Startup Claims to Make $1/Gallon Ethanol

gnick writes to mention Wired is reporting that an Illinois startup is claiming they can make ethanol from most any organic material for around $1/gallon. Coskata, backed by General Motors and several other investors, uses a process that is bacteria based instead of some of the other available methods. The bacteria processes organic material that is fed into the reactor and secretes ethanol as a waste product.

Comments

the memories

[caffeinemessiah]

secretes ethanol as a waste product.

aaah...reminds me of college.

Re:the memories

[Harl_Delos]

Seems to me that the Metropolitan Sewer District already uses bacteria on organic matter, without getting any ethanol. Milwaukee is selling their organic matter as Milorganite, but most other cities just *waste* human waste. Of course, there's always the possibility that your E85-ready vehicle will run like merde. And if your neighbor's RV running biodiesel smells like french fries, what will your E85 car smell like?

Re:the memories

[earthforce_1]

Yeah, but now you could get absolutely hammered for $0.05, and when you upchuck your dinner you can recycle it into more booze for next weeks party. Waste not!

Re:the memories

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me that the Metropolitan Sewer District already uses bacteria on organic matter, without getting any ethanol. Milwaukee is selling their organic matter as Milorganite, but most other cities just *waste* human waste.

Of course, there's always the possibility that your E85-ready vehicle will run like merde. And if your neighbor's RV running biodiesel smells like french fries, what will your E85 car smell like? You have a good point. All this time I've been flushing a goldmine down the toilet! Never again! To think that I once thought pay-to-use restrooms were a good idea. Instead, those restrooms should be paying me!

Re:the memories

[edittard]

To think that I once thought pay-to-use restrooms were a good idea. Instead, those restrooms should be paying me!

Ever been to Soviet Russia?

Re:the memories

[maxume]

aaah...reminds me of college.

You may have done it wrong. I remember consuming ethanol.

Re:the memories

[ArwynH]

Yes. And trust me, you wouldn't want to use the restrooms even if they did pay you for it...

Re:the memories

[scottv67]

Seems to me that the Metropolitan Sewer District already uses bacteria on organic matter, without getting any ethanol.

It could have something to do with the fact that MMSD is aiming to produce hard, dry pellets instead of ethanol. For example, this week I cracked four eggs. Two of the eggs turned into breakfast (sunny side up with two strips of bacon) while the other two eggs turned into a chocolate cake.

For those curious about the MMSD program that turns human waste into lawn/garden fertilizer, go here:
http://www.milorganite.com/about/

I use Milorganite in place of "synthetic" fertilizers (Scott's) that have components made from natural gas. I'd rather see that natural gas used for something more important (like heating or cooking) than making my lawn green.

Re:the memories

[DukeLinux]

Let's see. If it works, big oil will lobby (bribe) congress and congress (note lower case) will pass a law to "protect" us from this product. Move along, nothing to see here....

Re:the memories

[caliburngreywolf]

with the right bacteria, sawdust can be turned to ethanol, as can rotting food. Hell, even plastic can be degraded back into the petroleum substances it's composed of, given a "smart" enough bacteria with the right enzymes. have faith in solar, it's getting far better and truly viable. also, consider that cars can get a lot more efficient, turbine is the future for hybrids. Small turbine engines are more efficient, have no moving parts, and the lack in low-end torque is irrelevant in hybrids, which would benefit from the constant speed of a turbine. Tack high-efficiency next-gen solar to a car, and 150 MPG is no dream.

Re:the memories

[bennomatic]

It could have something to do with the fact that MMSD is aiming to produce hard, dry pellets instead of ethanol. For example, this week I cracked four eggs. Two of the eggs turned into breakfast (sunny side up with two strips of bacon) while the other two eggs turned into a chocolate cake.

The cake and breakfast dishes were just intermediary states. Eventually, all four eggs turned into, erm, something else...

Re:the memories

[ZiggyStardust1984]

That's cause you didn't drink enough...

Re:the memories

[pragma_x]

"synthetic" fertilizers (Scott's) that have components made from natural gas.

I felt this was worth repeating. If folks want to go "green" they have to look farther than what's being sold at the pump and take the whole food chain into consideration.

The fact that some commercial fertilizers are made from natural gas (basically petroleum) means that any crop-based ethanol (corn, rapeseed, etc.) may not be 100% carbon neutral, depending on how it's farmed. That said, converting existing waste streams into fertilizer or directly into fuel makes a lot more sense.

Re:the memories

[Cardcaptor_RLH85]

Don't forget General Motors is backing this startup. Even with all of it's current troubles GM is still quite a large company with many expensive lawyers ^_^

Re:the memories

[Vexar]

Solar. Boy, I should take a picture. There's a corporate headquarters for Great River Energy with a windmill (they finally started it up) and a whole roof of solar cells. I love it when the solar cells are buried deep in snow. It makes for a great Christmas card. Someone I know in their IT dept. says that two Cisco 7500 routers consume 25% of the peak power of this monstrous windmill. That being said, it definitely has that ol' Sim City look to it.

Re:the memories

[gr8scot]

I'd usually agree, but something makes me think this might be different.

"Coskata, backed by General Motors and several other investors, uses a process that is bacteria based instead of some of the other available methods." I think GM's combination of influence and incentive [financial troubles] to get this implemented will prove sufficient. I'll be watching this story, and I expect my cheap, high-quality ethanol at service stations within 10 years.

Re:the memories

[plague3106]

I think GM's combination of influence and incentive [financial troubles] to get this implemented will prove sufficient. I'll be watching this story, and I expect my cheap, high-quality ethanol at service stations within 10 years.

I'd rather not have to go to a service station at all, and plug my car in when I get home. To each his own I suppose.

Re:the memories

[gr8scot]

I'd rather not have to go to a service station at all, and plug my car in when I get home. To each his own I suppose. Ha, I'd "settle" for that!

Mr Fusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

First thought was Marty's "Mr Fusion" on the back of his DeLorean. (Dump in a few banana peels -- 1.21 gigawatts!)

Re:Mr Fusion?

[JebusIsLord]

Angry AND pedantic... those are some sexy characteristics. You single?

Re:Mr Fusion?

[0100010001010011]

Doc: "Mr. Fusion powers the time circuits and the flux capacitor, but the internal combustion engine runs on ordinary gasoline. It always has. There's not gonna be a gas station around here until sometime in the next century. Without gasoline, we can't get the DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour."

Re:Mr Fusion?

[Valdrax]

That's always bugged me. So, was the anti-gravity flight modification *also* gas powered?

Re:Mr Fusion?

[Thomas Shaddack]

Wild West -> Gunpowder -> Solid fuel rockets.

Re:Mr Fusion?

[the real darkskye]

No, but the flying circuits were burned out by the lightening strike, it was in the letter.

Re:Mr Fusion?

[Valdrax]

Right. Forgot about that. Thanks.

logic

[Anonymous Coward]

so by this logic, we don't need to worry about efficiency, right? we could get 2% efficiency, but if we're getting it cheap, that's all that matters, right?

Re:logic

[AKAImBatman]

we could get 2% efficiency, but if we're getting it cheap, that's all that matters, right?

Yes.

The efficiency argument as it pertains to ethanol is related to the so-called "energy positive" problem. The concern is that if it takes more energy to create the ethanol than it does to farm it and convert it to fuel, then what exactly is powering all that farm equipment? It can't be the ethanol, or we'd eventually run out of energy.

On the other hand, grid power consolidates the power infrastructure and therefore is wonderfully inexpensive. If this machine did nothing more than take grid power and convert it straight into ethanol, it would be a miracle machine. It's almost as good as if you had a machine that converted uranium or plutonium directly into millions of barrels of ethanol. If you get a slight boost from the energy already stored in the corn, so much the better!

The key thing (economically) is to get off of oil. Oil is starting to weigh down our economy and gives far too much power to current and potential enemies. Making transportation cheap again would rebound the economy, bring food prices back in line, and generally improve things for the U.S. (and really, the rest of the world) all around. :-)

Re:logic

[TykeClone]

The worst estimates are that we're getting 124% energy out with ethanol with current technology - a net gain. And those numbers are based upon old data for crop and ethanol yields and equipment.

Re:logic

[AKAImBatman]

Correct. Unfortunately, the current refinement processes still result in a more costly product per unit of energy than petroleum. Gasoline prices are close to making ethanol affordable, but not quite. The advantage to this process is that it would make ethanol cheaply. A result that is far more desirable than pure efficiency. If it's highly efficient in the end, all the better. :-)

BTW, Pimentel still disagrees that ethanol is energy positive. He's really just being a jerk, pushing data that's nearly 30 years old. Not a single study that's independent of his numbers has shown the same results. The only problem is that there are enough gullible people who listen to him. :-/

Re:logic

[p0tat03]

The nice thing about ethanol is that continued research is almost guaranteed to drive down the price-per-energy cost by orders of magnitudes from what it is today, whereas oil will continue to rise simply by virtue of the fact that it is a limited supply.

So while ethanol is still too expensive to be worthwhile, it's only a matter of time (IMHO a short one!) before ethanol will be as cheap as gas was in the late 90! I still remember 25c per liter (here in Canada, about $0.95/gallon). Maybe then I can afford a car! And maybe then my public transit won't have yearly price hikes on fuel price alone!

Re:logic

[zippthorne]

124%? That's a pretty slender margin. How many acres are we going to have to devote to ethanol feedstock to supplant oil, at a farm ratio of four times as much land just for running the process to make the fuel for everything else? And are you using fossil-derived fertilizer, or are you synthesizing the fertilizer as part of the energy cycle?

Re:logic

[CougMerrik]

From the article: May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, says Coskata's ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even after accounting for the energy needed to produce and transport the feedstock. It also generates 7.7 times more energy than is required to produce it. Corn ethanol typically generates 1.3 times more energy than is used producing it.

Re:logic

[Ken_g6]

Meet your miracle machine, or at least a plan for it. Actually, it's even better than what you suggest: it converts electricity to real oil.

Unfortunately, I've done some rough calculations assuming $.1/kWh electricity converted at 40% efficiency, and the energy alone comes to $9/gallon of gasoline.

Re:logic

[AKAImBatman]

The nice thing about ethanol is that continued research is almost guaranteed to drive down the price-per-energy cost by orders of magnitudes

That's true of most technologies. e.g. If we were to embrace hydrogen, I can guarantee that the price of hydrogen fuels would drop like a rock over time.

The real beauty of ethanol is that it is similar enough to gasoline to make it a viable alternative for powering existing engine designs. Which means that the massive investments made in the modern, overdesigned, otto-cycle piston engine can continue to be leveraged while new engine technologies are developed.

In short: Hydrogen would require an entirely new infrastructure. Ethanol would not. Which is a huge win for ethanol.

Re:logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the current refinement processes still result in a more costly product per unit of energy than petroleum. Gasoline prices are close to making ethanol affordable, but not quite.

Of course that's not the whole story - an inmportant factor is that them sand niggers don't have any ethanol.

Re:logic

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

I think you could make fertiliser as a waste product of the biofuel process.

its a very valid point about farmland though. food prices will still go up, because of the increased cost of land, even if you could make it slightly cheaper to transport.

Re:logic

[Martin Blank]

How many acres are we going to have to devote to ethanol feedstock to supplant oil?

That depends on the feedstock. We can never do it with corn, as the math just doesn't bear out. Consider the following, based on the recently-published Crop Production 2007 Summary:

Planted area: 93.6 million acres
Average yield: 151.1 bushels per acre
Total production: 14.1 billion bushels

Ethanol production from corn usually nets about 9.5 liters of ethanol per bushel. A conversion of all of the corn to ethanol would net about 134 billion liters of ethanol. Ethanol has an energy density of 24 MJ/L, and gasoline's is 34.6 MJ/L, so E85 would come in at about 25.6 MJ/L. Daily average gasoline consumption in the US is about 1.47 billion liters per day, or about 50.9 billion MJ. To match that with E85 would require 1.99 billion liters of E85, which would require 1.69 billion liters of ethanol. Unfortunately, converting all of the corn production to ethanol would allow only 79 days of consumption of E85 at current energy use rates.

It's an extreme, unrealistic calculation, as we could never do a complete conversion, and it doesn't factor in energy used for the planting, care, or harvest. But it does help to drive home the point that it's infeasible to use standard plants for ethanol production. Even switching to sugarcane or sugarbeets isn't going to help because of the massive acreage required. The only mechanisms that will be able to reliably replace our reliance on fossil fuels are those that are able to take advantage of volume of organic materials, including excretion methods such as algae and bacteria, and possibly methods such as cellulosic conversion and thermal depolymerization (if they work out profitably).

Re:logic

[snappyjack]

But where it does decrease the price of fuel, it increases the price of corn, the US's primary food export. This means higher prices for food worldwide, which could potentially result in famine or at least a drop in welfare. There isn't even enough farmland to create an ethanol-based economy; according to a Technology review article, if all the corn produced in the entire country was used for ethanol, it would only account for 12% of our energy needs. Put that research somewhere else.

Re:logic

[neildiamond]

I'm not sure he's completely full of hot gas (or ethanol). I've looked at some recent studies by the US govt that show a net energy loss. I also wonder if they are counting cellulosic ethanol in that 124% energy gain (good if this is finally getting off the ground). Of course part of the "energy" counted in these studies is animal feed and I think that's a little debatable. I don't think Pimental is wrong to question the need for govt subsidies for a process that even if energy positive (slightly at that by most studies) costs so much to make in $$ and oil and could never come close to providing that much energy for the nation anyway. Plus it does drive up food costs as well. Besides, biodiesel in most cases makes so much more sense as an alternative biofuel crop. Why all the talk about ethanol from corn? Even Pimental sees potential in biodiesel.

Re:logic

[LWATCDR]

Well if would work with kudzu it would be wonderful.
The funny thing is that kudzu really is about a perfect plant. It is editable. The leaves can be eaten is a salad and the roots can be eaten as a starch like a potato. The Flowers can be made in to a jelly. It can also be used for animal feed. It is also a legume so it actually puts nitrogen back into the soil. Even more if you plow the waist back in. And it grows with no fertizer and needs no chemicals. The problem is that well it grows like a weed.

Re:logic

[danbert8]

You make some good points, however you are slightly misguided. First of all, hydrogen can be used in an existing otto cycle engine. Hydrogen combustion can easily run a modified engine since anything explosive and a gas could theoretically work (though random burning things are better suited for diesel engines). They actually did this on Mythbusters and fed hydrogen gas into the carburator of a car. It ran for a couple of seconds until it backfired and burning hydrogen came up in their faces, but that's because hydrogen has a different octane than gasoline (so does ethanol by the way), so both require a modified (more expensive) engine.

As for your next point, both hydrogen and ethanol require new infrastructure if they are to replace oil. Ethanol contrary to popular belief is not just gasoline from corn. It cannot and DOES NOT take the same production path as gasoline. Oil products are transported primarily by pipeline which costs about a penny per gallon to move it across the county. Ethanol cannot be used in pipelines because A) it grows mold B) is highly corrosive and C) is totally useless if water infiltrates the pipeline. Thus all ethanol today is shipped in barges, rail cars, and mostly by fuel trucks, all of which run on diesel. Thus the cost associated with shipping ethanol is much higher than shipping gasoline, which is the number one reason why E-85 stations are not everywhere.

In fact, the only reason why ethanol is taking off is because it's a fairly good additive to gasoline to increase the octane rating (much better than lead in any case) and the government pays oil companies to sell it. It isn't profitable at all to make or sell on its own.

Now if you want to talk about Biodiesel, now that's something totally different. It runs unmodified in diesel engines (and is actually better for them) and it can be piped right along side normal diesel in a pipeline (provided it doesn't get too cold). Plus diesel engines have been more efficient than otto cycle engines for a long time. They only reason they haven't taken off is because ignorant Americans (yes, I'm an American too) have a stupid idea that diesel is dirty technology.

Re:logic

[aurispector]

Just out of curiosity, what does it taste like?

Re:logic

[AKAImBatman]

I've looked at some recent studies by the US govt that show a net energy loss.

Such as? Every recent government study I've seen says the exact opposite.

e.g. The Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol: An Update:

Studies conducted since the late 1970s have estimated the net energy value (NEV)
of corn ethanol. However, variations in data and assumptions used among the
studies have resulted in a wide range of estimates. This study identifies the factors
causing this wide variation and develops a more consistent estimate. We conclude
that the NEV of corn ethanol has been rising over time due to technological
advances in ethanol conversion and increased efficiency in farm production. We
show that corn ethanol is energy efficient as indicated by an energy output:input
ratio of 1.34. --July 2002

What you're probably thinking of is sensationalist headlines like this: Study says ethanol not worth the energy

"Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation's energy security, its agriculture, the economy, or the environment," according to the study by Cornell's David Pimentel and Berkeley's Tad Patzek.

Oh lookie. David Pimentel. What a shocker. :-/

I think you'll find that energy-negative studies not conducted by Pimentel himself invariably contain a "Special Thanks to David Pimentel for providing data." Nice, eh?

Re:logic

[AKAImBatman]

hydrogen has a different octane than gasoline (so does ethanol by the way), so both require a modified (more expensive) engine.

Hydrogen requires more significant changes to the engine. That's what drives up the price. Ethanol only requires shifts in the timing and better fuel lines to handle the corrosive effects of the Ethanol, thus making it a fairly inexpensive conversion. Flex vehicles are able to detect information about the fuel and adjust the timing of the engine.

As for your next point, both hydrogen and ethanol require new infrastructure if they are to replace oil.

That's a fair point, but I think you overestimate the amount of new infrastructure needed by ethanol vs. that needed by hydrogen. We have methods of building pipelines that can handle ethanol. What we DON'T have is a consensus on how to produce, store, transport, or even fuel hydrogen vehicles. Which leaves a rather massive infrastructure gap between ethanol and hydrogen. Ethanol requires some behind-the-scenes changes. No real biggie. Hydrogen requires brand new vehicles, brand new storage systems, brand new transportation methods*, and brand new production methods. We simply aren't ready to build this infrastructure, no matter how much I wish we were.

They only reason they haven't taken off is because ignorant Americans (yes, I'm an American too) have a stupid idea that diesel is dirty technology.

It's not a stupid idea. Up until 2006, the US allowed really crappy quality diesel to be sold on the fuel market. This reduced the pump cost of the fuel, but meant that it was extremely dirty and bad for the environment. There was no way that car makers could create cars that burned these fuels clean enough to meet emission standards. Thus the disappearance of diesel in small vehicles. From Wikipedia:

In contrast, the United States has long had "dirtier" diesel, although more stringent emission standards have been adopted with the transition to ULSD starting in 2006 and becoming mandatory on June 1, 2010 (see also diesel exhaust). U.S. diesel fuel typically also has a lower cetane number (a measure of ignition quality) than European diesel, resulting in worse cold weather performance and some increase in emissions. This is one reason why U.S. drivers of large trucks idle their rigs all night rather than risking a cold-weather start.

In fact, the only reason why ethanol is taking off is because it's a fairly good additive to gasoline to increase the octane rating

That's been true for decades. As a former resident of Wisconsin, I can tell you that nearly all fuel sold in that state used Ethanol as an octane booster, with many pumping stations advertising as much as "10% Ethanol". What's changed is that ethanol is now being blended in at higher quantities while car makers rush to support these "new" fuels. For the first time in my life, I'm actually seeing E85 fuels pop up at your average, everyday gas station. So no, ethanol is not being driven by its use as an octane booster. Your information is out of date.

(* Hydrogen leaks out of nearly any container. That's one of the reasons why it's so hard to transport and store.)

Re:logic

[Anonymous Coward]

I spoke to a few GM and oil people at a party a few months ago, and they were talking about this. Apparently, they think that they can get the prices down well below gas prices with this technology as long as enough people are using it. I didn't get enough details, but I know GM had approached the US government about getting massive subsidies to cover the initial costs.

Anyways, I work and live around mostly engineers, and a good deal of them are working on the next energy solution (whatever that might be). They are all getting their funding from oil and gas companies.

---

Re:logic

[mOdQuArK!]

The only reason corn is being used for the ethanol production is because of the corn-based agricultural subsidies being pushed by the U.S. government. If a lot of those highly-targeted laws were relaxed (or eliminated), farmers would figure out the most cost-effective way of making ethanol/biofuels in no time.

Re:logic

[mOdQuArK!]

switchgrass, hemp, sugar cane, etc... - there are so many other potential biofuel/ethanol sources that would have a better yield than corn.

Re:logic

[adonoman]

It is editable. I do love being able to spell-check my plants.

Re:logic

[RegTooLate]

As insightful as the parent is, the statement is obviously wrong. The US doesn't even use a liter to hold gas, only gallon jugs. Silly Europeans.

Re:logic

[mcrbids]

>> The nice thing about ethanol is that continued research is almost guaranteed to drive down
>>the price-per-energy cost by orders of magnitudes

>That's true of most technologies. e.g. If we were to embrace hydrogen, I can guarantee that the
>price of hydrogen fuels would drop like a rock over time.

This is a myth. More demand does not result in consistently lower prices. There is hardly any material on the face of this earth more desired than gold - and yet its price is not only not dropping, it's a de-facto international standard for measuring inflation of currency!

For all intents and purposes, no amount of "research" is going to cause the price of gold to drop, short of some magical form of alchemy. The price of ethanol may drop somewhat as the infrastructure needed to produce, store, and use it is developed, but it will very quickly reach a "commodity" status and its price, like the price of corn, or steel, or milk, will tend to stabilize in the long term.

BTW: Ethanol is crappy fuel. It's hard on your car, it's not as energy dense as gasoline, and producing it here in the 'states is ridiculous. Consider instead: Butanol!

1) It won't ruin your fuel economy. (MPG) It's energy density is almost identical to gasoline.

2) It mixes with gasoline.

3) It requires no modifications to your gas-powered car.

4) It produces as much as 42% more energy per acre than Ethanol.

5) It doesn't evaporate as fast as gasoline, mean it doesn't "go bad" as fast.

Go Butanol!

Re:logic

[ichthyoboy]

Ethanol cannot be used in pipelines because A) it grows mold Ethanol grows mold?!?! When, exactly, was the last time you had a bottle of vodka go fuzzy on you?

Re:logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets see if we can get the word out and maybe Detroit will wein itself of OIL executives on their boards of Directors. www.flytheroads.com

Re:logic

[mdsolar]

Thanks for linking this. The fuel does not come cheap owing to the efficiencies, but if you make use of the heat from this for another purpose, you get to $3.60/gallon, and I was looking for a flow through deal from a wind farm at $0.07/kWh to get to $2.50/gallon. But, if you do it for the fuel alone, and not for the heat as well, it would not be competitive. Also, the equipment is probably still to expensive. Restrictions on fossil carbon use may make this more attractive in the future.

Re:logic

[maijohn]

i believe the industry average is around 130% using various methods of wet milling of corn. the problem is that the 130% figure is just for the energy in your biomass to the energy in ethanol. the actual energy cost of growing or gathering of biomass (either growing corn or harvesting bio-trash) isn't factored into that figure.

Re:logic

[CalSolt]

If you had a machine that allowed you to run cars off grid power (and could implement it), you would save the world. This is because fossil fuel to usable energy conversion efficiency is much higher in a power plant than in an internal combustion engine. Gas fired power plants have hit 60% efficiency while the theoretical maximum efficiency for car engines is closer to 30%. Such a machine already exists and it has nothing to do with ethanol- hydrogen fuel cells.

Your consideration of energy balance is misguided. The more important consideration is carbon balance. Fossil Fuels are the worst possible source from a carbon perspective, because 100% of the carbon contained in them is irreversibly released into the atmosphere. Ethanol is carbon neutral because all the carbon released by burning the ethanol is absorbed by next year's crop. In this respect ethanol is painfully beneficial. If we could get efficiencies as low as 1% (by using last year's ethanol crop to grow the next year's), all our problems would be solved (except maybe space utilization).

Of course ethanol is terribly inefficient in itself. A lot of the energy is invariably lost as the converting bacteria take their cut to replicate or as you harvest and sow the crops. Solar/hydrogen has the potential for the highest efficiency while being carbon neutral, provided costs fall.

Re:logic

[BeaverCleaver]

What the hell is a bushel? What is the conversion to African Elephants, or Volkswagen Beetles?

Re:logic

[plague3106]

Ya, the real horror of ethanol is that we're putting worse polution into the air than we are now.

Re:logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethanol is carbon neutral, numb-nuts. The carbon that goes IN the air is reabsorbed by all the plants we GROW to produce the ethanol.

Re:logic

[plague3106]

Um, who was limiting "pollution" to how much CO2 is put out?

Re:logic

[Ex-MislTech]

Algae...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hioZ7C6HLs

new vertical growing technique produces 100,000 gal/acre/yr

MUCH faster than any other plant on earth.

corn = 20 - 30 gal/acre/yer

So corn is a joke.

Re:logic

[mOdQuArK!]

D'oh - that one completely slipped my mind.

Whoo hoo!

[biased_estimator]

Moonshine all around, its on me tonight!

Re:Whoo hoo!

[HartDev]

I'll take you up on that.

Only one problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The bacteria used in the process only grow in the middle east.

Re:Only one problem

[mqduck]

The bacteria used in the process only grow in the middle east. Yeah, what're all OUR fuel sources doing on/under THEIR soil?

Re:Only one problem

[kitsunewarlock]

Read your own quote. They are growing.

Self-Righteous bacteria should know that its true destiny is to grow in the United States. After all, wouldn't it be better to grow where it could be used? Everything wants to be used, correct?

