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48 Comments
- killerpuppy, on 11/21/2008, -0/+29as long as they don't chop down any more damn rainforest to grow biofuels ... here's to shade grown biofuel ... or kick any more indigenous people off their land...
- artwhite, on 11/22/2008, -4/+2840 years after the moon landing... biofuels... pathetic. We should have nuclear-fusion by now or zero-point energy... Biofuels... wtf is going on here? A ******n caveman could have made biofuel !!
- jerryjamesstone, on 11/21/2008, -3/+20Hmm...but I dont like ethanol.
- greenfyre, on 11/21/2008, -1/+15which we can acheive by decreasing our demand ... but as long as we keep demandnig they will cut, kill, displace anything and everything in the way.
- MorganMghee, on 11/22/2008, -1/+12they did, they burned dung.
- MorganMghee, on 11/22/2008, -1/+10digg x10000
- JenniferInMO, on 11/22/2008, -1/+10We need to focus some of our efforts on ethanol. Corn based ethanol, which you are probably thinking about is just the first step. We are working on algae and cellulose based ethanol, both of which are progressing very quickly.
- Niubai, on 11/22/2008, -0/+9So, let me see ... a lot of first world countries piratically extinguished their own forests (and exterminated the indigenous people, owners of the land, right, USA ?) to achieve the high industrialized status they have now. So, Brazil, a developing country, with a goal to reach the same status too, just can't do the same ? It's like "wow, we can do (and we did) but Brazil just can't".
I'm not in favor of the extinguish of the rain forest, of course, (as any Brazilian). We are very concerned about what happen up there, even living thousands of miles away, but a good solution need to be found, for both sides. Brazilians want jobs and a decent life too, without destroy their nature.
And just for the information: there are no sugarcane in the Amazon, the weather is not the proper one. Sugarcane plantations are highly concentrated in the southeast region (mainly in São Paulo state). - Doxocopa, on 11/22/2008, -1/+10tssss... tsss I live in Brazil...
Ethanol is not falling trees but is pulling out catle and livestock prodution further into the forested areas; the largest producer and planter of sugarcane and ethanol from it is São Paulo state, whose land has been cleared of forests decades ago.
Grazing land in "frontier" areas is being planted with sugarcane and the catle that used to live there is now moving to new grazing areas, those made by clearing forest. This is happening especially in Pará state, eastern amazonia, and northern Mato Grosso (south central amazonia). - hamobu, on 11/22/2008, -1/+9Obama supported tariffs on ethanol to ingratiate himself with the powerful farm lobby. We do not have tariffs on gasoline, so it makes no sense to have tariffs on ethanol. Sugar cane ethanol (from countries like Brazil) is eight times more efficient than corn ethanol. In addition to a wide spread environmental damage from corn ethanol, the price of food spiked which had caused food riots world wide. It is amazing how much damage can one lobby group do.
- DangerCollie, on 11/22/2008, -2/+7It's fascinating to me that, over the years, DoE has done a really good job trying to position America for energy independence. I say "trying" because those efforts are frequently thwarted by a combination of industry lobbying and political agendas. DoE isn't headline grabbing, except when they make a mistake. But they actually do a pretty good job and that's been the case for quite a long time.
Like any big organization they have waste, and sometimes process comes before results but, overall, DoE is one of the few government agencies that's done an okay job over the years. I hope going forward and actually doing more than paying lip service to energy independence we start paying attention. - doiveo, on 11/22/2008, -0/+5that's biomass
- OriginalReplica, on 11/23/2008, -0/+5Maybe when we allow wild herds of buffalo run across middle American Prairie without fences (instead of fencing them out so we can grow crops), and we let wolves for packs and hunt naturally (instead of killing them so they don't kill any beef, er cattle) and well I guess we can't un-genocide all of the Native American tribes that are gone, but maybe we could give Arizona back to Hopi and Northern California back to the Miwok and the Susquehanna River valley back to the Susquehannock, then and only then do we have the moral authority to say ***** about clearing lands and running off native peoples.
- wowsah156, on 11/23/2008, -2/+7IMO Biofuels are a bad thing. At best land needed to grow the fuel is finite. so this idea that giving up viable land for biofuel is an absolute crime and waste. There is already a global food shortage. Mass production of bio fuels will just create a new global famine. Which is more important, the fuel in the car? Or the food in your belly?
