this did not start with ethanol. The negative impacts of using corn for something other than part of a staple diet has been around for a while.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Hydrogen-fueled? Only if I can have a turbine or a fuel cell.
The problem with hydrogen is one of infrastructure. Shell has been installing hydrogen fueling stations along a corridor on the East coast, but there's literally nowhere else to get it, so the only cars on the road are prototypes and concepts.
This is why biodiesel and butanol are so attractive; they are virtually identical to diesel fuel and gasoline respectively, and so the fueling and distribution infrastructures are already in place.
Hydrogen is difficult and expensive to store and thus to transport. Hydrogen embrittlement damages all metals over time, and metals are what we like to use for fittings, tanks, cylinder walls, pistons, etc etc etc, so it causes problems not just in storage but actually in use.
At the moment I think that the answer is to use series hybrids with turbine-driven generators. They could run on your choice of fuel (or even multiple fuels!) and are very efficient. Perhaps as battery technology advances it will be more compelling, but right now batteries are very expensive and producing them is both toxic and energy-intensive. Not to mention that their energy density is pure crap compared even to veggie oil, let alone biodiesel (veg has about 85% of the energy density of biodiesel.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Conservation alone isn't a replacement for burning fossil fuels. Sure, it's a good idea for many reasons, but the fact remains that we need a source of energy that can maintain and improve our standard of living.
Environmentalists argue that high standard of living and technological progress is mutually exclusive with good stewardship of the earth. They will never be taken seriously by enough people to make a difference until they abandon their pessimistic ludditism.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
If you can manufacture ethanol cost effectively with gasoline this you can brew beer and distribute it for $2.50 per keg. This is simple to calculate. Take 5% of 60 liters. There are less than 3 liters of ethanol in a keg.
We DO NOT HAVE a grain surplus. We have less than one (1) year stockpiled. When the next Krakatoa blows we will have a crop failure right around the globe and we will have mass starvation. I suppose out economists and politicians will defend their stupidity with the claim that keeping food on hand for an emergency is "not economic". If so, then the consequence which is mass starvation must be "economic".
The only way we can produce energy from food is by taking the food out of someone's mouth. This might be a cow's mouth or a hen's mouth or a horse's mouth - or a human's mouth... but it is going to come out of someone's mouth.
I fully expect the world which is now producing about 83 million barrels of oil per day will be producing about 70 million barrels per day or less by 2015. Canada will be doing better than most countries. We in fact may be doing the best.
By 2015 North American liquid fuel consumption will be probably under 20 million barrels per day and the price will be probably over $250 per barrel. Alberta will be producing between 3 and 4 million barrels per day by then.
By 2025 I expect North American consumption will be down to about 15 million barrels per day and Alberta will be producing about 1/3 of this.
The picture is not pretty. We will need close to 100 nuclear plants in order to do this and since we are still standing around talking about it and doing nothing there is going to be hell to pay and it is going to be paid by way of a reduced standard of living pretty much everywhere outside of Alberta.
Note I would log in and say this but Slashdot is borken and has been for quite a while. Not only can I not fix the problem, since I cannot log in I cannot even tell them their servers are broken. Alas.
Oh. Last time I said this someone moderated me as a troll! Seems some people don't like to face reality.
End the embargo on Cuba and import Sugar Cane processed into ethanol.
But that would take guts. Something lacking in America nowadays.
Real capitalists understand that the market doesn't care about politics.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I don't see that Uranium dependence as an economic liability, Canada and Australia combined produce about half of the world's Uranium.
The problem isn't that though, the problem is storing the waste, no one wants it in their region. The fear of a meltdown and emissions is also tangible, though burning coal actually emits more radiation than TMI ever did. I think the fear is largely misguided, but there is still a risk. The NRC isn't a very good regulatory agency either, it's as if their inspectors really don't grasp the gravity of their duties.
With the use of breeder reactors, we can effectively reduce the amount of nuclear fuel needed to create a given amount of energy by something like three orders of magnitude. No joke. This is all it would take to both make it practical (there being plenty of nuclear material to work with, especially if we are reprocessing spent fuel, of which we have a fair amount just lying around) and profitable (Nuclear not being profitable today without subsidies.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Perhaps food companies should stop putting that crap in everything that they make. Just a thought. 2 birds with one stone. Obesity problems are likely to go down too.
Here's lots of good info from my favorite ethanol company:/ 197813/2006_VeraSun_Annual_Report.pdf
http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/19
Come on, twist my nipples!
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Deleted
The Farm Bill subsidizes 5 commodity products, one of which is corn. This bill has far-reaching consequences, which include starvation of population in Africa (by subsidizing farmers the US competes with the 3rd world countries, who cannot compete at that level with a super-industrialized nation that only needs 1% of its citizens to work as farmers and even then it produces enough food products to feed a quarter of the planet.) Now, should the US politicians care about this or should they only work to make the US farmers happy, that is a different question. I am not a US politician or a US citizen, but I understand why a US politician would rather make a US citizen-farmer happy than think about far-reaching consequences to other countries. Other countries do not vote for this US politician, that's probably the most important point to remember.
You can't handle the truth.
We have enough uranium to power the world for several thousand years. Basically we stopped reusing it. We run it through and convert a small amount to plutonium. Rather than keep running it and burning off the plutonium we get rid of the "waste" when in reality it isn't even 1% used up. We could pretty well build massive arrays of solid constructed nuclear power plants without any dependence on anybody else. Also we could start burning off our nuclear weapons, splicing them with depleted uranium and using them up too.
Dependence is a worse argument than the laugh-out-loud funny nugget... "it takes power to mine the Uranium and usually that power is coal power!" -- As if producing energy on the flip side doesn't offset it, or that the same argument can't also be applied to solar panels (which by the way we should start producing more).
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
The television will not be revolutionized.
changes
Yeap, allow sugar cane from Cuba and Brazil to be imported. Then you'll see big changes. However US sugarcane farmers would go apeshit.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If we don't get a grip on agriculture now, it will all be a moot point soon, because we won't have oxygen to breathe.
Oh, I'm sure Exxon will be able to produce and sell it at a reasonable price. And we should show our gratitude when they do by granting them everything they desire. If not for them we will all die. Thank god for Exxon. And Cheney, too. If we make him emperor, he might let us live.
What?
You mean fusion power plants ? Because trading oil dependence for uranium dependence leads nowhere.
Well, sure, in the same sense hitching a lift 800km along a 1000km journey "leads nowhere"...
Who cares if it requires more energy or not? If the greenhouse emissions are equivalent, then it comes down to which is cheaper.
Well, energy is going to be scarce in the future, right? In the recent past, energy prices were almost equal regardless of medium (cost of 1 gal of gasoline was nearly the same as the equivalent energy in electricity).
The whole point of getting stuff from the ground is that we can do it cheaply in the sense that we get more energy out of the material than we spend extracting/processing/transporting it. That's why Oil is Big Business. If we could get the same thing from raking and burning leaves, things would be much different....
Spending more energy than we extract from ethanol actually *increases* overall energy consumption (over something like gasoline). This transforms ethanol from an energy "source" (loosely speaking) to something more of a carrier (like an efficient battery). I don't see how this can be a viable option (in anything but a very short-term view), for both economic as well as environmental reasons.
To me, it seems like using ethanol for cars is like running our car off non-rechargable alkaline batteries. (The require more energy to produce than they yield). It's just stupid. But right now government subsidies make "Stupid" "Profitable"... And that my friends, will be the decline of our great civilization...
If you are basing this discourse on the statement "Environmental groups have argued ..." note that this is a highly dubious statement. Not saying it's entirely false, but environmental interests are hardly taking the lead on this. Ethanol from corn as a fuel source is largely being promoted by agriculture. To the extent that it's promoted by a few "environmental" groups, its just political maneuvering to get an ally on other issues from agriculture.
But then they'd have to open trade with Cuba (sugar cane) and that doesn't get you those sweet, sweet (excuse the pun) FL votes.
You might loose some FL voters but you'd gain others. I and other Floridians like me wanted to open trade with Cuba.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Uh, why? Crops used for biofuels can be grown as sustainably as any other crops. Clearly, we need to work to eliminate non-sustainable agricultural techniques in general, but I don't see any good reason to avoid growing plants in soil for biofuels.
Sorry, but my initial reply wasn't very to-the-point.
Let's say I run an investment company. Each time you pay me "X" and I will pay you "0.9 * X".
Let's assume your initial investment is fixed. Can you keep re-investing your money (using only what you initially own and receive from me) to create a life-long income? (No you can't).
What are people in the future going to power ethanol producers with? Ethanol?!?!?!? ROTFL.
As long as farm land and feasible corn productuction are finite, ethanol is not a good option.
Do what I do and ignore them, they spout as many lies as the other side. Ethanol IS cleaner, this study looked at greenhouse gasses (CO2) which are going to be about the same for any Hydrocarbon, however other pollutants are better (and CO2 has only recently been considered as a pollutant. Those dang environmentalists produce tons of pollutants by breathing, imagine if they all stopped?). Co-incedentally, growing plants consumes pollutants as they breath in CO2 and release they waste product, O2. Ethanol also breaks our dependance on a limited resource, crude oil. Imagine if we didn't care about mideast oil, except as it affected the price we earned for our own oil exports. We could leave Alaskan oil in the ground as a "strategic reserve" and let the wilderness alone.
Environmental extremists are waiting for a pipe dream, Hydrogen powered cars where all the H is produced by means of Solar power and the batteries consist of Hemp and seawater instead of metals and strong acids. Any intermidate steps distract from their long term goals
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
I say get rid of all the tax breaks on biofuels, get rid of restrictions on exporting and importing biofuels, and let the private market figure out what to do. If corn ethanol really costs more than in produces, it will not be profitable, and private businesses won't invest in it. If there is a way to make it profitable, private businesses will be able to find it.
Out of Cheese Error:
Please reboot universe
Nonsense. Our readily available oil supplies will be exhausted in just a couple decades. We know of enough uranium here in the US to supply all our energy needs for over 100 years, and that's without breeder reactors which would extend things enormously.
I believe we'll be building lots of nuclear reactors in the States over the next couple decades. Perhaps we'll reach France's percentage of nuclear electricity generation (he says sarcastically). It's exciting that with plugin hybrids some'll be driving nuclear powered cars soon.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Sure it is:
Take the ignorant folks on the highway who don't realize the impact of speed on driving: In my area, 25 mile commutes are very common. Most of the vehicles around here probably get, on average, about 25 mpg highway at speed (that number just to make math easier). Most people are driving 5mph+ over the limit - which means they're going 75 instead of 70 (we have high limits here). Let's say that only drops them 1 mpg, down to 24. Well, if everyone dropped their speed 5mph, and had a commute of 25 miles, every 25 cars would save two gallons of gasoline a day. There's probably half a million commuters in this metro area, so be conservative and say this would only apply to a quarter of them. That would reduce consumption of gasoline in this city by a quarter million gallons of gasoline per day.
All for the inconvenience of 85 seconds which is all 75 vs 70 mph gives you over 25 miles, this city could save around 6000 bbl/gasoline per day. That's not a small number.
The thing is, the general public just isn't aware of things like this, nor would they likely care even if they were.