The execution chamber is attached to the prison for a reason--its just not smart to have the prisoner driven down to Mexico to inject him with Cyanide. Especially once one considers how dirty those needles are. The prisoner might get infected!

Re:Only one problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Peed my pants...

Great, but

[Hellad]

it seems that this is the cost of production, not the cost to the consumer. If we are selling it a buck a gallon from the pump after the inclusion of taxes, then I am interested. Until then, please use my corn for good uses such as the syrup in my Mt. Dew like God intended.

Re:Great, but

[ximenes]

It says 'most any organic matter'. Maybe they'll use people instead of corn.

Re:Great, but

[Hellad]

hmm, but what will that do to the prices of soilent green?

Re:Great, but

[mixmatch]

That is a modest proposal if I may say so myself.

Re:Great, but

[Anonymous Coward]

It also doesn't include the cost (or the energy cost) of fertilizing, cultivating, harvesting, and transporting the organic matter than goes in.

Re:Great, but

[Bombula]

This is an excellent point. As someone whole lived in the middle east for nearly 20 years, I can assure you that the crap in the media about oil production costs is complete nonsense. Production costs per barrel - not per gallon - in Saudi are under 50 cents. All they have to do is turn the taps. And there is enough oil there fore decades. Everything we hear to contrary is nonsense spewed by oil companies and governments who are making out like bandits with oil at $100/barrel.

Re:Great, but

[mac_mcgrew]

You didn't know? That's Big Oil's biggest secret...gasoline IS people!!!

Re:Great, but

[T-Bone-T]

No one is debating how much oil there is(maybe a little), all I've heard for the last couple years is how the refineries can't refine the oil fast enough. The environmentalists must be rich because they keep trying to shut down any plans to build more refineries to keep up with demand.

Re:Great, but

[Anonymous Coward]

1 barrel is 42 gallons. $42 per barrel isn't so bad, considering that crude oil trades close to $100 per barrel, must mostly be transported from the middle east, needs to be refined and contains only about 50% gasoline, whereas ethanol is already "refined", 100% fuel and in the country.

Re:Great, but

[Bryan Ischo]

Sounds good to me. I'm all for artificially limiting the supply of gasoline to force people to improve their efficiency and seek out alternative fuels. I hope they don't build anymore oil refineries, ever.

Re:Great, but

[dgatwood]

Just to be pedantic, they could pinch a lot more than 50% gasoline out of a barrel if necessary, with the caveat that the more gasoline you extract, the more it costs to do so. These days, depolymerization/repolymerization are the norm, particularly since some Mid-East oil can be as much as half heavy residuum, and thus, your straight run gasoline would be nowhere near half of a barrel without cracking those heavy complex polymers into short chains and reassembling them....

But otherwise, yeah.

Re:Great, but

[T-Bone-T]

There's just one problem with that thinking. It assumes that all oil gets turned into gasoline. It is only one of many products that are all more expensive because of rising oil costs.

Re:Great, but

[OldManAndTheC]

It says 'most any organic matter'. Maybe they'll use people instead of corn.

(desperately trying not to make lame crack about "cannibalizing sales"...FAIL)

Re:Great, but

[Bryan Ischo]

That's not a problem for me. I'd accept an N% reduction in purchasing power, as long as everyone else is subject to the same N%. If everything that I could possibly buy went up 2x in cost as a result of what I suggest, then so be it. It would be the same for everyone, and as long as we're all in the same boat together, I don't mind making sacrifices. I wouldn't mind seeing a more progressive tax rate applied at the same time to help out the lower income brackets who would be most severely affected by this 2x rise in costs. However, I do believe that a significant percentage of people could have a standard of living at least as good, if they just changed their habits, even if they did have to pay 2x as much for everything.

Re:Great, but

[tsa]

That's not a bad idea. After you're dead, your final deed for humanity could be converting yourself into ethanol. Saves on rainforests too.

Re:Great, but

[VanGrue]

Well, the great thing would be that the more they streamline the process, production costs should lower. That doesn't mean they'd reduce the prices at the pump, but if the process is made easier and faster, they can produce more and then prices will fall.

And then Santa will bring presents for Everybody! Hooray!

Re:Great, but

[ArcherB]

Sounds good to me. I'm all for artificially limiting the supply of gasoline to force people to improve their efficiency and seek out alternative fuels. I hope they don't build anymore oil refineries, ever. That's because you are a selfish son of a bitch who loves the idea of forcing other people to bend to your will, regardless of the cost. You see, some of don't live on a farm or in our parent's basement. Some of us have to drive our cars that use fuel to work, so we can drive those same cars that use fuel to the grocery store where we buy food that was grown using equipment that used MORE fuel so we can feed our families. I guess you either make too much money or live with your parents. Either way, you have no idea what money means. Money is not something given for that X-box game. Money is not something that is inherited to most people. For most people money is not something that we have so much of that other people will pay us enough money to survive just so that they can HOLD our money. Nope. Money is my blood, sweat, tears and time away from home and family doing meaningless bullshit for someone who has enough money to pay me to do it because they don't want to do it themselves. Money is what keeps me away from my little girl so much that I only hear about the little milestones that she does every day. THAT is what money is. Money is the ability to pay my bills, keep the lights on, the house warm, a roof over my family's head and food for the table. It is what keeps us alive. Money is NOT a tool for people like you to use change my behavior you don't like the way I live MY life. It is not some political tool for pieces of shit like you to use to control the behavior of the working stiffs of this country.

Look, I'd all about saving the environment if I it had never changed before. If the earth had a history of a constant temperature that was suddenly changing, I'd worry. If I saw the people that shouted the loudest about the dangers of climate change riding a bike and living in mud huts, I'd be nervous. However, that is not the case. These people screaming the loudest are the same people with houses that are larger that the block I live on and travel private jets and limousines to a conference where they spread FUD about how the world is being destroyed unless we act NOW. If they don't believe it, why should I? Personally, I'm freezing my ass off. We've had record cold snaps these past few years and extremely mild summers. Sorry, but my thermometer is a better gauge of the temperature at my house than some ice core from Greenland!

I drive an efficient car because I don't want my money going to people that want to kill me and my family. We could take that a step further if shit-heads like you would stop protesting every domestic energy source we have. Nuclear, coal, wind, hydro, and yes, OIL, have all been protested by people like you. Each has their own reasons. Nuclear is dangerous (it's not), wind kills birds (it doesn't), coal is dirty (it doesn't have to be), hydro interrupts the spawning habits of salmon (I don't give a shit), and oil might interrupt the sex habits of caribou that live 2000 miles away from anyone (it hasn't any where else... and I don't give a shit. I've never visited a caribou and have no plans to. They could all die and would make 0% difference in my life!). I figure it's not about all these bullshit reasons you guys spout off. It's all about control. You and your do what you do to control people, for nothing more than the satisfaction, because you have to live by the same restrictions you put on the rest of us. Your lust for power makes that all worth it, I guess.

So hell yeah! Give me my cheap, locally produced gas so I can live my life the way the founding fathers wanted and so many died for, FREE!

Re:Great, but

[douji]

wow. what a troll. but just in case you're serious, reading your third paragraph, i wonder who's "a selfish son of a bitch who loves the idea of forcing other people to bend to your will, regardless of the cost."

Re:Great, but

[Frank Battaglia]

So, not a fan of plastics, I suppose? And that keyboard in front of you, what's it made of again?

Re:Great, but

[ArcherB]

So hell yeah! Give me my cheap, locally produced gas so I can live my life the way the founding fathers wanted and so many died for, FREE! wow. what a troll. but just in case you're serious, reading your third paragraph, i wonder who's "a selfish son of a bitch who loves the idea of forcing other people to bend to your will, regardless of the cost." If saying that I want to live my life the way I choose, and not let those decisions made by people who live thousands of miles away is trolling... Then yeah! I'm a troll. Looking at our founding fathers, who must also must be trolls, then I'd say I'm in pretty good company. I guess the repressed people of world who are not allowed to make decisions for themselves might take some comfort in knowing that they are not trolls, but I prefer to be free. (as in speech)

So you can give me liberty or kiss my trolling ASS!

Re:Great, but

[Bryan Ischo]

Just so you know, as soon as I read the first five words or so of your rant and saw the ad hominem attacks coming, I stopped reading. If you want to make a point, try to do it without resorting to insults. Obviously you cared enough about what you wrote to wrote a large diatribe, and if you want your time to be used effectively, you shouldn't hurl insults, because it just means you will have wasted your time in writing it.

Re:Great, but

[Anonymous Coward]

"So what kind of mileage do people get with ethanol?"

"It varies, from person to person."

Re:Great, but

[sumdumass]

They are talking $1 per gallon cheaper at the pump. I have an older car that would be less efficient on ethanol but I think I might still be saving some money with an entire dollar per gallon discount. Currently it is only around 40 cents or so difference between gas and e85 where I live. At those rates, I spend more on burning gas faster then I would sticking with just gas.

Re:Great, but

[ceroklis]

Ethanol is people ! .

Re:Great, but

[RealGrouchy]

Yes, that's the Free Market that Americans and right-wingers the world over show so much affection for: they will charge you as much as you're willing to pay.

- RG>

Re:Great, but

[BrunoBigfoot]

Wow.

Now tell me, where are the bacteria that produce valium?

Re:Great, but

[mcrbids]

Such a long rant, so lacking in substance. Whine whine whine whine.... But then there's something!

I figure it's not about all these bullshit reasons you guys spout off. It's all about control. You and your do what you do to control people, for nothing more than the satisfaction, because you have to live by the same restrictions you put on the rest of us. Your lust for power makes that all worth it, I guess.

I support rising fuel costs, with taxes if necessary. You know why? Because I want control. Not of you - you are an insignificant twat I could care squat about - but over myself. As long as the US is importing the majority of our fuel from the most politically unstable region in the world, our nation's stability and ability to defend itself is seriously compromised.

But, if we bit the bullet, put a $1/gallon gas tax, and used the money to develop alternative energy, higher-efficiency vehicles, and became self-reliant using solar, switch grass ethanol, algae bio-diesel, or whatever, then our stability as a political power is assured. Some extremist whackjobs can't fark us up economically and/or politically just by dickering with our energy supply.

And that's important to me. Right now, the US is in a seriously compromised position since we have to kneel at the behest of the middle east, and take it up the backside from the Chinese who are loaning us the money to fund the Iraq war.

I don't like them apples.

For the record, I've never protested solar, hydro-electric, wind, or nuclear development. So pull your head out of your arse, and take a longer view! This is about YOU when you are an old fart. And, when you are an old fart, you'll care just as much about your freezing ass as you do now.

Re:Great, but

[ranton]

He wasnt referring to your wanting to live the way you choose. He was referring to the attitude that you should be able to do what ever you want regardless of how it hurts others. Just because killing off 100,000 caribou doesnt hurt you, that does not mean that it doesnt hurt others. There are people in this world that live off of caribou meat. Caribou meat makes up 75% of the diet of the Gwich'in tribe for instance. How does your desire for cheaper oil trump their desire to eat? Because the people in power have more guns?

Doing whatever you want just for your own needs without thinking of others is pretty much the exact definition of selfish behavior. You want to force people to bend to your will just because you want some cheaper oil.

Liberty requires personal responsibility. Responsibility to both yourself and others. Liberty means freedom from compulsion, but without personal responsibility all you are left with is a chaotic void.

And cheap oil has absolutely nothing to do with what the founding fathers wanted for their descendents.

Re:Great, but

[Alioth]

If, by most organic material, they are talking about cellulosic ethanol, then no - they won't be using corn as the feed stock (well, they might use the stalks and other bits of chaff that's removed from the corn). Cellulosic ethanol can be made from any invasive weed - use poor agricultural land, and find anything that will grow invasively on it - switchgrass, hemp, bamboo etc., and you have a good feedstock.

Re:Great, but

[Anonymous Coward]

how did this short-sighted moron get modded "interesting"?

Re:Great, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh... What you are conveniently ignoring is that if people were forced to cut back on fuel consumption, then this would not stop them from going places, but rather make them buy more fuel efficient cars, and also support funding for efficient and effective shared public transportation. Small local stores would also suddenly become profitable again, and reverse the WallMart syndrome that has driven so many mom-and-pop stores out of business. This all seems like a good thing to me. So I, like the original poster am all for higher fuel prices. The short-term pain will be worth the longer-term adjustments that will allow us to do just as well as before, but with less fuel.

Re:Great, but

[Josef Meixner]

You see, some of don't live on a farm or in our parent's basement. Some of us have to drive our cars that use fuel to work, so we can drive those same cars that use fuel to the grocery store where we buy food that was grown using equipment that used MORE fuel so we can feed our families.

You see, humanity for thousands of years managed to live without cars. People lived in cites for a long time now and just because someone 50 years ago thought it would be a great idea to sprawl the cities out over ever larger areas and make every distance so long, that you can not manage it without a car doesn't mean that it has to stay that way. If it becomes too expensive to sustain that way of life for you, then sorry, you will have to change it. Just because you think it is your god given right to live out in the woods does not mean all the rest of humanity has to pay the price for your choice.

And before you complain, I have the same problem. I live out too far, but by my choice and so I don't see why I would have a right to complain. Additionally I guess you are from the US, here gas costs $7.59 per gallon today (1.369 Euro per liter, a gallon is about 3.78 liters and one Euro is 1.4663$).

Re:Great, but

[ranton]

How ridiculous is it that some people must be allowed to "live off the land" rather than getting into a 21st century economy and buying their food like everybody else?

How is that rediculous? Many people believe that many of our problems stem from the fact that we are over-consuming our planet's resources. Most likely in a few centuries our descendants will look back at how ridiculous we have been in the 20th and 21st centuries.

People have had to change how they live for centuries, and now its their turn.

No, people have CHOSEN to change how they have lived for centures. Saying that everyone else needs to live the way that we do is incredibly rediculous. It is no better than how the terrorist extremists want us to all live under Shariah Islamic Law.

Re:Great, but

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Just so you know, as soon as I read the first five words or so of your rant and saw the ad hominem attacks coming, I stopped reading

Meh. Your loss, I quite enjoyed the points he made and the manner in which he delivered them. Some words are dirtier in your world than others, I guess, but life is a contact sport.

Re:Great, but

[Eternauta3k]

Brass.
:P

Re:Great, but

[FreeGamer]

Wow, so, according to you, it's impossible to live without cars and the fuel that powers them. Trains, buses, working remotely, all this must be alien to you.

They could all die and would make 0% difference in my life!

Well, that's why we're fucked; yours is the general attitude. At least you admit to it.

Give me my cheap, locally produced gas

I'm assuming you are American. Unfortunately for you, the cheap gas is no longer local to you and hasn't been for a while.

Re:Great, but

[dookiesan]

Here is my take on it without the personal attacks:

The health of the environment must be sacrificed for some people to scrape by day to day. They work damn hard at miserable jobs just to give their children bread on the table. Life isn't easy and he resents people who want to teach lessons and force him to piss his daughter's college fund into the gas tank.

He is saying that if you don't care about the cost of oil then you are either wealthy, insensitive or just naive--mistakenly thinking that this robotic reduction of difficult problems is intelligent thought. It's easy to say that you don't want oil refineries built when you ride a schoolbus for free.

Not my words mind you...

Re:Great, but

[kqc7011]

Right now before being made into gasoline the price of light sweet crude is going for right around $2.14 a gallon. This process cooks almost anything into organic fuel, not just expensive corn. Switch grass, trees, garbage, sewage solids and any number of organic waste products. If this can come out of the pump for equal to or less than the price of gas it is a win/win product.

Re:Great, but

[Anonymous Coward]

You say you love your daughter, but every time you start your car you are saying "Fuck it, I'm too stupid and lazy to change anything that might ensure my daughter has a future.". Your attitude is that of defeat, your inaction is just exacerbating the inevitable. When your daughter grows up, she will ask you "Daddy, what did you do to stop it?" and you will punch yourself in the face.

Not everyone has the luxury of changing 100%, but that's no reason to make change and sacrifice when you can. It may not seem like much, times 500 million, yeah. Don't just sit back and expect the government or the markets to sort this shit out, they are the reason we're in this situation; always aiming for next quarter, next budget.

Pull you head out of your ass.

Re:Great, but

[ArcherB]

Not a half bad translation, except for this part:

The health of the environment must be sacrificed for some people to scrape by day to day. They work damn hard at miserable jobs just to give their children bread on the table. Life isn't easy and he resents people who want to teach lessons and force him to piss his daughter's college fund into the gas tank. The environment is in no danger. Those that keep telling me about it are not doing anything about themselves, except telling ME how to act. That tells me that the likes of AlGore don't believe it. They just want to control the way I live. If Al Gore stops flying in private planes, starts using the sail as his primary means of transportation and moves out of his huge-ass house and into a 100% organic, carbon neutral home, them I'll pay attention.

And even if the environment were in danger... what is more important; freedom, or the environment? If you say the environment, why? Why is the environment more important than terrorism, for example? No one here wants to give up their freedom to fight terrorism, why is the environment more of a problem? I've seen people die from terrorism. Global warming hasn't killed anyone. Do I need to break out a Ben Franklin quote here and substitute "cool air" for "security"?

Re:Great, but

[El Torico]

How can everyone maintain the standard of living if everyone has an N% reduction in purchasing power?

Re:Great, but

[An Onerous Coward]

When the environmentalists want to change the way ArcherB lives, they're freedom-hating UnAmericans.

When ArcherB wants to change the way another group of people have lived for thousands of years (because they interfere with his God-given right to shave a buck off the cost of a tank of gas) then he's simply recognizing the obvious inferiority of their lifestyle, as any clear-thinking person should.

ArcherB is right, though. People have been forced by changing circumstances to adapt their lifestyles over and over. Whether he wants to accept it, or to whine like a selfish child over how unfair it is, we live in a world too small and with too many people and too few resources. That holds true even if we remain stupid enough to continue eliminating other species at 100 to 1000 times the natural rate. Our current rate of resource consumption cannot be sustained for another generation, much less over the long haul. Even if selfish little wads like ArcherB are willing to sacrifice the living standards of the next thousand generations to make themselves more comfortable today, it will come back to bite them. Not their grandchildren. Them.

Re:Great, but

[aurispector]

Please pardon the language, but who the f*ck are you to make these decisions for me? One thing I actually like about the republican mindset is that they don't give a damn about anyone else so long as they can make money. None of the do-gooder, hand wringing, worrying about the consequences; just bank the fucking checks. One thing they intuitively understand is that business means profits, jobs and an increase in the standard of living for everyone getting paid. This is a basic truth and as a small business owner it's damned hard to swallow when someone tells me I have to increase my costs by X% because it's for my own good. Screw that - *I* know what's for my own good.

In the case of fuel prices, the market is ALREADY increasing prices - we don't need any artificially induced "incentive" to look for alternative means - now that these technologies are becoming economically viable the problem takes care of itself thanks to ingenuity and entrepreneurship. No government intervention necessary, thank you very much.

Re:Great, but

[scottv67]

because it just means you will have wasted your time in writing it.

I disagree. ArcherB did not waste his time writing his post. I read his entire post (and found it quite interesting). It's clear that ArcherB is passionate about the things he wrote about. That's a good thing. Sometimes strong language has its place in a discussion when the writer is trying to convey how strongly he/she feels about a topic. If I had mod points today, I would have modded ArcherB's post with a "+1 Interesting". I don't think that your post was wrong and I don't think that ArcherB's post was wrong. Both are presenting opposing viewpoints. I don't think either of you (Bryan or ArcherB) "wasted your time in writing it."

Re:Great, but

[aurispector]

ok, here goes...

"The oil companies will never go for it because they dont want to cannibalize sales"

how was that?

Re:Great, but

[TooMuchToDo]

Controls should be in place because humans are based off of greed. Tragedy Of The Commons and all that jazz. Don't like it? Well, you could always try to sway the majority to your position. Good luck though. I'm fairly certain California and 13 other states are about to hose the EPA for their part in stonewalling better environmental standards for US carmakers.

Re:Great, but

[Technician]

it seems that this is the cost of production, not the cost to the consumer. If we are selling it a buck a gallon from the pump after the inclusion of taxes, then I am interested. Until then, please use my corn for good uses such as the syrup in my Mt. Dew like God intended.

From the article it looks like the cost of conversion, not the cost of materials. They mentioned 2 bales of hay conversion to 5 gallons of fuel. Priced midwest hay lately?

Using an online calculator for Idaho alfalfa hay, I get "Average price for Idaho alfalfa hay is $5.5 per Small Square Bale." That's over $10 for the hay to make 5 gallons. It doesn't come to $1.00/gal in my math.

http://www.hayexchange.com/hayexcha/cgi-bin/sell/av_price.cgi

Re:Great, but

[DerekLyons]

This is an excellent point. As someone whole lived in the middle east for nearly 20 years, I can assure you that the crap in the media about oil production costs is complete nonsense. Production costs per barrel - not per gallon - in Saudi are under 50 cents.

How precisely does living in the Middle East make you an expert on oil?

Re:Great, but

[scottv67]

You say you love your daughter, but every time you start your car you are saying "Fuck it, I'm too stupid and lazy to change anything that might ensure my daughter has a future.". Your attitude is that of defeat, your inaction is just exacerbating the inevitable. When your daughter grows up, she will ask you "Daddy, what did you do to stop it?" and you will punch yourself in the face.

ArcherB has shared with us that he drives a four-cylinder automobile instead of six-cylinder or eight-cylinder model.

>>Bingo! That is why I choose drive a four banger. But again, that is my choice. No one forced to buy that car.

He chose that model instead of one that would consume more fuel to cover the same distance. Your post makes it sound like ArcherB has taken *no* steps to minimize his family's energy consumption. I see no proof of those claims in any of his messages. Yet your "punch yourself in the face" comment makes it seem like you know that he is leaving his thermostat set to 70 degrees at night, idling his car engine for long periods of time, leaving lights on, etc. I would ask that you at least give ArcherB a chance to list the areas where he has made a decision to consume less energy before you criticize him for not acting.

What I see in ArcherB's posts is a feeling of frustration that alternative energy sources are not being pursued. He mentioned nuclear, wind and hydro. He also expressed frustration that the people crying "Wolf!" the loudest are the people living in the huge houses as well as driving the Hummers and SUVs. The message I took away from his posts was that if people really think the energy situation is so critical, those same people should be leading by example. Let's see the people who are always talking about "the environment" move into a smaller home, put solar panels on their roof and switch to a more energy efficient mode of transportation.

Re:Great, but

[Anonymous Coward]

God meant us to use cane sugar but our damn subsidies lead to corn syrup and fructose in soda.

BTW even with taxes this will be cheaper.

Re:Great, but

[ArcherB]

Controls should be in place because humans are based off of greed. Our economy is also based on greed and necessity.

Either way, I'm not totally against controls, just make them fair. Standards for automobiles are fine because they don't necessarily hit everyone in the pocket book and they are evenly applied. High gas prices for the purpose of controlling the citizens' behavior is NOT. First, it only controls those who can't afford to work around it, and second, it punishes those who can least afford it, most.

Re:Great, but

[rhakka]

So, how do you propose to make better decisions in the current climate, without such sweeping changes? You think much is going to get developed unless something changes? It's starting to, but only because prices are rising.

I have a modest proposal. Make every cent Iraq is costing us get reflected in a gas tax. Get rid of this artificial subsidy that pretends that we are trying to justify a lengthy stay in the most important geopolitical sphere on the planet because of "democracy" or the "war on terror", accept that we are safeguarding our future oil supply, and pay for it honestly; with the gas.

I understand that people have to make hard choices sometimes. If gas doubled in price tomorrow though, you aren't suddenly unable to work. You can carpool. You can look up a bus schedule (or start a bus company if gas is that pricey). You aren't suddenly forced to quit your job and live in an alley, you are just forced to make decisions you DON'T LIKE.

well, too bad! I don't like paying for our bloated military to run around the world, killing civilians all the way, just to make sure that none of us have to make unpleasant choices. and that is what MOST of this boils down to: inconvenience and unpleasantness, not life-threating bullshit. Home heating is an exception, which takes time to fix (it doesn't change on a dime like your commuting habits could), but hey, if you buy a big, inefficient house, then you reap what you sow, eh? If you're so into independance, and personal decisionmaking, then go ahead and take responsibility for that one.

and, for what it's worth, i'm in the same boat. I could choose to structure my life around a carpool, and yet I do not, because it's inconvenient and I like being able to work late if needed (and, being the boss, it was more needed for a long time. Starting to change now though as the biz matures, finally...) But that's convenience and competitive advantage, not necessity. If I were presented with gas prices tomorrow that I just plain couldn't afford, what do you think would happen? I'd have to make a choice, an unpleasant one that so far I've rationalized not making. I'm not being holier than thou about this; just, IMHO, more realistic. You and your kids and your grandkids are and will be paying for the gas already with your taxes; shouldn't that be reflected in the gas price, so we can make better decisions regarding it's usage, rather than acting like the two are unconnected?

Re:Great, but

[AaxelB]

In high school I actually wrote a paper (it was supposed to be in the style/an emulation of A Modest Proposal) positing that by rounding up and processing all "stupid" people (I think I set an IQ cutoff, though as that's culturally biased it might be more fair just to choose people that piss me off) we could slow or solve the whole oil/energy problem, drastically improve the collective intellect of the human race, and put a huge dent in overpopulation!

As I recall, I read the paper aloud to the class and got a round of applause. We never suspected how soon we could make that satire a reality!