- nurbsenvi, on 11/23/2008, -2/+6If we didn't spend all that money on Vietnam war, Desert Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom (reads LAME) and Iraqi freedom and instead spent it on science we would not only have Nuclear-Fusion but a colony or two in Mars.
- SkittlesUSA, on 11/23/2008, -1/+5Is this the same ethanol that the government decided to subsidize that forced global food prices up by 75% and pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line and sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt?
Alright go government!!!!!!!!!
Getting the government involved in ethanol obviously didn't work, so what's the solution? Get the government more involved in ethanol!
The idea is too stupid to not work, right? - FairDinkumMate, on 11/23/2008, -0/+4Do some research BEFORE you sprout rubbish!
There is NO SUGAR grown in the Amazon. It's climate & land is unsuitable for sugar. Sugar cane is grown in the SOUTH of Brazil, about as far from the Amazon as New York is from Alaska!
Land clearing occuring in the Amazon is due primarily to dodgy farmers that use it for cattle grazing. Soy was a problem but that has been significantly reduced through new technology to monitor the region(thanks Google!) & huge fines handed out to some farmers caught clearing land.
For those defending these Brazilian farmers as just trying to make a living, please understand that more than 40% of Brazil's non-Amazon arable land is still available & unused. These farmers clear & use Amazon land for grazing only because the land is cheaper to buy(because it's not meant to be used for farming!) & they can even offset a lot of that with the sale of the cleared timber. - Paulorific, on 11/23/2008, -4/+7Ethanol > Oil
Go Brasil. - hamobu, on 11/22/2008, -2/+51. We still use fire.
2. Caveman used fire.
3. We suck.
4. QED - fabio1, on 11/23/2008, -0/+3Actually, this is a myth. There´s not a shortage of food in the world. We produce more food than we can eat. The problem is with the distribution of the food.
- bjornski, on 11/23/2008, -1/+4Maybe we should burn worthless spamming ***** like you for fuel.
- Viakenny, on 11/23/2008, -0/+3cane sugar > HFCS
sugar cane ethanol > corn ethanol
still... corn is better for many other things. - hamobu, on 11/22/2008, -2/+4We need Nuclear energy.
- dcrad, on 11/24/2008, -1/+3Well said, its bloody retarded how the corporate interests of this world always get to dictate just how this planet is treated. Anyone with any brains can see were ***** it up at a far faster rate than the planet can recover from.
I just hope Obama can start to make some good changes, its a shame he'll be "under the thumb" of the people that really run things. I just hope someone soon has the balls to stand up against what they know is wrong, ***** the corporations, I'm sure people can live in harmony with the planet and still make money, someone just has to force them to do it. - GoneGreen, on 11/23/2008, -4/+6Good bye rain forest. Hello, substitute that still burns and hurts the environment.
- lornali, on 11/24/2008, -0/+2Good
- joshua5, on 11/23/2008, -0/+2I'm sick of only reading about these green projects. I refuse to believe any of it until I plug in my car or see it on the shelf, whatever it may be.
- crsturdivant, on 11/23/2008, -1/+3My thoughts exactly. The Brazilian government absolutely hates that such a large portion of their country is covered by a jungle. All they ever seem to do is come with ideas to "develop" it, to the peril of its many indigenous groups and carbon dioxide levels. We just have to be able to do better than biofuels! Although, Petrobras's statement in that article about getting more useful fuel from the same amount of crops is a good thing, assuming that biofuels will have to be a component of a multi-pronged attack on the use of fossil fuels. Hopefully this won't be the case.
- Intercon, on 11/23/2008, -2/+4This is a ***** catastrophe. Once again corporate interests overriding common sense, good science, and basic human dignity. Despite the fact that there are a good many promising new technologies in hydrocarbon cultivation, including plasma waste reclamation, as well as fungal, bacterial, and algal, agricultural- and livestock- and human- generated biodiesel of fair to high quality, the business interests continue to dictate the speed and rigor with which human technology is adopted and implemented.
Corn!? Are you ***** serious? Okay, I'm making a rule. From now on, no one in America is allowed to pretend that their business exists in some theoretical vaccum, based on economics and consumption, while determinedly ignoring the fact we all live on this thing called a planet, and its ecosystems are going haywire!!