It just makes me cringe when my car gets 36 mpg (yeah, I know there are better), and a row of 10 pickups and SUVs goes passing by me - probably at 15mpg or less. Which even if they just slowed down a little, to my speed, they'd probably get 17mpg....
* sigh *
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
"...the CBC reports"
you lost me
That demand for ethanol is raising food prices only goes to show that US sponsorship of the oil industry has to end, not that ethanol should be banned. There are huge tracts of land in the US that could easily be used to grow good ethanol crops (i.e. not corn) that are currently paid to sit empty. Putting a moratorium on bio fuels just deters the very investment that we need to transfer to a non-oil economy. That people are starving only shows how effective the oil companies are at killing this alternative.
As for the claims that biofuels produce more carbon dioxide per ton than petroleum, well thats great spin. What these reports fail to tell you is that all this carbon that is released was *all* originally absorbed by the plants from the *air*. Its a net zero effect. Oil, on the other hand, is releasing carbon that was safely stuck underground.
The problem with people chopping down the rain forests is a difficult one. You can't put the genie back in the bottle: some 85% of cars in Brazil will run ethanol, so you can't legislate it away (try prohibition but for cars!). Bottom line, people need food and fuel. If the developed nations want to save the rain forests, I suspect they will have to buy them.
I would recommend viewing Vinod Khosla's google tech talk: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-570288889 128950913.
Run your car on hydrogen or electricity produced by nuclear power.
Is the answer to enviromentally responsible, clean energy. Anyone want to argue my point?
Try changing your expectations. Your problem is that you're unwilling to consider that your lifestyle is simply unsustainable.
What you're saying is that you want to have your cake (your 4000 sqft bungalow on an acre of property) and eat it too (pay almost nothing for transportation).
This attitude is exactly why gas should be at least $12 a gallon.
The change in prices in Canada, according to the article, was 3.8% year-on-year. Inflation, per the Bank of Canada, is 2.0%. That is a world-wide increase in prices? Inflation aside, the impact of transportation fuel prices on bringing food to the grocery store can easily account for that increase.
As for Mexico, how many ethanol plants are there in Mexico, a country that produces 3.5 mm bbl/day of oil and consumes 2.0 mm bbl/day of oil products (source: April IEA OMR)? Not that many. So why the impact in Mexico? It's because the US used to grow so much corn that we couldn't use that we dumped it on the Mexican market, lowering their cost of corn, and taking some of their producers out of the market. The sudden increase in ethanol production due to oil product price increases has sucked up this additional supply, and now those producers will come back into the market.
Yes, it sucks that Mexican consumers were hit with such a swing this year, but it's due more to NAFTA than anything else. So if you want to get your knickers in a twist about something (which I don't advise), blame free trade and the natural delay in the supply/demand feedback loop. But note how there weren't a bunch of articles when the price of tortillas went down after the implementation of NAFTA.
Off course!
...
We need the ethanol for cocaine^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfood production!
Think of the children!
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Its better. You'll be giving money to us (Australia) rather than the middle east. :)
Not all countries extract ethanol from corn. Nobody does that in Brazil. All ethanol here is made from sugar cane, which has a higher production rate than corn. And, here in Brazil, the use of ethanol never made any influence on the cost of food, just a little bit on alcoholic beverages. :)
There are a lot of cars here running on ethanol since the 70s. In 1986, more than 76% of all cars sold ran on ethanol. For a long time already, all gasoline sold here has 25% of ethanol. Many of the cars sold in Brazil now are flexible-fuel: they can run on any mixture of gasoline and ethanol. They are a huge selling hit. All all gasoline stations in Brazil sell both gasoline and ethanol
More information about ethanol in Brazil can be found at Wikipedia.
"it will not be profitable, and private businesses won't invest in it. If there is a way to make it profitable, private businesses will be able to find it."
The problem is *big* bussiness know it's profitable... for someone else.
1) You know there're lies, damn lies, and statistics. Like when they say "each ton of biofuel produces 33 tons of carbon dioxide, or three times what fossil does"... but forget to say how is this possible -except by having more energetic mollecules -so while its true that each biofuel ton produces three times more CO2 than fossil, it will move your car three times longer too, and producing less contaminants (heavy metals and sulphur derivatives, mainly).
2) Energy being produced in an "extensive" fashion (wide labour lands, microcells one can store inhouse, or solar panels, etc.) is something that will lessen the strengh of the very big power connundrums when compared to "intensive" energy production (all the oil in the world in hands of a very few dozens peoples, big in the megawats range power plants...). You simply can't control a market which is sourced by tens of thousands producers -except by slavery or dictatorship, the way you can control it when it's managed by an oligarchy. So they really don't want a free market at any rate: they want a market with very heavy entry barriers and/or strongly subsidized so it has no real interest on efficiency. And they don't want above all real groundbreaking innovation that can compromise current 'statu quo'... After all when you already are king o'the world any change can only mean going to worse.
We can produce far more ethanol from sugar, switchgrass, and hemp. We need to re-organize our national priorities to explore these crops and keep corn as food, not as fuel. Sorry corn lobby. When you use E85 the difference in emissions in undeniable. Who cares about E10. Its time to do what Brazil has already done and get off Gas, and jump on a fuel we can create domestically and sustain a healthier world.
are rejoicing because this could result in starvation for many, which fits into the ultimate goal of the rabid greens: the extinction of the human race.
>
-- Will program for bandwidth
Isn't that why we bought Nevada? For Vegas and volatile chemical dumps?
What moron put this analysis together? When people say "cleaner emissions", they mean lower hydrocarbons (HC), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulates. Only an idiot would claim that switching from one hydrocarbon fuel to another would reduce CO2 emissions. It's the natural outcome of hydrocarbon combustion. Way to go, Environment Canada, debunking a claim that no one ever made!
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
"Fair use permits the copying of an entire work only where it is necessary for critique."
Like, say, in a forum where people can exchange ideas in a hierarchical manner about a text offered than can furtherly cited?
Oh, wait...
I have a company that can sequester CO2 permanently using Clams. For an investment of $1000 you can sequester 1 ton of CO2 in two years plus you will get back $1200 when the clams are harvested for market. http://www.carbonclamup.com/
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
It is oh so lovely to drink.
1 pint everclear(or clearsprings or shine if you got it)
1 pint rum (at this point i am deviant as i sub gin and despise demon rum)
1 can green hawaiian punch( two if you're smart)
Drink this and let us discuss the beloved still and the environment.
(if its any help, you can grow corn in your back yard and send it to the starving abroad.Make a difference by using ups so they will get it.)
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
If you don't suck up to the Wikipedia jerkoffs, they start a watchlist on you and start randomly attacking your posts. Why else put "overrated" on an UNMODDED POST?
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.asp?order=A
Note all the asses...
barring a major upset in the next presidential election. Expect even more protectionist trade policies, workplace regulations, etc.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I think you're a doody-head. Now we're even, eh? And we've raised the level of discourse on slashdot in the process. Maybe you could say what you disagree with, rather than acting like a four year old. You act like a classic right wing bully who has no good arguments and so resorts to name calling.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That's not exactly accurate. Small towns and rural areas did have public transit, before the auto and petroleum industries bought them up to shut them down. There were regional bus services, trolley lines, short distance train services even in places like central Illinois.
heavy water is "common", but there's very few facilities to extract it from normal water and the process is extremely (iirc) energy ineficient and toxic
Just like the health industry.
They act as if they knew a lot, the pretend to be knowledgeable, telling others to do this, dont do that.
Come on, wise people are humble. The acknoledge others rights to make free choice.
Think deep, act slow
by having more energetic mollecules -so while its true that each biofuel ton produces three times more CO2 than fossil, it will move your car three times longer too
Are you kidding me? Ethanol doesn't have more "energetic molecules." I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean - are you referring to temperature? Maybe net energy content?
Regular ol' gasoline is a more efficient fuel than ethanol - 1 gallon of gasoline contains 118,690 kJ of energy, whereas 1 gallon of ethanol contains only 82,958 kJ. You car will travel almost one and a half times (1.43x) further on a gallon of gas than on a gallon of ethanol. Maybe gasoline has more "energetic molecules"?
The problem is *big* bussiness know it's profitable... for someone else.
Still waiting for the punchline. In the United States, Big Agriculture, especially the midwest corn belt absolutely loves biofuel in general, and ethanol in particular. A few reasons why:
"Big Business" makes a ton of money from this. Difference is that "Big Oil" survives despite repeated, baseless congressional investigations and windfall taxes, while "Big Agriculture" flourishes because of subsidies and protections.
Government manded corn demand (ethanol requirements) + no other way to get corn or ethanol (tariffs and protectionism) = $$$
DATABASE WOW WOW
The motivation for corn-based ethanol is political.
Only in part. There is also a national security angle. Replacing a gallon of foreign fuel with a gallon of domestic fuel is a good thing, and may very well outweigh the slight increase in energy required for production. Keep in mind that the world's demand for fuel is rapidly increasing as more nations become more developed. The demand is growing far faster than the ability for alternative energy sources to supply.
It drives up the price of corn and could lead to severe malnutrition in Mexico and other poor countries which cannot afford higher prices for basic food items.
FUD. The governments of poor countries can limit the use of corn for fuel if such issues exist.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
That demand for ethanol is raising food prices only goes to show that US sponsorship of the oil industry has to end, not that ethanol should be banned.
I don't think anyone believes that ethanol should be banned - but this is what happens when you tinker with a perfectly functioning market for something stupid like political gain.
The government doesn't "support" the oil industry - unless you call repeated congressional investigations, fuel taxes, and attempts to confiscate those "windfall profits" from Exxon's 10-15% margins "support."
There are huge tracts of land in the US that could easily be used to grow good ethanol crops (i.e. not corn) that are currently paid to sit empty
A few problems with that:
DATABASE WOW WOW
Can you hold your breath for 5-10 years? That is about about how far away we are from nuclear waste free p + B-11 inertial electrostatic confinement fusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Bussard http://www.askmar.com/Fusion.html It is clear to me that Bussard is the most important man on the planet at the moment. Anyone got $200 million for him to build a full size prototype? Do yourself (and the rest of us) a favour and check out his research. ps. with low cost energy you can make ethanol from low value sugar cane for 35c / litre. (if you are stuck on combustion, :-P)
So you want to insure there's overproduction to take up the slack if there's a temporary shortfall in supply. But now that you've told all these farmers to overproduce, come harvest time there's a glut in the market. Too much supply means the price drops, often to the point where the farmers (or agribusiness) can't stay in business.
This leads to the second reason for subsidizing food production - to maintain long-term production capability. Farming is a relatively slow process compared to other businesses. It has a very long time constant, often exceeding billing cycles by an order of magnitude. This makes farmers (or agribusiness) very sensitive to fluctuations in price. Farmer Joe puts in a half year's work raising a crop. If the price drops for a few weeks when he has to sell, that doesn't affect him for just a few weeks. It affects him until next year's crop. The money he gets from that sale has to carry him through until next season (assuming a single crop). Otherwise he goes out of business. Since most crops are harvested around the same time, a short-term price drop can cause a large portion of the nation's food-producing capability to go belly up. Not a good thing.