Re:Great, but

[arbitraryaardvark]

slashdot summary: hype.
more hype: "It's not five years away, it's not 10 years away. It's affordable, and it's now," said Wes Bolsen, the company's vice president of business development.
Reality:
Process involves using conventional technology to produce vaporware.

Coskata won't have a pilot plant running until this time next year, and it will produce just 40,000 gallons a year. Still, several experts said Coskata shows enough promise to leave them cautiously optimistic.

The company plans to have its first commercial-scale plant producing up to 100 million gallons of ethanol a year by 2011. Friedman and Greene said the timeline is realistic.

I produce up to 100 million gallons of ethanol a week in my garage. Stop by Saturday night.

Re:Great, but

[Socguy]

If Al Gore stops flying in private planes, starts using the sail as his primary means of transportation and moves out of his huge-ass house and into a 100% organic, carbon neutral home, them I'll pay attention. No you wouldn't. You'd call him a pot smoking, sandal wearing, socialist, Democrat hippie in a lame attempt to dismiss him. The fact of the matter is that there are people who live like this out there. So by you're own words, why aren't you listening to them? Oh right, you will only listen if it is Al Gore SPECIFICALLY who does this

I've seen people die from terrorism. Global warming hasn't killed anyone. Tsunamis, freak heat waves, increasingly extreme weather around the globe. When the Pentagon has previously labeled the biggest threat to global stability as climate change, I pay attention and I'm not even an American. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver

And even if the environment were in danger... what is more important; freedom, or the environment? Firstly, define what you mean by freedom.
Secondly, no one appreciates your attempting to set up straw man arguments. As we've already covered, if you 'freedom' is code for national security, I refer back to the Pentagon's own report. If 'freedom' is code for I get to do whatever I want regardless of it's impact on others, then yes, the environment is more important than your unmitigated ability to harm others. Reasonable people should be able to see the necessity for regulations to limit somebody's 'freedom' and stop them from doing things like dumping toxic waste into your drinking water, burning your house down and/or murdering your children.

Re:Great, but

[TooMuchToDo]

Either way, I'm not totally against controls, just make them fair. Standards for automobiles are fine because they don't necessarily hit everyone in the pocket book and they are evenly applied. High gas prices for the purpose of controlling the citizens' behavior is NOT. First, it only controls those who can't afford to work around it, and second, it punishes those who can least afford it, most.

The problem is, someway, somehow, you have to get across to people within the US economy (which I'm also a part of) that energy is not cheap. Gas prices are heavily subsidized by the US government. Externalities such as wars to secure oil reserves and the damage CO2 emissions cause are not factored into the price. The Earth Policy Institute estimates the true price of gas to be around $12-$15/gallon.

I agree with you that taxes directly on the price of gas aren't fair towards the poor, as they're the ones who can barely afford to survive as it is. Therefore, other measures should be taken. Automakers (foreign, domestic, whatever) need to be held to higher fuel mileage standards sooner. Tax benefits should be reduced for unneeded large vehicles (construction companies need an F450, real estate professionals do not need an H2). And so on.

Re:Great, but

[snilloc]

Your older car probably can't run anything higher than E-10, which might in fact be what's coming out of the gasoline pump anyway depending on where you are. However, as more E-85 "FlexFuel" vehicles come on line, marginal demand for gasoline will fall (or at least not go up as much), so older vehicles incapable of running E-85 will still see economic benefits related to reduced gasoline consumption.

Re:Great, but

[An Onerous Coward]

What is this "freedom" of which you speak? The absolute freedom to do anything you want, regardless of the consequences to others, has never existed. Why are you claiming a right for yourself that no philosopher has been able to make a case for?

Things people do affect other people, in ways both intended and unintended. That's the basis of all those pesky environmental laws that are hindering your "right" to cheap oil. You think that, because you don't value a species, the rest of us have no right to protect them from your behavior? You're either being trollish or simply sloppy in your thinking.

Re: Global warming hasn't killed. Are you sure? Can you be sure that global warming didn't increase the severity of Hurricane Katrina, or the droughts in Darfur, or the heat waves that killed people in Europe a couple of years ago? No, no more than I can claim that they did. It's going to be damned hard to attribute any single event to global warming, in much the same way that it's impossible to attribute a given instance of lung cancer to smoking. Nevertheless, the science is screaming out that our CO2 emissions are going to lead to increases in such troublesome weather phenomena. You ignore it at everyone's peril.

Re: Al Gore, his mansions, and his private jets. I agree that he needs to scale way back for the sake of the environment. There aren't enough offsets in the world to give everyone that sort of lifestyle. But the hypocrisy charge is pathetic. He buys green power. He buys offsets. He retrofits his house to make it more energy efficient. This is exactly the path he's encouraging the rest of us to take. Whether or not you believe that carbon offsets work, it's absolutely clear that he does. He doesn't believe that "the rest of us" will need to live in mud huts

Moreover, it's a straightforward logical fallacy to say that the merits of a proposed lifestyle depend on whether or not the person proposing it is following it himself. If your mother, who hasn't exercised a day in her life, tells you to start hitting the gym, does that make it bad advice?

Get over your manufactured outrage, please.

Re:Great, but

[that this is not und]

As long as the US is importing the majority of our fuel from the most politically unstable region in the world,

You consider Canada and Mexico (where the US imports most of it's oil from) to be the most politically unstable region in the world? Now, I know there's a pretty unstable country nestled in between the two, but I don't know that it's the most unstable region in the world...

Re:Great, but

[An Onerous Coward]

Why is it that the only time people like you ever bring up the plight of the poor is when doing so might undermine government action to solve a pressing problem?

When it comes to gas taxes, there are ways of ensuring that they don't hurt the poor so hard. For example, you could exempt them from the tax directly. Or you could offer a tax rebate. Or simply use some of the revenues to expand the EITC. The last is the simplest to administer, and will still change the behavior of the drivers who receive the rebate. After all, if I wrote you a check for $1 for every gallon of gas you used last year, would you run out and buy more gas with it?

It's also absurd to claim that regulations are unfair "if they only control those who can't afford to work around it." You name a regulation, and there are probably a lot of people finding a way around it. The questions you should be asking are, "How enforceable are they?" and "Do they disproportionately target a specific group or is the burden shared broadly?"

I could not, in good conscience, propose a fuel tax without also proposing a measure to protect those who are struggling mightily to pay for fuel today. You should not, in good conscience, wail about the plight of the poor as cover for your anti-poor, anti-everyone-but-me agenda.

Yes, you do have one. Whether it's Al Gore, endangered species, or Alaskan eskimos, you've made it clear that everyone must step aside and allow you access to cheap fuel for as long as it can be sucked out of the ground, all consequences be damned.

Re:Great, but

[tjstork]

Doing whatever you want just for your own needs without thinking of others is pretty much the exact definition of selfish behavior. You want to force people to bend to your will just because you want some cheaper oil. Liberty requires personal responsibility. Responsibility to both yourself and others. Liberty means freedom from compulsion, but without personal responsibility all you are left with is a chaotic void.

Well now, that's a simplistic way of viewing life. Unfortunately, its wrong too, as it automatically treats everyone else as incapable. This is, of course, what liberals would have people believe, as, they want to disempower everyone so they can more easily become slaves!

The reality is much simpler : at some point, you have to assume that other people are competent, able to fend for themselves and so that any conflicts that may arise can be peaceable settled by two parties. Arguing that you need to have a big strong man make all the rules, and that we should feel obligated to listen to such strongmen is orwellian at best.

Re:Great, but

[ArcherB]

The problem is, someway, somehow, you have to get across to people within the US economy (which I'm also a part of) that energy is not cheap. Gas prices are heavily subsidized by the US government. Externalities such as wars to secure oil reserves and the damage CO2 emissions cause are not factored into the price. The Earth Policy Institute estimates the true price of gas to be around $12-$15/gallon.

I agree with you that taxes directly on the price of gas aren't fair towards the poor, as they're the ones who can barely afford to survive as it is. Therefore, other measures should be taken. Automakers (foreign, domestic, whatever) need to be held to higher fuel mileage standards sooner. Tax benefits should be reduced for unneeded large vehicles (construction companies need an F450, real estate professionals do not need an H2). And so on. I agree with most of that. What I would like to see is for the US to be completely open for oil exploration and drilling. ANWR, for example is the size of South Carolina. The part we want to drill in is the size of a Costco. If it really is a problem, I think the caribou will find a way around it. We are already drilling about 5-15 miles away in Prudoe Bay with no real environmental impact to caribou or anything else. The money that is made from the oil extracted anywhere in the US is heavily taxed to the point where it costs $60-80/barrel to extract instead of the true $30/barrel cost. At the current market rate of $100/barrel, this still allows for plenty of profit as an incentive to explore and extract. This will reduce, although not solve our dependence on foreign sources of oil.

I know that this plan is not acceptable to those who think oil is evil. I don't agree with that, but I understand that our oil reserves are not infinite. So while we disagree with our reasoning, our goals are the same. That's where part II comes in.

The tax money that is earned from domestic oil is poured into R&D for alternative energy sources and conservation methods. As these alternative methods are found, their deployment can be tax subsidized until the price of the new technologies come down.

This way, the need for foreign oil is immediately reduced, conservation and efficiency is increased and alternative energy sources are found, eliminating our need for petroleum as a fuel completely. Everyone wins.

Would this be acceptable to environmentalists?

Re:Great, but

[emilper]

However, I do believe that a significant percentage of people could have a standard of living at least as good, if they just changed their habits, even if they did have to pay 2x as much for everything.

I hope you considered food when you wrote that.

if they just changed their habits

Such as the habit of eating, and sleeping in a warm room, and not walking 6 miles to work ?

Besides, having "everything" cost "2x as much" won't help: it would be the same, except you'll have to carry bigger wallets.

people could have a standard of living at least as good

I heard Ceaushescu said the same ... funny enough, nobody believed him even when they saw the concrete and cold evidence.

Re:Great, but

[ArcherB]

Doing whatever you want just for your own needs without thinking of others is pretty much the exact definition of selfish behavior. No, that's the exact definition of freedom. Allowing the government to listen to 100% of our phone calls may stop a terrorist attack, therefor help the common good. Does that mean it's a good thing? How about "Papers Please" checkpoints to ensure that people are not taking unnecessary road trips?

Re:Great, but

[Bryan Ischo]

I meant that he "wasted his time in writing it" if his goal was to communicate to me, the person he was directly responding to. However, you are right - his goal wasn't just to get me to read his post, it was to get lots of people to read his post. But I do think that the number of people who will bother to read his post is reduced by the tone which he takes, which wastes at least some of the potential of his post.

Of course, maybe the choice of language he used will be even more convincing to some other set of people who do read such things? Maybe it's a wash. Who knows. I personally would like to see a more civil discussion regardless.

Re:Great, but

[Bryan Ischo]

I guess it's different if you are the one being insulted. Although I suppose that I should realize that there is no real meaning in insults hurled at you by someone you don't know. Still, when someone has to reduce themselves to personal insults, I tend to believe that they haven't distanced themselves intellectually from the discussion enough to produce logical and coherent arguments. They have too much emotion in it and will invariably appeal to emotion rather than making logical points. From what you say, it seems that ArcherB did some of both. But as for me, it's not worth my time to read posts of low quality; if I could detect which posts were low quality I could save myself alot of time in reading garbage, and so for those few posts where I can detect it straight away (as in this case), I gladly skip them.

Re:Great, but

[ArcherB]

Yes, you do have one. Whether it's Al Gore, endangered species, or Alaskan eskimos, you've made it clear that everyone must step aside and allow you access to cheap fuel for as long as it can be sucked out of the ground, all consequences be damned. The porcupine caribou is not an endangered species. They do quite well even with the drilling in Prudoe Bay about 5-15 miles from ANWR.

The point of the GP was that energy should be expensive to encourage conservation. And since the topic renewable energy, I assume that he means "green" and renewable as well. Personally, I think domestic oil should be allowed, but taxed to near the market rate to fund renewable energy research. I should have the same access to energy that Bill Gates has.

Re:Great, but

[Bryan Ischo]

You really need to read this document:

"42 informal logical fallacies explained"

It's at:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

So far in two posts almost every point you made has been a logical fallacy (well I didn't read all of your first post, just enough to see your first logical fallacy).

These have been:

* Ad Hominem: First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting)

    -- You committed this logical fallacy when you attacked me personally

* Ad Hominem Tu Quoque: This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that a person's claim is false because 1) it is inconsistent with something else a person has said or 2) what a person says is inconsistent with her actions.

    -- You committed this logical fallacy when you questioned the validity of Al Gore's position on global warming because of the personal behaviors (that you misrepresent, to boot) of Al Gore

* False Dilemma: A False Dilemma is a fallacy in which a person uses the following pattern of "reasoning":

      1. Either claim X is true or claim Y is true (when X and Y could both be false).
      2. Claim Y is false.
      3. Therefore claim X is true.

  -- You committed this logical fallacy when you gave a false choice between "freedom" and the "environment", as if they are mutually exclusive

There may be more, but I didn't read your first post so I can't say for sure.

My point: if you want to take the time to write down your arguments on such issues, it would behoove you to study logical fallacies so that you could train yourself to notice when you are committing one. Those of us who can spot them, easily do so when presented with posts like yours, and it's really not worth anyone's time to discuss falsehoods that are so easily detected.

Re:Great, but

[HiThere]

You are aware that Johnathan Swift, the author of "A Modest Proposal", was, himself, Irish?

So to be in the proper style, you should have included yourself in the group of people to be culled. (Though, admittedly, when Swift wrote the proposal he was no longer an infant...)

Re:Great, but

[Bryan Ischo]

Because there are equivalent standards of living at different levels of purchasing power, at least I think so.

This gets rather philosophical, because it begs the question of exactly what is a "standard of living" - one could say that it is the maximization of quality of life that one can get given a certain purchasing power, which will of course make by definition any change in purchasing power equivalent to a change in standard of living.

However, I believe that there are some other aspects of standard of living which do not depend on purchasing power.

For example, regardless of your purchasing power, if the environment around you is polluted, you will have a lower standard of living (on average - it's true that people with sufficiently high purchasing power could pay to live further from the pollution, or even pay to have it cleaned up - but not everyone will be able to do this; it's a zero-sum game, where those who can afford a better environment get one at the expense of those who can't). If there is high crime, you will have a lower standard of living regardless of your purchasing power (once again, on average - you could hire bodyguards and build huge fences around your property and buy expensive alarm systems to reduce the effect that crime has on you personally - but other people who can't do these things will still suffer).

I believe that humans do not make perfect choices; and that the standard of life that people will have is determined not just by the money that they have (which is in essense their own personal power to shape their environment locally), but also by the environment in which they live, that shapes their outlook and value structure. You can change a person's standard of living by giving them more money - i.e. more ability to change their local environment. Or you can change a person's standard of living by making the environment around them more conducive to them making the "correct" choices.

Now this does get philosophical because it assumes that there are "correct" choices to be made - that, for example, it is "better" from a standard of living perspective to have a good relationship with your neighbors than a bad one. Of course there are probably people who personally enjoy having an antagonistic relationship with their neighbors, so to them it would be a reduction in standard of living for their to be greater harmony in the neighborhood. But I believe that a) those people are in the vast minority, and b) those people could actually change if their belief structure, as dictated by the environment around them, were to change.

So it's partially that we want to make our own standard of living better, and partially that we want changes in our environment to work to change people's way of thinking, so that they become better at making choices that improve their standard of living.

With automobiles, I think that they have a certain negative impact socially when used to the excesses that they have been. So I think that, for example, a group of people might have a *better* standard of living if gas were too expensive and they were forced to change their behavior, than they might have in the more "convenient" world where they can make choices based on an artificially low price of gasoline, the result of those choices being a greater "ease" of some parts of life, but at the expense of more far-reaching and important aspects of life (personal health, health of the environment, relationships with others, pace of life, etc, etc). If we change the variables that such people use to make decisions about how to live their life, we might actually find that it's better for everyone in general, even though on the face of it it just looks like it's taking away everyone's ability to maximize their personal standard of living. In reality it might just collectively improve everyone's standard of living, when you take society as a whole.

It's philosophical I know, and very subject to lots of valid debate. But that's how I see it.

Re:Great, but

[Bryan Ischo]

I'm not making a choice for you. I'm expressing an opinion. If enough people share that opinion, then collectively we could make a choice that would affect everyone. That's called democracy. I am sure you have heard of it. Although, I get the feeling that you don't really support it, since it's clear that you want instead to silence alternative viewpoints on questions like this. Your tone of voice doesn't really express interest in exploring the topic, it expresses an interest in beating down anyone with a different viewpoint.

Re:Great, but

[Bryan Ischo]

My '2x cost of everything' statement was meant as a generalization. The real discussion is about the price of gasoline and its effects on the cost of all other goods. Obviously there would be a great number of factors affecting the cost of every single consumer good if the price of gasoline were to go up. Consider that economies outside of the USA *do* have gasoline that costs 2x as much or more (for example, where I live, in New Zealand), and trust me, people in these countries are not starving, unable to house themselves, or walking 6 miles to work.

What you are talking about is an example of a "false dilemma". You're saying that our only choices are either cheap gasoline, or unaffordable food, housing, and transportation. There is no reason to believe that there aren't a huge number of possibilities in between as well.

Re:Great, but

[Tuidjy]

Even assuming that he is a short-sighted moron, he can still be interesting. I mod people "interesting" if what they posted made me stop and think, OR if the emotions in their post made me realize how serious they are about the matter, OR, sometimes, just because the post made me go "Wow! People like this actually exist?!"

Interesting is not the same as insightful.

Re:Great, but

[emilper]

yep, in my country too, the cost of gasoline is twice what they pay in US, even if all the oil we use is taken from ... our, for the lack of a better word... underground. The rest is taxes. I know what you talk about. Anyway, the price of gasoline is four times than it was 15 years ago, mostly due to new taxes, so you had your with fulfilled. Happy ? I am not, considering that besides gasoline I have to pay for heating and electricity too, and here its no New Zeeland, it gets to minus 20 degrees Celsius in the winter, and in the valleys it gets to -30 quite often. And please, don't tell me to put another coat on instead of turning the heat up ....

Re:Great, but

[emilper]

You're saying that our only choices are either cheap gasoline, or unaffordable food, housing, and transportation. There is no reason to believe that there aren't a huge number of possibilities in between as well.

You are right, there are lots of possibilities in between, such as malnutrition, diseases caused by exposure (to cold, not to the blazing sun), lack of economic competitiveness etc. When I have to work twice as hard to get the same stuff I got before just because some punks believed we have an unfair advantage because we don't need to buy oil from the OPEC and produce most of the electricity with hidro- (which is not green at all, fyi) and nuclear power and threaten with sanctions unless we jack up the prices, and then the same punks attempt force us to cut the carbon dioxide emissions quota by 20%, emissions which are already at about half of what is due according to the Kyoto treaty, just because they got the Green bug and/or want some more cheap guestarbeiters, yes, I am angry and I start hating the whole Green /Global Warming alarmism that's pushed on my throat (and yours too) by organizations that spend more on propaganda than my country spends on education or on the army - I mean the crooks from GreenPeace.

Last time I checked New Zeeland wasn't faring very well: people live for Australia and GDP isn't stellar. Maybe the price of gasoline has something to do with that.

Re:Great, but

[sumdumass]

Well, it can run E85, just not efficiently. I have to advance the timming and disconect the oxygen sensor on the exhaust to get something close to a smooth idle with it. E10 gives it a noticable decrease in power without any modifications. I have to actually look for stations that are still selling straight gasoline.

But at $1 per gallon savings over the current prices, I might be willing to live with the inefficientcy and loss in power. As long as it ends up as less money from my pocket in the end.

Re:Great, but

[ArcherB]

No you wouldn't. You'd call him a pot smoking, sandal wearing, socialist, Democrat hippie in a lame attempt to dismiss him. The fact of the matter is that there are people who live like this out there. So by you're own words, why aren't you listening to them? Oh right, you will only listen if it is Al Gore SPECIFICALLY who does this No, I'd pay attention when I see someone with a ton of money live like a pauper to maintain a truly carbon neutral or carbon negative footprint. Right now, he's just a hypocrite and a liar.

Tsunamis, freak heat waves, increasingly extreme weather around the globe... Stop right there. Tsunamis are NOT a result of GW, although this is not the first time I've heard that. Tsunamis are caused by EARTHQUAKES!!! NOW do you see why I don't believe? As for the rest, we've always had heat waves and extreme weather. For that matter, extreme weather is on the decline, but I've heard THAT blamed on GW as well.

When the Pentagon has previously labeled the biggest threat to global stability as climate change, I pay attention and I'm not even an American. So you listen to the Pentagon? Do you listen when they say that active sonar has no effect on marine life? Do you listen when they say that waterboarding is NOT torture? Do you listen when they say that we should be tapping phone lines? Then why would you listen when they talk about GW? Besides, the report said IF GW is a problem, the ramifications could be a threat to global stability. The same could be said for global cooling, plague, famine or whatever.

Secondly, no one appreciates your attempting to set up straw man arguments. As we've already covered, if you 'freedom' is code for national security, I refer back to the Pentagon's own report. If 'freedom' is code for I get to do whatever I want regardless of it's impact on others, then yes, the environment is more important than your unmitigated ability to harm others. First, driving my car, provided I'm safe and sober, does NOT have a negative impact on others. Next, like I've said, the environment is NOT in danger. It's been warmer in the past, it's been cooler in the past. The climate is always changing. If it is not going up, then it's going down. If it were going down, you'd be claiming that global cooling is a result of car exhaust blocking the sun's rays.

Next, after accusing me of straw man, you try to equate driving to toxic waste, burning down my house and killing my kids. THAT is a strawman argument (Pot, meet kettle). Freedom is the topic here. How can it be a strawman if that is the point of this discussion?

Re:Great, but

[ArcherB]

Ad Hominem: I'll give you that one.

* Ad Hominem Tu Quoque: This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that a person's claim is false because 1) it is inconsistent with something else a person has said or 2) what a person says is inconsistent with her actions.

        -- You committed this logical fallacy when you questioned the validity of Al Gore's position on global warming because of the personal behaviors (that you misrepresent, to boot) of Al Gore Sorry, but that fallacy is wrong in this case. Would you listen to a preacher who is screwing his secretary? Would you listen to a financial consultant who is telling you to "BUY!" when he is selling? Would you believe me that this milk is bad when you see me drinking it? I could list example after example of cases when making Ad Hominem Tu Quoque is valid. Al Gore is one of them. I don't buy into what hypocrites are selling. Practice what you preach!

Besides, the whole global warming argument is based on Slippery Slope, but I figured you should know that, O Master of Fallacies. :-)

Re:Great, but

[Peaker]

The reason no new refineries are being built, is because the oil companies know that the amount of new oil left to discover is smaller than the amount current refineries can handle.

That is - peak oil has arrived, and there's not much left to refine.

Re:Great, but

[Bryan Ischo]

Actually your Al Gore comments are exactly Ad Hominem To Quoquo. The point being, that whether or not what Al Gore says is true, is completely independent of how Al Gore chooses to live his personal life. Al Gore is a proponent of the position that global warming is a real phenomenon and that people should reduce their resource useage to counteract this. Whether or not Al Gore "practices what he preaches" is immaterial to the question of whether or not a) global warming is a real phenomenon and b) whether or not people should reduce their resource useage to combat global warming.

As to whether or not I would listen to a preacher who is screwing his secretary? I would listen to him just as much as I would listen to a preacher who is not screwing his secretary. Honestly. I would try hard to evaluate whatever he is telling me based on the merits of his arguments and their presentation. What either preacher does in his or her own personal life would not matter to me.

Would I believe you if you tell me that the milk you are drinking is bad? Probably not - because other facts in evidence (the fact that you are drinking it without any apparent ill effect) would override your statement.

Also, the "whole global warming argument" is obviously a set of extremely complex arguments based on observed phenomenon. You can dispute each argument in turn, and you can dispute the validity of each observed phenomenon, but to say that the whole theory suffers from a single logical fallacy is ludicrous. I think that just by saying that you demonstrate that you don't actually want to understand enough about the theory of global warming to dispute it in a meaningful way, but would rather sweep the whole thing under a rug of generality that conveniently fits the conclusion that you would like to achieve.

I think one of the main problems of the global warming debate is that too few people familiarize themselves with the theory in sufficient detail to be able to come to a conclusion based on rational decisions. Most people have made their minds up without even having to see any real evidence or even understand the complexities of the theory at all. Some people come to the table with a predisposition to want to believe that other people are 'out for them' and just want to limit their freedoms arbitrarily, presumably just to satisfy their own sense of moral superiority or something. And some people come to the table with the predisposition to want to believe that industry and capitalism and the modern way of life is inherently evil and so it's immediately 'obvious' to them that anyone attacking global warming has a self-serving greedy agenda.

Either viewpoint is bogus and contributes nothing to the debate, and doesn't even do the question justice. It is in everyone's best interest to form an opinion based on sound science and clear thinking; wouldn't you rather spend the time studying the problem and finding out that you're wrong rather than destroying the earth for no good reason/destroying the economy for no good reason (pick whichever one fits your preconceptions)?

Re:Great, but

[Anonymous Coward]

A tyranny of the majority is why most of (at least all I can think of) those countries have elected representatives rather than direct voting on issues. Just because it is the wish of the majority does not make it the right decision. Think about it for a minute, if you offered Americans a direct vote on whether to confiscate all investments beyond say $10 million and redistribute equally or fund social security/medicare, such a plebiscite would pass. In the case of the United States, the founding fathers feared this tyranny which is why they chose to found a republic instead, with a constitution restricting such excessive powers.

