What is Digg?125 Comments
- Endeavour3d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16People that are pushing corn for ethanol production are idiots. The logical choice is algae, which can be grown just about anywhere cheaply and easily, is carbon neutral, doesn't require much processing unlike corn, you can use nearly 100% of algae for ethanol production unlike corn, and it brings thousands of times more energy per acre than corn or any other plant in nature, so we wouldn't need nearly the amount of space that corn would otherwise need. The only reason corn is being pushed for ethanol production is purely political not not logical...
- epiccollision, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21its not about pollution it never was...its about our addiction to oil...then maybe we can work on the pollution thing
- fkr3, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20Ethanol is the answer to many questions. Like what's a fun drink you can make from corn. Or what's a word that sounds like methanol? Or, how many words can you get from these letters: e,t,h,a,n,o,l.
As for the polution problem and reliance on oil - the answer there is to get people up off their fat ***** asses and make them ride, walk, run or roll. I'm sure if every fat bastard walked/bicycled/unicycled/backflipped/whatever to work even just once a week it'd have a noticable impact on both their asses and the environment. - Julolidine, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16My wildly optimistic calculations indicate that a highly efficient area about the size of France is required to produce enough ethanol to sustain America's gasoline for 1 year. And once again these assumptions are that we would be able to produce ethanol as efficiently as Brazil's sugar cane.
- greymaxcat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17No.. Beer is the Answer...
At least to the question I was thinking of... - aurrea, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Did I read that right?
200 more people will die each year if EVERY SINGLE car switches to ethanol in the US? 200 people
I question his results.... - Shizlanski, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11TANSTAAFL? What the... wiki helped me out there. "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
It seems like everything is slowly becoming part of an acronym. In a couple years im sure our conversations on the internet will just be. UIFIDSKJHFSKDFHUDSFHUILOLERSWTFHAX. - stigma15, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@endeavour
I'm not doubting you, but do you have a citation for that? - davidrools, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@asianwaste
Fuel cell membrane technology is too expensive and has too short a usable life to be marketable at this point. Also, onboard hydrogen storage is problematic, as is the infrastructure necessary for hydrogen production and delivery to consumers.
A hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is basically an electric car, but instead of batteries for energy storage, it uses hydrogen and a fuel cell to make electricity. Battery technology has caught up, though, extending range on practical vehicles like the Tesla roadster up to 250 miles per charge. Plus, exchangeable battery technology has tons of potential for instant recharging. Electricity production and delivery is also tons of times more efficient and cleaner (yes, even coal burning electricity production is done more cleanly than cars burning gasoline). Plus, alternative sources (solar, in particular) of electricity production can easily replace any fossil fuel burning methods without needing to change any of the electricity infrastructure. - CaptMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Okay, a couple of things to clear up. First off, the assumption that we can't produce as much ethanol as places like Brazil is incorrect. In fact, states like Tennessee (where my parents own a farm) are starting to grow and subsidize growing switchgrass for ethanol production. For anyone keeping score, the amount of gallons of ethanol per acre that each crop yields is as follows, corn - 370, sugarcane - 662, switchgrass - 1150(!). So, there's certainly no problem with that.
Growing switchgrass won't hurt human food production, since a survey conducted by the Univeristy of Tennessee that I read earlier this month stated that most of the land which would be converted to switchgrass was land currently being used for growing hay or land that is uncultivated now. Switchgrass is a hearty crop that can grow in places where many other crops cannot. It also has benefits to the soil and local wildlife that I won't go into.
Finally, pointing out that corn prices have doubled in 14 months is a bit misleading. 14 months ago, corn was at its lowest price at any point in the past 6 years, as of two or three months ago, it was at its highest (which is probably why they said 14 months and not a year or anything like that, makes it sound scarier). The price comes and goes, but it peaked a couple of months ago and is dropping back to more reasonable prices. If anything is going to drive prices up, it was those really cold couple of days we had on easter weekend that wiped out the entire crop for many farmers (like my parents). With or without ethanol, you can't control the weather and you can't control corn prices. Even with increased prices, where would you rather have your money go, to American farmers or to the oil companies in the middle east? - HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Same story goes for Diesel and Biodiesel. They do decrease CO2 output, at the expense of a significant increase in nitrogen oxides, which form smog.
TANSTAAFL. - Asianwaste, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Shift your analogy for a bit. Think of the movie Crank. He needed stimulates to live and crossed many lines to get it. America needs oil to be economically stable and one would say if this war on Iraq really is a war for oil, then we too have crossed many lines to survive.