So you need to insure overproduction, but at the same time maintain higher prices than free market economics would dictate. And finally you need to insure prices remain relatively stable. The solution? Subsidies. The government spends a little money to guarantee there's enough food for everyone to eat each year, and that production can remain steady year-to-year. If you can make back some of those subsidies by using the excess crop for other purposes (humanitarian aid to other countries, corn syrup, ethanol, etc), then all the better.
The question of how much to subsidize I leave as an exercise for the reader.
A 1.3 to 1.5 energy gain is miserable compared to other sources. It can never be more than solar power, because quite literally, the energy comes from the sun. Slowly!
You'll notice that the farmers aren't using alcohol to produce the crop or the pesticides and fetilizers.
How many of the dryers and stills use the alcohol or byproducts to get their heat?
And just forget about making steel or aluminum with energy from alcohol. There is energy used in every step of the process for everything that gets produced.
Force a low-density energy source on the economy, and watch it go back to pre-1900 levels. Because that's what they had then. They broke out of their condition and created an industrial revolution that raised the standard of living of mankind beyond anything before in history, mainly by lowering the cost of energy. The society that resulted from an industrial economy then raised a generation of brats who figure they can destroy the basis of their civilization without it affecting them.
Watch as the exodus of manufacturing from the U.S. continues ....
How much land does it take to produce one gallon of ethanol?
Getting one net gallon for every four gallons grown doesn't mean anything by itself - you have to know how much land you're using to grow those 4 gallons. If it's 10 square feet, you're doing pretty good. If it's an acre, not so much.
paintball
About 2 years ago I heard an interview/debate on the radio between a professor (can't remember his name) from Carnegie Mellon U. and a member of an environmental group.
I have nothing against either institution by the way...
The environmentalist listed countless benefits of ethanol (from corn)...
Then the professor simply listed the results of *published* scientific studies:
1) Giving government backing to ethanol from corn will raise the price of corn
2) Ethanol also produces greenhouse gases, albeit in lesser quantity.
These benefits would be reduced by the ethanol process it self which is polluting.
3) More and more land would be converted to a monoculture (i.e. for the growing of corn)
resulting in less land for other varieties of crops.
4) More pesticide and fertilizer use would result in more air/water pollution.
It is not that ethanol is being prepared from something that would go to waste anyway.
A choice will be made do I grow corn for human consumption or car consumption? Well sh%t
corn ending up begin burnt in a car will not have all those health and safety restriction on it so it will be cheaper to grow. However ethanol-corn will affect the price of all corn.
So costs less to grow than regular corn but demands the same price as regular - guess which one I'll grow?
Ethanol is NOT the way to go if we want to save our world/environment. It is simply a replacement for oil (less dirty "oil"). We need a combination of many clean energy generating techniques
like wind (where appropriate), tidal (where appropriate), solar, and hydro,
in addition to nuclear.
Bush has only benefited some corn growing conglomerates. In a few years we will see some new fat cats holding our short hairs, in addition to the oil companies.
I mean in India they are producing a car (yes it is small) which operates on compressed air -
and it really works!
What we need are young scientists and entrepreneurs to start to save this planet...
the rich and established will not do it.
It doesn't HAVE to be done the way Monbiot seems to take for granted it will. Using blue-green algae, we could grow enough stock suitable for refining into biodiesel to replace our entire ground transportation energy needs in an amount of land area 1/8th the size of Arizona. This is nothing spread across a larger amount of land. And this is the most important part -- are you paying attention, George? -- it doesn't have to be done in otherwise arable land. All that is required is lots and lots of sunlight.
Ethanol is a non-starter in the United States, but that doesn't mean biofuels are.
+++ATH0
Then maybe the US government should stop subsidizing corn (ie, gifting your tax dollars to corn farmers), and maybe Coke could be made with real sugar syrup instead of corn syrup?
No, no, no, no, this sucker's electrical, but I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 jigawatts of electricity I need.
+++ATH0
I was at a renewable fuels conference at the Aspen Institute on Monday. I'll be blogging on it before too long. The first talk was given by Paulo de Sousa Coutinho of Brazil Ecodiesel. The guy knows biofuels. Amazing talk.
s -selling-solar.html
Here is his take on Energy Balance for enthanol and biodiesel from various feed stocks:
Ethanol:
Corn (US) 1.3
Beet (EU) 1.9
Cane (Brazil) 8.3
Biodiesel:
Soy (US) 1.9
Rapeseed (EU) 3.0
Sunflower (EU) 3.2
Castor (Brazil) 10.5
So, what is energy balance? The ratio of renewable energy out to fossil energy in. How you do on GHG will depend on your fossil energy choice. Why is Brazil so high? Partly, they are bootstrapped: much of their energy in is renewable.
Now, here is something I also learned: Brazil flex fuel cars are different from US flex fuel cars. In Brazil, they burn E25 through hydrous ethanol while we do straight gas through E85. Since I've never gotton a bottle of really strong stuff to actually freeze, I'm kind of thinking they are in better shape with the way they do flex fuel.
--
Electrons can be a renewable fuel: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
.. can we drink it? or will it just cost too much *grin*
(nope, not this time a "is this Ethanol Linux compatible?")
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
The quote at the bottom of the page is "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
If you have reservations about one person with that opinion there are plenty of others with it. There is the situation where the USA is the only place that turns corn into ethanol instead of using cheaper sugar or for political reasons as stated above. That said, there is commerical cellulose produced ethanol in the USA now and production is scaling up. Why use the corn when you can use the stalks and leaves? Why use the sugar when you can use the bagasse?
Nuclear Power.
"The quickest way to end a war is to lose it" -Orwell
Yeah that's exactly what we need. More misguided laws to try to correct the unintended consequences of the last set of misguided laws. It's simple folks. If burning fossil fuels is bad, tax the consumption of fossil fuels. Then free economies will decide the most cost effective alternative. It's obvious that's not ethanol.
One other thing though. Just because the developed world quits using fossil fuels doesn't mean that all the developing countries(China inclueded) in the world won't just compesate our conservation by burning more. After all, once we stop using it, it will become a lot cheaper.
The vast majority of "nuclear waste" produced by power plants is low level stuff like paper towels. As far as the fuel goes, I'm all for recycling. Hell, a breeder reactor isn't really necessary; just use chemical separation to reclaim the unused U-235 and dump the fission products in a salt mine somewhere.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
Most experts agree that corn ethanol isn't really useful as an enviromentally friendly fuel, but could there be a use for it in building a buffer into the food production system. Right now farms are heavily subsidized, in part to make sure that there is an oversupply of food incase of drought or other stresses on the food supply.
However, what if instead of subsidizing farms to achieve excess food production we instead burn 10-15% of the food supply as ethanol? If there ever is a serious stress put on the food supply there's now a big buffer built into the system. Of course this additional buffer may not be necessary as there's already a buffer in place with food that's currently used to feed livestock (I don't know how much extra food we get if we start eating all this food ourselves though).
I stole this Sig
At the renewable fuels conference I was at on Monday at the Aspen Institute, Alfred Szwarc spoke on Barazillian ethanol. He was at great pains to point out that cane agriculture does not impact the rain forest areas there. But, latter, at the environmental break out session, he conceded that there could be and issue with oil palm cultivation after Barbara Bramble from the International Wildlife Federation presented on this. He also said that Brazil in interested in supporting sustainability standards for biofuels. I would note that rooted plants do produce oxygen even if they are also used as a biofuel feedstock.s -selling-solar.html
--
Solar! It's were it all comes from: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
The amount of problems with ethanol are staggering. The raised food prises, the fact that we practically pollute more MAKING ethanol than any environment savings (Which, apparently, seem to be nonexistent). Beyond this, it's near impossible to make enough ethanol to support the U.S...
Biodiesel, on the other hand, can be made with nearly ANYTHING and nearly ANYWHERE. Human waste? We can make biodiesel out of it (There was even a slashdot article about that). Used frying oil? We can make biodiesel? Algae, grown in swampy areas unfit for farming? We can use it. The catches are seriously minor too. For the U.S., the big issue is a lack of acceptance of Diesel as a whole. Secondly, colder climates could have problems with it, due to it solidifying. The second one may be an issue if you life in ice cold weather, but as a whole, it seems FAR more promising than Ethanol (And, it seems that Europe has pretty good Biodiesel penetration, too). The U.S. needs to give up on the ethanol dream.
The effect of widespread adoption of biofules is to link food prices to the price of oil.
This is because if crops get higher returns when used as fuel, they will be used as fuel. This diverts the supply of crops for food into crops for fuel. It will continue until the market bids up the price of food crops to match the price of fuel crops.
We're about to enter a period of highly volatile food prices. Sound fun.
God bless him, and us.
Do it with oysters, they mature faster! All you have to do is be sure that all that up stream biofuel production does not increase the nitrogen load and kill all the oyster/clam beds. If you do oysters you can also get value added in your sequestration by using the shells as a building material called tabby: http://www.bcgov.net/bftlib/tabby.htm. Biomineralization is one of the key sequestration methods and we need to make room for it through nitrogen/phosphorous management.s -selling-solar.html
--
Rent solar power and save: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Second, a five year moratorium on biofuels is not what is needed. A permanent moratorium on growing plants in soil as a biofuel feedstock is what we need.
Why?
FalconShould there be a Law?
You gotta get them on the Wii early.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Only applies to spent fuel. You don't reprocess decommissioned reactor vessels. And reprocessing still leaves the fission products to deal with, as well as mining and processing tailings.
The problem is that reprocessing isn't economical at current conditions - which is why initial U.S. attempts failed and why Germany is ending their program.
This might change if all the external costs were included; but then if all the external costs were included, we wouldn't even be considering plutonium and uranium fission.
(We wouldn't be considering biofuels from food crops either - biowaste, algae, and fuel crops like hemp and switchgrass, maybe bamboo. Growing food-grade corn to make fuel-grade ethanol is just plain stupid, and has more to do with lining the pockets of agribusiness than with meeting energy needs.)
And breeders aren't a perpetual motion machine. You still run out of uranium in the order of decades ro centuries. (Unless you go to thorium, in which case spallation "energy amplifiers" are a much better design. Those, and fusion, are where we should be looking to nuclear technologies.)
...until you separate them out, or change your bomb design to account for a different mix of isotopes. In 1962, the U.S. detonated a bomb made from "reactor grade" plutonium. (See 15th page of the PDF, footnote 5.)
Google for "Iran nuclear", and tell me that we're going to let every country on earth have a couple of plutonium factories, on the assumption that they're all too dumb to be able to do that.
Separation is not easy, but certainly not impossible. Many of the claims of difficulty of obtaining weapons-grade fissionables are based on the difficulty of handling highly radioactive waste. When you have martyr wannabe's standing by, though, a lot of these problems are solved. Shielding? Feh. "Come here, unskilled uneducated believer-type. You will die a glorious death for $CAUSE and be assured of a rewarding afterlife if you handle this Rock of the Gods exactly as I tell you..."