Re:Great, but

[aevans]

They could eat corn. How many more people use oil to produce food than live off of caribou meat? (The answer is more than "several".) The Gwich'in tribe would have died off a long time ago if it weren't for modern medicines and welfare from those corn growers. But if they're so much better than everyone else, they could move to Alaska and kill more caribou than they've ever dreamed of, because they congregate around those pipelines and overpopulate.

Re:Great, but

[aevans]

The thing is, nobody in their right mind believes that the level of carbon dioxide in the air causes earthquakes. So when someone says we should buy a stupid little car that costs more than an SUV, and only gets 20% better gas mileage, because they believe that the planet is sentient and will be "happier" (and somehow control sunspots) or "appeased" if we wear hemp and donate to their favorite political party... well, it just strikes some people as primitive superstition and a belief system that is empirically inferior.

Re:Great, but

[aevans]

Your ad hominem attacks don't make up for the fact that he's right and you're wrong, despite who has "distanced themselves intellectually" which, by the way is more likely a symptom of not knowing what you're talking about.

Re:Great, but

[aevans]

Whether or not Al Gore practices what he preaches is directly relevant to determining whether he believes what he preaches. And since he obviously does not, it severely damages his credibility. And while Al Gore is dumb enough to be a likely candidate to be 100% wrong all the time, it is still astronomically unlikely enough that he can be dismissed entirely.

Re:Great, but

[aevans]

I think one of the other main problems of the global warming debate is that too many people think they know so much more than everyone else and think that learning a few rote "facts" makes them experts that can refute anyone who disagrees with them or their spiritual leaders, who, by the way, ordinary people dance rings around, intellectually. Al Gore talking about the environment appears to the average hick farmer like a pope arguing astronomy with a bunch of physicists -- uninformed and self-important.

Re:Great, but

[aevans]

No one starts a bus company because it isn't as economical as everyone driving their own car. That's why the only buses you see are government subsidized.

Re:Great, but

[rhakka]

That's not true at all. It's much more economical to load a bus up with people than a bus-load of people to drive individual cars. It just isn't as convenient, so people prefer to own their own cars and go when they want to go instead of having to go only when the bus is going.

If the economics dictate it, however, through rising gas prices... you might find people willing to schedule a bit more firmly in advance.

Re:Great, but

[aurispector]

You certainly make a lot of incorrect assumptions, and it is interesting that you have ignored the gist of my post-it wasn't about you personally but about a particular mindset. However if I were to revise my post, the only change would be to the first line so as to seem less personal. That being said, what bothers me is the mindset that governments can and should force people to do things such as you suggested. I don't trust governments, I don't trust the "tyranny of the masses" and I don't trust anyone who says they are doing things for my own good. Hell, I don't trust *my* opinions. I trust people openly working for their own best interests as they are more predictable and easily understood. Governments aren't intrinsically bad or good. Governments are a set of rules created and applied by *people* who are fallible, capricious and very often dead wrong. The founding fathers of the US understood this and atttempted to counter these things.

The point is, the market is very smart since it is the very essence of "putting your money where your mouth is". In the case of fuel technologies, the market appears to be working rather well. Why is a new tax needed? You know damn well that once it's in place it's never going away. If anything, just give tax credits for R&D.

Re:Great, but

[Valdrax]

Doing whatever you want just for your own needs without thinking of others is pretty much the exact definition of selfish behavior. No, that's the exact definition of freedom. Hi. I'm your new neighbor. I was worried that you might have some problems with the 17,000W stereo system I was putting in, but I'm glad to hear you're committed to freedom. Well, if you need me, I'll be out back working at my home hog-rendering plant.

Toodles.

Re:Great, but

[Bombula]

How precisely does living in the Middle East make you an expert on oil?

That's like asking how you know anything about the auto industry if you live in Flint Michigan. All of your friends, all of your business contacts, all of your acquaintances, all of your daily interactions are within the industry and with people who work in the industry. You are totally immersed and information pours in from ALL people from ALL directions ALL the time. After twenty years, a very, very clear picture emerges from this kind of exposure.

Does that answer your question?

Re:Great, but

[CycoChuck]

Then people like yourself should lead by example and use pedal power cars and live in mud huts. Now I know that you will say that their are "green" cars out there, but lets look at how green they really are.

Cars running on ethanol still put out these "greenhouse" gases. And by the made up environmentalist numbers of what are cars are doing now in destroying the environment compared to these ethanol cars, we just move the day that everyone has ocean front property to out great grandchildren. Electric cars get their power for (gasp) power plants. And we all know that environmentalists all hate power plants because of coal/oil/gas/nuclear pollution. And using a solar panel to charge your car, well I hope you have a couple of weeks to wait for going to the store to buy groceries. And wind turbines are only useful if you can channel all this environmentalist garbage into one constant stream of hot air to keep the turbines spinning. And hydrogen / fuel-cell cars requires (gasp again) power to make the fuel out of water, they are now as worthless as electric cars in a tree-hugging world.

As for our homes, since it is so wrong to cut down our secrete trees to make them and clear land to build them and we can't heat or cool them because power plants and burning things are wrong (even though mother nature has been burning things for billions of years) I guess that leaves us in mud huts sleeping in the corner shivering in the cold and wondering what that noise was outside and if the thing that made it was going to eat us.

So lets throw out over 3000 years of progress and go back to the knuckle dragging days just so we can make every environmentalist happy. That is the only option we have with the numbers that environmentalist have came up with on where the world is heading. Its not like those number could of been made up. Nope, not at all. The numbers they told me from the 80s to now about the de-forestation rates say that they are no more trees on the face of the Earth. Not a single tree anywhere. Nope, there isn't a tree outside my window that I not looking at right now. Nope, no trees.

I'll start my mud hut tomorrow.

Re:Great, but

[DerekLyons]

That's a nice theory, but it's utter bullcrap in reality. I've lived in two different towns dominated by a single industry (different in each) - and in both of them urban legend and rumours far outpaced actual knowledge of the industry.
 
So no, it doesn't answer my question.

Re:Great, but

[Bryan Ischo]

Thank you for explaining your viewpoint. You sound very much like a dyed-in-the-wool Libertarian. I too used to be a libertarian. In fact I have voted for the Libertarian candidate in every election since I reached voting age in 1990. I probably will continue to do so, not as much because I believe in Libertarianism - as you can tell I've fallen pretty far off the wagon over the years - but because I believe in anything that is a major change to our very broken system.

At one time my Libertarian convictions were strong, and it all seemed to simple and straightforward. 25 years on, I have seen too many stupid people doing too many stupid things to feel as comfortable as I used to with leaving everything up to the market.

Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to respond.

Re:Great, but

[TheRaven64]

IQ is normalised based on the population. Even if the author wasn't below the cut-off when the scheme started, he would be after it had been running for a while (unless he is the most intelligent person in the world, in which case this will only be the case if he sets the threshold over 100).

Re:Great, but

[Bombula]

That's a nice theory, but it's utter bullcrap in reality.

Yes, in your situation - talking to other kids on the school bus - doesn't give you much useful information about what's going on in the industry. But when you know all the guys who run the refineries, run the rigs, survey the fields and run the seismic arrays, crunch the exploration simulations, who operate the pump stations at the ports, who put out the fires, who work in the budgeting and procurement offices, who liaise with the local government to cover their payouts and graft, and of course the people who prepare all of the reports that the 'experts' on Wall Street, in Washington and at the Economist use for their bullshit analyses, well, that's quite a different kettle of fish. It may not make me an expert, but I know an awful lot of things the economists in their ivory towers have no fucking clue about, I know which numbers they read are entirely made up and which aren't, and most importantly I know why the bullshitting is all done in one direction: to push the price of oil up to a ridiculous level.

Re:Great, but

[hawk]

>Maybe they'll use people instead of corn.

Gosh, just this morning, I was *wondering* what that station I drove by meant by "Soylent 85" . . .

hawk

Re:Great, but

[ranton]

When the environmentalists want to change the way ArcherB lives, they're freedom-hating UnAmericans.

You say that as if it is a universal and undebated fact. You do not elaborate or try to prove your point, you just expect others to take it as the truth. I see no reason why these evironmentalists are either freedom hating or UnAmerican.

First off, it is the environmentalists that are looking after the freedom of humanity. They do not just look at a small section of humanity (people like ArcherB), they look at the freedoms of all mankind. Caring about the freedom of ArcherB over the freedom of natives in the Arctic Circle is no different than caring about the freedoms of slave owners over those of their slaves. The level of irresponsible and unaccountable freedom that ArcherB wants is not what our founding fathers wanted for our country.

In fact, it is VERY UnAmerican for us to treat poor people around the world as psuedo-colonies that we can control at our whim. That is exactly what our founding fathers fought against to create this country. The enviornmentalist's policy on this matter is therefore very "American".

Re:Great, but

[Socguy]

You're full of it:

No, I'd pay attention when I see someone with a ton of money live like a pauper to maintain a truly carbon neutral or carbon negative footprint. Right now, he's just a hypocrite and a liar. Again, I refer to the point that some people out there (even those with money) do choose to live like this. However, the fact that you are trying to set up a polar argument whereby the only two choices are the environment and abject poverty speaks to your motives.

Stop right there. Tsunamis are NOT a result of GW, although this is not the first time I've heard that. Tsunamis are caused by EARTHQUAKES!!! NOW do you see why I don't believe? As for the rest, we've always had heat waves and extreme weather. For that matter, extreme weather is on the decline, but I've heard THAT blamed on GW as well. Well, I have to grant you the Tsunami, I misspoke, Tsunami's are caused by earthquakes. I was thinking of the intensity of tropical storms and the resulting storm surge they bring.

As for not believing me, I see exactly why you don't believe me, you don't like me. But no matter, I'll let the science speak for itself, http://www.realclimate.org/. although I fully realize that this will do nothing to convince you: You're simply opposed to reason, and will try to find any excuse to Wiesel out of facing reality. This is easily evidenced by the rest of your statement which neatly skips the consequences of Climate Change, I.E. the increasing intensity of extreme weather, by asserting that we have always had extreme weather. So here's my challenge to you: If you assert that extreme weather is on the decline, prove it.

So you listen to the Pentagon? Do you listen when they say that active sonar has no effect on marine life? Do you listen when they say that waterboarding is NOT torture? Do you listen when they say that we should be tapping phone lines? Then why would you listen when they talk about GW? Besides..., Of course I listen. I evaluate each issue on a case by case basis according to the surrounding science and learned commentary surrounding each issue.

...the report said IF GW is a problem, the ramifications could be a threat to global stability. The same could be said for global cooling, plague, famine or whatever. Ok, so if/or/when we are in danger of global cooling, plague, famine or whatever it would seem prudent for a reasonable person to take action to minimize the risks posed from each danger, rather than simply deny the existence of the danger.

First, driving my car, provided I'm safe and sober, does NOT have a negative impact on others... No, you alone driving your car does not have a measurable impact on other. However, the combined total of everyone driving their cars plus all other sources of fossil fuel combustion does. This is the problem.

Next, like I've said, the environment is NOT in danger... That's a mighty bold assertion, care to offer some tangible scientific proof? I think it's only fair since that's what this whole discussion is about and even Mister Bush has now admitted as much.

Next, after accusing me of straw man, you try to equate driving to toxic waste, burning down my house and killing my kids. THAT is a strawman argument (Pot, meet kettle). Freedom is the topic here. How can it be a strawman if that is the point of this discussion? You were attempting to frame the debate by setting up a non-nonsensical choice of 'freedom' or the 'environment'. I asked you to define what you meant by 'freedom', (which you have thus far failed to do. A curious thing, since you assert that it's the point of this argument). The above example was one of the possible freedoms I was inquiring as to.

As a final note, lets see if you have the guts to respond to this. I suspect that you won't, now that it's a couple days old very few people are likely to read your nonsense.

Re:Great, but

[An Onerous Coward]

Sarcasm detector. Recalibrate and rescan.

How soon til...

[mac_mcgrew]

...this gets discredited or buried in some way by big oil? I will be surprised if this presents any real decrease in fuel prices if the oil companies have anything to say about it. And I'm sure they will

Re:How soon til...

[russ1337]

I recall an article on NPR a while ago. IIRC they were saying that one current but inefficient way to make ethanol from plant matter uses two processes using enzymes. One to break the material down to sugars the other to turn those sugars into ethanol. They were saying the current research is in the direction of having one enzyme do all of this - at reasonable temperatures. They were genetically modifying the same enzymes used to 'stone wash' denim, and IIRC they were investigating enzymes that live in undersea volcanic areas. But who knows, this company could have found another enzyme , or used selective breeding to get the traits they desire.

Basically, the NPR article made it sound like research in this area is not that extreme. It's just a matter of finding the right enzyme or bacteria.

Re:How soon til...

[glwtta]

investigating enzymes that live in undersea volcanic areas

You keep using that word, I do not think it... etc, etc.

Re:How soon til...

[Jerry Smith]

==investigating enzymes that live in undersea volcanic areas You keep using that word, I do not think it... etc, etc. Well, then at least be so kind to correct him, pedantic fuck: "enzymes don't 'live', they exist/are found/are produced in undersea volcanic areas."
Don't correct if you're not willing to teach.

Re:How soon til...

[edittard]

They were genetically modifying the same enzymes

Enymes have genes? I never knew that.

Re:How soon til...

[russ1337]

good point, of course they don't. I should have said 'modified'.

Late brain was in need of coffee.

Re:How soon til...

[russ1337]

um, yeah, ok thanks.

Firstly, I'm not a chemist/biologist (as you can already tell - and last time I was even in a class that brushed on this was in highschool over 20 Years ago.) Secondly, I was trying to convey enough information from what I recalled to get the gist of the news segment across. I heard it a number of weeks ago, and without going and doing a freakin masters in it to write a /. post i figured i'd try and get enough across to let those 'informed' people expand on it.

But thanks to the other reply to your post, I've learned something.

Re:How soon til...

[glwtta]

The parent seemed to think enzymes were a kind of microorganism, I thought he might enjoy knowing that's not the case. Now, it's 2008 or so, pretty much anyone with arms can type http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enzyme into Firefox to find out what an enzyme is - what's the point of having me badly summarize it?

Which brings us to an example:

"enzymes don't 'live', they exist/are found/are produced in undersea volcanic areas."

Only one of those statements is tenuously technically correct, and still misses the main point that they are produced by the microorganisms (bacteria and archaea) living in those volcanic vents. This might be the peak of pedantry, but the distinction between a protein and a living organism strikes me as somewhat important.

Don't correct if you're not willing to teach.

Conversely, don't teach if you aren't willing to learn, I guess.

What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[NotQuiteReal]

Whatever happened to the conspiracy theorists from my childhood, you know, the ones who always claimed "the car makers and big old buried that 100 mpg carburetor design", and the like!

I don't know the merits of this particular deal, but it never made sense to me that "car makers" really cared one way or the other about the fuel costs (and the SUV craze has borne that out...)

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[CajunArson]

Car makers like to sell.... wait for it..... cars. Despite the Illuminati Trilateral Bush 9/11 conspiracy theories that are popular on Slashdot, GM really doesn't make out that well when oil is expensive and people don't buy their cars. Case in point: Look at the profits oil companies are making right now vs. the insane losses GM is making right now.
    Now unlike the John Edwards types who look at profits as always being "evil" they are instead incredibly useful. GM would not be putting a dime into ethanol if the Oil companies WEREN'T making huge $$ right now and there was a big desire to expand alternative fuels. This is also how I knew that Greenpeace didn't really give a shit about the environment. When gas first went above $3 per gallon, they had some airhead on venting about how the evil oil companies were price gouging. If Greenpeance actually cared about the environment they would have been jumping up and down praising the high cost of gas since that would spur more investment in alternatives.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[ILuvRamen]

with cars lasting longer these days, people will sell their old one just because the new one gets like double the gas mileage. It's a huge selling point that makes people dump their old cars abnormally fast. So that's kinda why. As for the "OMG this can't be true" thing, you dump organic stuff in a tub, let it rot, and drain out the ethanol. Maintain an environment that the bacteria lives in and keep getting cheap organic matter and you're set. How expensive can that be?

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[blind biker]

Put this into the equation: petrol is highly subsidized in the US: nobody in the world (eccept maybe Venezuelans and Nigerians) pay as little for gas as US citizens. So basically, whether you use public transportation, your bicycle or an SUV, you support, with your taxes, the subsidized gas. I'm sure the american car manufacturers wouldn't be able to move as many SUVs as they do today, if americans paid unsubsidized prices for the gas.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[reboot246]

As much as I dislike government mandates, I'd like to see a mandate that all personal autos and trucks sold in the U. S. be capable of using alcohol based fuel. Then in a few years we might possibly see fuels like E85 being sold in more stations. The stuff is almost impossible to find now.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you really beat the crap out of that strawman. Congratulations.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, where did you get that idea? Subsidized in terms of direct payments to oil companies or by tax breaks and other political favors? Direct payments no, but perhaps in other ways. One thing the US does not have is the extremely high taxes seen in the UK and Europe. In a way, the lack of these taxes is a subsidy to the consumers, etc.. By keeping the price of gas down we are encouraged to consume more.

Anyway, I really hope this isn't another 100mpg carburator story since it pisses me off that we have to pay nuts like Chavez for his oil or indirectly subsidize islamic terrorism by sending our cash to the middle east. In fact if they can pull this off, the effect on the economy ought to be great since all those dollars will stay in country instead of being exported.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[calebt3]

In California (IIRC), all gas is required to contain at least 10% ethanol.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[nexeruza]

GM manufactures vehicles that get horrible gas mileage. Back when gas was $1 a gallon nobody cared, but now the trend is shifting towards foreign vehicles that get better gas mileage. GM has lost billions in the last few years because of this. By the way, oil companies are not evil or price gouging. They reap an amazing 10 cents of profit per gallon of gas sold, however the part that they love is that when the cost of oil per barell goes up they simply pass the cost onto the consumer and keep their 10 cents per gallon profit no matter what the price is. The reason they are making so much money is because consumption just keeps growing and growing. P.S. They're evil, just as evil as most every other company in this world, they're just better at it. "Shift the belief that global warming is theory rather than fact" LoL

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Belial6]

As much as I appreciate your goal, you have the wrong answer. If they do that, you can bet that alcohol is going to cost huge amounts of money as well. Your not going to be able to pour beer in the tank after all. And, there is no way that people will be able to produce enough at home (if that would even be legal) to supply the fuel necessary for their car.

If we are going to have the government mandate a solution, lets just solve the problem once and for all. Have them mandate that the entire car must run off of electricity, and require a standard plug for supplying that electricity. Then any company that can make a generator can sell you a power source. You want alcohol? Just drop in an alcohol burning generator. You want batteries? Just plug in a battery pack. You want gasoline? Just plug in a gasoline generator. You want batteries for the 99% of driving that you do just around town, but want to be able to run on standard gasoline when you take that cross country trip? No problem. Put in the battery pack for day to day, and swap it to gas when you take your trip.

I am really hoping that the Volt works out, as this looks like it is the vehicle that is closest today to what a car should be.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[a_nonamiss]

I'm afraid you have it backwards. Gasoline is not directly subsidized in the US, but it is very heavily taxed in other markets, especially Europe. Now, there ARE subsidies for oil companies, thanks to the lobbyists in Washington, but those are intended strictly to further profits^H^H^H^H^H^H^H research and executive bonuses^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H discovery for the oil companies, NOT to reduce the cost of gasoline. In the US, you can pretty much follow the cost of oil, refinement, tax and profit to arrive at the cost per gallon, give or take a few cents.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[DECS]

Then why did GM refuse to market, sell, or continue the EV-1? As soon as Bush came to power, the government dismantled all electric car development efforts and immediately began talking about hydrogen, a silly and impractical power source that couldn't be economically feasible in our lifetime, even if little other progress was ever made in any other alternative fuel.

US car companies were ahead of the game in developing all electric cars and in hybrids, but that all got pushed aside to make room for a bullshit smoke and mirrors ad campaign that featured CA Gov. Schwartzenegger driving around in a million dollar hydrogen Hummer prototype that only served as an "environmental" placeholder so everyone would forget about any real alternative to Bush/Saudi oil.

That enabled Bush/Saudi oil to raise significantly in price without any competition, ensuring rich profits for those selling oil over the current decade, and guaranteeing that little progress would be made in finding any real alternatives until 2008 by the earliest. Even if the US embarked on immediate sensible energy policy immediately after Bush is removed from the White House, there will be little prospects for any real competition to Bush/Saudi oil in the next five years.

GM and other car makers aren't so much for oil as they are resistant to any change. And in the current political climate, there's more profits in building huge oil burning tanks like the Hummer, which the current administration lined up with huge tax subsidies, than in building or researching alternative energy vehicles.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[markov_chain]

This would be a bad idea for the same reason that Russians failed running their tanks on vodka in WWII.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[loganrapp]

Your not going to be able to pour beer in the tank after all.

Which is the fucking problem!

"Drink Miller! Kill your liver or start your Jeep - it's your call!"

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[baldass_newbie]

If we are going to have the government mandate a solution, lets just solve the problem once and for all.

One does not follow from the other.
Never has.
Never will.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Hugonz]

I don't know the merits of this particular deal, but it never made sense to me that "car makers" really cared one way or the other about the fuel costs (and the SUV craze has borne that out...)
They'll make anything that sells. Consumers do not care about gas prices, or rather, can live with higher gas prices in order to have their big cars. The SUV format is the government's fault when they tried to regulate fuel consumption.
Notice how small cars are the norm in Europe, Latin America and Asia (consumer preference)

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[SEE]

Because the EV-1 was economically suicidal without the California fleet percentage mandate.

With the fleet mandate, GM would have wound up as the near-monopoly provider of gasoline-powered cars to Californians, because the EV-1 would have vastly outsold (well, out-leased) all other electric cars, and the profit on the gas cars would have made up for the massive losses on the EV-1s. Minus the mandate, it was impossible to make money on EV-1s.

The EV-1 program went ahead after the mandate was repealed because GM had various contracts it had to honor to suppliers, and as long as GM was having to buy certain bits, GM wanted to recoup part of its investment. But after the limited number of cars with those parts were made, marketing them would have been an additional expense that would have driven up demand for cars that GM wasn't going to make anymore. Continuing the program would have been throwing money into a sewer. And the existing cars, if sold, would have been massive potential liabilities. (Sure, GM could make the lessees who wanted to convert to a purchase sign a waiver; that wouldn't do GM a lick of good in court when a third-hand owner ten years later rammed a school bus due to, say, a failure in the regenerative braking system.)

So the answer to the question "why did GM refuse to market, sell, or continue the EV-1?" is simple enough; money. There was no money in marketing them, no money in continuing their production, and no money enough to offset the potential liabilities in selling the handful that were built.

On hydrogen? GM is getting paid by the Federal Government for it, and blue-sky R&D often has useful spinoffs (that is, patents that bring in royalties). If Bush had offered GM a lot of money to build EV-1s, enough to make them profitable, GM would have done that instead. GM's trying to make money, and doesn't care what the hell the cars run on.

When it comes to alcohol, GM has the flex-fuel systems already worked out. Can't hurt to invest a few million on a few startups for something (cheap alcohol fuel) that'll give GM both direct return if the startup succeeds and an advantage over Toyota when it comes to its main business.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

US petroleum is not subsidized, it is just not taxed as high as in other countries. There is a federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon and then each state gets a cut. The average tax for a gallon of gas is 62 cents per gallon. In europe it is somewhere around 2 euros, which gaurantees fuel will always be 3-4 euros a gallon. The thought is to increase the costs enough so that demand is driven down. Glad I don't live in Europe.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Shihar]

I am sorry, I think I missed your argument. Your argument is that Bush is the devil and that somehow this translates into GM not making environmentally friendly cars.

GM doesn't make environmentally friendly cars unless they have to because they cost more and Americans really don't give a shit. There is certainly a small market for hybrid cars in working professional elite who can afford them and see them as status symbols. This really is the only reason why GM doesn't sell environmentally friendly cars. Simply put, people want cheap cars far more than they want green cars.

Corporations are big dumb beasts. They will do pretty much exactly what you want them to do. If the people want gas guzzling SUV pieces of shit, they will get them. If they wanted to drop an extra $10,000 more into their car for a "green" car, they would get those too.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[maxume]

Who killed the electric car? Liability killed the electric car.

Next question.

(Also, your "conspiracy" will have a tough time integrating the incredible decrease in price/watt for solar, and things like that)

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Sorry to say but The Government does not make GM's business decisions. GM went with hydrogen research because Bush signed papers that gave them a fat check if they researched hydrogen as a fuel source, nothing was said about stopping hybrids or full electric research and hybrids continue to be produced and sold to this day. As a last little FYI, no other administration has offered a single penny of federal money to spur any type of alternative fuels/energy research, but Bush did. Put that in your bong and smoke it. Freakin kool-aid drinkers...

