Green Dreams Shattered: EU Biofuels Program Will Increase Carbon Emissions

Somewhat Reasonable ^ | 11/11/10 | Jim Lakely

[Morpheus2009]

It’s about time people got a memo about what the French got right. Yes Nuclear Energy, a nuclear power grid. It’s about time America got more nuclear too.

Come on folks, nuclear energy is the future! WHY TRY TO GET AROUND IT?!!!!

[seamus]

Doesn't the making of ethanol...( The actual distilling, or whatever they do...) take energy of some sort? Isn't that the point they are making?

This is correct. Studies in the US have shown that the net-energy expense is either equal or exceeds what it takes to produce ethanol, truck it to refineries, add the right mixture, etc. And then there's the separate issue of how taking corn out of the food supply and pouring it into our gas tanks artificially inflate food prices -- all done with enormous taxpayer subsidies to the ethanol industry. It's a sick cycle.

[Cacique]

btt

[steelyourfaith]

Thanx Ernest !

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[chilltherats]

It just gets better and better, doesn’t it?

I’ve noticed lately that there is less and less talk about “global warming” and “climate change”. The BS is starting to dissipate, even though the slimestream media doesn’t want to report on the discoveries of all the fraudulent claims, the vast amount of money that was intended to be sucked out of the populace and basically what was the grandest fraud/scam ever attempted. It’s the story of the new century, yet what do we hear from them?

Crickets.

[SunkenCiv]

It ain't about biofuels, it's about gov't programs -- the latter are not designed to actually accomplish what they're said to be for, but rather to put some money in certain people's pockets. :') Thanks Ernest.

• The Bum Rap on Biofuels
• Campaign to vilify ethanol revealed

[SunkenCiv]

Mostly the results from a "green" title search:

• Tax credit stalled again (Senate Dems killing "green jobs")
• Ethanol Could Go on GOP Chopping Block
• Ethanol Could Go on GOP Chopping Block
• Govt's handling of science on oil spill questioned
• Loaf of wheat bread may soon cost $23 due to skyrocketing food price inflation.
• Federal Reserve Inflating Bubbles Pushing Agri-Foods to New Highs
• Green layoffs
• Going Green -- Gangrene
• "Green" Jobless
• The Green War on Children
• The Green Agenda
• Summing Up Big Green
• How the 'Long Green' Becomes Green Power
• Big Green: They're the green gorillas of American politics (Special Report)
• Green Police
• Let Us All Join In On the NOT So "Green Cause" (Fraud With Green)
• The Red-Green Axis
• Green Protectionism
• Green Islam?
• Not enough federal green for green boom [green jobs]
• Green Energy Reporter About The Week In Green Energy [Actual Headline]
• Many of California's "Green Jobs" Involve Thinking about "Green Jobs"
• Cardinal Pell Says Green Party Like Watermelons: Green Outside, Red Inside
• The Green Cult
• Make Green With IBD 100's Top 5 Green Stocks
• Green Lies and Ham
• Green Jobs Training
• Green Sex vs. Pink Viagra
• Obama's Green Scheme
• Auto Insider: Green Nirvana Is Not Gonna Happen (Why Green Mandates and Subsidies won't work)
• Green Grow the Children
• A Green vote is madness
• Green Social Pollution
• Gagging on Green Garbage
• Oil: The Real Green Fuel (It's counter-intuitive, but oil is greener than "green" fuels)
• I'll go Green when These CO2 Generators are banned!
• Go Green and Let it Burn
• The 'Green' Indy 500 (CARTOON)
• Obama's Green Temples
• Five Myths of "Green Energy"
• The Master of Green Socialism
• Green Social Pollution and Green Righteousness
• Pot: Not so green after all?
• Going "Green"
• Emulate Spain's Green Economy? No Thanks, Mr. President (The green economy sold to Obama is a ruin)
• Too Green To Fail?
• Chrysler recalls Jeep SUVS; GM recalls sedans (Government Motors recall for power steering problems)
• China's SAIC close to GM IPO stake buy-sources (ChiCom Motors)

Note the spin in the second version:

• Obama to Propose Tax Write-Off for Business [9/07/2010] Obama will call this week for allowing businesses to deduct from their taxes through 2011 the full value of new equipment purchase, from computers to utility generators... The upfront deduction would allow businesses of all sizes to keep more money now and would give large corporations, many of which are sitting on cash because of uncertainty about the economy, an incentive to spend and invest.