Indeed, given the fears of a "dirty bomb", bad guys don't even have to seperate, or achieve a fission bomb. Take a chunk of mixed Pu, stick it in the middle of a Ryder truck full of fuel oil and fertilizer, and drive into the center of $BIG_CITY. Let the good times roll.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You don't get biodiesel from palm oil unless you live in the EU I think. US production in based on soy and cannola or waste streams. The EU countries have gone with diesel in a big way but have not required local production for their blend. So, when the cheap biodiesel from palm oil started coming in, they bought it and more land went into production. But, this land was a carbon sink before being converted and not it is carbon source, a big one. Suatainability standards for bio-fuels are being drafted now and will be a big help in letting people know if their source of biofuels makes sense or not.s -selling-solar.html
--
Use silicon as your solar middleman! http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
all the H is produced by means of Solar power
Solar isn't the only way to produce hydrogen. A Three-Step Microbial Hydrogen-Producing System shows promise in viably producing hydrogen. There's also Iceland's method of hydrogen generation, though there's not many places that can use it's method, Iceland uses their volcano. Algae can also produce biofuels: Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You mean fusion power plants ? Because trading oil dependence for uranium dependence leads nowhere.
That's fission not fusion that uses uranium.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Remember Enron? Remember the power going out in California for no other reason than economic fuckery? This is the exact same thing.
Waste shouldn't be "stored", it should be recycled.
And then made into bombs. Unfortunately the best plutonium is pure 239, even for reactors. The problem with longer fuel cycles is that the other isotopes, notably 240, are fairly radioactive, making them a huge pain to handle, to say nothing of moderately dangerous. And ultimately, as others have pointed out, reactor grade plutonium is still capable of sustaining an explosive chain reaction.
Plutonium breeding is not the answer. Extraction of uranium from sea water might well be--it has been done in macroscopic amounts, and represents a truly astonishing resource base.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Energy balance and efficiency are different things.
Having a "positive" (>1) energy balance means it is physically possible to use it as a fuel, that you get more energy out of it than it took to produce it in the first place.
You know that; you went to that conference thingy. Petroleum ranks at around 10 on the energy balance (or EROEI) charts, in case you're curious.
But, my point was that gasoline is a more efficient fuel because of its greater energy content - that, independent of "Energy Balance" or "Expected Return on Energy Investment" scores, that your car will go further on gasoline than on ethanol or any mixture of gas and ethanol. More kJ/gallon, more miles/gallon.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Nuclear not being profitable today without subsidies.
What subsidies?
The only one I'm aware of is the Price-Anderson act, and that's mostly a government mandated group insurance policy. Hint: By the time the goverment starts paying out on a nuclear incident, it'd have long started paying out for other similarly damaging acts. Like Hurricanes, major chemical disasters, etc...
Now, they've recently extended the same subsidies given the renewable power to building a few nuclear plants. Even before that they were looking at building some.
I don't read AC A human right
This was the predominent sentiment at the renewable fuels conference at the Aspen Institute on Monday, corn prices were too low and now we're seeing something more realistic. Many people tried to point out that this does not translate into higher beef prices since many of the new ethanol plants are built right next to feedlots so that the wet used mash can be fed right to cattle, saving on the energy cost of drying it. But, people were worried about the bad press also I think. Some were worried that OPEC would boost production around harvest time too.
s -selling-solar.html
To me, we've had a wise policy of ensuring food surpluses so that famine can be avoided. The implementation might have been done a little differently, but farm subsidies of some sort or another are going to have to be a part of it since people will only pay for about what they need but security against famine requires producing more that what people need. So, shouting hoorray, now there will be an "undistorted" market in corn makes me think that we might be losing a very wise policy of ensuring surpluses.
--
Solar power: abundance is the only option: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
I drive such a commute. I also track my milage carefully. My mpg at 75 is ~32 mpg. MPG at 65-70 is ~30.
Of course, I also drive a relatively streamlined car. Results will vary for the SUV/Truck drivers.
I don't read AC A human right
Stick it in a breeder reactor and you not only get more fuel you can stick into the first reactor
Do you really think reprocessing nuclear waste is a solution to the waste? Not even the French, who have done the most research on this, has been able to get reprocessed fuel without generatiing extremely hot radioactive, and toxic, waste. A few months ago IEEE's "Spectrum" had an article on this, Nuclear Wasteland .
No, the problem with waste is that a chain of political idiots and their energy department appointees
As the above article states, your suggestion is only a pipedream, it is not currently feasible.
the problem with waste is that a chain of political idiots and their energy department appointees (every president since Carter, inclusive)
Carter, who did his post-graduate work studying nuclear physics? Who also was a command officer on a nuclear submarine?
FalconShould there be a Law?
If the end of that 800km lift leaves you stranded in the middle of the desert, yes, it does lead nowhere. Much better to walk around the corner and find the train that goes all the way.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I agree.
This is all it would take to both make it practical (there being plenty of nuclear material to work with, especially if we are reprocessing spent fuel, of which we have a fair amount just lying around) and profitable (Nuclear not being profitable today without subsidies.)
Without subsidies nuclear power will not be profitable. I bet no one nowhere will want to build and operate nuclear power plants without laws protecting them from lawsuits.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Meanwhile beer and wine are still being drunk by the bucket-full by both right-wingers and hippies.
Regularly scheduled mass transit cannot be profitable in competition with cheap individual transit in sparsely settled areas. Most small towns can't even have a profitable taxi service
There was no incentive for "the auto and petroleum industries bought them up to shut them down." The small town public transit companies would have failed anyway. If not, there would have been an economic incentive for someone to replace them, which didn't happen.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
That is about about how far away we are from nuclear waste free p + B-11 inertial electrostatic confinement fusion
I asked a singing fat lady, and she confirmed that a flock of flying pigs would indeed be bringing us p+B IEC fusion devices in 5-10 years. Good thing, too, because we'll need the energy to warm us up when the frozen wastelands of hell are unleashed.
Wake me up when the problems of Debye screening and the tendency of ions to return to a Maxwellian distribution are overcome in IEC. And no, one scientist saying "Everything is great! This is the future!" doesn't cut it.
"'If one must live then one must die.' - oh, the truth must be funnier than this..." -- MammÃt
The mideast has been losing relevance to civilization for centuries. And it wasn't a boogy man that collapsed the World Trade Center.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I have a hunch that we needed to go with more nuclear plants and hydrogen fueled cars all along.
In a free market, ie one without government subsidies, nuclear power would never be built.
Personally, I'm hoping for a solar and hydrogen revolution
Same here. That's why I like the Governator's push for a hyrdrogen economy.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You're confusing real science with PR. They're not the same thing. PR is simply the evil twin of marketting, and makes marketting look all lawful good by comparison.
Marketting tells you stuff like "buy Moraelin's sugar-frosted chocolate flakes, they're grrreat."
PR goes and pretends to be science, news, interviews, etc, stuff that slips below your bullshit radar and hopefully undermines (A) the facts you base your judgment on, and (B) your confidence in any real science telling you otherwise. PR tells you stuff like, "a team of experts from the Elbonia Medical University discovered that cocoa contains all these enzimes that are good for you. Therefore eating lots of chocolate makes you live longer!" But ommits that all that stuff is only present in raw cocoa, not in chocolate.
(That, incidentally, is almost verbatim an actual PR coup funded by Mars. I just made up the name of the university, since I don't remember the real one off the top of my head.)
PR isn't science, it just pretends to be science, and loves taking stuff out of context. E.g., while real science would tell you about some synthetic food, "dude, it may have a little vitamins, but so does eating a carrot, and the carrot doesn't have all those nasty side effects", PR gives you the lopsided version of, "but it has added vitamins! We all know that you need vitamins, therefore this is good for you! Here's an article by Dr Sock Puppet saying that it's good for you."
Sometimes it's not even that "scientific". Sometimes they'll present some bullshit "perfect month to take a trip" formula, that incidentally matches their sponsor's ad campaign. It will usually add stuff that doesn't even have the same units, and do other blatant errors, but, hey, they'll find some good Dr Sock Puppet to sign it anyway.
The way it went is: a team of PR experts wrote that whole report and then went fishing for someone with a Dr or Prof title to sign his name on it. Most will say "no", but eventually they _will_ find someone who has nothing to lose and has no scruples anyway. He knows it's bogus, but it's not like he was doing any real research or had any recognition among his peers anyway, so no problem if his name becomes the laughing stock of the real scientists anyway. Sure, he'll take their money and sign his name on it.
Then the good PR people hit every single newspaper and even news agency with it. Disguised as _news_, not as an ad. Again, some will say no, but a lot will be glad to publish it. Even a mediocre PR agency will get you in the local newspapers, a top notch one can even get you on Reuters and on national TV.
Especially the newspapers actually love that kind of "news", because it's some free material to publish, and it's professionally written. And it's coming to you for free, instead of having you hunt for something worth writing about. Between writing about the local pig wrestling competition and publishing a profesionally written title about some nutrition breakthrough, complete with quotes from guys with Dr and Prof titles and all, guess which will a local newspaper prefer?
So to make a long story short, what you're seeing there isn't the scientists contradicting each other, but science vs PR. That's all. And by the sound of it, they achieved your goal of getting you confused. What you really see there is, basically:
PR: Coffee is good for you! Breakthrough research by Dr Sock Puppet spells it out for you!
Science: Wait a minute, mate, that's only half the story you present there. Yeah, those effects are real, but what about these other ones?
PR: New research by Prof Silly Muppet proves we were right! Coffee is awesome for you! Read it all here!
Science: Oi! Well how about all these bad effects that were known for a century now?
PR: Dr Greedy Shill calculated the formula for the perfect cup of coffee! And it's good for your health too! Don't miss it!
And so on, and so forth.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Well... depends on the breeder. I'm not very fond of the concept of sodium breeders multiplying. Something about "molten metal that not only explodes in contact with water, but even in contact with your containment structure" doesn't strike my fancy. Just take a look at MONJU for an example.
:)
Now, lead-bismuth breeders or molten salt breeders, that's another story.
"'If one must live then one must die.' - oh, the truth must be funnier than this..." -- MammÃt
Excellent suggestion! But how long do we have to wait until those nuke facilities can fit in a car? ;-)
Perhaps it isnt the best suggestion after all. I for one dont want to be driving around a Ford Chernoybl.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Oh, one more thing: what also doesn't help there is that, even without the polluting effect of PR, today's idea of "media impartiality" means that they have to give equal space to two conflicting points of view, as if they were equal and just opinions. It shows that they don't take sides, right?
Even if a newspaper wrote about gravity, they can't just write "since Newton we've known that G = M * m / (r * r)". They have to also have another point of view, presented as equal in all aspects. So they just have to find some silly muppet with an opposing theory. And I don't mean MOND or space curvature, which would be at least a scientificaly sound thing. They'll find someone with some crackpot "no, no, no, gravity doesn't exist, we're just tied to the ground with invisible bungee cords! Aliens come at night and replace the broken ones!" theory.
Better yet, they'll present the latter as the breakthrough, and put the real scientist at the end of the article as the establishment-sponsored the-man-keeping-you-down voice of arbitrary authority.
It creates a false sense of contradiction and debate, where really there is none. It's simply that X is the real scientist, and Y is a crack-pot with no qualifications or peer-reviewed papers that noone takes seriously. But they won't tell you that, because that would violate their fucked-up "impartiality" creed. They can't tell you that X is the real scientist, because that would be siding with X in that "debate". And that's not impartial. It's only "impartial" if they present both as equals, and both theories as having equal merits and acceptance.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Hi Drinkypoo, what if instead of a moratoreum, we stop burning crops that the govt is subsidizing in the US and use that for biofuel? Yeah, it's not a global solution (or maybe with some work, us and other countries doing similar things can make it a global solution). Just a thought. Never looked into how much corn crops are destroyed compared to how much ethanol they could have produced compared to how much ethanol we are using and trending towards... but at the least, it should improve the situation I would think...