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[hustlebird]

This is actually what i think they were going for with the new MPG requirements. Any car that is E85 compatible sees a 50% increase in their fuel economy in regards to the 35MPG Fleet average. This little stipulation (IMO) will cause just about every car we see coming to market becoming E85 compatible, which will then increase the amount of E85 stations, etc, etc.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[jawtheshark]

with cars lasting longer these days, people will sell their old one just because the new one gets like double the gas mileage

Which would be a quite dumb thing to do. Okay, it depends a bit on the car and how long your commute is per day. Let's see an example:

• I have an 8 year old car which does 10l/100km (23.5mpg), and as such it's a gas guzzler for European standards. It still is in prime condition though.
• I do 15000km per year (9320miles)
• My current car, new cost 35000€ (± 51000$)in 2000, and is currently valued about 10000€ (± 14500$) on the second hand market.
• A new, smaller, more fuel efficient car, like the one my wife has, does 5l/100km(47mpg)
• My wifes car cost 23000€ (± 33500$) in 2006.
• Gas currently costs 1.2€/l (6.66USD/gallon). While one car uses less gas, the prices will soar in the same way and as such the evolution of said price doesn't really matter. It shortens the final calculation, which I admit.
• One gas tank in both cars is 50l (13.2gallon). Coupled with the above information, one gas tank costs 60€ (88$)

Now look what happens: I sell my car for 10000€, and buy a new fuel efficient one for 23000€. I now have 13000€ spend, that I have to justify with future gas savings. That's the equivalent of 13000/60 = 217 fill ups! The equivalent of 217*50 = 10850 litres, which means I can drive 108500km with my old car, or 217000km with my new car. That's the equivalent of a bit more than 7 years for the old car and 14 years for the new car. Now look at those figures! In 7 years, my car will be 15 years old and have no value (10 years later it will be a vintage car though) That's a very long time to recoup costs.

Anyone saying the buy a new car "because it has better mileage" should first do this small calculation. If the cost is not recouped in a short time (which means you drive a lot), then it simply is not worth it. Sure, you might have other reasons, but "saving money" is not a valid one.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

DECS,
You've nailed it dude. You know that Bush/Saudi/GM/BigCorn/BigElectric gots ALL THE BASES COVERED! Friggin' ELECTORAL COLLEGE is in on it too! No matter WHAT happens, they stik it to workin' man!!

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[reboot246]

Actually there would be so many sources of alcohol that the cost would not skyrocket. Alcohol is not hard to make, gasoline is. Start your own company if you don't like buying from the big guys; you can't do that with gasoline. The point of making all new vehicles alcohol fuel capable is so that the fuel would be available everywhere. No service station is going to sell a product that very few people need.

And a true alcohol-capable vehicle would be able to use alcohols other than ethanol. For example, methanol is easy to make from a variety of sources.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that Greenpeace doesn't care; it's just that they're idiots.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[aurispector]

"Notice how small cars are the norm in Europe, Latin America and Asia (consumer preference)"

Tell that to all the fricking soccer moms driving explorers and suburbans with *ONE* precious little snowflake strapped in back.

Fearmongering propaganda may have something to do with it. They buy these things thinking they're "safer" because they're big, ignoring the fact that the safety margin due to size is cancelled out by the increased rollover risk.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[TooMuchToDo]

Your calculations don't take into account the inevitable rise in the cost of fuel due to demand from developing countries such as India and China.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

John Edwards types who look at profits as always being "evil"... I am not claiming to be a John Edwards supporter, but this statement really takes away the validity of your argument. I think you might have picked up a few talking points from O'Reilly or Rush and went with it. Come on, think about what you are writing before hitting Submit.

This is also how I knew that Greenpeace didn't really give a shit about the environment. Again, same thing.

Next time make a better case and not resort to lowbrow, baseless statements and we might give you some credit.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't made a reasonable comparison.
A new car will depreciate greatly in its first few years,
your older car will go through a phase of requiring expensive servicing bills as things reach the end of the service life. After this stage the running costs become more reasonable again.

you claim to spend around $2600 in fuel and your wife spends $1300 for the same mileage. So if you can buy a car for around 10,000 with the same mpg as your wifes car you can save $1300 a year. In fact you could spend $12,000 and over two years your still saving money. Lets assume you keep your current car two more years and it only depreciates $2000 and didn't have an expensive servicing bill. well now you have cost yourself over $4000 have a car worth $8000 and you still need $4000 to get that nice 47mpg car. The longer you hang on to that car of yours the more its costing you.

If anyone buys a new car then they are going to lose money, lots of money unless of course they can set it against tax.

So yes get a 'newer' car if the running costs are lower makes sense.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[DECS]

Actually the government plays a huge role in making GM's business decisions. Carter drafted laws that mandated the CAFE MPG regulations that pushed carmakers to be more aggressive and innovative in their engineering, and mandated catalytic converters so that society wouldn't be enshrouded in a perpetual cancerous smog. The result was less dependence on foreign oil, cleaner air, and more efficient use of resources.

Reagan scribbled out regulations, pushing carmakers to dial back the amount of effort they put into safety and economy, and instead invested in securing relations with the Saudis to ensure oil would be cheap enough to prevent competition. This was exactly the same as having a ditto head administrator clear out all the mainframe terminals and minis and replace them with "client server" PCs running Windows: it appeared to be cheap, but ensured a monopoly where there would only be one flawed product, one flawed vendor, and it would become outrageously expensive as it also prevented any new competition from arising.

The oil monopoly was not an example of free market economics, but fascist corporate collusion with government. You're right that Reagan and Bush didn't invest in alternative fuels because they supported the Bush/Saudi oil monopoly. But Clinton did push alternative energy. When Bush II arrived, that was all cleaned out for the shell game of hydrogen, which Bush knew would sound good while accomplishing nothing other than to single source US energy back to Bush/Saudi oil.

You can give Bush credit for handing corporations money to play with hydrogen, but this hasn't accomplished anything in the last 8 years other than to prevent any rational alternative energy research and keep us tied to Bush/Saudi oil. Notice that Bush/Saudi oil has also jumped from under a dollar in the early 90s under Clinton to nearly $4 under a decade of Bush. Also notice how Windows has changed from being around $100 in the early 90s to being $400 with Vista.

That's what you get when you have no free market operating, and monopolize an industry under one vendor with no regulations to check what they do. If we're only going to have one OS vendor, we should mandate some kind of minimum functionality and reliability standards for operating systems and encourage competition. If we only have one fuel source, we should mandate efficiency standards and encourage competition.

Sorry to explode your neocon brain with some reality. Now go back to your scheduled Fox programming and learn more about how "no other administration has offered a single penny of federal money to spur any type of alternative fuels/energy research, but Bush did." Retards like you are significant part of the reason why the US is fucked.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[that this is not und]

Whatever happened to the conspiracy theorists from my childhood

I presently live in Indiana, a place where a lot of the less ignorant people have moves away to get better paying jobs. Believe me, there are beta minuses in the lunchroom where I work who banter around suspicions like that all the time. It's almost like going back in a time machine here sometimes.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[bobdevine]

Then why did GM refuse to market, sell, or continue the EV-1?

Rather than suggest a shadowy conspiracy by GM, perhaps a better question is why no other auto maker until recently offered an electric car? The EV-1 was horribly managed. Misspriced at half its production costs, it was built as a test and rushed to market. It was nicely engineered but it could only be operated in areas with clement weather, no hot or cold temperatures were supported.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[SoopahMan]

Um.. electric cars weren't a competitor to gas before or after Bush came to power. And the Tesla Roadster continues to be developed with Bush in power.

As for the conspiracy theories, listen - I hate Bush too, but the explanation is more often stupidity, or just people with differing opinions and priorities. "Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity" applies to conspiracies above all. GM introduced the EV1 in California only to avoid being banned from the market by a new state law requiring all dealers to offer a 0 emissions option. They did so at great cost and were losing piles of money on a car whose range was miserable. The law was overturned and GM decided to stop losing money - including on the maintenance. They ended the car's life in a stupid way, but it's not a conspiracy. It's a poorly written law's brief existence and a big company's panicked reaction.

So stop blaming Bush for conspiracies - you make people like me who hate Bush for real things he's done look like lunatics.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[DECS]

And the Tesla Roadster, being put together in a Lotus garage in the UK, has what to do with practical EV or other alternative fuel development and research in the US?

If you're having trouble conceiving Bush's every major decision with supporting Bush/Saudi oil, maybe you should better inform yourself. Also, why did Bush just stop California from enacting its own CAFE-type fuel standards? No progress in effeciency means more short term profits for selling Bush/Saudi oil.

Do you really think its a wild conspiracy theory that Bush is associated with and supportive of Bush/Saudi oil as the exclusive energy source of the US? Do you think Bush makes nothing from a string of administrative decisions that have made Bush/Saudi oil the exclusive energy source of the US? I didn't say Bush stopped GM from making the EV1, only that once in power, he stopped all positive investment in credible alt energy sources and made it impossibly impractical to invest in non Bush/Saudi oil ventures.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[sentientbrendan]

>Then why did GM refuse to market, sell, or continue the EV-1?

The EV-1 failed because battery technology isn't good enough for an electric car... just look at the wikipedia article on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

If you can't get a laptop that lasts on battery for more than 4 hours, it should tell you something about the current state of battery technology.

>As soon as Bush came to power, the government dismantled all electric car development
>efforts and immediately began talking about hydrogen

Replaced electric cars with hydrogen? Hygrogen cars *are* electric cars. Fuel cells produce *electricity*. Hydrogen is just another battery technology, an attempt to fix what is wrong with existing battery technologies.

Furthermore, Bush isn't the president of GM, he can't stop work on electric cars. All the government did was make some noise about moving to a hydrogen based economy. I'm not sure if they even ever did anything about it. Bush has proposed many grand sounding initiatives that he's failed to follow through on. Remember that time he promised to take us to the moon?

If you are going to come up with some conspiracy theory, you might be bothered to get your facts right.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[DECS]

"The EV-1 failed because battery technology isn't good enough for an electric car... just look at the wikipedia article on it."

Gasoline technology of the 40s wasn't good enough either. That's why we kept investing in research and development. This principle also works in other areas. Do you think batteries couldn't improve, or shouldn't, or that it wouldn't benefit the US economy to have advancement going on in battery technology? Do you think the EV-1 wasn't good enough for urban drivers in CA, where the primary market was? It didn't need to immediately replace pickups in Montana.

"Hygrogen cars *are* electric cars"

Thanks genius! The problem with hydrogen is that its the least dense fuel in the Universe, hard to store, and hard to deliver (recharging stations had already been built out across CA and could be installed at home cost effectively). So while both might involve electricity, hydrogen involves all sorts of engineering problems that are outrageously difficult to solve and require massive investment in infrastructure.

There are busses running on hydrogen fuel cells, the problem is that it's not easy to set up consumers with a reasonably sized car with enough storage to hold enough gas and supply enough refueling opportunities.

By cutting all support for any reasonable alt fuel development and throwing federal support behind the pipe dream of hydrogen, Bush very clearly was mandating what GM and other US companies would do. Perpetuating the myth that government policy has no effect on business isn't helpful. Government can work to effectively regulate, or can banish intelligent regulations and set up tax breaks for the companies that support whoever's in charge. The latter is not lean effective government even if the neocons want you to believe it.

You sure managed to blow out a bunch of nonsensical, poorly thought out, irrelevant chit chat before telling me that the reality of public policy is a "conspiracy theory" and that my facts aren't right. Are you drinking, or just a moron?

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[jawtheshark]

I did, but in an indirect way. The new cars costs will rise proportionally... So, yes, it might be 5 years after break even, but after 5 years, I'll still need a new car. A car that will probably consume even less. As such, it's a non-issue.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[jawtheshark]

Only if you're a beancounter, The depreciation doesn't mean a thing if it's your car and you cannot write it off. A 200$ car that transports you still transports you. So, keeping your old car always makes sense until the repairs to keep it exceed the worth of a new car.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[cloakable]

I'm glad you don't either :)

Frankly, the first thing I look for when going for a car is MPG - the higher, the better. The higher the MPG, the less I effectively pay for fuel. Simple, really.

Oh, and the less damage I do to the environment. That's nice too :)

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[More_Cowbell]

My current car, new cost 35000 (± 51000$)in 2000, and is currently valued about 10000

Holy crap man, next time buy a car with a better resale value!

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Rogerborg]

Sure, but what about solutions for the planet Earth?

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[jawtheshark]

After 8 years and a good 140000km on the counter, it isn't very surprising. To get an estimate, I went to an online second hand car market for my country. I typed in the stats (it's an Audi TT 225HP) and the typical resale value is 16000€ for that car, but all those listed had sub-100000km on the counter. So, I slashed another 6000€ because of the mileage.

Also, do realise that if you want to have a good resale value, you need to sell your car after 3 or 4 years. After that it's downhill fast. For people like me, who buy a car to run it down to the ground, resale value isn't exactly a thing you look at when buying a car. I'd probably be better of with a Mercedes of a BMW, for resale. However, I don't *like* BMW or Mercedes, so, no...

Oh, and if you just looked at the dollar value you should realise that's todays rate. In 2000, the dollar was pretty much on par with the euro.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mixing things up.

If you have already a car or not is not going to change the fact you can save up to $50 a month on fuel if you use a hybrid car, or $600 a year.

If you change your car every month, of course you are going to end up loosing money. Most people sell their cars when the maintenance cost is far greater than the cost of a new car, or when arriving late to work is more expensive than paying for a new car. That is not into question. Yet some people prefer to change their cars every few years, until of course they get once of those expensive cars. Once they get one of the expensive cars, they stop caring about the gas price, so companies willing to sell hybrid cars have a very small window of opportunities with those people: When they are willing to change cars every few years.

Once people get hybrid cars, they use to spend $50 per month on gas and I guess it is very hard for them to buy another car if the car now requires $100 per month of gas.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[TheRaven64]

Gasoline technology of the 40s wasn't good enough either. That's why we kept investing in research and development. This principle also works in other areas. There is a difference. The competitor to gasoline in the '40s was stream produced over coal and wood fires. A pretty inefficient petrol engine has a lot of advantages over a steam engine from this era. In contrast, you need a very efficient electric engine and storage system to be competitive with a modern internal combustion engine. That's not to say it's not worth researching it, it just means that nothing currently researched is really worth bringing to market yet.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[jawtheshark]

I do understand that, but it doesn't make a difference because those 600$ saved have to be... paid back by the new car and that takes a very very long time. Getting a more fuel efficient car only makes sense if you want to buy a new car anyway. My main point is: if you have a car, are happy with it, the "lower mileage" reason is not enough. So, if your car costs too much in maintenance, or if you don't like its handling anymore, or there are too many stains on the seat and you wanted a new car anyway, then, yes, a fuel efficient car is a good consideration. Merely switching because you think you're going to "save money on gas" is very misleading. You're overall spending more money to spend less on gas. That's a negative saving, which is oddly enough known as "expense".

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Grishnakh]

Rather than suggest a shadowy conspiracy by GM, perhaps a better question is why no other auto maker until recently offered an electric car? The EV-1 was horribly managed. Misspriced at half its production costs, it was built as a test and rushed to market. It was nicely engineered but it could only be operated in areas with clement weather, no hot or cold temperatures were supported.

That's definitely not true, as one of the big places they leased the EV-1 was here in Phoenix, the hottest city in the USA. It's definitely true that lead-acid batteries don't last long in this climate, but that didn't stop them from leasing EV-1s here.

As for management, GM has been a horribly managed company all around for several decades now, so it's no surprise they mismanaged the EV-1. GM couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Grishnakh]

Replaced electric cars with hydrogen? Hygrogen cars *are* electric cars. Fuel cells produce *electricity*. Hydrogen is just another battery technology, an attempt to fix what is wrong with existing battery technologies.

Wrong. Hydrogen CAN be used in a fuel cell to generate electricity, but that's not the only way it can be used. It can also be used as a combustible fuel in a standard internal combustion engine. It actually doesn't take many modifications to convert a typical gasoline engine to run on hydrogen.

The problem with hydrogen is the storage, as it's a gas and not a liquid.

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Grishnakh]

In contrast, you need a very efficient electric engine and storage system to be competitive with a modern internal combustion engine. That's not to say it's not worth researching it, it just means that nothing currently researched is really worth bringing to market yet.

Electric motors (not engines) are already extremely efficient; far more efficient than any gasoline engine. That's not a problem at all. The sole problem with electric vehicles is energy storage (batteries). As soon as someone invents a battery technology that allows a carmaker to replace today's gasoline engine, transmission, associated components (radiator, etc.), and fuel tank with an electric motor, electronic drive system, transmission (if necessary), and battery pack which takes up roughly the same space and weighs roughly the same, and allows such a vehicle to get roughly equivalent range, then we're going to start seeing lots of electric cars coming out. Even if the cars cost more, they'll be able to recoup that cost quickly, as operating an electric car will cost FAR less than a gasoline car since they're so much more efficient (they don't waste most of their energy in the form of heat, after all) and will require much less maintenance and repairs (electric drivetrains are far simpler and have few moving parts).

Re:What! GM backing cheap fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to include the resale value of the high-gas-mileage vehicle at the end of 7 years. If it is e.g. 5000 Euro, then you have saved 5000 Euro in those 7 years.

stop the lies

[timmarhy]

If they are telling investors it's $1/gallon, you can be sure it's more like $3 if they ever actually go into production. and why the fuck are they using CORN? it's a terrible source of ethanol

Re:stop the lies

[mixmatch]

and why the fuck are they using CORN? it's a terrible source of ethanol Maybe because the US actually produces corn, as opposed to good candidates like sugar cane, which would require importation.

Re:stop the lies

[dunadan67]

RTFA, their process uses any type of material like corn husks or hay.

Re:stop the lies

[lee1026]

It is corn husk, not corn. There is plenty of waste corn husk right now.

Re:stop the lies

[christurkel]

I believe they are using corn glucose to feed the bacteria. Lots of sugars and starch to break down, Pretty good fuel but like you said, not the best. Something like sugar cane would be better.

Re:stop the lies

[spikedvodka]

how about our good friend the potato? or even -gasp- sugar beet?

people are stuck on the whole "Corn" thing, and it's stupid

Re:stop the lies

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are telling investors it's $1/gallon, you can be sure it's more like $3

It only has to sell for pennies less than the alternative in order to win at the game of capitalism. The difference between what it costs you and what your competitors' products cost them is pure profit.

Re:stop the lies

[Anonymous Coward]

hell no, i want my goddamn tamales!!! you can have my corn husk once it has borne my tamale safely through the cooking process!!

Re:stop the lies

[codepunk]

Did you consider the cost to plant, harvest and produce potatoes and beets, etc vs corn?

Potatoes cost $2017 per acre to produce.

Corn on the other hand $502 per acre to produce.

That is a rather large difference, corn production also requires next to no man power where
as the production of potatoes (root bound crops) is considerably higher.

Re:stop the lies

[AKAImBatman]

as opposed to good candidates like sugar cane, which would require importation.

Yeah! Places like Florida, Hawaii, Lousiana, and Texas! Don't even get me started on the strange places that Sugar Beets come from! :-P

Re:stop the lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Indirectly. FTA:

Coskata uses existing gasification technology to convert almost any organic material into synthesis gas, which is a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Rather than fermenting that gas or using thermo-chemical catalysts to produce ethanol, Coskata pumps it into a reactor containing bacteria that consume the gas and excrete ethanol.

Re:stop the lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, this is too good! A guy (presumably) who calls himself spikedvodka extolling the virtues of turning the potato into ethanol!

Re:stop the lies

[mixmatch]

Well, the numbers may be inaccurate, but this is what I came up with from searching the net:
US corn production (2003/2004): 259.273m metric tons here
US sugarcane production (forecast FY 08): 3.388m metric tons here
US sugar beet production (forecast FY 08): 4.549m metric tons here
I don't profess to know anything about economics and how supply and demand affect how much of each crop is produced/available for use in fuel, so draw your own conclusions, or provide an explanation if you are so inclined.

Re:stop the lies

[Strange Ranger]

First we need to know if those figures you give are for a Fuel crop of for Food vegetables. The price of making ugly dense tasteless "veggies" which be can planted and harvested in a process that would be destructive to food makes a fuel crop less expensive to produce.

Then we need to know how many gallons of fuel per acre and how many dollars of food per acre for each type of crop.

From there we could figure out which crop gives us a greater ROI per acre.

Then we might try to make various historical charts to aid in predicting (Speculating) on the Growth and volatility (Risk) for each crop. Due to Supply and Demand, what looks best today may be more of a roller-coaster ride (more Risk) than another over time.

Crudely stated, that's how the Market continually sets a price for each Commodity involved, and it's how you try to guess the best way to apportion your acreage come planting time each year.

Re:stop the lies

[AKAImBatman]

I was mostly being snarky, but I suppose it's only fair to draw that out into a complete thought. The key issue with ethanol production is not that we can't grow the crops, it's that we don't have enough demand yet. If there was massive demand for high-sugar plants, farmers would be looking to grow them as high-profit crops rather than growing excessive amounts of corn. To date, however, these crops have been mostly processed into sugar, which is not quite as in high of demand as automobile fuel.

A lot of the focus on corn as a source for ethanol stems from an existing investment and overproduction of the crop. This availability makes some economic sense as the market wouldn't have to work so hard to close the gap between the potential supply and demand. For a proto-industry, keeping that gap small means that prices can be kept at affordable levels.

That being said, if ethanol took off there is a good chance that you'd see foreign fields being purchased by American interests. Which would make us less directly dependent on these countries for their exports. American technology, money, and skills would pour into these areas to increase production to meet our needs. Much in the way that factories are currently outsourced around the world.

Thus the solution to the problem would arrive on not just one, but many fronts. Some internal, some external, but nearly all directly controlled and protected by American* ownership, treaties, money, and interests.

(* The EU may have similar interests given their high petrol costs. I only speak to American interests because those are the interests I am most familiar with. None the less, it wouldn't surprise me if the EU started looking to India and parts of Asia to reduce their own fuel costs.)

(** Note that there is one downside to using food products as fuel. The high demand for fuels would be likely to reduce American exports of food crops. This reduction could have a negative impact on the food supply of the rest of the world, as well as further widen the U.S. trade deficit.)

Re:stop the lies

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't looking at the bottom line. Potatoes have a much higher yield per acre in terms of usable biomass.This is why they are so cheap at the supermarket.

Re:stop the lies

[shbazjinkens]

Corn on the other hand $502 per acre to produce.

How much without subsidies?

Re:stop the lies

[Coldness]

Because the company is based in Illinois. As a resident of it, I can safely tell you that you can't move more then a mile without seeing at least some corn. They're using easily obtainable local resources because they're not a large, well-funded company.

Re:stop the lies

[edittard]

Potatoes cost $2017 per acre to produce. Corn on the other hand $502 per acre to produce.

I fail to see the relevance, since they're usually sold by weight, not area.

Re:stop the lies

[Radres]

Sugar is cheaper, and produces way more energy than either potatoes or corn (just think about the calorie content of each). I don't have my farmer's almanac handy to give you the exact amount per acre, but sugar is grown plentifully in countries other than the US.

Re:stop the lies

[HiThere]

Not sure about sugar beets, and maple sugar is clearly impractical, as is honey.

Sugar cane, however, requires a very warm climate and lots of water. The fields that I've seen have been literally flooded. OTOH, you can get a lot of sugar cane from any one acre. The yield per acre is probably higher than for corn...they just don't grow in the same places.

If you go with sugar cane, you lose all the votes in Iowa and Kansas. (You could be sneaky about it, however, and just not tax importation of fuel-grade ethanol.)

I think that strategically it's a bad move for the government to specify the source of the ethanol used for fuel. OTOH, if fuel-grade ethanol comes from corn, it may price high-fructose corn sugar sweeteners off the market. That would be desirable.

Still, the article didn't say it was using corn for a feedstock. In fact, it rather implied that it was using organic wastes. This is very desirable. There is the question of what the byproducts of the process would be, and how those could be used, but almost certainly they could at least be used as high quality fertilizers.

Re:stop the lies

[LakeSolon]

It's relevant if an acre of potatoes yields less than four times as much ethanol as an acre of corn.

It's common to see ethanol yield numbers quoted in gallons per acre for a particular crop (for example: Corn vs Switchgrass).

I'd fill this post out with quoted numbers, but google spews forth a flood of varying opinions and I don't have the patience to dig up the more reputable links at the moment.

Re:stop the lies

[drumsetdrummer]

The cost to produce (in gross terms) is the same with or without subsidies. In net profit terms your costs are offset by subsidies, but you still have to spend the time and money planting corn before you get the subsidy. (Well, except for the "farmers" in NYC collecting checks for land they own, but that's another story.)

Re:stop the lies

[Anonymous Coward]

It's relevant if

If shmif. If my aunt had a dick, she'd be my uncle. Alone, it tells you nothing.

It's common to see ethanol yield numbers quoted in gallons per acre for a particular crop (for example: Corn vs Switchgrass).

Where? Not in the grandparent post.

wrong metric?

[Erpo]

$1/gallon would be great if it were gasoline, but one gallon of ethanol doesn't store the same amount of energy as a gallon of gas.

How many joules per dollar does that work out to compared to gas?

Or, even better, how many miles per dollar does that work out to in today's ethanol-powered cars?

Re:wrong metric?

[Anonymous Coward]

At 1$ per gallon, ethanol compares extremely favorably to gasoline. I don't think this is a full accounting of the likely cost, as others have said, but maybe it is progress nonetheless. If the volume scales well, why not use the ethanol in a fuel cell?

Re:wrong metric?

[DieByWire]

$1/gallon would be great if it were gasoline, but one gallon of ethanol doesn't store the same amount of energy as a gallon of gas. How many joules per dollar does that work out to compared to gas?

From wikipedia...

Gasoline - 125000 BTU/gal

Ethanol - 84600 BTU/gal

... or about 67% of the energy content of gasoline. So you could compare it to a claim of $1.50/gallon gasoline.

