Posted on 03/06/2006 11:00:00 AM PST by kellynla
India is BUYING civilian nuclear technology from us. That's a good thing. That's business.
We have to build more nuclear power plants ourselves. Unfortunately energy policy has been conducted in a pragmatic way anywhere in the West except maybe France where today near 70% of the power is nuclear.
Nuclear power was vilified by the tree hugging liberal in the West through the 80s and 90s; those are now the same people complaining about our dependency on foreign oil and brownouts in California.
I meant to say NON-pragmatic way.
"With Brazilian ethanol selling for 45% less per liter than gasoline in 2003 and 2004, flex-fuel cars caught on like iPods. In 2003, flex-fuel had 6% of the market for Brazilian-made cars, and automakers were expecting the technology's share to zoom to 30% in 2005. That proved wildly conservative: As of last December, 73% of cars sold in Brazil came with flex-fuel engines. There are now 1.3 million flex-fuel cars on the road. "I have never seen an automotive technology with that fast an adoption rate," says Engle."
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/02/06/8367959/index.htm
Fermentation is the process by which most hillbillies prefer to obtain their drink of choice.
For the retards here, repeat over and over.......
Ethanol can come from coal.....
Ethanol can come from coal......
Ethanol can come from coal......
Great. All the farm lobby should invest and become overnight millionaires.(then say 'nana-nana boo boo' at all us chumps.)
"Great. All the farm lobby should invest and become overnight millionaires.(then say 'nana-nana boo boo' at all us chumps.)"
it's already happening....
google ethanol and read all about what's happening in places like Iowa!
An ethanol plant is being constructed in our county here in Indiana. It won't employ many people, but it's being touted as the cutting edge of energy. The county and city have given them all sorts of incentives.
You're right. It's very complicated, please explain it to me.
well actually you can produce ethanol from all kinds of sources like switchgrass; an acre of land can produce four times the mass of switchgrass as of corn. And switchgrass is far hardier and easier to grow than corn. The energy balance for ethanol from switchgrass is tremendously better. It doesn't require all the fertilizer, all the irrigation, all the energy intensity that corn does.
That would make much more sense than using corn.
I've never seen so much behind the scenes activity towards this end, and I'm a third gen. oil worker in an oil town.
They're quietly & quickly gearin' up for no oil from towelheadland, for some reason.
Wrong. It depends on the current world price of sugar. When sugar is up Brazil imports oil to offset the increased demand of sugar. when the price is down they produce ethanol.
Also you're making the mistake of comparing ethanol from sugar to ethanol from corn or other material. It's way easier and cheaper to produce ethanol from sugar cane then corn.
Too bad the corn & sugar mafia won't let us.
But it would be a very neat & quick way to kiss the sheik goodbye.
I only wish Bush was doing that when we saw him kissin' him.
How dare you question kellynla. Brazil is exactly like the US. Corn is exactly like sugar cane.
Evedently, we're in the process of trading lover's on the gov. level.
Article from last year. I believe both of these professors are in the pockets of "Big Oil":
Ethanol And Biodiesel From Crops Not Worth The Energy
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates, according to a new Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study.
Pimentel and Tad W. Patzek, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Berkeley, conducted a detailed analysis of the energy input-yield ratios of producing ethanol from corn, switch grass and wood biomass as well as for producing biodiesel from soybean and sunflower plants. Their report is published in Natural Resources Research (Vol. 14:1, 65-76).
In terms of energy output compared with energy input for ethanol production, the study found that:
* corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced;
* switch grass requires 45 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and
* wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
In terms of energy output compared with the energy input for biodiesel production, the study found that:
* soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced, and
* sunflower plants requires 118 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
In assessing inputs, the researchers considered such factors as the energy used in producing the crop (including production of pesticides and fertilizer, running farm machinery and irrigating, grinding and transporting the crop) and in fermenting/distilling the ethanol from the water mix. Although additional costs are incurred, such as federal and state subsidies that are passed on to consumers and the costs associated with environmental pollution or degradation, these figures were not included in the analysis.
"The United State desperately needs a liquid fuel replacement for oil in the near future," says Pimentel, "but producing ethanol or biodiesel from plant biomass is going down the wrong road, because you use more energy to produce these fuels than you get out from the combustion of these products."
Although Pimentel advocates the use of burning biomass to produce thermal energy (to heat homes, for example), he deplores the use of biomass for liquid fuel. "The government spends more than $3 billion a year to subsidize ethanol production when it does not provide a net energy balance or gain, is not a renewable energy source or an economical fuel. Further, its production and use contribute to air, water and soil pollution and global warming," Pimentel says. He points out that the vast majority of the subsidies do not go to farmers but to large ethanol-producing corporations.
"Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation's energy security, its agriculture, economy or the environment," says Pimentel. "Ethanol production requires large fossil energy input, and therefore, it is contributing to oil and natural gas imports and U.S. deficits." He says the country should instead focus its efforts on producing electrical energy from photovoltaic cells, wind power and burning biomass and producing fuel from hydrogen conversion.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050705231841.htm
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