Then again it's been a long day... so I am not sure if I am actually thinking at all...
-Rob
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
The efficiency isn't very important; you don't burn through it very quickly, and there's so darned much energy to be released in a fusion reaction.
What toxicity are you referring to? I mean, hydrogen sulfide isn't great stuff, but it's not like you're venting it.
"'If one must live then one must die.' - oh, the truth must be funnier than this..." -- MammÃt
"Brazil's ethanol yields nearly eight times as much energy as corn-based options, according to scientific data. Yet heavy import duties on the Brazilian product have limited its entry into the United States and Europe."
Also, hybrid cars could help drive adoption.
"The use of ethanol in Brazil was greatly accelerated in the last three years with the introduction of "flex fuel" engines, designed to run on ethanol, gasoline or any mixture of the two."
http://www.nytimes.com/.../10brazil.html?ex=130232 1600&en=03adc82c67600388&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt
Not to mention that a lot of this hype is just that -- hype. Here's a brief post on the actual relationship between ethanol and tortillas. Mexico's corn farmers have been suffering as corn prices plummetted over the past decade since NAFTA brought in cheap American corn. Tortilla prices *fell* significantly during this time when the US unloaded its bulk surplus. Now, ethanol is making use of that corn, but also, US corn production is *down*. We pushed Mexican farmers out of business, and then ended up producing less while using more, cutting them off from their cheap supply.
Also to note: the "waste" from making ethanol isn't wasted. It's reprocessed for animal food, esp. cattle feed. While cellulosic ethanol is still in the works, cattle can digest cellulose just fine. Making ethanol only uses up the starches. The cellulose and nutrients remain behind.
"'If one must live then one must die.' - oh, the truth must be funnier than this..." -- MammÃt
This article is pure FUD. It is absurd to declare a new technology useless simply because of its transient effects on otherwise stable commodity markets. All new technologies do this. It is a false dilemma (and a bit of a straw man) to declare ethanol useless simply because it alone cannot replace all fossil fuels. Other renewable fuels will definitely be needed. Also, it is not only unfair to declare ethanol environmentally unfriendly simply because a 100% gasoline vs. a 90% gasoline blend have essentially the same greenhouse gas emissions, but the statement itself is suspect. Ethanol may output the same greenhouse gases when burned as gasoline, but since ethanol comes from a recent harvest of crops, it has a net zero effect. Gasoline and other fossil fuels come from plants and animals that have been fossilized within the earth's crust for millions of years with gases that haven't been present in the atmosphere since then. And to make things fair, shouldn't we be comparing gasoline to E85 (at least)?
But consider this. If we are serious about preventing man-made global warming (as opposed to the cycle of warming that occurs naturally), then we need a comprehensive solution. I'm talking ethanol, bio-diesel, wind, solar, hydro, tidal, geothermal, etc. And give consumers more choice when it comes to where they get fuel. I'm becoming more and more of a believer in the electric car. Critics of the electric car say it pollutes as much as any other car, but at the power plant instead of on the road. Although it is entirely possible to do that with an electric car, unlike the gasoline car, you have a choice. The standard gasoline car can only burn gasoline. With an electric car, you can use any generator available to charge the car, be it good old fossil fuel, or something more green like solar or wind. Whenever a new fuel technology becomes available, you can start using it. If your power provider switches to greener fuel, you can use that seamlessly. Or we can just stick with gas guzzlers that require more maintenance.
Much better to walk around the corner and find the train that goes all the way.
Right. So which train do you think is "right around the corner" that's going to take us all the way ?
That's why the person stated that uranium was not the answer in the case that the parent *wasn't* talking about fusion.
"'If one must live then one must die.' - oh, the truth must be funnier than this..." -- MammÃt
This has not to be sodium. It could be, with a small decrease in efficiency, only water.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I find it ridiculous to propose a ban on biofuels because the current infrastructure - NOT built for biofuels - can't supply the demand.
It is strange how he glosses over any improvements in said infrastructure with "Farmers will respond to better prices by planting more, but it is not clear that they can overtake the booming demand for biofuel. Even if they do, they will catch up only by ploughing virgin habitat."
Translates to "supply will increase but I do not know to what extent, and it necessitates domestication".
It was not many years ago that EU was lamenting the "food mountain" that EU farmers were producing, the farmers lamenting the low price on crops because of the surplus, and governments basically paying farmers for not growing crops and adding to the problem.
If the current methods aren't good enough, make new methods. There are ways to make ethanol from entire trees, last time I heard BP bought a key patent and swore on their grannies' graves that they would not kill it.
Further, it is folly to state that producing ethanol consumes more energy than it produces. That is a backwards way of saying that the efficiency of the process is less than 50% - which is quite good actually as when looking at a whole you harvest ten units to get 4-5 in liquid shape - and considering that the ten units are basically free solar energy you don't actually LOSE anything.
When you take chemical energy in the shape of carbohydrates and convert it to another carrier - in this case chemical energy in the shape of alcohol - you obviously lose a bit in the process. But when the source you are tapping largely grows by itself, it is all a net gain anyway.
If not then producing food would be a net loss, wouldn't it?
It's a different fuel source. Human beings have always been dependent on fuel sources. We use them for heating/cooking, transportation, and industry. "Dependence" isn't the issue here. The issue here is the overexploitation of a finite energy resource, and the environmental impact of this.
Don't even use hydroponics, use Algaculture. We take a dangerous waste stream (our shit) add energy to it (the sun) extract the energy (Changing World Technologies TDP)
Crop kg oil/ha litres oil/ha lbs oil/acre US gal/acre
corn (maize) 145 172 129 18
Algae 79,832 95,000 71,226 10,000
WOW 10,000 gal/acre vs. 18 gal/acre THAT'S MOTHERFUCKING CRIMINAL!
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Because trading oil dependence for uranium dependence leads nowhere.
Oil comes from politically unstable countries and its combustion leads to global warming. Uranium comes in large part from Australia and Canada (which are very stable politically), and its use does not cause global warming. Sure, you have to be careful in disposing of the waste, but it's not an insurmountable problem.
Seems like a big improvement to me.
People are criticising the US for making ethanol subsidies more attractive than corn ones. They demand that the subsidies are switched back to corn.
I have somehow failed to see in recent years anyone expressing their gratitude to the US for subsidising corn.
To the contrary, of everything I have read about US corn subsidies, 95% has been highly derogatory in a generally satirical way.
Maybe criticising someone for doing something and then later criticising them when they do something else and demanding that they continue doing what they initially did is not the best way to live your life in a karmic sense?
I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for a nuclear energy source that passes prominent environmentalists' litmus test.
You can gauge how serious and informed an environmentalist is about global warming by their willingness to consider nuclear fission. Nuclear waste disposal is a comparatively minor problem when global warming is the alternative. Unlike solar and wind, fission already supplies a large chunk of the US's total power consumption--it's a proven, understood techology. It's also safe as long as it's not built and run by communists (I'm referring not only to Chernobyl but also the reactor accidents the USSR had with their nuclear subs).
Many environmentalists say we have only ten to twenty years to avert catastrophic global warming. Given that, why would anyone want to waste that time focusing* on experimental technologies when we could be mass-producing pebble bed reactors or some other failsafe fission design now? Make the reactors modular, with the components small enough to be shipped by rail, and mass-produce them. Since construction is a large part of the cost of nuclear power, that will dramatically reduce the cost.
* I'm not saying we shouldn't be researching wind and solar, but rather that we're too far away from having viable large-scale systems for producing solar/wind electricity and storing the energy to be used during dark/calm periods. Solar and wind are useful now as means of producing supplemental power to meet peak demand, but not so good as a source for baseline power needs. Any price comparison you've seen of solar or wind versus nuclear electricity probably hasn't factored in storage costs for the solar or wind power, which makes it inaccurate for the purpose of finding economical non-greenhouse baseline power sources.
Conservation is another word for using our resources better, making both economically sense and possible to improve our standard of living.
Bullshit.
Pessimistic luddistism is people who think that taking care of the environment is mutually exclusive to good stewardship of the economy. It is of economic interest to take care of the environment, since pollution is just another word for wasted resources. It costs energy and resources to make pollution, since by definition it does not excist naturally in the environment. And it takes a toll on the local economy in an area when the pollution is just dumped in the neighbourhood. Of course, you can ship it somewhere else, but slowing down the economy there will at least not have a positive feedback.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
You seem to forget that we deplete soil already thousands of years. And yet it has not depleted. Obviously something else is happening : we can simply replenish the soil. Using, for one thing CO2, but also a few organic molecules, most notably hydrocarbons that contain nitrogen. Alternatively NOx's will do, if combined with a bacterium to process them.
You can't go electric as there's not enough copper in the world to wind large electric motors for every car.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Your post is full of FUD. CERN's Waste Transmuter solves the issue of more dangerous isotopes produced in lengthened fuel cycles. Extraction from seawater is not needed as there's plenty of mineable thorium and there are practical fuel cycles for that.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Now you tell me how you want to recycle contaminated concrete. Most waste from nuclear power plants isn't recyclable.
Its very clear to me why the big push to Ethanol, just take a look at the Google ads that popped up when I clicked on the article:
- Ads by Google -
Gulf Ethanol Corp
Ethanol, Biofuels, Alt Energy Ethanol Stock OTC: GFET
www.GulfEthanolCorp.com
Biodiesel business plan
Make you own biodiesel from vegetable oil
education.kulichki.com
Investing in Ethanol
The stocks to invest in... before ethanol booms. Get the full story.
www.investmentu.com/Ethanol_Report
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Rainforest is carbon neutral. There is such a rich and efficient ecosystem that the vast majority of organic matter is recycled in some way. The forest mass is in a steady state (where it isn't being chopped down, of course). The topsoil layer is only a few feet thick and not rich at all - which is obvious when you look at the slash and burn pattern of agriculture there. Yes, it produces a significant fraction of the world oxygen output. But it then consumes it again.
What people forget is that plants consume oxygen! They need aerobic respiration just like every other living thing. During the night, they emit carbon dioxide. They just happen to produce a surplus of oxygen as a result of their growth process, because they source carbon from atmospheric sources (i.e. CO2). Animals in the rainforest all consume any dead plant matter with immense efficiency. And the animals get eaten by smaller organisms, etc, etc. All of these steps emit the carbon that the plant biomass originally sequestered.
An ecosystem only has a positive oxygen production (and carbon sequestration) when the biomass it produces increases. The biomass of the rainforest, per hectare, remains pretty stable (until you burn it). Ergo, the rainforest is not as commonly portrayed, "the lungs of the planet". If you were to enclose it in a huge glass dome tomorrow, the human race would not suddenly keel over from lack of oxygen.
I'm not saying it doesn't have a regulatory effect. The enormous amount of water transpiration alone must effect global climate in ways that we probably don't fully understand. And it's value as one of the most biologically diverse environments on earth cannot be understated. From a selfish point of view, more cancer treatments come from the rainforest than anywhere else.
But environmental campaigners really need to focus on arguments that are not disprovable without even resorting to spin and misinformation.