  ---

• Obama to Propose Massive Tax Breaks for Businesses to Invest in Growth [9/6/2010] in one of his most dramatic gestures to business, will propose that companies be allowed to write off 100 percent of their new investment in plant and equipment through 2011, a plan that White House economists say would cut business taxes by nearly $200 billion over two years... tops a raft of announcements, from a proposed expansion of the research and experimentation tax credit to $50 billion in additional spending on roads, railways and runways... the investment incentive would embrace a long-held wish by conservative economists that had never won support from either Republican or Democratic administrations.

  ---

Obama's earlier plan, spin cut out, stupidity left in:

• Obama to Propose Massive Greenhouse Gas Tax [2/21/2009] ...will propose a massive business tax on greenhouse gases... his proposal to require companies to buy permits from the government for greenhouse gas emissions above a certain cap... would raise up to $300 billion a year by 2020. Since companies would pass their costs on to customers, Mr. Obama would have the government use most of the revenues for relief to families to offset higher utility bills and related expenses. The remaining revenues would cover his proposals for $15 billion a year in spending and tax incentives to develop alternative energy.

  ---

• "Senate Hides Obama's Energy Tax Bill From Debate" [4/23/2010] Obama's "phony energy tax" is a key provision of the "Obama Tax Plan." Like ObamaCare the Senate is again attempting to ram through legislation and tax all Americans. Obama and the Democrats promised to conduct the public's business in public: Instead once again they are writing and moving the "phony energy tax" bill forward behind closed doors in the Senate to create new taxes to pay for ObamaCare... Climate facts and the polls make it clear that Global Warming cannot be caused or controlled by humans. The truth is that Mother Nature controls Global Warming, the earth is cooling, green scientists are falsifying data and Obama and the Democrats are raising taxes under false and misleading pretenses to pay for ObamaCare.

  ---

[SteamShovel]

The actual energy for distilling is relatively low because of the use of heat exchangers.

What does that mean?

The heat input to the heat exchangers is energy and has to come from somewhere.

[VeniVidiVici]

[Pollster1]

"The actual energy for distilling is relatively low because of the use of heat exchangers." What does that mean? The heat input to the heat exchangers is energy and has to come from somewhere.

The energy input lasts a long time and distills quite a bit of alcohol or whatever you are processing out of the biofuel mass. It's quite efficient compared to the country still making moonshine that we often visualize.

[seamus]

Nice image, Veni.

[SteamShovel]

The energy input lasts a long time and distills quite a bit of alcohol or whatever you are processing out of the biofuel mass. It's quite efficient compared to the country still making moonshine that we often visualize.

So you are saying the fermentation creates heat that is then recovered and used in other areas of the process, if I read that correctly.

[Pollster1]

So you are saying the fermentation creates heat that is then recovered and used in other areas of the process, if I read that correctly.

Not quite. Fermentation only produces a little heat, too little to recapture profitably. It's distillation that allows for reusing the heat through a regenerative heat exchange system. As alcohol-free liquid flows out, it pre-heats the alcohol-laden fluid that is ready to be distilled, cooling to room temperature as the fluid is heated to near the boiling point with negligible loss. The design is copied from nature:

"Counter Current Circulation": Arctic animals try to keep their temperature constant, but their legs remain cold, while their head and body core remain warm. This seems like a difficult feat, but with an adaptation called countercurrent heat exchange it requires little energy. In this system of circulation arteries, which carry warm blood from the heart to the extremities, lie very close to the veins, which carry blood from the cold extremities of the body back to the heart. In this way, heat from the warm arterial blood is transferred to the colder blood in a vein, thereby cooling the blood in the artery and warming the venous blood. Thus, as blood from the body reaches the extremities, it is already cooled and loses very little additional heat to the environment. Conversely, cool blood from the extremities is warmed prior to reaching the body core and does not shock the heart or reduce internal body temperature. The countercurrent exchange system has been well studied in both the arctic fox and the caribou, which maintain their core temperature nearly 30°C higher than their appendages.

[Marine_Uncle]

"Well....now what?"
I could asked the same question.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi