The Myth of Ethanol

[Rosalind]

Cellulosic ethanol is one way to get away from the arable land issue.

Other options mostly depend on what resources you have available. I for one am just dumbfounded that desert areas like Vegas use so little solar power, that Great Plains and coastal areas have so few windmills (you can graze cattle under them fer cryin' out loud). Some communities are setting up plasma power converters for their garbage disposal, so if all you've got is a bunch of trash...

And there are actually electric cars in production now. We have a dealership about an hour up the road. They're actually rather spacious, not at all the econoboxes I thought they would be--sort of boxy, like a Subaru Forester or a Honda Element type of style. They hold their own in Boston traffic, and that's saying something!

 

[bluie]

IMO, solar and wind power are the only ways to go. Clean, will never run out, what are our politicians waiting for!?!?

 

[sundance]

My $.02 cents worth, we need to use both solar power and wind power. We have had a drought in middle Tennessee, and when we lived in Fla water was rationed, It seems that I saw a commercial on TV sometime ago about making fresh water out of salt water, they complain that the salt water is rising so why not use it to make fresh water,

marrie

 

[rhetoric]

Algae!

First, it produces WAY more biofuel (corn produces 18 gallons of fuel per acre of corn vs 33,000 (!) per acre for algae), doesn't use up crop land (you can grow it in the desert in a closed system), doesn't cause food prices to escalate (even grass uses up airable land), doesn't waste water, fastest growing organism, essentially carbon neutral (every bit of CO2 burned is sequestered back when the algae grows), can be used to "scrub" the carbon out of coal fired plants, etc. etc. etc.

When Clinton pulled the plug on algae in 1996 it wasn't cost effective... because oil was $20 a barrel! But that $1.80 a gallon fuel looks pretty good now, eh?

Why isn't it being pushed? Well, mostly because where the goverment is involved, common sense is nowhere to be seen. And cause there's no stinking "algae lobby" like there is a "corn lobby."

If I had money for something besides chickens I'd be investing in www.vertigro.com You can youtube "algae" and get some pretty interesting stuff.

 

[d.k]

* I've said it before-- I'll say it again. WE HAVE CHICKENS. We have compost, landfills, sewage, cattle. ALL of these make methanol. Those "flares" sticking out of our landfills-- That's methanol burning. We already use methanol, it's called natural gas. One process step further, and we call it propane. Will someone explain the "myth" of methanol to me, please???

 

[poppycat]

Whooohoooo. Elderoo's back!

 

[barred rock'er]

Here in middle Tn we have a radio station(99.7)http://www.997wtn.com/

And on this "talk " radio station there is a man by the name of Phil Valentine,He's been discussing exactly what we are right now!


His feeling is that it won't be just one thing that replaces oil. but rather the combination of many renewable resources being utilized on all levels,basically diversifying our economy. And taking away our demand for oil, especially foreign oil.




p.s.
I'm also a big Michael Savage fan....but that's political

 

[Davaroo]

The real point here is diversity. There is no one solution to the energy problem. Rather there are many that, if brought together, are more than the sum of their parts.

 

[Eggseronious]

Ethanol is not all the blame for high priced food.

The Cheap Dollar has the big effect, lots of countries are buying our grain now that they can afford it. China, India, and more are making our products and we are buying them. We have put money at their disposal to buy autos at record numbers! What does more cars do? Burn more gas! Textile mills in North Carolina are few and far between. (this is just one state) I'll bet the clothes U have own as U read this are 90% made over seas. What do we expect! We have dug our early grave! Everyday I have to buy something I look closely to see where it is made. Yep we have really supported our grandchildren the last few decades!

 

[BamaChicken]

Anything dependent on crops would be a risk and hope dependent on Weather so I agree that is must be diversity or something else that is always produceable.