A) Get rid of tax if you earn under $100,000 which reduces demand for government evil tax employees and accountants
B) Get rid of more govt employees that are operating slower than a 486 (10% of workforce)
C) Use presidential power to overule and force through lots of modern designed smaller reactors (greenies begone you have no solution)
D) throw out 10m illegal aliens that do nothing but undermine jobs and produce crimes and send billions back to mexico.
But of course economists never see a ceiling on the earths ability to sustain human life, just infinite inflation based increasing profits, that never end.
Increasing yearly population + inefficiently built/designed housing is responsible for the bulk of GDP growth. How about give dome housing a go, it takes 24hrs to build a house for a fraction, but
that means that all those illegals wont have jobs.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Corn ethanol is a pay day loan, it might tide you over the week-end but it's no way to run the family budget. It is not politically sustainable in the US in the face of a bad harvest ahref=http://www.icis.com/blogs/biofuels/archives/ 2007/05/just-how-politically-sustainab.html/rel=ur l2html-12942http://www.icis.com/blogs/biofuels/arc hives/2007/05/just-how-politically-sustainab.html/ >
The US may traditionally over produce corn, which may be a good thing, in terms of making sure that Americans don't starve, and ensuring that there is at least some available to feed people through things like UN food aid in drought regions. But if we find another use for corn then a number of things happen assuming that the volume of corn grown in the world is fixed.
The price of corn is going to rise, this will make other crops more attractive as they substitute for corn. This means that the area of land planted will increase. Farming probably happens on fairly sustainable land, if new areas are planted these will be more marginal and put increasing pressure on fragile soils and water resources. The potential for desertification increases. Who has the first call on water hidden in aquifers, farmers or people? Oh and it will fuel inflation in the US http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2007/03/19/is -inflation-coming-back/#comment-6255/ and that's worrying the US shop keeping community http://www.gmabrands.com/news/docs/NewsRelease.cfm ?DocID=1731/
Secondly, because the price of corn rises in the short term the UN and other aid agencies cannot afford to buy as much to feed to the starving...
I think we need to do a couple of things, in no particular order of importance:
Insulate more and make more efficient use of energy in our homes, offices, workplaces etc. Make more fuel efficient cars. Its not difficult, if the world auto industry can move to catalytic converters and fuel injection in a decade then it can start building more efficient cars in much less time.
Efficiency is at the crux of this problem. If we keep on running inefficient vehicles, then swapping to fuels from other sources is simply fuelling the addiction to badly designed engines http://www.icis.com/blogs/biofuels/archives/2007/0 5/biofuels-displace-traditional-1.html/
Trees might be a better bet as biofuel source....
but there are a lot of places unsuitable for food plants that may be suitable for fuel plants.
Like the Amazon rainforest? Seriously, I don't see how people can ignore the elephant in the room that says that encouraging this kind of mass production of plants for fuel encourages deforestation. Big big mistake there.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Really, that much? Three orders of magnitude equates to 1000 times more fuel efficient. I don't know a great deal about nuclear power but i do know that THORP at the Sellafield site in the UK is a pure nuclear reporsessing plant offering commercial reprosessing and it does very little business because it is simply not economical. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorp_nuclear_fuel_re processing_plant
First not 100% of the fuel can be recycled so there are still waste.
And there are the other contaminated parts.
So you still need to store the waste, which in France we have currently failed to do.
Second, recycling isn't so easy: in France, there was a recycler which had lots of problem (sodium is a finicky thing to handle) and was closed finally.
No problem. Ribbons made of carbon nano-tubes perform better than copper anyways and are rapidly approaching price-parity with copper.
Soon, hopefully, copper will only be used in circuit boards. Copper as a bulk conductor won't last much longer.
*sigh* back to work...
I second the comment about Brazil. I understand that the country is energy independent as a result of hard choices made in the 1980s and 1990s. The government mandated the sale and use of ethanol fuel. Now all the auto manufacturers have flex-fuel engines that operate on ethanol, gasoline, or any proportional blend of the two. As they're made by the likes of GM & Ford, I expect to see these engines appear in the US soon. There's another reason, however, for the use of ethanol. Any fuel that reduces our reliance on fuel from politically unstable regions gets my vote. Can you imagine the geopolitical ramifications of an energy-independent United States?
and if we didn't protect our oil supplies, the economic disruption would make developing better batteries impossible, which is just as bald an assertion as yours postulating better batteries today if only...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Worldwide = US + Mexico + Canada?
Why do we need cheap low quality food?
Third world countries have more food, and higher quality food than we have. They have so much good food that they want to sell it to us. And we have a lot of cheap food, that we want to sell to them.
We have an over supply of food, why not use it to make ethanol? People don't really need to eat all that fructose and junkfood anyway. I look forward to the day when we can power our cars with coke and pepsi.
Obviosly, if the forest is gone, all Carbon Dioxide in it will return to the atmosphere.
Its like a dam of carbon.
Other point is that the production of etanol is Brasil is very large, and for decades it has been this way. Our Etanol is not corn based, its sugarcane based. This is much more efficient, and the waste is beggining to be used for more energy also.
BTW, all sugarcane production is made very far from Amazon, in the southeast and northeast of the country. Its absolutely two unrelated issues at stake.
The amazon area would not be aconomic viable for etanol production. no matter what, its not the right bioma for production.
The problem of Amazon deforestation exists, and its much more based on gathering wood and opening pastures. It just has nothing to do with this matter.
If you need more info, a recent article in an american financial online magazine reached this matter:
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/press.asp?cat_id=6
Regards,
Gabriel
http://www.donttalaboutlife.com/
Dont talk to me about life!
>It needs to go at least 300 miles or else it's irrelevant for anything but commuting, and I gave up on commuting by car a long time ago.
I bet you with the exception of cargo haulers, most people's dominate use of their car is to get to and from work every day. I bet you most people drive less than 100 miles a day.
I believe we are on the cusp of a new era. We will be buying "commuter" vehicles to go to and from work. These will be basically highway-rated golf carts, capable of driving us to and from work and stopping by to pick up the kids at school and some milk on the way home - basically 100 miles a day. You'll recharge it every night. And they will be cheap - less than $15K, possibly less than $10K. Probably made in China.
We will still have our gasoline-burning pick-up trucks and minivans for the weekend excursions. But during the week, when most of us drive less than 100 miles a day, we'll have our electric golf carts.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
The sad thing is, if I'm not mistaken, corn is not very efficient when it comes to producing biodeisel. The Brazilians use cane sugar, the stuff we used to consume before every product got injected with corn syrup. From what I understand, the same volume/weight of sugar can produce 9 times the fuel that the same measure of corn can produce, so it begs the question: Why are we using corn? Is there some sort of corn mafia conspiracy? Despite what Willie Nelson says, the American farmer is getting government subsidies out the wazoo, and some of it is outright fraud on the taxpayers. I think we should start growing sugar again. Signed, Brian from Sugar Land, TX :)
Option 1 turn it into ethanol.
Option 2 turn it into corn syrup and put it in the drinking water.
You choose. Your car or your body.
>And the source of the energy to power your car when you plug it in at night?
/centralized/ power generation system than we do replacing the entire transportation system with more efficient power generation systems.
>Oil, or worse, coal, though possibly nuclear...
Ah that old saw.
Look, the current electrical system ain't perfect. But we have a WHOLE lot more chance of coming up with a more efficient
Nuclear. Solar. Wind. There are technologies in place TODAY that can satisfy the demand for electricity. Let's use it and move forward.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I refuse to settle for less.
The answer is not to be satisfied with gas being at least $12 a gallon, nor living like a hermit. The answer is to continue to grow and evolve and enjoy ever-higher qualities of life while coming up with new and better ways to sustain it.
It's called progress.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Furthermore, if by going 75mph you get out of the road faster, and reduce congestion on the highway, you're reducing the amount of folks that will end up idling on the highway due to congestion. To improve our utilization of gasoline, we should be looking at reducing traffic congestion by increasing speed limits and building more roads, not the opposite.
Your indictment of modern agriculture is wrong on several levels. IIRC, the Brazilian farmers are using traditional privative "slash-and-burn" farming techniques in the Amazon which is what is unsustainable. Basically, they cut down the forest, burn the wood (immediately releasing tons of CO2), till the ash into the soil and plant crops. Because they are *not* using modern techniques (fertilizers, soil conservation, etc), they quickly exhaust the soil after a few years and move on to another patch to slash-and-burn. Because they are not using modern farming methods, they get low-yields from high-acreage. It is privative subsistence farming that is not sustainable (unless you are of a Malthusian persuasion). Introducing modern techniques would increase the yield per acre and thereby reduce the need to cut down more forest.
Modern farming has led to a "green revolution" that has drastically increased food supply world-wide. Modern farming feeds more people on fewer acres. Modern farming can be sustainable with proper practices. Those practices are increasingly being adopted because farmers have recognized it is in their own interests to make the investment for the longer term (such as soil conservation).
However, I'll concede your basic point, ethanol from corn may not be the optimal solution. I particularly like your idea about fermenting the algae in the ABE process.
I'm assuming by "environmentalist" you mean "smelly hippy who lives in a mud hut." There are millions of environmentalists out there who know that we can improve our standard of living and reduce our impact, and that that's the only way we can move forward as a species.
And there are also environmentalists out there who see technology as the way out of our predicament, not the cause of our problems.
So please, don't stereotype environmentalists by what the smelly hippies do.
Read it and weep:
0 050615-2.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/2
Seriously, if that's the level of scientific understanding in the Whitehouse then we're all doomed.
No sig today...
Hybrids are good. They reclaim energy to increase efficiency. You can drive further with less gas.
Pure electric cars are no different than a standard car.
I find being offended by me offensive.
I'm a farmer myself, and it's articles like this, from urbanites who have no idea what agriculture actually entails that piss me off.
Is Ethanol raising base commodity prices? Yes. Wheat is up $4 / bushel (used for flour), Barley is up $2.00 / bushel (Used for beer, among other things), Canola is up about $30 / tonne (Used for oil), Flax is up about $5.00 / bushel (used for healthfood).
Are these price-hikes due to Ethanol/Biodiesel? At least partially, yes.
But, why is food going up? I see a lot of people are blaming farmers for this... we are only now starting to make a living off of one of the most intense jobs in the world. You all make $30 - $50k a year, at least! We make $10K, and that's in a good year. You work 9-5, we work 5 - midnight, if not longer.
This brings me back to my point... let's look at peas, a bushel of them is worth $5.00 at the farmgate. In the store, you're looking at around $200 / bushel for whole peas! The only processing done on them, is cleaning and packaging. Do you see where the profit is?
Let's look at Oats: We make $2 / bushel. A bushel of rolled oats (Quaker Oats, etc) is roughly $270. I mean, it may cost some to process it, but it never is that much.
I could go on, but I think you get my point.
"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price.
Without actual numbers these statements are meaningless.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
"A permanent moratorium on growing plants in soil as a biofuel feedstock is what we need."
Why? Human civilisation is based on doing PRECISELY this. You want to see the end of forestry?
higher transportation costs are part of the price of everything you buy. it's just economic redistribution to send some to the farmers.
as always, the little guy at the end of the chain... the underclass, whether domestic or in third-world countries... gets the short end.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Because that's exactly what they'll do if they can sell us more sugar. While the sugar embargo was built with political intent, it has the side effect of keeping our neighbors from shredding their rain forests to grow more sugar specifically for us. The countries that have rain forest just aren't effectively protecting them enough for us to be comfortable doing that. I know none of the politicians involved are thinking about the rain forest and the whole thing is an accident, but there it is.
What we really need to be doing on a worldwide scale is penalizing countries that harm the environment the most and give the money to countries with vast natural resources that need to be protected like the rain forests. Create a "positive" loop where protecting the earth is economically beneficial and we'd all be better off. Teach the poorer countries how to be self sufficient and "green", don't just keep handing them cheap food to the detriment of your own citizens.
Burning food is just not a good idea.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
I see comments like YOURS and /I/ don't understand them at all.
Look, everyone understands that there are also problems with a centralized power distribution system.
It's just obvious that is going to be a WHOLE lot easier to work on maximizing the efficiencies of a centralized distriubtion system using currently available technologies than it is going to be trying to come up with a new technology for decentralized power generation.
From what I've been reading lately hybrids aren't all they are cracked up to be, especially if you do a lot of long-distance driving with little stop-and-go to make use of regenerative braking. They still generate all their electricity from fossil fuel.
Pure electric cars ARE different from a standard car.
Power plants can be made to run off of nuclear, solar, or wind.
I get so sick of the argument that says, "Well, all you are doing is moving where the fossil fuels are burned". Sure - today.
But which do you think has a greater chance of happening any time soon? Coming up with cars that don't burn fossil fuels or coming up with power plants that don't burn fossil fuels?
The battle for electricity is 75% won. The distribution system is in place. The technology is over 100 years old. All you have to do is change the method of electricity generation and the centralized generation facilities.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
In principal, I agree with you. But in this case, all that's required is that there is a relatively economical alternative to copper once copper becomes too expensive to use.
Maybe someone who is familiar with the economics of carbon nano-tubes being used in motor brushes could make an educated guess about the economics of replacing the motor's bulk conductor with a CNT-embedded material.
*sigh* back to work...
Well, can you at least cite a reference to the electrical resistivity of such ribbons? Resistivity of individual carbon nanotubes is not acceptable as a bulk structure from them would not manage probably within an order of magnitude as low a resistivity.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
The article states:
Rising oil prices >> rising ethanol demands >> rising food prices
What about:
Rising oil prices >> rising transportation costs >> rising food prices
Naw, that answer would be too simple....
So you say they can't export, but the price is going up because of demand? If they can't export, then they are disconnected from the demand. Prices won't go up. Maybe you mean imports are more expensive. But for the last several decades third world countries have claimed their food production problems come from having to compete with cheap imports. So now that they don't have to compete, it should be a good thing.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I get so sick of the argument that says, "Well, all you are doing is moving where the fossil fuels are burned". Sure - today. As you admit none of these things are true now. It's a coal powered car.
I agree with you that at some point in the future all of these things may be true. In fact I hope they are true. But what this means is that pure electric cars do nothing but make greens feel smug. At this time promoting electric cars is part of a lifestyle and nothing more. Said promotion could even do harm if people think that electric cars help the environment.
Resources should be directed at converting the power grid to cleaner sources of power. Hydro, kinetic reclimation, solar, nuclear, wind, etc. If we make those changes then we realize benefit from every single device that uses electricity. If we direct resources to electric cars we get nothing. That's the situation - today.
I find being offended by me offensive.
"Well, all you are doing is moving where the fossil fuels are burned". Sure - today.
Heck, even that is a bullshit argument, as moving where fossil fuels are burned is a *good* thing. By centralizing combustion, you can take advantage of economies of scale. Further, it's far easier to upgrade a large coal plant with new scrubber technology than it is to retrofit hundreds of millions of cars.
You have to be practical. Biofuels is a pragmatic and practical approach to solving this problem. You are not going to get anywhere with electric cars, or the hydrogen fuel cars. Biofuels actually are cleaner, not cleanest, but it's a step forward, and it's efficient.
Of course it has to be economically profitable, otherwise people would not support the idea. Of course the price of corn has to go up, otherwise no one would support it. Who would support a solution that is not profitable? We could have solar cars sure, but solar cars aren't profitable. We could build maglev trains all over the place, but maglev trains aren't as profitable.
So be realistic here, alternative energy is still alternative energy, it might not be clean energy, but you can't get to clean energy if you don't have alternative energy, or any flexibility.
I feel compelled to comment on a few of the misinformed opinions being posted here:
(1) "Ethanol from corn takes more energy to produce than the fuel provides." Even if this were true, so what? The whole idea is that you have to produce a portable form of energy storage. That takes energy, whether you are paying for drilling, transporting, and refining gasoline, or distilling ethanol from corn mash. Even charging batteries takes much more energy than is actually stored. Most electricity in the US comes from burning coal. So how green are batteries? How efficient? Not very. Besides, the truth is that for every 100 BTUs of energy used to make ethanol, 167 BTUs of ethanol is produced, which is actually a net GAIN. I'm not trying to defend ethanol production from corn, even though I live in Iowa. Ethanol from corn stalks is a better idea, IMHO. But whatever we do, we have to make sure we're talking about facts, not beliefs.
(2) "If farmers can't make money, they should just sell their land." Do you know how much you'd be paying for food if this actually happened? Besides, in Iowa and other agricultural states, farmland is zoned only for farming, in order to make sure the means of production aren't paved over for future generations. So the only person who's going to buy a farm is one who is willing to farm it. And, as someone else above pointed out, that isn't a profitable business unless you inherit your land and it's paid for. Vicious circle.
(3) "High-fructose corn syrup is bad." I don't like the stuff myself, but without this market corn prices would be even lower than they are, which would drive more farmers out of business or require increased subsidies. And judging from the thousands of tanker cars I see the railroad moving both east and west from here, I'm guessing most of you have a taste for it.
Agriculture is a business, and it's driven by the laws of economics. Balancing food prices, agricultural profits, and fuel production dos not have a simple black/white solution. It's complex, and is intertwingled with many, many other aspects of business, politics, and society. We need good science and solid leadership to determine the best balance for all.
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
You might consider treating "environmentalists" as distinct individuals with differing ideas on the correct way to take care of natural resources. Even better, you could go straight to the scientific and economic studies. Skip trying to make decisions by weighing how much you trust groups.
IMHO it makes no sense to burn your food.
For years and years we have been exporting our "excess" grains to poor countries, and it would sit on the docks and go bad, or find its way into the hands of the richest people in that country...
We pay farmers to NOT PRODUCE anything, we pay them to sit around and watch their tractors rust and their land weed...
So, if we now SAVE money by allowing the farmers to use their tractors and land to produce grain, and we take all that extra grain and NOT ship it to rot overseas...HOW IS THAT RAISING THE COST OF FOOD???!!!
This is the same thing that is happening all over...OIL, STEEL, COAL, WOOD, etc...
These companies have found that they can charge whatever they want for their products and we will pay it. This will lead us to economic ruin and fast. I don't get paid more this year than last year, in fact, I am being paid the same this year as in 1996. But gas in 1996 was in the $1.50 range, not the $3.00 range...my grocery bill was costing me less...and I wasn't paying nearly as much for my utilities or my house...
So, when something SHOULD cost less, it costs more, and it has nothing to do with SHORTAGE or SCARCITY...it has EVERYTHING to do with $$$$$.
--E--
Yeah but America wouldn't need to go to war with Australia (largest source of uranium) as our government tip toes around making them angry. In fact if America asked Johnny (our Prime Minister as most people don't know who he is and Australian's don't want to know who he is) would probably give them the uranium for nothing.
Put down the crack pipe dude. We're not 5-10 years away from workable fusion power, we're 20 years away, and always will be.
Uh, why? Crops used for biofuels can be grown as sustainably as any other crops.
What's needed is the right choice of crop. e.g. one which is not also used for food and if the idea is to produce ethanol by fermentation one where sugar isn't just present in the fruit or seeds.
You don't reprocess decommissioned reactor vessels
Decommissioned reactor vessels are low-level waste; they're radioactive as the result of neutron-induced activity. Given the lifespan of a reactor vessel, the number of reactor vessels we'd have to deal with, and the low level of activity, do you really think that's a gamebreaker?
Most of your post is both interesting and informative, but you almost lost me with "the green revolution is one of fascism" part.
I guess I really have "drunk the kool-aid", because while I think you bring up some good information, I'm still convinced that modern farming is the savior of mankind and the planet (and no - I'm not engaging in hyperbole or saying that tongue-in-cheek) and here is why. While I'm reasonably sure that Amish farms individually have a smaller foot-print on the environment that a modern farm, I'm also certain that they are likely to have a drastically smaller yield-per-acre. That single fact (modern farming increases yields) has several consequences.
First, if we abandoned modern techniques, it would probably be nearly impossible to feed our current world (or even national) population using ancient practices given only our current acreage-under-crops. This means that we would have to expand the acreage into more marginal (and environmentally sensitive areas) or starve. In other words, it would accelerate the very environmental damage and deforestation that you decry.
Second, those labor-intensive practices would require a large part of our population to engage in (primitive) subsistence agriculture. I, for one, am not ready to give up my comfortable suburban existence to break sod behind a horse plow or do other back-breaking manual farm labor for a meager subsistence, and I doubt you are either. You are basically talking about the regression of civilization to subsistence agriculture.
Third, without the huge yields produced by modern practices that we place in storage every year, the world would be (even more) racked by famine. Except this time, there will be no relief shipments of previous surpluses.
Lastly, you are factually incorrect about your statement that "Agricultural runoff is implicated in the destruction of the tree life along the coastline near New Orleans, which in turn has been fingered as a likely cause of its destruction (nothing to mitigate the effects of the storms.)" The key factor has long been identified as building of levees along the Mississippi and its tributaries which means there is less silt picked up by the river during seasonal floods that is later deposited in the delta. Less silt means that the delta is no longer being built up and is now subject to ocean wave erosion. It also allows salt-water infiltration which kills the vegetation and in turn speeds the erosion even more. What the agricultural run-off *has* been implicated in, is the creation of the "dead-zone" off-shore (the fertilizers increase algae growth, which de-oxygenates the water).
BTW, when I google "supercropping", I get a bunch of hemp-growing links, which I guess explains some things about your post. I think perhaps you were referring to "inter-cropping". I may have drunk the kool-aid, but I am not smoking anything.
Where did you pull that number out of?
. html
His ass. Using breeders means you can use more expensive uranium, from lower-quality ore, and once you get to around $400-500/lb, it becomes economical to extract it from seawater. There's enough fissile uranium in seawater to supply the world's current electrical needs for, literally, millions of years.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen
Ummm, how about not growing more than you need in the first place?
Interesting mileage there - I've found that a lot does depend on how a particular vehicle is geared. I wish the EPA rules stated: "Have a sticker with the instantaneous fuel economy versus speed with no wind on a level grade (at constant speed), for each gear, in top gear at GVWR" and "Have a sticker with instantaneous fuel economy versus speed on a flat road with no wind and at GVWR while accelerating at various throttle levels (25%, 50%, 75%,100%) for each gear"
This way, people could see the effects and make an informed decision (it's about impossible to get this information for general vehicles, but the OEMs have it already).
That said, my vehicle gets about 37mpg at 65, about 35 mpg at 70, and about 32 at 75.
I wish my car was geared a bit steeper though, as I know I could hit 40mpg at 65 if I was spinning about 500 revs lower.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Yes, but it's all about small steps, guy.
/today/, we can worry about improving the power plants as we go.
If we work slowly on getting all-electric cars, something that is technologically feasible
I see it as a much much easier hurdle to overcome - you don't have to invent anything - all the technology necessary to make it happen is available right now.
You want a car that is powered by something that doesn't exist today.
Absolutely resources should be directed at cleaner sources of electricity, and no doubt they will be. But we need to do something about the cars _now_. There is no need to wait until the centralized electrical generation facilities are all green before getting rid of ungreen "applicances" that use electricity in favor of fossil fuels.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
So, the IEEE creates FUD?
FalconShould there be a Law?
Biofuels produce CO2 when burned, which the article has labeled as a pollutants.
However biofuels take in more CO2 while the feedstock is growing than the amount of CO2 emitted when the biofuel is burned. So growing the feedstock and using biofuels reduces CO2 in the atmosphere.
The only non-polluting burnable substance is Hydrogen
Burning hydrogen does not create pollution but the burning does create water vapors, and these vapors are more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2 is, and depending on how you generate the hydrogen you have you produce pollution there.
BTW, if you look hard enough you'll find environmentalists with concerns about both wind, geothermal, and hydroelectic power.
Oh, I agree. For some of these people nothing will satisfy them. The only solution for them is extermination of humans. Then there are the NIMBYs. I used to consider myself an environmentalist but because these radical minorities corrupted the meaning I no longer do.
FalconShould there be a Law?
One option is hydroponics. The most promising crop is algae. A study done at Sandia said some years ago that growing algae in foot-deep concrete "raceway" ponds (a circular stream) agitated by paddlewheels suggested that it should be economical before diesel fuel hit $3/gallon.
:-) This is a major win-win for everyone, especially since it has very minimal impact on food production (no need to grow thousands of acres of corn or sugar cane just to extract into ethanol).
One company--GreenFuel Technologies--has already demonstrated that the best way to make biofuels is to grow oil-laden algae in vertical tanks fed by the exhaust gases of coal-fired or natural gas-fired powerplants. Not only do you substantially cut carbon dioxide and oxides of nitrogen output of the powerplant to WAY below Kyoto Protocol levels, but also grow potentially millions of gallons biomass for biodiesel fuel/heating oil, and the solid "waste" from this initial processing can be turned into animal feed, plant fertilizer and/or ethanol fuel!
Maybe if by "current energy usage" you mean the current amount of electricity generated by fission. Or if by "deposits" you mean every atom of uranium on the planet, regardless of the cost to collect it.
MIT's report of the future of nuclear power concluded that "the world-wide supply of uranium ore is sufficient to fuel the deployment of 1000 reactors over the next half century and to maintain this level of deployment over a 40 year lifetime of this fleet." That's based on 1000 reactors of 1000 MW each, which they estimate would supply about 20% of world electrical demand. If we scale that up by 5 to meet all world demand, that's less than 20 years of reserves.
They considered the "once-through" cycle, not breeders, saying that once-through "has advantages in cost, proliferation, and fuel cycle safety", and finding that "reprocessing and one-pass fuel recycle with current technology...[increase by] about 4.5 times the fuel cost of the once-through cycle." Even if you assume a breakthrough in reprocessing could increase the practical reserves by a order of magnitude, that's only 200 years.
A reply below mentions what become economical at $400-500 per pound of uranium. That's absurd. At that price it becomes even more clear that fission is a poor choice.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Leave incentives to the market, not government tinkering.
We would need to devote a ridiculous amount of our country (I've heard estimates of 1/3 of the United States, though I don't quite believe it would be that much) to grow enough biofuel to replace our current oil consumption.
There are already incentives - and more every time the price of a barrel of oil goes up. You don't need to waste taxpayer dollars or worsen the aberrations created by the meddling of government and special interests to convince people that money == good.
DATABASE WOW WOW
If we have electric cars and a dirty grid there's no gain. If we have a clean grid and petro cars there is a gain. Thus directing resources to the grid should be prefered over cars. You want a car that is powered by something that doesn't exist today. You are completely correct. I want grid then car. You want a car that does nothing to help the environment. But we need to do something about the cars _now_. Electric cars aren't doing anything _now_. Until we have a clean grid petrol cars and electric cars are both fossil fuel based.
I find being offended by me offensive.
>There is however a ton of things to invent for a clean grid.
Not really. We've got viable solutions for nuclear, solar, and wind power right now. They just haven't been economically feasible. That is about to change with the price of gasoline going where it is going.
>We're decades away from a clean grid.
So? We're decades away from everyone having electric cars, too.
>We've had plug in pure electric cars for decades.
But there hasn't been financial incentive to make them acceptable. That is changing with the price of gasoline going through the roof. I can tell you right now my next car purchase will be 100% driven by fuel economy. I don't care if it runs on gasoline or horse manure, but it's going to be equivalent to a 100MPG car today in terms of cost to operate.
>If we have electric cars and a dirty grid there's no gain.
The thing is, if we have electric cars the entire focus now goes to electricity generation plants. THEN you can focus on how to do that in a green, or at least economic fashion. And market forces are going to drive that in a big way. When the energy needs of all gasoline burning cars are converted to electricity, they are going to have to add electrical generation capacity in a big way. My guess is the only viable way to satisfy that need is through nuclear power. Fine by me.
>If we have a clean grid and petro cars there is a gain.
Without something to drive the demand for electricity, there aren't going to be any improvements to the grid, green or otherwise, for a long time. Electric cars will increase demand for electricity, and legislation can determine how those new centralized facilities will operate.
>You are completely correct. I want grid then car.
Without the car, nothing is going to change on the grid. Or rather, change will come much more slowly because there will be not nearly as dramatic an increase in demand. And then, once you do have a green grid, then you'll have to tackle all the cars anyway!
No, the cars are the catalyst to getting our personal transportation needs satisfied by electricity. Electric cars in the short term may do nothing for the environment. But the increased electrical demand is going to require new ways of generating electricity, and there is your opportunity to go green. Frankly I don't care if it's green, I just want cheap, and I don't want the funding going to the Middle East.
>Electric cars aren't doing anything _now_.
Except increasing the demand for and focus on electricity generation.
>Until we have a clean grid petrol cars and electric cars are both fossil fuel based.
But electric cars will hasten the move to more efficient grids, whereas efficient grids may or may not hasten the move to electric cars.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>Except increasing the demand for and focus on electricity generation.
>But electric cars will hasten the move to more efficient grids, whereas efficient grids may or may >not hasten the move to electric cars.
This is the flawed logic I was talking about in my first post. There is no link between these two statements. There is no link between the number of electric cars on the road and an increased desire for a clean grid.
An increase in the number of electric cars is an increase in electricity demand. An increase in electricty demand will not promote a cleaner grid. It will simply cause more fossil fuels to be burned. Our grid is not operating at capacity. Fossil fuels are cheap. That's why the power companies use them. It's more profitable to simply burn more than to buid a new infrastructure. This is basic economics.
The only way we're going to see a clean grid is from the top down. The economic nature of the USA (Where I'm located. No clue where you are) will require one of two things to happen before a change to a cleaner grid. Either a policy mandate from the group in power or a tech break through that results in clean power being cheaper than dirty power is required. Law or economics.
I find being offended by me offensive.
>There is no link between the number of electric cars on the road and an increased desire for a clean grid.
p hp
You are right. But there will be an increased focus on electrical generation techniques, and there is you chance to improve how that is done, both in terms of cost and the environment.
The bottom line is, the entire infrastructure has to be replaced with something that doesn't depend on fossil fuels, both the electricity generation infrastructure and the personal transportation infrastructure.
I'm willing to start with cars, because 1) I have some measure of control over that, 2) I can do it now, and 3) it will have to be done eventually anyway. If you want to wait around for the top to get switched over to something else before worrying about your car, be my guest. Myself, my next car buying decision is going to be based only on the cost to run it. If that is electricity, then that is what it will be. I'm strongly considering this one: http://www.hybridtechnologies.com/smartcar_order.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
> tell me that we're going to let every country on earth have a couple of [whatever]
You see, that's why I hate the US: it has no respect for the sovereignty of nations other than itself.
(Yeah, yeah, mod me -1 Redundant, I just had to get it off my chest. And GWB is a lying piece of shit (+5 insightful))
>The bottom line is, the entire infrastructure has to be replaced with something that doesn't depend >on fossil fuels, both the electricity generation infrastructure and the personal transportation >infrastructure.
This needs to be top down. Increasing eletric demand (using electric cars) will simple increase electrical production through current methods (fossil fuels). It's cheaper to burn more coal than to build new facilities.
You equate driving an electric car with demand for clean grid. This is wrong. Buying an electric car is increasing your electrical usage. Unless you actively seek and purchase your electricity from clean sources and refuse to buy it from dirty sources you are in no way increasing your demand for clean grid. A car has nothing to do with that. You can already do that.
We've entered the repetition phase so unless you have something new in your response I'm done. Thanks.
I find being offended by me offensive.
>This needs to be top down. Increasing eletric demand (using electric cars) will simple increase
>electrical production through current methods (fossil fuels). It's cheaper to burn more coal than to build new facilities.
>You equate driving an electric car with demand for clean grid.
And you are equating a clean grid with demand for electric cars. You are equally wrong.
The fact is, both parts of the infrastructure need to change.
At least when the clean grid comes around, I'll be ahead of the game with a clean car.
It's just a question of which one do you want to wait to be fixed before you fix the other one. You want me to wait to get an electric car until the grid is green. I'm going to go ahead and fix my part of the problem now, so that if and when the clean grid comes around, I'm ready to take advantage of it.
But like I said - I don't really care if the grid is green or not. I just want cheap.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>And you are equating a clean grid with demand for electric cars. You are equally wrong.
I never once claimed this. Where do I say this?
I find being offended by me offensive.
>I never once claimed this. Where do I say this?
/are/ part of the problem and will have to be changed anyway?
/shot/ at doing something with the centralized electricity generation facilities. But until you do something about the cars, not only will there be less focus on doing anything about the electricity generation facilities, it won't matter anyway because half the problem still exists and can't take advantage of anything you /do/ manage to do to the electrical generation facilities.
I assumed this is why you were promoting a "top down" approach - that you needed a clean electric grid first in order to promote electric cars. I guess I misunderstood. It seems that you don't think that green power plants will help promote electric cars. You just want an all-or-nothing solution to the problem.
You do agree, do you not, that both parts of the infrastructure need to be made green, yes?
You seem to be bent on an all-or-nothing approach to the problem, which I don't understand. Why not go after the low-hanging fruit part of the problem now, since the cars
The way I see it, if everyone drove electric cars, you'd at least have a
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>You just want an all-or-nothing solution to the problem.
Once again where did I say this? Please stop putting words in my mouth.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Just interpreting what you said guy, and that's how it read to me. Have a nice day.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Well you're wrong. Do you have something to post that putting words in my mouth?
I find being offended by me offensive.
I'm sorry, I didn't understand that last sentence. Have a nice day.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Based on your past positions I do believe that one missing word would throw you off that much.