- EvilGnome, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The one good thing about corn being used for ethanol is corn prices are going up so companies may start shying away from high fructose corn syrup and use SUGAR in their products. That contributes almost as much to our obese society as the lack of exercise. I agree corn ethanol is a waste, but this is one good thing that can come from it.
- Cutkomp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7The powers that be won't let ethanol be a worthwhile solution. We have one of the best plots of land in the world and were founded by some hemp farmers, yet we can't grow hemp. Hemp is ten times more efficient than corn for fuel.
- Zera, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Here's a link from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture with the ratio of (Inputs to produce corn)-to-(Ethanol Generated) its 1:1.32: http://www.mda.state.mn.us/ethanol/balance.html
This isn't data from some study, this is Actual Data from the wide scale production of ethanol.
We currently cultivate 400 Million Acres of farmland in the US. If we wanted to replace all of our petroleum consumption with Biofuels, we would need to find an additional 6.3 BILLION ACRES OF LAND to farm. That's 2.5 times the size of the U.S. Ethanol from corn is an absolute impossibility. When you buy a gallon of ethanol for your car, you are ALSO burning the .75 gallons of gasoline used to produce it.
Ethanol extends and increases our dependence on oil. The real solution is Wind power and Nuclear plants creating hydrogen, and powering vehicles with that. - arcarael, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4finally this is getting out. ethanol is not the answer to concerns about the future of oil. it takes a lot of energy to create ethanol. the only reason it's cheaper than other gas right now is because ethanol producers receive subsidies from the government making it cheaper for them to produce. so really, the consumer is paying for it twice. it creates waste as well. we need to get away from the "we need to burn something to get energy" mentality. lastly, corn (the major crop used to make ethanol, yet [unsurprisingly] is the least efficient) yields are likely to be down this year and indefinetely due to the mysterious disappearance of millions of honey bees. the bees are pretty much the reason we eat. without them, the crops would not get pollinated and thus fail to produce the fruit of its labor. this is a very serious problem. it is becoming a global problem.
- krellor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Next your going to tell me you don't know what "UIFIDSKJHFSKDFHUDSFHUILOLERSWTFHAX" means? Pff, what a noob, you fail at life.
- Slovenian6474, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4ethanol....hydrogen.... all bad ideas compared to the Mr. Fusion. Mr. Fusions have been known to generate 1.21 gigawatts of power from nothing more than household waste.
- dwhitbeck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Replacing gasoline with ethanol made from corn is just plain ignorant. For one thing, it takes a lot of fertilizer to grow corn. Nitrogen fertilizer is made from ammonia which is made from natural gas. Growing corn on the same land year after year depletes the soil of minerals. Making ethanol from corn has already driven up the price of corn used for corn meal and animal feed. Corn is used for food for people, cows, pigs, chickens and pets. A quick and easy way to reduce consumption of oil would to drive more fuel efficient cars rather than SUVs. Another way to conserve would be to rebuild the railroads which are more efficient than hauling of goods by truck. Anyone who can count should be able to figure this out.
- Fritzed, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Yes, you remember the discredited study correctly. I can't find a reference to it at the moment, but it was horribly flawed. It measured every drop of fuel necessary to create and transport a gallon of ethanol and compared it to the energy stored in a gallon of gas. No adjustments were made to account for the energy necessary for drilling, refining, and transporting the gas.
Check this more recent and accurate information.
http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/agNews_050328crETHANOL.xml&catref=ag1001
I would like to see the original study that this article references. I'm curious if they took into account that the corn grown to make the ethanol would reduce smog while it was growing. I realize that it most likely wouldn't be grown in the same areas that have the smog, but it would surely have some significant effect. - DiggCommando, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The only thing scarier than the oil lobby is the oil lobby and corn lobby working together.
- emanpa68, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3ethanol is Not the answer for the US... our corn sucks at producing the same energy as sugar cane. I've said this 1000's of times, and most people would agree. A good start to producing less carbon emissions would be to create nuclear power plants and electric automobiles. the rest will fall into place after that.
- antechinus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Everyone has lost sight of the cause of all of this trouble - it is increasing world population. This is the master driver.
What is the only natural product that can be guaranteed to increase in scale with increasing population? *****, (poo, ka ka feces, turds).
We have to go back to our roots and re-power our vehicles with this stuff. The Bush government could finally do some good for the world if they committed some of their war budget to designing ***** powered automobiles. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The problem isn't what fuel we use. It's the basic individual/car based transport model, and our current car/road based solution to the age old and very fundamental problem of "moving ***** around".
