Posted on 12/02/2007 8:21:12 AM PST by Graybeard58
The biofuels boom is falling on hard times. And no wonder: For all the environmental and supply problems associated with fossil fuels, biodiesel and ethanol may be worse. And even Congress and the United Nations are taking note.
Congressional leaders are increasingly concerned about the future of agriculture in America's breadbasket, in part because water-intensive biofuels production is threatening to suck dry the Ogallala Aquifer. The huge groundwater reservoir's upper levels have dropped about 100 feet since the 1940s, probably because of agricultural practices in the Great Plains.
The House and Senate are at odds over using taxes on oil to subsidize ethanol production, and leaders disagree over ethanol mandates.
The likely result is an energy bill that falls far short of the biofuels goals being spouted daily by presidential candidates prowling the Corn Belt for early advantage in the nomination sweepstakes.
Meanwhile, biofuels skepticism emanated forcefully from an altogether unexpected source: a U.N. official. Jean Ziegler, who represents a U.N. agency studying food issues, said he is "gravely concerned that biofuels will bring sudden hunger in their wake." He called transforming food crops into fuel a "crime against humanity."
Moreover, it has been well documented that rain forests in Latin America and Indonesia have been hacked down, put to the torch and plowed under in favor of fuel-producing crops such as sugar cane and palm oil. The damage already done is incalculable, and worrisome from an environmental standpoint.
Skepticism by some in Congress and the United Nations is welcome and needed. The dubious assumption that "renewable" energy sources are more reliable, cost-effective and better for the environment has taken hold.
Yes, the time will come when civilization's survival will hinge on mankind's ability to produce large amounts of energy in a manner that does not deplete finite resources such as oil, coal and natural gas. But insisting on biofuels development at the expense of research into other alternatives increasingly looks like a faulty and potentially destructive strategy.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
Biofuels: one bad season could stop the world.
And, finally, environmental regulation is a shoddy foundation for an energy policy.
Check this out for confirmation of what you said:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1933427/posts
re, the link: that's an argument for direction drilling if I ever saw one.
The introduction of the fuel injector greatly increased the effective yield from this “finite” commodity.
What energy source would we tap into in order to charge all those electric car batterys? Nuclear? Coal? Oil?
We will have to build a lot of new power plants.
What an idea!
Build something rather than bi### about it.
There was a time when we would see a problem and then build what was needed to solve it.
Don’t forget the new cheaper, lighter,longer lasting with 3X the storage lead acid batteries from Caterpillar.
Thanks for the post. This is one of those “hate to say I told you so” things. The bio-fuels debacle is just that, but the political fallout is going make it too big to fix. If they only had a brain...
I prefer nuclear as it is renewable and clean. There are tons of uranium reserves. There is three hundred years of uranium in the oceans at current total world energy generation. Fast breeders make more fuel than they consume. So it seems a no brainer. Clean coal technology is OK also. We don't use much oil to generate electricity. Peaker and emergency units mostly. I think we should get off oil because it is used against us as a weapon and our ditsy congress won't do a thing about it by allowing us to drill at home. I am sick of paying muzzies for oil.
So build them!
Excellent. As I recall, not too long ago most were convinced that we had discovered all there was to know about batteries. Guess we were wrong.
I don’t think we should be burning up our food. I’m funny that way.
The only problem I still see with electric cars is that...
...it still takes more time to recharge an electric car than it takes to refill a gas tank.
When that problem is solved, then (I believe) will electric cars start to become competitive.
Sorry, I meant to say YES first. Something many people overlook is the electricity source for battery recharge for electric cars. We might be able to charge the batteries at night during low load periods. Tesla claims a 3.5 hour recharge time so staggering current grid load would possible. Thus, reducing the overall need for new power plants. But all that energy formally made by gasoline has to come from somewhere and I bet new power plants will be the source.
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http://www.caiso.com/outlook/outlook.html
There is a supper capacitor that will charge really fast but I think more normal batteries will be fin for normal every day use.
It is easier to recharge at home than it is to stop at a gas station.
For cross country trips a gas car will be hard to beat but that is not the point, the second car could be electric and if 40% of the daily driven cars were electric the in city pollution would be much less.
I live in Phoenix and in 1970 we had beautiful clean air all the time but now we have 3 million cars and it is always smoggy. I can barely see the stars at night some times. Any thing that can remove or displace the in city pollution I would love to see if it can be done cheep.
Run the big in city trucks on NG, go to 20% or more electric cars, throw in some supper lean burn cars and the air would be much cleaner.
I don’t care about the CO2 just the in city smog.
That’s not too hard to solve. Have 2 batteries, charge one while you drive using the other.. You can simply switch an empty battery for a full one at a ‘gas’ station.
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