If we don't quit ***** around and start making some moves, this planet’s current dominant life form and relatively fragile as a specie, the ***** sapiens, will drop right off the page of history like the goddamned dinosaurs. This is a critical point in man's development as an evolutionary being, and the question is clear:
Should we live in harmony with natural systems, or do we think we can go it alone and do what we want despite what the rest of the living system needs. The answer should be obvious. Why burn the world up, when if we tune ourselves to its rhythms, it will go on spinning and sustaining us for aeons to come, a giant living clockwork biosphere with a magnetosphere to keep the sun from frying us, an atmosphere to veil us from the Sun’s intensity, and a living perpetually-replenishing ecosystem to feed, clothe, house, and protect us?
So no more. Corn is food. Don’t pretend it’s not, and don’t pretend there aren’t hungry people on this planet despite adequate resources. It’s that simple.
Green future is your future. Everything else is just a lie. - KingGorilla, on 11/23/2008, -0/+2unless he had diarrhea
- Batfishy, on 11/23/2008, -0/+2I work for a tiny little biofuel company with some real promise if we can get there. The bridge loan crises hasn't helped. But anyway we use a lot of different feedstocks for our bio-diesel. Our particular company doesn't compete with the food chain. I was glad to learn that and the fact that they are "green" is the only reason I took the job. We like rain forests.
Anyway, we're keeping our fingers crossed that it's going to make it through this economic crises and maybe we're in the right place at the right time to catch some interest. - FairDinkumMate, on 11/23/2008, -0/+240% of the arable land in Brazil(EXCLUDING the Amazon) is still unused, so ethanol production certainly is ot pushing out food production at all
- fabio1, on 11/23/2008, -0/+2use something else then ?
- rmccabe916, on 11/23/2008, -0/+2But tell me, where would the nuclear waste be stored?
Nevada? :D - Richandler, on 11/22/2008, -1/+3So a government is going to commercialize something.......
- hamobu, on 11/22/2008, -1/+2Actually, percentage wise, more land is protected in national parks USA than in Africa.
- Intercon, on 11/24/2008, -0/+1While I agree that population is the number 1 problem facing the world at the moment, would you accept sterilization for the benefit of the planet? Perhaps if the developed nations weren't raping the undeveloped nations, we could come up with a solution that works for the entire world.
Seems to me most hunger is the world is engendered by repressive regimes and military strife that prevent populations from producing their own food; more than the inability of humans to figure out how to cultivate and produce their own food. - Intercon, on 11/23/2008, -1/+2What are you on about!? Do you know anything about how oil is traded on the futures market or how Bolivia was forced to de-regulate its electricty markets?
Your post has no substance. Try reading.
start with Perkins's "Confesions of an Economic Hitman", and then read chapter 3 of Palast's "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy".
Remember Enron? Dick Cheney preempted the DOE on Day 1 of this administration. - twigboy, on 11/24/2008, -0/+1cant we concentrate on using corn for food instead?
- jojopumpkin, on 11/23/2008, -1/+2Hooray for higher food prices!! YAY!
- Paulorific, on 11/23/2008, -2/+2That's what I'm talking about. Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house, other-countries-of-the-world.
- Barackalypse, on 11/23/2008, -2/+2If you feed the hungry they'll just make more hungry for you to feed, its a never ending cycle. When they're willing to accept sterilization in exchange for being fed then we'll have a finite problem that we can talk about solving.
- downthefed, on 11/23/2008, -1/+1what a waste were just going to destroy more of the rain forest that would offset any benefits may have. Ethanol is a complete waste of everything.... thank you special interest groups for further destroying the planet. And everyone who thinks that Obama will "change" this needs to rearrange their minds.. look into donations into his campaign CORPORATE PUPPET!!!! RON PAUL 2012
- hamobu, on 11/22/2008, -2/+2I love ethanol. I love some ethanol in beer. When I want something stronger, I look at the ethanol content.
- phosphite, on 11/23/2008, -3/+3The corn!! Won't somebody please think of the corn!?
- roxblog, on 11/23/2008, -4/+3cool
- Freedom911Jesus, on 11/23/2008, -2/+1But my tank won't hold a Brazillian gallons.
- GoneGreen, on 11/23/2008, -3/+2Indeed, biofuels are just a band-aid for poor planning. At best it can serve as a bridge to a REAL alternative energy solution.
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