Re:wrong metric?

[ChangeOnInstall]

$1/gallon would be great if it were gasoline, but one gallon of ethanol doesn't store the same amount of energy as a gallon of gas.

How many joules per dollar does that work out to compared to gas?

Or, even better, how many miles per dollar does that work out to in today's ethanol-powered cars? E85=83263 BTUs
gasoline=114000 BTUs
So 73%

Chevrolet Silverado 4WD FlexFuel (5000lb pickup truck) MPG, from fueleconomy.gov:

Gas
city 14
hwy 19
annual fuel cost: $2878

E85
city 11
hwy 14
annual fuel cost: $2999

I think that'll make a difference. Heck even if it's the same price, it's less greenhouse gas, more stability, and less (or no) dependence on you-know-where for our fuel.

Re:wrong metric?

[bigdavex]

Here's a comment that answers that question.

http://wwia.org/sgroup/biofuel/42730/1

Apparently ethanol has 68% of the energy content of gasoline by volume
(8.9x10^7 J/gal vs. 1.3x10^8 J/gal). Therefore gasoline has 146% of the
energy content of ethanol by volume. This translates to 1 liter of gasoline
= 1.46 liters of ethanol. 46% more ethanol to equal a volume of gasoline.

Re:wrong metric?

[T-Bone-T]

Hmm...I wonder why no one really wants to actually use E85. You get worse mileage and spend even more on fuel. Who wants that?

Re:wrong metric?

[felipekk]

Even if it were more expensive, just the fact that this is a renewable source is already a huge improvement over gas...

Re:wrong metric?

[inode_buddha]

Technically, you *can* get the same power out with a turbo or by raising the static compression ratio. Or both. The parts are available *now* just ask any hot-rodder. Ethanol has an effectively infinite octane rating but only race cars currently take advantage of that fact. From a former mechanic... BTW this is *exactly* what the Indy and Formula cars do.

Re:wrong metric?

[jeremiahbell]

From wikipedia...

Gasoline - 125000 BTU/gal

Ethanol - 84600 BTU/gal

... or about 67% of the energy content of gasoline. So you could compare it to a claim of $1.50/gallon gasoline.

Pure ethanol can offset the smaller BTU with more efficient combustion. An alcohol engine be ran safely at 12-14 to 1 compression raising efficiency whereas gasoline's upper limit is 10 to 1 in a production vehicle that has to be warrantied.

Re:wrong metric?

[Firethorn]

A critical question here would be how many city/highway miles and what fueleconomy.gov is assuming for gasoline vs E85 prices...

Digging into the website, that seems to be $3.07 for gasoline and $2.40 for ethanol.

At those prices, it would be 937.5 gallons of gas, 1249.6 E85.

Figuring on 16.5 combined mpg for gasoline, that's about 15.5k miles for gas, 12.5 for E85 gives 15.6k miles.

Close enough to me. So if E85 drops to $2/gallon and Gasoline rises to $3.50, it'd flip and E85 would become substantially cheaper

$2499 for E85 vs $3281.

While expenses have certainly increased, we managed to have $1/gallon gasoline for years, so I certainly don't think that distribution would double the price of ethanol, if it can indeed be produced at the refinery for $1/gallon.

As a side effect, I can see coastal cities sticking with oil for the time being while the midwest changes to E85 left and right. After all, we're far closer to the fuel stocks and presumably the refineries. Longer shipping distances for fossil fuels combined with shorter distances for ethanol stock would make the math make sense there sooner than areas with easier access to fossil fuels via barge, pipe, or well.

Re:wrong metric?

[XorNand]

Not to mention that $1.00 is the cost to the producer (as mentioned downthread), not the consumer. According to the State or Oregon, it currently costs $1.10 to make a gallon of corn-based ethanol. Suddenly I am underwhelmed. :-\

Re:wrong metric?

[Firethorn]

Actually, you can increase the efficiency of the engine by increasing the compression ratio; ethanol has a relatively high octane rating, actually higher than most premium gasoline in the E85 form.

This won't make up 100% of the milage difference, but the fact that most ethanol vehicles are 'flex-fuel' capable of running on standard gasoline limits the compression ratio they can run at. This costs them mileage when running on ethanol. There are a number of tricks, yes, but most companies don't exploit them. A dedicated E85 vehicle, or one that needs premium if you MUST use dino-fuel(or even the E10 midgrade) could be more efficient.

Power isn't an issue; you can simply inject more ethanol into the chamber, run richer to make up for the lower energy of the ethanol by volume.

Re:wrong metric?

[DieByWire]

Pure ethanol can offset the smaller BTU with more efficient combustion. An alcohol engine be ran safely at 12-14 to 1 compression raising efficiency whereas gasoline's upper limit is 10 to 1 in a production vehicle that has to be warrantied.

I didn't know that.

Do any of the flex fuel cars vary valve timing or use some other trick to raise compression? Or are they stuck with the pure gasoline compression ratio?

Re:wrong metric?

[Strange Ranger]

> You get worse mileage and spend even more on fuel. Who wants that?

Everyone if we put an import tax on petroleum for fuel.

Re:wrong metric?

[Anonymous Coward]

$1/gallon would be great if it were gasoline, but one gallon of ethanol doesn't store the same amount of energy as a gallon of gas.

That's not, however, the point at all. The point is that, assuming this is a somewhat sustainable process, that the cost of future Ethanol Fuel will be $1/Gallon, and will probably sell for $1.50/Gallon, so you better get ready to pay those prices. Based on very crude calculations you will get half the mileage of using gasoline, so this will probably be equivalent to approx. $3/Gallon of gas, which isn't too bad. I pay over $5/Gallon for premium unleaded here in Japan. I know Europeans pay even more. When there's no gasoline left to run your car, you won't have much of a choice. Not to mention that when you have the choice between $1.50/Gallon of Ethanol, or $15/Gallon of Gas, that $1.50 starts sounding pretty good.

Re:wrong metric?

[Burdell]

Where do you get that "gasoline's upper limit is 10 to 1 in a production vehicle that has to be warrantied"? The Honda S2000 has had engines with 11 to 1 compression for years now (and I don't think they are the only high-compression engine sold).

Re:wrong metric?

[_marshall]

In generic terms, a Flex-Fuel vehicle (a vehicle that accepts any mixture of gasoline and ethanol from 0% ethanol/100% gas, all the way up to 85% ethanol/15% gas) has a mileage depreciation that hovers right around 20-25% from standard gasoline.

So, given a car that gets 30MPG on gasoline with a 12 gallon tank, at today's average price of $2.99 / gallon (according to fuel gauge report), would cost you $35.88 for the tank, which yields a range of 360 miles at a final cost of 9.9 cents per mile. Given the hypothetical $1 per gallon ethanol, it would cost you $12 for the tank, and would yield 270-285 miles for the final cost of 4.1 - 4.5 cents per mile (well under half the cost of current gasoline).

In terms of effeciency, ethanol's biggest problem is that the range is significantly lower with today's ICE. If you take a look at projects like the Chevy Volt, and other GM projects, you'll see that they are trying to add a plug-in charging battery / hybrid system on top of their current FFV fleet, making the range that much better / supplemented by battery technologies. If the Chevy Volt lives up to the hype, it's going to have an approx 500 mile range using ethanol and battery.

Re:wrong metric?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

Regular Gasoline: 125,000 BTU/US Gallon

Ethanol: 84,600 BTU/US Gallon

Re:wrong metric?

[einTier]

Compression ratio isn't a product of valve timing. It's a product of how far the piston travels. You take the volume of the cylinder when the piston is at bottom dead center and then divide that by the volume of the cylinder when the piston is at top dead center. The number you get is the compression ratio -- x:1.

Usually the only way to alter this in a normally aspirated engine is by doing something extreme like replacing the pistons, rods, and/or crankshaft or by milling down the head slightly. With a turbo or supercharged engine, you can use the boost to effectly raise the compression as high as you'd like.

Re:wrong metric?

[Anonymous Coward]

Research findings released today indicate that mid-range ethanol blends--fuel mixtures with more ethanol than 10% (E10) but less than 85% (E85)--can in some cases provide better fuel economy than regular unleaded gasoline, even in standard, non-flex-fuel vehicles.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/12/study-finds-cer.html

Re:wrong metric?

[DieByWire]

Compression ratio isn't a product of valve timing. It's a product of how far the piston travels.

Normally, yes. But you can reduce compression by leaving the intake valve open for a portion of the compression stroke so that no compression happens for the first part of the stroke, effectively reducing the compression ratio.

The Prius does this to gain efficiency at the expense of power - it's called an Atkinson Cycle.

I'm not sure how much you could vary the compression ratio by variable valve timing, or whether it would be practical/possible to tune an engine for pure ethanol, then reduce the compression when gasoline was used.

I'd guess that if you're trying to get the most out of your ethanol the turbocharger will be the most practical method of varying compression. Anyone know if the Ford EcoBoost engines are designed to do this?

Re:wrong metric?

[Anonymous Coward]

So let's do a rough calculation...
    $0.85 production cost of .85 gallon ethanol
  +$0.27 production cost of .15 gallon gasoline
  +$0.20 distribution
  +$0.45 federal/state taxes
  +$0.08 profit!
    x138% factor for BTU equivalence
---------------
  =$2.55 per BTU-equiv gallon

So even in the *best* case of $1 ethanol, this only really saves maybe $0.45 per gallon over current peak prices. If production cost is really $1.50, suddenly it's not economically feasible.

Re:wrong metric?

[AaronStJ]

Assuming I'm reading these correctgly, the energy density of ethanol is between 23 and 26 megajoules per kilogram. The energy density of Gasoline is about twice that, 45 MJ/Kg. So this is about the equivalent of $2 per gallon of gas. A pretty good deal these days, not so much 10 years ago, unfortunately

Re:wrong metric?

[jonadab]

> An alcohol engine be ran safely at 12-14 to 1 compression raising efficiency

You're talking about an engine designed specifically for alcohol only. At this point, putting that kind of engine in ordinary vehicles marketed to ordinary consumers would be completely impractical, since in most areas people wouldn't be able to buy fuel for them at anything resembling sane prices. Where I live, for instance, the cheapest solution would be to go to the hardware store and get denatured alcohol (assuming a small percentage of methanol would be okay for the engine), at more than a dollar per quart. Nobody's interested in buying a vehicle with those kinds of requirements. Consequently, auto makers aren't interested in putting alcohol-only engines in cars.

If you want to talk about something that's (at least theoretically) practical in the real world, you have to talk about what ethanol can do in an engine that can also run on gasoline.

Re:wrong metric?

[ForestGrump]

Varying the compression ratio is doable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_Variable_Compression_engine

I did a little searching. I believe the "flex fuel" ones are normal compression (9.0-11.0) compression. The fuel system is modified to work with either straight gas to E85.
There are some vehicles that are E85 only, and those have a higher compression ratio 12:1.

Re:wrong metric?

[confused one]

Is the S2000 a sports car. It's burning premium 93 octane, isn't it. OR at least that's what's recommended. That's how it's 11:1. If you want to run 86 octane "regular" unleaded gas, you can't go above 10:1 without doing other things to prevent pre-ignition... like radically backing off on the timing or leaving the intake valve open a little longer than normal. Either drops your efficiency. Backing off on the timing risks means the pressure wave is delayed till after peak compression, which is less than optimal and risks exhausting incompletely burned fuel. Using the intake valve trick effectively drops your compression ratio.

Re:wrong metric?

[TooMuchToDo]

I use to own a 99' and 01' Corvette. It's compression ratio I believe was 10.5:1. It recommended I used higher octane fuel, but could run lower octane fuel (87 instead of 91) at the expensive of performance. The engine control unit would simply take data from the oxygen sensor, figure out I was running on cheaper fuel, and retard the timing of the engine.

Re:wrong metric?

[inject_hotmail.com]

I think you mean the knock sensor, not the O2. Crappy gas causes pinging or knocking (pre-ignition), causing the fine smooth rhythm of the engine to be knocked off a bit. It's more common than most people think, but the engine management system compensates pretty quickly. Backing off the timing by a bit eliminates the knocking, reducing power (mostly unnoticeable). When the knocking is gone, the computer brings the timing back to normal slowly (well, slowly in computer terms). Some sensors are designed to be more or less sensitive depending on application, too.

Oh yeah...engine knock can be detrimental to your engine...that's why there's a sensor dedicated just to that.

Re:wrong metric?

[Anonymous Coward]

Crappy gas causes pinging or knocking (pre-ignition), causing the fine smooth rhythm of the engine to be knocked off a bit.

Normal octane gas isn't crappy. That's just a marketing ploy. Using a higher octane than your care needs is wasting money and shows everyone you're a tool. Knocking is cause by the gas igniting before the spark. Over time this can damage your engine. Just because your engine is smooth, doesn't mean it's not knocking.

I just wanted to correct that a little. The rest of what you said is spot on. With today's cars, you don't need to worry too much and anyway, very few people have cars with high compression that are helped by premium gas.

Re:wrong metric?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder why no one really wants to actually use E85. You get worse mileage and spend even more on fuel. Who wants that?

ADM

Good

[Tilzs]

Now we can get rid of the subsidies

get-ready-to-fight-the-lobbies

[John Hasler]

Which lobbies, precisely?

But how much to consumers?

[Dice]

Who else remembers when gas was under $1/gal at the pump?

Re:But how much to consumers?

[symbolic]

And even after that, when they actually used to post how much of the cost was paid as taxes. I used to see the tax charts on the pumps all the time, but for the past few years they have been conspicuously absent.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who else remembers when gas was under $1/gal at the pump?

I'm sure a lot of people do, it was only about 10 years or less ago. (Depending on where you live) The dollar also had more buying power then, since it wasn't suffering from the inflation it is now. Its only going to get worse not better, since this government decides to solve all financial problems by printing more money.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[gc8005]

I remember seeing 54.9 in ~1975.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[xWeston]

Even living in a place where gas is notoriously expensive (Southern California), I remember seeing it at 91 cents in 2001. Compared to about $3.50/gallon now.... almost 4x as much.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[Loconut1389]

*raises hand*
In Martinez, CA even ~1999 IIRC.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[John Hasler]

I remember when it was $.35/gallon. However, that was more than $1.00/gallon when adjusted for inflation.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when gas went over the $1 mark and it was "holy shit" expensive.

I imagine we'll be saying the same thing when gas goes over $4.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[popeye44]

I do and let me further quantify it by stating I'm in California and it was 97c at the pump in 2001.. my how we've bent over since then.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[kendbluze]

I seem to remember gas in California at about the mid-twenty-cents per gallon in the late fifties through about 1961. Smokes were a quarter, gas about the same, 5 cents for a five-pack of gum, and about a buck to see a first-run movie. And all I ever wanted was to grow up and make $10k a year...

Re:But how much to consumers?

[prisoner-of-enigma]

I remember filling up my 1979 Monte Carlo (305 cu. in. V8) at the pump for 78 cents a gallon. This was circa 1988 or 1989.

Of course, that's nothing compared to the stories my parents used to tell me. They got gas for about a quarter a gallon, and that was at a full service gas station. I'd wager a goodly portion of folks reading this today don't even know what a "full service" station is. Or do they still have that silly law in New Jersey where drivers aren't allowed to pump their own gas?

The real fun thing to do, however, is to track gas prices and index them against inflation. You'll find the current $3/gallon pricing is not that far above what we should expect when inflation is factored in. In fact, up until about nine months ago, I believe gas was cheaper than it was back in the early 80's if you factored in inflation. Looking at it that way, we shouldn't marvel at how "expensive" gas is today, we should marvel at how cheap it was roughly a decade ago. We got kind of spoiled thinking we had a God-given right to $1.15/gallon gasoline. Increased world demand coupled with no major increases in refining capacity and limited oil exploration have put us exactly where we deserve to be. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[Bryan Ischo]

Better that "you" (i.e. whoever the "we" that you were referring to) should bend over, than the environment. Keep the gas prices going up, I say.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[AJWM]

my how we've bent over since then.

That's part of it. The other part is all the money we're sending to China for cheap consumer goods, and to India for cheap software development and phone support, is being used by their middle classes to buy cars and such and increase the demand in those countries for gas and oil.

That increased global demand raises the price we're paying for the oil we import.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[shiftless]

About a month or two after Sept. 11th, I remember gas around here dropping down to $.89/gallon. Unfortunately it's done nothing but climb since then.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[Henry Pate]

I'm 23 and I remember it being $0.89 per gallon, according to the DOE the last time the US average price per gallon of regular unleaded was under a dollar was Feb, 1992. I was 8, so chances are if you're under 20 you probably wouldn't remember it being under a dollar.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[Fallon]

Me, yesterday. It's about $0.70 a gallon and is only 2-4 KD ($7-15) to fill up my car. Of course I'm living in Kuwait at the moment and not back home in the states.

Sadly a case of bottled water (don't drink the tap water here, it's often brownish) is around $6. So the 1-2 gallons of water can cost more than filling up my car on some days.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[jonadab]

_Under_ $1/gallon? No.

But I do remember when gas was _exactly_ $1/gallon, at the pump, at every gas station, for several years running. My dad used to give me a dollar bill and a one-gallon gas can and send me to get gas for the mower.

Of course, that was regular gasoline. The old car (a Plymouth Duster) could run on that, but the new one (a Chevy Cavalier station wagon, which turned out to be a real lemon, but that's another story) required unleaded fuel only.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[Lally Singh]

Sadly a case of bottled water (don't drink the tap water here, it's often brownish) is around $6. So the 1-2 gallons of water can cost more than filling up my car on some days. This will probably pay for itself in no time for you.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[the eric conspiracy]

Full service gas stations are fairly rare and are generally present only in very affluent locations. Oregon and New Jersey have laws that prohibit customers from pumping their own gas, but the service they provide is not traditional full service - it is termed 'mini-service' in the industry because you don't find amenities like getting your windshield washed or oil checked.

Re:But how much to consumers?

[DerekLyons]

I remember when one of my weekly chores was to walk up to the gas station to buy a gallon of gas for the lawn mower. I was given a dollar, and any change was mine to spend on candy at the gas station - and I'd get quite a bit of candy.
 
Now git off my lawn!

Solves one of the main problems I had

[FlatEric521]

Besides cutting production costs to fire sale prices, the process avoids some key drawbacks of making ethanol from corn, company officials said. It wouldn't impact the food supply, and its net energy balance is high because the technique works almost anywhere using almost anything with great efficiency. If it can do all that, then lets go for it. I always had reservations about corn ethanol's impact on the food supply and prices, but by using the garbage/waste products they describe, that problem goes away. Corn is central to our food economy, from sweetener (corn syrup) to feed for livestock. Little price hikes due to burning corn in our cars means bigger price hikes in so much of the rest of the food we buy. Let take ideas like these and stop burning usable food in our cars.

Re:Solves one of the main problems I had

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually corn syrup isn't much of a sweetener. Quite often it's used in candies and such to take out some of the sweetness.

Now high fructose corn syrup is a whole different thing. It more sweet/rich than pure cane sugar. It's incredibly cheap because of the corn lobby/subsidies and also incredibly unhealthy for you. Basically your taxes at work, making you sick and some lobby organization rich. Not to mention the drug companies that can sell people continuous life support drugs for diseases like diabeetus [sic].

Re:Solves one of the main problems I had

[kramulous]

But one of the misgivings I have about using corn/sugar cane as fuel is that more slash and burning of forests take place to produce enough quantities of the stuff. Agrofuels are not sustainable. The carbon footprint is also higher. The same argument holds for electric cars that get their power from the grid. Here (Australia) our electricity comes from coal-fired powerplants. The carbon footprint per kilometre for electric cars is higher than the current oil method. There must be another way.

You might want to read the article.

[John Hasler]

But I forget: this is Slashdot.

Hint: the process does not use corn.

Startup hits "paydirt"

[smittyoneeach]

process that is bacteria based instead of some of the other available methods. The bacteria processes organic material that is fed into the reactor and secretes ethanol as a waste product.

The Illinois startup patentd "a process for using bacteria to transform something into stuff" and promptly sued everyone in posession of compost.
"Hey, since they beat us to the smartphone, the only thing we could do in response was test the outer limits of stupidity," said Joey, the CIO.
Time could be running out for ambitious entremanures wanting to cash in on the USPTO, however, Joey continued:
"The USPTO asked us a question, which was 'What time is it?' They hadn't ever asked any questions previously. We fear that this question could herald an unprecedented era of consciousness at the USPTO."

OPEC Screwing Themselves

[codepunk]

Thats right keep dropping production to drive the oil prices up. That will work
for a while yet, but now everyone is gunning for them. They drove the oil prices
up too high creating the incentives to start driving innovation to help eliminate
them from our lives.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[JackieBrown]

I hope you don't get modded troll since it's true.

Of course this is being done to keep prices down so more cars can be sold or to shift money to different players.

The OPEC's actions has made this more widely embraced then any eviromental benifits have.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[hanspetter]

USA is screwing istself, by dropping oil production, increasing oil imports and giving tax benefits to SUV owners.

Even G.W.Bush questions Saudi ability to raise oil supply, not because they are holding back production capacity but because the major oil field of Saudi Arabia are more than 50 years old with no new significant discoveries.

And lets not forget the CEO of Shell, saying we are near the end of cheap high-quality oil:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/wef/article3248484.ece

Not because of some evil man somewhere holding back oil production, but because of natural limits.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[The One and Only]

You don't get the feeling they're waiting for a critical point and then planning to release oil faster than ever for another 5 years, bankrupting everyone who invested in alternative energy, before lowering production again and repeating the cycle?

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[actionbastard]

...but now everyone is gunning for them.

You must be new around here.

We've been gunning for them since 1974.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[MarkRose]

Thats right keep dropping production to drive the oil prices up. That will work for a while yet, but now everyone is gunning for them. They drove the oil prices up too high creating the incentives to start driving innovation to help eliminate them from our lives.

Did you ever consider that maybe they have no choice but to drop production? There is strong evidence to show they cannot increase production any more than they have. Also, unlike draining a lake, care must be taken to not drain an oil field too quickly. Taking the oil out too fast can dramatically lower the amount of easily recoverable oil. Global production has already peaked. The remaining known reserves are smaller and more expensive to extract.

When global demand continues to increase, the supply and demand equation will drive the price up. Furthermore, as the US dollar continues to collapse, the value of oil does not also simultaneously decrease. It's still worth the same on the global market, but costs more US dollars to buy. I fail to see how intelligent people cannot understand these concepts.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it's not true. Oil prices are determined on a free market. The price of oil has been driven up by fears and anxiety of market participants as well as the decline of the value of paper currencies(aka inflation). Everyone villainizes Opec because they won't satisfy the demands of self centered twits who don't understand that demand has begun to exceed demand for a limited non-renewable resource, but OPEC can't do a god damned thing about it anymore. That's the truth of it. Fat lazy shits who live wasteful lives driving around in SUVs and bitching about OPEC should go on diets so they can fit their asses in smaller more fuel efficient cars, recognizing that there is a reason people have been warning about relying on non-renewable resources for decades, and that reason is the current set of circumstances that many saw coming, but most chose to ignore.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

They've unnecessarily drove up prices before. They increased the price of oil because they could, people bought it for a while because they had to, then they found ways to use less gas. Moral of the story, you can get away with any price if people need the good enough and have no alternatives in the short term, but in the long run, it'll come back to bite you in the ass. Apparently, they didn't learn then, and they probably never will.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[SEE]

The oil companies are all still evaluating capital investment (new exploration, new development, etc.) on the assumption that the long-term price of oil is under $40 a barrel. They've got the best petroleum geologists in the world working for them; what do you know about the production situation that they don't?

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, they're already past the point they would optimally want to be at. They know the price has gotten so high that third world countries dropped out of bidding months ago. Won't be long till the first world starts not just researching other tech (which they're doing now) but actively using it.

I don't think they're trying to keep production down. I think they're running out and trying to hide their hand like all the Peak Oil folks theorize.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[MarkRose]

The oil companies are all still evaluating capital investment (new exploration, new development, etc.) on the assumption that the long-term price of oil is under $40 a barrel. They've got the best petroleum geologists in the world working for them; what do you know about the production situation that they don't?

They certainly know more than me. But I also know the industry would not be investing billions into alternative extraction techniques (oilsands) and alternative fuels if there were not a competitive reason for doing so. That means, one way or another, they expect the price of oil will rise to the point where the new investments will be paid for, and a profit made. Take the Athabasca oilsands. Planned capital expenditures exceed $100 billion dollars. That's one heck of an investment to call any bluff of OPEC's.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[Philotic]

You don't get the feeling they're waiting for a critical point and then planning to release oil faster than ever for another 5 years, bankrupting everyone who invested in alternative energy, before lowering production again and repeating the cycle? They will destroy their oil fields faster than they already are if they pursue that strategy.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats right keep dropping production to drive the oil prices up. ...
They drove the oil prices up too high creating the incentives to start
driving innovation to help eliminate them from our lives. The fact that you've chosen to blame OPEC shows an incredible amount of ignorance in how the market for oil works.

There are two reasons why oil prices can go up:
1. Supply shortages/increased demand
2. Uncertainty in the market for oil futures

Anyone who's payed the least bit of attention over the last 5 years might have noticed that the USA invaded Iraq. In the short term, this was viewed as a good thing & prices dropped. But as the political & military situation over there progressed from SNAFU to FUBAR, it created instability in the region. In the minds of those buying and selling oil futures, instability = uncertainty/fear. Like gold, when people get scared, the price goes up.