Next time your stuck in rush hour, try this little thought experiment. Look around at all the other people on the road with you. Now mentally erase all the cars and only leave the actual payload being transported (people, groceries, babyseats, etc.). Look at how comparatively small aggregate payload is, and yet how much room the entire operation takes up and how slowly everything is moving in comparison. Every time I do this I am simply dumbfounded by how inefficient a solution to the "moving ***** around" problem this seems to be. Granted, the roads are already built, and for larger payloads, not much beats a truck. But the usage that an average car sees is crazy inefficient, the transport mechanism generally outweighs the payload by several orders of magnitude. For moving individuals around, not much beats a bicycle or electric assist bicycle (and trucks for heavy cargo) for short and accurate individual transport in combination with mass-transit (with bike racks...) for longer distances between major transport sinks, sources, and hubs. Sadly, the automobile killed the rail industry (one of *the* most efficient means of land transport), or it might have diversified into mass-people-transit system that might actually work in places smaller than NYC or SF or LA. Now that the infrastructure is already laid down, a switch is going to be *very* difficult.
Back to ethanol though: petroleum derivatives will rule the market for quite some time as the cheapest and most energy dense internal combustion fuel. Environmental effects (good or bad) take a while to show up, and thus have little effect on the market in general.
Where I think ethanol will *really* shine is in the portable electronics fuel-cell arena. Imagine being able to top off you cellphone from a little refill bottle like your zippo, rather than tossing batteries in the trashcan. - iggdawg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3finding an alternative hydrocarbon fuel to burn in cars is not an answer. The amount of surface area it would take to grow enough corn to replace petroleum fuels entirely is prohibitively massive. Ethanol is a bandaid car companies are using to make themselves look like they have "green" policies.
We need more and better nuclear power plants, and fuel cell/electric cars. All the NIMBY idiots that get their undergarments in a knot over nuclear power should actually take the time to look into it. Chernobyl can't happen again. The accident was human error above and beyond, and the few remaining reactors of that type have all been retrofitted to make a similar catastrophe more or less impossible (read: possible only with malicious intervention). Three mile island is the worst disaster in our country's history of active generation plants, and it didn't even cause any deaths. Even if you take into account speculative deaths that "may have been caused" by three mile island due to long term radiation effects (none have yet been actually tied), all the deaths from Chernobyl, and even the deaths in early military nuclear power plant testing, there have still been more deaths due to air pollution from fuel-burning power plants.
There's research into breaking down nuclear fission waste or putting it to use in some other end (fusion can make positive use of some fission wastes), and fission reactors are getting even more efficient. We really need to stop dicking around with fusion too, and put some actual dollars into fusion research.
Electric and hydrogen powered cars (fuel cell etc) are the answer, not ethanol. And for that we need better power plants. Love your planet, support nuclear power. - krellor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6@dudemanbro
I like how you answer your own question there...
The difference between blood and oil is that blood is causing some other problems elsewhere in our body, and we continue to use it despite alternatives. WIth oil, we need it to function as a society, but it is causing problems, mostly ecological, but also health issues, and alternatives are available if we put enough money into research. - Eallan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel Skim for algae.
- BarneyF, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The problem with hydrogen is that there isn't any MOLECULAR hydrogen around, because it all burned (combined with oxygen) billions of years ago to produce water (well at least the hydrogen on Earth did). It you want hydrogen, you have to find some way of separating it from oxygen, which requires energy.
Hydrogen is like a battery. You could ask, "Why don't we just use batteries instead of gasoline in our cars?" The answer is, fine, good idea, but, you need to charge the battery somehow. - BarneyF, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Actually there is such a thing as a free lunch. Situations where all participants can come out ahead (or behind) are called "non-zero-sum games" by mathematicians. (Games where one person gains more than the others lose also count.)
Economic growth is only possible because there is such a thing as a free lunch.
The real solution to the oil problem is just to tax consumption (as well as other undesirable things like pollution) and let the market figure out how to deal with the results. Of course the oil producers lose on that one, but not as much as the rest of the world wins. - bat-21, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Beer is the cause and solution to most of life's problems.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I looked around for some info on Thorium reactors.
There are several very long papers on the net about them, and they offer good insight as to why they haven't been used.
I finally found this link, which is kinda long; but if you want to go to the part about Thorium reactors, take the side button down almost exactly half way down the page. The Thorium reactor discussion there is a lot more moder than most of the other papers on the net.
Seems there are two types of Thorium reactor. The first uses a seed bar inside the fuel rod, like a corn dog.
Thorium won't sustain fission alone. The technologies for seeding it were developed primarily by the russians; what they do is they wrap a bar of plutonium: which the reaction eats and disposes of completely - with some Thorium, and sustain the reaction, that way.
