Posted on 02/25/2006 8:05:55 AM PST by texassizednightcrawler
At a recent National Coal Group meeting, Sen. Robert C. Byrd told audience members that coal needs to play a part in America's new energy policy in the coming years. During this past State of the Union, president Bush outlined a plan that would begin to phase out our reliance on foreign oil and look to more renewable resources.
Coal, however, is also a non-renewable resource and is just as bad for the environment. Coal has also been an energy staple in America since the beginning of the 20th century. How then can it be part of a "new" energy policy when it is a dinosaur from the old energy policy?
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss," is nothing new to Byrd, who has used coal to get and retain power, and to look like a crusader for worker rights while keeping the status quo in place.
Now he is trying to use coal to look like an advocate for alternative fuels. If he were really interested in alternative fuel systems, Byrd would look at the possibilities of vegetable oil and hemp.
Used vegetable oil is gaining popularity as a way to power diesel vehicles while the possibility of hemp mobiles could really transform the automobile industry. The possibility of hemp-powered cars is nothing new. Henry Ford built the first hemp mobile in 1937. The federal government, however, impounded the car and threatened to jail the auto-maker if he continued his research.
The genius of industrial hemp is it can be grown virtually anywhere at low cost. Industrial hemp bio-diesel is produced from hemp seed oil. Industrial hemp only contains tiny amounts of THC, unlike marijuana, which is a close plant cousin.
Oil must come from the Middle East and coal is mostly owned by out of state interests. The black diamond also releases mercury and arsenic into man-made sludge lakes during the refining process. Industrial hemp, on the other hand, could be grown and refined by and for West Virginians.
If it were legalized, hemp could boost West Virginia's economy and keep money in the state instead of letting outsiders fleece it. Senator Byrd does not want to help West Virginia. He just wants to maintain the status quo.
Does that mean the nation's energy policy is going to 'pot'.
This article reads like a late-night bong session.
Teenagers who smoke pot, is there anything they think they don't know?
Oh, great! Now we all get to be a nation of "booger hippies." You know, the ones whose "uniforms" feature all the colors of mucous and appear to be hand sewn by Rastafarians?
That'll be the day.
Hemp is a great useable and reuseable resource w/o being just smoked. It really ticks me off that it is illegal to have it even growing wild on your property yet we import TONS of it from India, Turkey, etc.
Hemp grows easily in MO so why can't we cultivate it and sell it ourselves to the manufactures and refineries?!
Talk about your outsourcing crap, jeesh.
Okay.
That means that...
our whole solar system...
could be, like...
one tiny atom in the fingernail
of some other giant being.
This is too much!
Dave? Dave's not here man.
Because it gums up the machinery used to process it. It's a viable crop only where it can be processed by manual labor. Even then it still has to be subsidized.
Awesome, even another use for Hemp, a building material!
There's a problem with all these "vegetable oil", "ethanol
from corn" ideas: there isn't enough acreage available in
the country to grow enough crops to meet the potential demand. Also, ethanol is not as efficient as gasoline and
is more expensive at the pump.
If you are curious, I took at shot at the math. I think I was very generous in amount of ethanol that could be produced. It could help, but it will not replace our needs.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1582767/posts?page=70#70
As an added bonus, it will help get rid of all those late 80's & early 90's vehicles hanging around.
As seals get old & outgas some water helps swell them and prevents leaks.
All that extra corn sqeezin'z in gasoline will pull that moisture based scum out and fuel will start dripping from cold start injectors, dampers, & regulators, etc..
Lot's of car fires coming, ain't it great?
I had heard from several sources that ethenol uses more oil in refining and burning it, than it saves also, is that true?
Yeah, right now anyway, but the folks behind the curtain feel it's the way to go right know in case of a big to do in the middle east.
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