China, Russia, & India are helping to bid up the price of oil, but the majority of blame for the current price levels can be placed on uncertainty in the market place.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that supply is limited by refinery capacity. And refinery capacity is limited by environmentalists. So, simply put, environmentalists are causing the high gas prices. Oh, by the way, they're not really that high in the US. Check the price of gas on the continent and you'll realize that $5/gallon is cheap in comparison.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

OPEC haven't dropped production. Oil supply has basically been stagnant for the last two or three years now. No, it's the demand that's increasing.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves

[SEE]

The Athabasca oilsands are recoverable for $36 a fully-converted barrel. Nobody expects the long-term average price of oil will drop far enough to make that long-term unprofitable, but that's substantially different than expecting we've reached the oil production peak.

sure they can in a lab setting

[Anonymous Coward]

wired magazine has become popular mechanics.

Real Price

[Anonymous Coward]

They claim to make E85 a buck cheaper that what's at the pump now. Well, a $3 gallon of gas will take you twice as far as a $2 gallon of E85. E85 has to be half the price of gas.

Re:Real Price

[codepunk]

Actually no you pulled that figure out of your ass, the real difference in actual mileage is
about 30%. Also one thing you need to keep in mind that the cars produced today are flex fuel
vehicles (capable of burning gasoline and or alcohol). Now say I could go to any pump in the US
and get pure alcohol for my car. What would be the real difference if I had a car that
was specifically designed to only burn alcohol. This alcohol burning car could run a
considerably higher compression ratio, smaller cooling system etc drastically increasing the
HP and efficiency....todays flex vehicles are not optimized to burn high alcohol content fuel.

Re:Real Price

[Bryan Ischo]

Here is what I do not get. You say that:

* A gallon of 85% gasoline with 15% ethanol produces a difference in mileage of 30% when compared with a gallon of 100% gasoline

But wouldn't 70% of a gallon of pure gasoline also produce a difference in mileage of 30% when compared with a gallon of 100% gasoline?

And yet in the first case you are using 85% of a gallon of gasoline (plus 15% of a gallon of ethanol), to get the same mileage that you would get with 70% of a gallon of 100% gasoline.

Why not just use 70% of a gallon of gasoline instead of 85% of a gallon of gasoline + 15% of a gallon of ethanol, to go the same distance?

Your figures (and they are not unique, I have seen similar figures elsewhere in this discussion) would seem to suggest that the 15% ethanol in E85 contributes no useful energy, and at the same time *decreases* the amount of energy available in the gasoline that is present.

This just cannot be true. So what am I missing?

Ethanol 89 MJ/gallon, Gasoline 132 MJ/gallon

[MacDork]

According to the gubmint So that's $1.48 a gallon of gas. I haven't seen that price on gas in a loooooooong time.

Re:Ethanol 89 MJ/gallon, Gasoline 132 MJ/gallon

[BitterOak]

But, as has been noted above, that is the cost to produce a gallon of ethanol. By the time it gets to the pump you'll be paying twice that. Is ~$3.00 a gallon really all that attractive?

Re:Ethanol 89 MJ/gallon, Gasoline 132 MJ/gallon

[that this is not und]

Since it's based on a renewable resource (the sunlight, etc. needed to grow corn or other suitable crops) yes, $3.00 a gallon is fairly attractive.

Re:Ethanol 89 MJ/gallon, Gasoline 132 MJ/gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're currently paying $3.50? Yes.

Re:Ethanol 89 MJ/gallon, Gasoline 132 MJ/gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

Your numbers are questionable. Even with the high costs of transportation, taxes, and crude, gasoline is only about $3.00 a gallon. The cost to produce ethanol in this manner is cheaper than crude in terms of energy output and has reduced transportation and tax expenses.

Re:Ethanol 89 MJ/gallon, Gasoline 132 MJ/gallon

[Torvaun]

Well, I saw $3.07 driving home today, and I'm going to fill my tank before the price goes up to reflect oil breaking $90/barrel again, so yeah, I'd much rather pay $3/gallon-equivalent.

Re:Ethanol 89 MJ/gallon, Gasoline 132 MJ/gallon

[tsa]

Gas is so cheap in the US. I pay 1,54 or so per LITRE here in NL.

Re:Ethanol 89 MJ/gallon, Gasoline 132 MJ/gallon

[SailorSpork]

...If we don't need to buy it from OPEC, ~$3/gallon is fine. Great even.

Re:Ethanol 89 MJ/gallon, Gasoline 132 MJ/gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

That is $1.48 per production gallon of gas. You still need to ship it, distribute it, and make a profit. That being said, we may have already hit the mark where this becomes a viable cost alternative, but it probably isn't by a large margin.

1.21Gigowatts

[gatortas]

Does that mean by 2015 we will all have Mr. Fusion in our cars? Put in some garbage at night, lets some bacteria fart all night, and you got a full tank in the morning. Sweet, whats next: flying cars, self-drying jackets, auto-laced nikes and dont forget... hoverboards!

Re:1.21Gigowatts

[cashman73]

Using everyday garbage to produce ethanol or not, the fact remains that ethanol will never produce the 1.21 Gigawatts of electricity required to power the flux capacitor. Sure, it'll get your car to work and home again, but a nuclear reaction (plutonium fission or MrFusion) will still be required to get you to work on time if you fall 20 minutes behind,... ;-)

Pre-Stone Age

[ilikepi314]

Not just that, but JURASSIC PRE-PEOPLE!! Thanks for desecrating the remains of our (great x 10^45)-grand-parents, you jerks.

Re:Pre-Stone Age

[The_Wilschon]

The Jurassic was 10^45 generations ago!!? That means an average of one million generations per yoctosecond, you realize?

I secrete

[iminplaya]

methane as a waste product, but the noise pollution is a bit of a problem.

rent seeking

[JDAustin]

Of course they want the government to heavily subsidies fueling stations...

Drop the dumb tags already

[Just Some Guy]

"inthishouseweobeythelawsofthermodynamics" is cute when someone's bragging about their perpetual motion machine. It makes you look ignorant when the story is about someone converting one form of energy to another in an incrementally more efficient way than before. News flash: it's obvious that current production methods can be improved upon. What part of that smacks of breaking the laws of physics?

Re:Drop the dumb tags already

[Bieeanda]

Nothing at all. Unfortunately, stupid tags like that and 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong' are just an expression of the same stupid Slashdot memes expressing themselves in a new venue.

Re:Drop the dumb tags already

[glwtta]

Oh man, Story Tag Nazi has got to be the most thankless job ever.

Re:Drop the dumb tags already

[Just Some Guy]

I actually like the funny ones. It's just the ones that manage to be sarcastic and wrong at the same time that annoy me. :-)

Re:Drop the dumb tags already

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Ignorance on Slashdot? Could it possibly be true?

Brazilian Ethanol

[gustgr]

Here in Brazil I've seen Ethanol being sold by $0.35/liter (~ $1.32/gallon) to the final consumer. I guess the ethanol industries can produce it by far less than $1/gallon. Here about 80% of our fleet of automobiles are powered by Ethanol (including my car), which is produced using sugar cane.

Nevertheless, the mass cultivation of sugar cane is destroying several other agricultures, mainly in Brazil's South and Southeast regions, besides the fact that the producers and farmers usually burn the unused bagasse (crushed sugar cane) and the crops after harvests, being responsible for Brazil's high position in the rank of top polluters.

Re:Brazilian Ethanol

[jmauro]

Subsidies may account for much of the price. At least it does in the United States, where it may only cost the end consumer $2-$3 dollars/gallon, but costs every taxpayer $2-$3 dollars/gallon on top of that price. I blame Iowa, but that's just me.

Re:Brazilian Ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

... the producers and farmers usually burn the unused bagasse (crushed sugar cane) and the crops after harvests, being responsible for Brazil's high position in the rank of top polluters.

... interesting ... so the resulting fuel is cleaner, but the pollution 'moves' to the burning of the waste products ...

... have they tried burning the waste products 'efficiently' (in a furnace, not out in the field) ... they could capture that heat energy and use it ... ? ... if not, why not ... ?

Re:Brazilian Ethanol

[rrkap]

Sugarcane is just about the perfect crop if you want to make ethanol. Unfortunately for those of us in the U.S. there are few places here that can grow sugarcane and fewer still that can do so economically (hence the U.S.'s high taxes on imported sugar and our use of high fructose corn syrup as a substitute). Our inability to produce sugarcane has led both to our current corn based ethanol production and to huge investments in research into methods of making ethanol from other feedstocks that are cheaper to grow than corn.

Re:Brazilian Ethanol

[msebast]

The pollution probably comes from burning the fields to remove leaves from the cane. Sugar cane fields are typically harvested by hand and the sharp edged leaves must be burned off first. Burning cane fields create a lot of foul smelling smoke.

Waste products (cane stalks from which sugar juice has been squeezed) are used in the Brazilian sugar cane industry.
Burning stalk fibers generate steam that drive rollers that crush sugar cane.
Burning waste products also provide heat for distilling.
The use of waste products to drive processing equipment is part of why Brazilians can get the cost of ethanol so low.

Then throw in taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

and it's back up to $3/gal ;-)

Re:Then throw in taxes

[calebt3]

It's better than the ~$3.20 here in central California.

Why are we wasting our time with this?

[IonOtter]

We can already turn everything based on carbon molecules into petroleum.

Why are we wasting our time and wasting food and alcohol?

Synthesis Gas

[Guppy]

I see the process uses Synthesis Gas (Syngas) as an intermediate, which is has long been produced on a bulk scale for industrial use (so it has been fairly well optimized for cost-efficiency) -- mostly from either coal or municipal waste. While various eco-friendly sources may make for good press and grant money, I would expect any widescale adoption of this technology to eventually migrate to the cheapest available syngas source.

Since Syngas production is a fairly mature technology, whether or not this becomes economically feasible will depend on the efficiency of their bacterial fermentation -- if the value of the EtOH produced is less than that of the syngas feedstock, then there's really no point in making the conversion.

Problem Solved

[mosb1000]

This sounds like it is the real deal. They'll have a pilot plant running next year. If things really fall into place, we'll see commercial plants by 2011 (a safer bet is 2015).

That means that I can buy the Jeep instead of the Rabbit, and I won't have to worry about fuel costs down the road. Now I just have to wait for the flex-fuel JEEP Wrangler to come out (the Cherokee and the Commander are flex-fuel, so it's only a matter of time, right?)

P.S. You should really RTFA on this one. When I read the headline, I thought "bacteria, that's how they do it now! They've been doing it that way for thousands of years!". No, this process uses gasification to convert cellulose into CO and H2 (as all cellulosic operations have done) and then uses bacteria to convert the CO and H2 into ethanol (conventional cellulosic processes use enzymes to do this; so do the bacteria, but this way the bacteria make the enzyme in the reactor).

Re:Problem Solved

[Bryan Ischo]

It's rather sad that, given an opportunity to drive the same car using more environmentally-friendly fuel, you, and people like you, of whom there are MANY (I'd say the vast majority perhaps?) will choose instead to simply choose to use more fuel, thus entirely counteracting any positive effect that the technology could have on the world around you.

Not to mention the fact that this larger vehicle that you want to buy is more dangerous to everyone else on the road except yourself.

But hey, on both counts, *you're* the only one who really matters, right?

Re:Problem Solved

[scottv67]

t's rather sad that, given an opportunity to drive the same car using more environmentally-friendly fuel, you, and people like you, of whom there are MANY (I'd say the vast majority perhaps?) will choose instead to simply choose to use more fuel, thus entirely counteracting any positive effect that the technology could have on the world around you.

Bryan, would it be easier to gather support for researching alternative energy sources by focusing on reducing our dependence on foreign energy sources than by focusing on "global warming"? I am one of the people who still has a hard time believing that we are altering the temperature of the earth with our "greenhouse gases". Is the temperature of the earth different than it was one thousand years ago? Yes, that's very likely. Are humans and their automobiles responsible for that change? I don't know. No one has convinced me that driving is ruining the earth because of "greenhouse gases".

I think if you focused on things that people can *see* and *feel*, you would be able to rally more support for alternative energy sources. The temp was -11 degree F twice this week when I got up for work (Wisconsin). When a person risks frostbite by being outside for a long time on days like that, it's hard to believe in global warming. But show me a news report that shows the US fighting a war in Iraq and I will back you 1000% when you say that we need to develop alternative energy sources so we don't have to send any more sons and daughters to places like Iraq.

In my little corner of the state of Wisconsin, we have "ozone action days" in the summer because the air quality gets to a certain point where it's bad for people with certain health problems to be outside. I am one of the people who is affected by that bad air. I can *feel* the effects of the bad air on those days. But I can't convince people to stop mowing their lawns or to not fill-up their vehicle with gas on those days. The healthy people hear "today is an Ozone Action Day" on the radio and then go mow their lawn anyway. I think the same principle holds for global warming versus not being held hostage by foreign countries for our energy needs. If you asked anyone in the supermarket if they would switch to a new fuel (which may cost more per mile traveled) because the new fuel would benefit the environment, most people would say "No thanks.". If you were in the same supermarket and asked the same people "Would you switch to a new fuel that is made here in the US of A and will reduce our dependency on OPEC?", most people would say "Yeah, I'm all for fuel produced here in the US. Don't send any more sons and daughters to die in Iraq."

Occasionally when I am in the checkout line at the supermarket, the person bagging my groceries will ask "Paper or plastic?" I always choose paper (yeah, I know I should be carrying those reusable cloth shopping bags). Then I follow that with "Osama really likes it when you use all of those little plastic bags." Most checkers are younger, high-school age kids and they get a laugh out of that. They know what I'm implying. If people knew that their actions could have an effect on the amount of oil that we have to buy from other countries, they would change their behavior. Maybe the bagger should ask "Would you like your groceries in a bag made from trees from northern Wisconsin or a bag made from oil that we bought from Iraq?"

I think you are on the right track with getting people to think about alternative energy sources. But I think you will attract more "flies" if you use honey instead of vinegar.

Re:Problem Solved

[mosb1000]

I want a jeep because it will let me drive around my job-sites without worrying about getting high-centered or damaging my vehicle. They also have a tail-gate, which is really useful sometimes. Perhaps you think a jeep is larger than it really is. They are really made for off-road use, unlike many SUVs.

I am going to get a safe jeep. It will be bright yellow, that way everyone will be able to see it. It will also be easy to find in the parking-lot. I'm a good driver too (I get the good-driver discount on my insurance).

You shouldn't be so judgmental. You don't know anything about me, or my driving habits, and you have no idea how I will use my car.

Good ol' boys in Appalachia do this all the time

[Derling Whirvish]

I know some good ol' boys in Eastern Tennessee who make ethanol from corn mash for less than $1 a gallon. Been doin' it for decades.

Re:let's make this work!

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a really rough way of putting it, but I'll bet most Americans have the exact same sentiment.

If you really want to "stick it to them", do your part. Seriously.

Reduce demand by laying off the lead foot. Get rid of the short hops to the store by making a weekly trip, preferably coupled with other errands. Buy a few shares of an alternative energy stock and put it in the IRA. Things like solar panel companies or even OLED for the ultimate lighting in 5 years. Recycle your plastic religiously.

Bottom line is the less oil used, the less oil purchased from the Middle East. It's not a Republican or Democrat issue, it's an American issue.

The stupidity of consumers

[Bryan Ischo]

From TA:

"Even if you produce it county by county, you still need an infrastructure," he said. "People aren't going to go to some remote location for fuel."

This has not been my experience. I have met countless stupid people who will drive 20 miles to save 2 cents per gallon on gas. People would probably drive 50 miles to save 5 cents per gallon of gas.

If this stuff was sufficiently cheap, I'll bet there are people who would drive for hours just to fill up and save themselves $20 at the pump.

Re:The stupidity of consumers

[TubeSteak]

This has not been my experience. I have met countless stupid people who will drive 20 miles to save 2 cents per gallon on gas. People would probably drive 50 miles to save 5 cents per gallon of gas. People are morons.
They'd save more money clipping coupons for their groceries or fast food habit.

Re:The stupidity of consumers

[lifejunkie]

I think the idea here is that they end up spending more money on fuel. At 20 miles/gallon, driving costs about 15 cents a mile for fuel. They would have to have a really big tank to save some money.

Re:The stupidity of consumers

[rick1027]

Yes, I have a hard time getting my wife to understand that it makes less sense now to drive 5mi out of her way to save $.05/gal on gas when it costs $3.00/gal, when she would never consider doing that when gas was $2.00/gal.

You're ignoring the carbon footprint

[bornwaysouth]

Interesting to read the US point of view (which is strongly entrenched in my country too). Gimme cheap petrol. End of story.

Hasn't global warming sunk in yet? I know it's only been 2 years since it's been allowed to be freely discussed, but hey guys. wake up!

I'm a cynical aging chemist. I expect this research to be mostly hype with some mod of the bacteria approach being pushed. But they have two important claims. (1) They are converting junk carbon (not food carbon) into a petrol replacement. (2)That carbon is atmospheric carbon.

So more power to their elbow as the saying goes. To turn research into a product, you need a lot of hype.

Re:You're ignoring the carbon footprint

[ScrewMaster]

To turn research into a product, you need a lot of hype.

Technically, you need a lot of money to turn research into product, however, hype is a required intermediate process which extracts necessary funds from unwary investors.

Re:You're ignoring the carbon footprint

[Anonymous Coward]

2 years? bitch, i've been hearing about it for 2 decades. and yes, i'm an american.
 
either you had your head in the sand or the stereotype that americans are ignorant is false.
 
my guess? it's both.

Re:You're ignoring the carbon footprint

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one support our global warming overloads. Otherwise the state I live in would still be under a fricken glacier.

Sheesh, when will people admit to themselves that we can't destroy the planet. It will be quite blissfully orbiting around the sun no matter what we do. We can wipe ourselves off the face of the earth and probably take most multi-celled surface life with us, maybe scuff up the surface a bit but nothing a bit of polish won't fix right up (given sufficient time).

This ball of dirt has survived meteors, volcanoes, MULTIPLE ice ages. We're a threat to ourselves, not the planet.

But I suppose Save The Humans! sounds a lot more selfish than Save The Planet!

Re:You're ignoring the carbon footprint

[tfiedler]

>>Hasn't global warming sunk in yet? I know it's only been 2 years since it's been allowed to be freely discussed, but hey guys. wake up!

Sure, it has sunk in... some of us just don't care. Me, I'm all for it. Things have always changed, people have always migrated from place to place, and animal species (ours included) come and go. Global warming is a plus in my book, it'll increase the length of time I can ride my motorcycle every year.

Re:You're ignoring the carbon footprint

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. It's cold as fuck in Canada right now. I'll take a little global warming, please.

Re:You're ignoring the carbon footprint

[Charcharodon]

Personally I'm looking forward to all the new places in the ocean to sail and scuba dive, such as Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, etc.

All we are doing is returning the Earth to it's natural state before all those meddlesome plants inprisoned all the poor helpless carbon in the ground. That's what all the tree huggers seem to long for anyway, a return to the days of the Earth without people. Well those days included things like, no winter, and the ocean being considerably farther inland than it is now, so what are you all crying about then?

Re:You're ignoring the carbon footprint

[Anonymous Coward]

lmao i was just waiting til someone spewed that human impacted global warming garbage.

Thanks for nothing.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

The push for ethanol is part of this whole green wacko thing, and as with most of the other plans currently being implemented, will eventually hurt us. The demand for crops to fuel ethanol manufacturing is already driving up the price of food. Now we have to compete with our cars for food! What good is it to be able to drive cheaply to the store if you can't afford to buy any food once you get there?

Re:Thanks for nothing.

[calebt3]

Someone didn't read the comments. This process uses the corn husks and stalks rather than the ears themselves. Waste matter. No competition for food.

Need to make Butanol, not Ethanol

[Nick Driver]

Ethanol has about 84K BTU/gallon of energy for use in a piston engine. Butanol has about 110K BTU/gallon, compared to an average of 115K BTU/gallon for unleaded gasoline. Butanol also does not absorb water out of the air like ethanol does readily. Butanol can be made by via bacteria fermentation of biomass similar to like ethanol can. Butanol does have a problem with not vaporizing good enough for cold starts in very low temperatures, but that could be overcome with electric heater incorporated in a vehicle's fuel injector system for operation in cold weather.

Re:Need to make Butanol, not Ethanol

[saleenS281]

Diesel pickups already have this :) Besides, it's called "plug in the engine block heater".

Re:Need to make Butanol, not Ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it isn't as easy as heating the fuel. It has been tried with Methanol and Ethanol in the past. It takes a lot of power to heat fuel that quickly as it is flowing through lines to the injectors - and where is that heat coming from? The battery?

Sure, if you are talking hybrid vehicle with big battery and some reservoir for heating and a forced delay before engine start, okay. Once it is running you don't need to heat the fuel any more, luckily. But not on a conventional vehicle that needs all the crank speed and battery power for ignition that it can get at the coldest temperatures.

Better off to to have higher "mechanical" atomization with extremely high pressures - perhaps with a direct injection system so the fuel isn't sprayed onto cold valves and intake metal where it will just pool.

And - don't forget that the tailpipe emissions include nasty aldehydes until the catalyst gets hot enough to convert the CO, alcohol HC, aldehydes, and other organics - with really cold starts, this can take a fair amount of time.

No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[GreatDrok]

Don't expect the price of any petrol replacement to be any less than petrol if widely deployed.

One of the reasons for the high taxes in the UK for fuel is that they want to keep traffic numbers down. Pushing the price up should discourage people from driving so much in theory. Of course, the government just becomes dependent on the taxes and so will want a big cut of any other fuel source. Certainly, in the UK if you drive a diesel fueled by used cooking oil, a waste product which would normally be dumped, the government expect you to pay tax on it. The justification is that the tax is used to maintain the roads although that is supposed to be what the road tax is for. Anyway, it is currently cheaper to use vegetable oil and pay the tax than to use fossil diesel but if it gets more popular to use such biofuels the price differential will go away. Sure, they will be largely carbon neutral but the government will still want the same amount of income from fuel sales, they're addicted. I think the US drivers will have to get used to similar things. Accept it, whether the fuel is from fossil or modern sources, the price is going to remain high. You'll never see $1 per gallon again.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[Bryan Ischo]

Wouldn't the justification be, not that the tax is used to maintain the roads, but that they are trying to discourage road use, to keep traffic numbers down, as you stated in your first sentence? If so, does it surprise you that they want to make alternative fuels just as costly as gasoline?

I'm all for two things:

1) Tax the hell out of automobile fuel to keep automobile useage down
2) Tax it all at a base rate sufficient to accomplish (1), and then tax gasoline users 2x that to discourage them from fucking up the environment so badly

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[AnotherDaveB]

One of the reasons for the high taxes in the UK for fuel is that they want to keep traffic numbers down. Pushing the price up should discourage people from driving so much in theory.

As I recall, during the fuel protests a few years back, some bod from BP/Shell was quizzed about the effects of petrol prices, and he said they made very little difference to people's driving habits. They buy more efficient cars, but that's it.

And the main reason that the UK has so much tax on petrol, is the oil shocks of the 70s. The recent rise in crude oil prices, has not caused dramatic increases in petrol/transport prices in the UK because tax is the major part of the final price.

in the UK if you drive a diesel fueled by used cooking oil, a waste product which would normally be dumped, the government expect you to pay tax on it

News to me, can you cite your source?

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[Charcharodon]

California is starting to get worried about that as well and want to put GPS odometers in everyone's car for the tax.

I love the fuel tax here in the UK, so exactly what does the government spend it's $4 a gallon tax on? It's not the roads that's for sure. California roads get's by on about $.05 a gallon, they piss the other $.13 of the $.18pg tax on social programs.

I don't see why social programs cost so much. Of course if the parent article is accurate about using any carbon source as feedstock, we can save alot of money on both gas and social programs by converting all the intentionally homeless/unemployed, just go to any popular beach in California and you'll know what I mean, into fuel.

Go get 15 gallons of "The Green" 90 octane from the Soylent gas station on the corner.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[GospelHead821]

Automobile usage is a fairly inelastic behaviour. You can cut back on some of the trips that you take, but for most people, there remains a minimal amount of driving that is not drastically lower than their average. You might argue that anybody who really wanted to could bicycle or walk more often. Maybe, but I think that there are several factors that contribute to people not choosing "person-powered" transportation methods.

1. Yes, people are lazy. I won't try to pretend this isn't the case.
2. People don't have enough time. Maybe you could try to make time, but there are pitfalls there too. I happen to think that as a society we'd benefit a lot from being less rushed, but that really only works if everybody agrees to it. I happen to be single with lots of spare time, so biking to the grocery store isn't any great hardship. People with families, though, don't want to waste their leisure time in transit. (Make no mistake, the difference would come out of leisure time. Your boss isn't going to sympathize and agree to let you work 20 minutes less every day just because you've decided to bike to work.)
3. People don't feel that walking places is safe. We more frequently see situations nowadays in which parents are afraid to let their children out of their sight. Timmy might be capable of biking to soccer practice, but his mom will feel much more secure if she drives him there and back.

Ultimately, while people may choose a few activities that they are willing to sacrifice to save on gas, they're not going to quit going to work and they're not going to quit doing everything that takes them away from home.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[smoker2]

Certainly, in the UK if you drive a diesel fueled by used cooking oil, a waste product which would normally be dumped, the government expect you to pay tax on it.

Not true.

Since July 2007, if you produce biofuels in quantities of less than 2500 litres per year, there is no tax to pay. 2500 litres is over 550 imperial gallons, therefore if your vehicle can get an average of 40 mpg, you can drive 22000 miles per year tax free !

Ok, so you have to procure the waste oil and process it, but it still works out considerably cheaper. How's 11 pence per litre sound ? (+plus initial investment of course).

Check out the FuelPod 2.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[ChangeOnInstall]

You'll never see $1 per gallon again. I bet people said that in previous oil crises as well. We saw 89 cents/gallon six years ago. In the United States, it's perfectly feasible that we might see the equivalent of $1/gallon gas again.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[xelah]

Automobile usage is a fairly inelastic behaviour.

It is, though more so in the short term than long term. Remember that, when choosing jobs and housing, people will take in to account the regular journeys they have to make. When the UK train network all went to pot after the Hatfield crash a few years ago some people moved house or job to avoid the need to travel that way. Expensive car transport could do the same (though, to be honest, it isn't all THAT expensive as a proportion of income). And, of course, in the very long term younger people starting their first jobs might be more inclined to develop different habits or put off buying a car for longer (maybe not in the US....it doesn't seem to be optional there). I didn't have one until 26, because I didn't really need or want one and based my choice of home around not having one.

Here are the numbers for a 10% increase in fuel prices (from 'Elasticities of Road Traffic and Fuel Consumption with Respect to Price and Income: A Review', http://www.cts.ucl.ac.uk/tsu/papers/transprev243.pdf):


(a) Volume of traffic will fall by roundly 1% within about a year, building up to
        a reduction of about 3% in the longer run (about 5 years or so).
(b) Volume of fuel consumed will fall by about 2.5% within a year, building up to
        a reduction of over 6% in the longer run.
(c) Efficiency of the use of fuel rises by about 1.5% within a year, and around 4%
        in the longer run.
(d) Total number of vehicles owned falls by less than 1% in the short run, and by
        2.5% in the longer run.


It may be inelastic, but these falls are not trivial.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[Rufty]

"If we find you (evading tax), you will face stiff penalties" - Paul Gerrard, Customs enforcement officer

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Even if the government taxes bio fuels, the money stays in your country. It does not go to the unstable Arab states, where many people do not distinguish between donating money for charity and donating money to wage terrorism. Cut off their money supply first.

The right amount of tax? We car argue all the time. The key thing is to become independent.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[gnick]

I couldn't agree more. My only real exposure to Europe is several visits to Vienna to visit family, but I was amazed at the difference that severe fuel taxation made in the city infrastructure. They tax the hell outta gas and it makes for good public transit and logically located homes & businesses. A vast difference from what I see in the US. I submitted this article for a couple of reasons:
* Oil is going to run out (or at least is going to become very expensive)
* Americans must either drive or make a dramatic social/economic shift (good luck)
* An oil alternative is not going to come from a single source (i.e. corn)
* This seems to break organic material into a substance that, at best, fuels our cars. At a minimum, gets us drunk. And at worst, does both.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[GreatDrok]

smoker2 said

"Not true. Since July 2007, if you produce biofuels in quantities of less than 2500 litres per year, there is no tax to pay. 2500 litres is over 550 imperial gallons, therefore if your vehicle can get an average of 40 mpg, you can drive 22000 miles per year tax free !"

That is great news! I left the UK and moved to NZ in May 07 so I hadn't heard about it. Of course, I still stand by my judgement that if these fuels become popular the government will replace its current fuel tax with some other form of tax. Road tolls sound likely to me. Just like income tax, what the government gives with one hand, they will take with the other.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

"News to me, can you cite your source?" I'm not the original author and I can't cite a source but its common knowledge in the UK; except that, the government generally doesn't actually go around seeking its taxes but rather arrests people for using unauthorized fuels for something like "tax evasion". There was some BBC news story a few years back of some guy in Wales arrested for using biodiesel derived from some sort of vegetable oil. One thing people can do though is use LPG; last I was in the UK, it was SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than gasoline, something like 50% the cost, perhaps even lower; the cost to alter your car to take LPG is something like 5000 pounds. It almost certainly would pay itself back soon though, perhaps even in a year.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in the US.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

True but "backyard" production bypasses this issue...just dont get caught ...my understanding is that quite a bit of fuel can be make off of just one acre...enough for one families yearly needs...I also read where butanol can not only be used as a supplement but can be used as the only fuel in a gas engine with no mods necessary...NOW as for getting caught, I read somewhere where a guy was driving his vw bus across the country (with stickers and website proclaiming his trip) on WVO and was at some public event and got a ticket from some government type waiting for him. The ticket was for not having paid his taxes on the fuel.

Re:No way will it cost $1 per gallon

[AnotherDaveB]

Automobile usage is a fairly inelastic behaviour. You can cut back on some of the trips that you take, but for most people, there remains a minimal amount of driving that is not drastically lower than their average.

Sustrans, a UK cycling/walking charity, have a 'Travel Behaviour Research, 2004 Survey' [PDF] available from the Information Sheets section of their website, which contains some interesting stats:

Internationally, travel behaviour surveys in urban areas find that around 10% of car trips are no longer than 1km, 30% no longer than 3km and 50% no longer than 5km.

...more than half of car trips within Darlington (56%) could be made realistically by at least one alternative mode, compared with 46% in Worcester and 39% in Peterborough.

Their conclusions as to why people don't use the available alternatives to automobiles were:

In all three Towns poor perceptions of relative travel time form the most significant barrier against walking and cycling instead of local car trips, followed in nearly all cases by a generally negative view of these as day-today travel modes. Other reasons included poor perceptions of the available infrastructure and journey comfort.

Analysis of the journey times recorded in the travel behaviour surveys shows that in fact between a quarter and half of car trips within the Towns are within range of the average cycling trip, and that going by car for these trips offers little or no time benefit over cycling.

Where it provides a practical alternative to local car trips, the main reason people do not take public transport is a lack of information. In all three Towns this was the case in around half of local car trips which could have been made by bus. Perceptions of relative travel time are also important: in general people over-estimate travel time by public transport by around two-thirds and for cars under-estimate travel time by one fifth.

Forget it, I'm stupid

[Bryan Ischo]

I thought that E85 was 85% gasoline and 15% ethanol. It's actually 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. So nothing I said in my previous post makes any sense. Please ignore it, sorry for the trouble.

What about the $1 solar panels from last week?

[heroine]

Still waiting for the $1/watt solar panels from last week. Would even take the silicon nanotube batteries from the week before.

gas

[zogger]

Best I recall, that I bought, 12.9 during a local price war, but normally it was closer to 20 cents depending on octane level. Of course, it was all full service then too, plus you get schmooz, free steak knives (no kidding) coffee mugs, trading stamps, stupid crap like that. and almost all gas stations were repair garages. The worst was during the opec embargo, two gallons at ten bucks a gallon, just enough to get home, park, go to the pawnshop and buy two bicycles at 50 bucks apiece. Lucky to get them, too, all the new bikes around town had already sold out. In 99 we had the bulk farm tank filled up at 79 cents a gallon (the diesel tank was a scosh cheaper), then used some gas treatment, that tank lasted us a few years and was still burnable down to the dregs (although I ran the last 50 gallons or so through a filter first). (Pri-G gas treatment, D for the diesel, good stuff, works as advertised)

Do NOT forget taxes, supply and demand

[tm2b]

There are two thing to remember here: one, we pay (in the US) $.35-$.50/g in taxes? It seems to me that tax money is going to still have to come from somewhere to maintain whatever it is that's maintained by the taxes (roads, politicians, land wars in asia, whatever) - $1.50/g (energy gasoline equivalence) production might mean $2ish/gallon (gas equiv) at the pumps for production and taxes.

Then, supply and demand is still an issue - until production of ethanol with this method is ramped way up ("you may think it's a long way to the chemist's," etc), it's still going to be liquid energy on the open market and competing with all of that corn ethanol that politicians have been subsidizing for expensive production to buy Iowa voters.

Still an incredibly good price, mind you, and great protection against oil-based instability in the long run, but it's not the "FREE MONEY AND BEER SOON!!" that some might think at first blush.

Re:Do NOT forget taxes, supply and demand

[akgooseman]

Especially don't forget supply and demand. This stuff will not be sold to Joe Driver any cheaper per unit energy than gasoline. These guys didn't come come up with an inexpensive way to produce fuel, they came up with a way to make Big Oil kinds of profit. Hopefully they can control enough of the process to make some money themselves instead of Big Oil siphoning the cash into their own pockets.

Cheaper, not cheap

[MDMurphy]

First, the $1 gallon is the cost of production. Cost to consumer would include the cost of the feedstock, distribution, taxes etc.

And if / when this ramped up, it would be unlikely to use "waste" as the feedstock. Waste is something no one's found a use for yet. If corn stalks and wood chips are suddenly the new source of car juice it will cost more money.

Less cost to produce and uses a wide range of material is good. Dirt cheap, not likely.

This isn't going anywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

We are Exxon
We do not forgive
We do not forget
We ARE LEGION.

Re:the memories... There WILL Be Blood...

[davidsyes]

Shed...

Re:Better idea

[daeg]

Actually, yes. With a generic biomass to fuel process, nearly any biomass could be used, including human corpses.

With the rising cost of funerals and cremation services, maybe the burial method of choice in the future will be in the gas tank of your grandchildren.

Re:OPEC Screwing Themselves - AMEN!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones...
The bronze age didn't end because we ran out of bronze...
The iron age didn't end because we ran out of iron...
And the oil age will not end because we run out of oil - it will be because something better comes along. This combined with the new lithium-silicon battery technology could very well do it.
I guarantee I won't cry for OPEC.

What if they lose control?

[neomagus00]

Has anyone involved thought about what would happen if this stuff got out of the bioreactors? A bacteria that eats any organic material would wreak havoc in a relatively short time... granted, this is true of many bugs used industrially, but this one has the potential to run rampant, and quickly.

Re:What if they lose control?

[catman]

The bacteria in question are various strains of Clostridium (and the use in chemical reactors is patented). Most Clostridiums are
anaerobic and don't thrive very well under ordinary conditions, but we have all heard of tetanus and botulism, which is caused by
two Clostridium species.

See US patent 5173429 for the use of C.ljungdahlii and US patent application #20070275447 for C. carboxidivorans.

pardon me for actually reading TFA and searching for more information on this quite interesting subject ...

Re:Better idea

[rrkap]

Soylent Gas is people!!!!! Farewell Karma!

More on Butanol...

[Nick Driver]

I guess I might as well karma-whore some more...I completely missed the Wiki page for Butanol Fuel. I also think that Wiki article is wrong about butanol's melting point being 25.5 deg C, that is for pure "tertiary-Butanol", not "n-Butanol" which is the isomer that is preferred for fuel.

Re:More on Butanol...

[mattb112885]

I think this is interesting, it surprised me when I did a little research and found you can get similar yields of butanol to those of ethanol (I'm not sure which is actually easier to purify and so on though. Two and a half gallons of ethanol can be produced from a bushel of corn, and a new process claims to give the same yield .

Re:Good ol' boys in Appalachia do this all the tim

[Dr. Cody]

Yeah, they're good ol' boys, alright--they've all got seeing-eye hound dogs.

By Neruos

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like anyone else who says they can do something. I will believe it, when I see it. Until then, Don't announce anything you can not prove in a real life example and not on paper.

Re:Good ol' boys in Appalachia do this all the tim

[shiftless]

Once two strangers climbed ole Rocky Top,
Lookin' for a moon-shine still.
Strangers ain't come down from Rocky Top,
Reckon they never will.

Corn won't grow at all on Rocky Top,
Dirt's too rocky by far.
That's why all the folks on Rocky Top
Get their corn from a jar.

Politics...

[ChunderDownunder]

I'm going on hearsay but corn receives subsidies in the USA that question the viability of sugar cane.

And it's not just ethanol - I hear they don't even have real Coke, made from sucrose, over there!

Conspiracy #1 - Sugar cane Before the revolution, sugar cane was cheaply imported from Cuba; no more. The idea of using Cuba's cane fields for ethanol production was explored in the Jimmy Smits drama, Cane.

Conspiracy #2 - Hemp According to a Kiwi biofuel company, hemp far exceeds the yields of corn.

So you see sugar cane and hemp aren't viable. Two wars, "on Drugs" and "Cold" are more important... :(

Should the Cuban revolution fall after the deaths of the Castro brothers, you might see real Coke and cheaper fuel! As for the other matter, blame Arnie!

Re:Better idea

[edittard]

His diesel has returned to the tribe. Hail the Muad'Dib!

Has anything really changed?

[gsgriffin]

So what we are all excited about is that we might be able to run our country on crap coming from single-cell, brainless, parasitic, life-forms... Isn't that by exactly how we have been running this country for 200 years. It's not called Ethanol. Its called Congress.

Obligatory...

[Junior J. Junior III]

I'll buy that for a dollar!

$1.00 to MAKE doesn't meant $1.00 at the pump.

[Anonymous Freak]

$1.00 per gallon to produce is not the same thing as $1.00 at the pump. According to California, producing 1 gallon of gasoline costs about $2.25 per gallon. So while this is cheaper, it's not going to mean $1.00 at the pump. (Using the California figures, assuming that no extra profit is made, this would be about $2.00 per gallon. Still better than $3.25 per gallon, but it was just three years ago $2.00 a gallon was a HIGH price.)

Re:$1.00 to MAKE doesn't meant $1.00 at the pump.

[peektwice]

Right, and considering that ethanol produces less energy than gasoline, you'll need to buy more of it.

Re:$1.00 to MAKE doesn't meant $1.00 at the pump.

[Anonymous Freak]

Ah, yes. Forgot about that.

While Ethanol is 'cleaner' than gasoline, when you take the whole lifecycle of the product into account, Ethanol fuel has ALWAYS been cheaper than gasoline. Here in Portland, Oregon, one of the few stations that sells E85 sells it for generally 30 cents a gallon less than the cheapest regular gasoline in town, and a good 50 cents cheaper than their own regular gasoline. Yet even at that much cheaper, it still costs me more to travel a given distance because of the mileage decrease.

So?

[crhylove]

Why are all these people so interested in new fuels? It's abundantly clear that we could solve all of our energy and transportation problems cheaply, and more efficiently with solar and electricity. Photovoltaics have improved ten fold, and come way down in price, and there are operating solar power plants based on the Sterling model that have been reliable and efficient for some time already. I'd also like to mention the Tesla car. There is no reason we couldn't have cheap clones all over the roads at this point.

The whole Biofuel/Ethanol push is just a ploy for corporations to continue to control the energy and transportation sectors. It's stupid, inefficient, does not come down in price significantly nearly as quickly as solar electric at economies of scale, and is going to waste huge tracts of land, in addition. Land that would do much better converting sunlight to electricity directly.

Can somebody point out in any broad way any type of new alternative fuel is better than:
http://www.miasole.com/
and
http://www.teslamotors.com/

Thanks in advance.

Re:So?

[Peaker]

A figure I read in Peak oil awareness claims that to effectively replace gasoline with solar panels, we need to replace the current 10 square kilometers of solar panels in the world today, with 300,000 square kilometers.

Sounds kind of impractical.

Re:So?

[crhylove]

Have you been to Arizona? No loss!

let's see you power a jet

[alizard]

using solar power.

With respect to Tesla Motors, they use the same lithium-ion technology that blows up laptops and mobile phones on a regular basis. Even if Tesla uses super-high quality cells, how are they going to hold up if say, they're in a car parked under the Arizona sun for a few years? Or if the battery pack is replaced with third-party cells of dubious quality?

You may be able to make better points for a pure-electric transportation economy once carbon-nanotube ultracaps come out of the lab, if they do.

I'm wondering what the $1 is based on

[alizard]

I remember a pyrolysis outfit, Changing World Technologies promising an endless supply of biofuel based on ag wastes. . . which they figured on collecting for essentially the cost of transportation. They found out the hard way that there were competing uses for their intended feedstock (turkey guts, as I recall) with paying customers.

Anyone know cites to published papers discussing the technology?

"Current and potential enemies"

[kbahey]

According to the CIA, the US imports 2/3 of its consumed oil.

Your statement that oil:

gives far too much power to current and potential enemies.

Did you know that the US imports more oil from Canada than from Saudi Arabia? As per the DOE (in thousands of barrels).

Canada: Oct 2007 exports to the USA: 74,727
Venezuela: Oct 2007 exports to the USA: 43,015
Saudi Arabia: Oct 2007 exports to the USA: 43,394

I hope you do not count Canada as a "current or potential enemy".

And come to think of it: yes, Venezuela's president is not friendly to the USA, but in reality, how can he hurt the USA? Stop exports and hurt his own economy? Jack up the price of oil? He can't do it alone, and OPEC is not to blame, rather the US foreign policy is to blame there, with the invasion of Iraq hiking up oil prices rather than the promised lowering of it.

As for Saudi Arabia, they have been a US ally all along, despite the general feeling in the media. The rulers there are not popular because of that stance. Bin Laden himself opposed them, and that is why his citizenship was revoked, and then exiled first to Sudan and then to Afghanistan. The rest is history. So how are they a current or potential enemy?

Bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's organic, isn't it?

If they can make gasoline from that they might be on to something...

Not what people make it out to be

[Rinisari]

Ethanol is still not an alternative fuel. It's a supplemental alternative fuel. There's not enough corn grown in the US to switch entirely to it. Heck, there's not enough land in the US even to grow enough corn to satisfy our needs.

Re:Not what people make it out to be

[gr8scot]

Archer Daniels Midland should ask for their money back from you, shill.

There's not enough corn grown in the US to switch entirely to it Corn is yesterday's news. We all know it's a crappy source of ethanol.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/11/1847256

This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies. The current article says that the new gasification/bacteria-based process improves that 540% to over 770%.

May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, says Coskata's ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even after accounting for the energy needed to produce and transport the feedstock. It also generates 7.7 times more energy than is required to produce it. Corn ethanol typically generates 1.3 times more energy than is used producing it. Compared directly to corn, 7.7 : 1.3 means that any shortcomings of corn are no longer relevant to discussions of biofuels as a replacement for petroleum.

Did you read the post before yours?

[Grendel Drago]

You're essentially repeating what the grandparent post said. GM follows the dictates of the market; the market was distorted on purpose to cause GM to make electric cars, but when that distortion was removed, GM stopped making electric cars, as it would not have been profitable. The blame for this change appears to rest with the government, whose policy change led to the junking of the EV-1. Are you arguing otherwise?

Nice post, but to nitpick..

[gerf]

First, that post was one of the best I've seen in a while about ethanol. However..

and it doesn't factor in energy used for the planting, care, or harvest

It does, as that energy is already included in the entire country's energy usage. I also agree that other forms of ethanol production can possibly be much better than this corn-derived method. At least the corn method creates some real world distribution and usage, possibly leading to wider usage.

Re:Nice post, but to nitpick..

[Martin Blank]

Actually, it doesn't cover much of the energy used in planting, care, or harvest, as I referenced only gasoline usage, while most farm equipment uses diesel. Aircraft used to spray the fields use avgas, but this is small in comparison to the amount of diesel used by tractors, combines, and farm and delivery trucks.

Re:Nice post, but to nitpick..

[gerf]

We'll use soybeans for diesel, silly!

It's not like before.

[Grendel Drago]

Well, it did happen before--we couldn't be in this mess if the nation hadn't turned their back on the hard lessons learned in the oil shocks of the 1970s--but I don't think it could happen again; the limits on oil production have nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with the rate at which the stuff can be hauled out of the ground. I doubt petroleum will ever be really cheap again. (Though in a few years, we'll be looking back at the halcyon days of '08 as the days of inexpensive oil, when one could actually afford to run a car on gasoline--it's all relative.)

Well, that's an interesting point.

[Grendel Drago]

CWT has one working plant, nine years after opening their first research facility. That's an important splash of cold water in the face of any unwarranted optimism here, I think.

It's not quite as stupid as you make it sound.

[Grendel Drago]

It was thought that in response to a series of events involving food poisoning, it would be made illegal to feed turkey guts to turkeys. This was not done, and the feedstock turned out to not be free. The process (according to the website) works on medical waste, PCBs, old tires and sewage, which are all things that people definitely pay to have hauled off, but the company still has exactly one working plant, nine years after their first experiment facility opened. (I haven't been able to find any good information as to why that might be--whether the process doesn't work well on other feedstocks, or they can't raise the capital, or what.) I suppose we should all bear that in mind while we're reading about how we're going to have an ethanol plant in every county, right next to the thermally depolymerized chicken in every pot.

Kudzu tastes like...

[Black.Shuck]

...chicken.

Oh, right--papers.

[Grendel Drago]

Here are a few publications on the process. They're not all freely available.

The original patent by Paul Baskis. (1992) Thermal depolymerizing reforming process and apparatus.

A new patent (issues about two months ago, though it was filed more like three years back) by the folks currently working at Changing World Technologies. (2007) Process for conversion of organic, waste, or low-value materials into useful products.

A research report for the Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research from the University of Illinois on what appears to be a similar process, if not the same one. (1999) Thermochemical conversion of Swine Manure to Produce Fuel and Reduce Waste. (There's a layman's write up at National Geographic News.)

An SAE report on recycling polyurethane foam and other plastic crap from shredded car interiors. (2005) Recycling Shredder Residue Containing Plastics and Foam Using a Thermal Conversion Process.

Another SAE report on the same topic. (2006) A Life Cycle Look at Making Diesel Oil from End-of-Life Vehicles.

I don't know if anything was published in a peer-reviewed journal; the CWT website doesn't appear to link to anything, and I don't know if that's par for the course for an engineering firm, or if they're not publishing to keep things secret, or if they're selling snake oil.

Re:Oh, right--papers.

[alizard]

thanks.

you could use marijuana

[froggero1]

doesn't take much land space, grows tall, 4 harvests per year, can grow indoors anywhere... plenty of biomass there for fuel. might as well use it for paper then too, get some trees back on the planet and try to actually clean some air.

soon though i think. you're already starting to see the signs of an end of a prohibition. citizens not respecting the laws, police not enforcing the laws and the judicuary system not enforcing the laws.

Go OK State!

[runexe]

let's hear it for Oklahoma State:

http://www2.dasnr.okstate.edu/Members/donald.stotts-40okstate.edu/general-motors-and-coskata-announce-partnership-that-builds-on-osu-biofuels-team-research

I actually got to read about this last week in the college newspaper.

We have ethanol costing less than $1

[piotr.illichosky]

Here [Brazil] we have ethanol avaliable for ~$0,75. With the fuel crisis at 70's our government created an ethanol program wich included a law that makes all gas stations in the country sell ethanol, gasoline and diesel. Today our cars run with gasoline, ethanol ou both. But we have something that you haven't: sugar-cane, a lot of it. TIP: You can import ethanol from us...

'Complex'?

[GerryHattrick]

Great thread, sensible and informative, mostly. One thing that used to be mentioned when the UK came off its 'coal-fix', was that fossil fuel is complex hydrocarbon and really too useful to go burning in your hearth or vehicle. If so, it's not strictly 'ethanol versus oil'. The calcs should factor in the 'opportunity cost' of saving oil for uses which 'add more value' (not to mention the co-products which come out of the cracking). Any accountants out there?

Re:Better idea

[StarfishOne]

The spice^W ethanol expands consciousness~

Meteor Power

[Muchsake]

If we harnessed the energy from all the atmospheric meteor strikes we get each day would the cost of that energy fall like a rock too?

Re:Great, but... Do the math

[Anonymous Coward]

The cost of oil is around $90/barrel for a 42 gallon barrel. If you do the math that's around $2 per gallon before refinery or distribution costs. This makes gas (ethanol) for less money.

Peak Soil

[reed]

There's a big problem with ethanol fuel that I have yet to see discussed in any news about ethanol-- it might turn the problem of peak oil into a problem of PEAK SOIL. By digging up fossil fuels, we really take nothing away from the earth that we otherwise need. By growing crops and essentially burning them to run vehicles or generate power, we are directly wasting the nutrients in the soil. And guess what? We need to eat, too. Much of our farmland soil is already in such a poor state that it can only be used to grow crops when fed with large quantities of artificial fertilizer.

And if fuel from ethanol ends up costing *less* than fossil fuels, there will be no economic incentive to actually change our ways of living and working to make more efficient use of our resources, thus preserving them for our children.

Anyway, just something to think about...

Re:Making transportation cheap again.

[GargamelSpaceman]

Making transportation cheap again would rebound the economy

Yes it would, but cheap transportation is a key factor contributing to the vulnerability of the US economy to rising petroleum prices.

One of the best things that the gubmint could do to improve economic and national security would be to start paying for roads/bridges/etc with a federal gasoline tax. States should also begin paying for their part of the transportation infrastructure costs this way if they are not already.

Cheap transportation on roads paid for by those who don't use them has and does distort development towards being more transportation dependent. Cheaper labor in more far flung areas combined with cheap shipping to and from those areas causes development that would not be economic without the subsidy on transportation in the form of roads paid for by everyone that exists.

If the roads were maintained more exclusively by gasoline taxes then it would create the incentive to locate things with a greater eye toward efficiency with regards to transporting people and goods.

However because the existing development is currently overly dependent on cheap transportation, this pain could only be taken on gradually in times of economic prosperity. Over time, new developments would become more efficiently located.

Starting to pay for a portion of roads this way would be a good step, however rural areas would hate it. It might end up being the case that more urban areas pay for their transportation this way but less populated areas retain their road subsidy largely nullifying the effect. But if those subsidies can be cut down slowly, Innefficient transportation to and from the country can be eventually curbed.