The greatest advantage of this type, is it both EATs plutonium: thereby disposing of nuclear waste: and, it can be used, in current reactors, with modification.
There is another type called an "accelerator reactor' which is a new type. This type, bombards the Thorium bar or, an Thorium/Uranium bar, with particles, which send it into fission.
The greatest advantage of this type, is that it is ALWAYS being run sub critical. Literally, no matter what, the power can be shut off, and it is theoretically, impossible for one to melt down: because if ANYthing goes wrong, the thing self extinguishes.
I really do recommend you guys read up on Thorium reactors. They are, if you'll notice, also the most effective way to DISPOSE of, nuclear material. They will eat plutonium completely; and, they don't produce plutonium.
If you'll also notice the radioactivity of them is way, way, way lower.
Also, Thorium, is much more abundent in the earth than Uranium.
Also, i think, 70% of that thorium is suitable for fissile work. Wheras only about POINT 7 % of Uranium is.
Pretty good read here. If you want to read more about the drawbacks, just search Thorium reactor, and look around till you find something at your particular reading level.
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348 - marsplastic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As far as I'm concerned, ethanol and other biofuels were never an appropriate solution to this problem. We already have a forseeable shortage in land availability for growing food crops, and to make this problem worse by having to compete for land for fuel growing operations just seems absurd.
- foamweapons, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yes, EV cars are the solution. 5 years ago we had the technology for an awesome EV SUV greener than a Prius:
http://geeklimit.com/2006/05/09/i-drive-a-30k-80mph-166mpg-suv/
Why have almost all these cars been taken back by dealers? Why did the auto industry sue California for being required to make EVs, and after Bush's DOJ helped them win the case... why did they stop all work on pure-electric vehicles and focus solely on hydrogen and "flex-fuel" vehicles?
The reason is that they obviously want to suppress the technology. Ethanol is not a clean fuel, it still has to be transported, it still has to be filled up in gas stations and it still puts a ton of carbon in the atmosphere. Almost as bad as gas.
Sure electric cars put carbon in the atmosphere when running off of coal-powered plants, but these greenhouse emissions are less in an EV compared to gasoline, and will only get better as the grid gets cleaner:
http://www.ilea.org/lcas/taharaetal2001.html
http://www.teslamotors.com/display_data/21stCentElectricCar.pdf
The infrastructure is already here for electric cars. The electrical grid can support 180 million EVs charging overnight with no changes to the grid whatsoever:
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2006/12/how_phevs_will_.html
Ethanol is a scam. It's a trick powerful corporations use to confuse environmentalists into a system where they still make people go to gas stations, getting the latest "blend" of fuel, to burn more (different) ***** in their engines. Don't fall for it. - schnibitz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I haven't read through all the posts, so my apologies if this is repeat info. Ethanol is bad, mainly because to generate it we need crops. Crops are vulnerable to the ever-fickle mother nature. If we think we have it bad now with wild oil price swings, we need to take a second look. A really good dust bowl condition would send an ethanol-dependent world into chaos. Additionally, Ethanol makes no gains in terms of efficiency. You still need to have it trucked around, imported, exported, refined, and finally burned. A more sensible alternative is battery technology. Though it has some drawbacks, the right battery tech isn't vulnerable to the same problems listed above, and still provides the same benefits, plus many more, especially if solar power really takes off (which it has and will).
- JigoroKano, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sugar cane works much better than corn... just ask Brazil.
Now if only our corn lobby hadn't ***** that up. - ploskinj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Are you people still going on about Nuclear energy? I thought we all agreed that a few set backs and some pissed off movies were enough to kill off the entire industry?
The only solution is a perfect solution, like doing nothing but demanding action from bloated and inefficient government entities like the US and the UN and strangling the economy with meaningless legislation and red tape. - iggdawg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Please look up what caused that accdident, what a RBMK reactor is, and how many are currently in the states. Also look up void coefficient in the context of nuclear power. I won;t explain these things to you because teaching through analogy is stupid, you need to actually look these things up if you want to understand. But I doubt you do. you just want to call me a fool on digg.
People assume history haphazardly repeats itself and that humans don't learn from their mistakes. Pretty much every reactor built since Chernobyl has been engineered with that accident in mind. - cougar618, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2LOL are you kidding? The only government that would feel anything would be the middle east.
- joepawlman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i highly doubt 200 more people dying is worse than the hundreds of thousands from wars waged for oil.
- Awap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I totally agree, but there are some huge infrastructure and cultural barriers to get over first. I rode a bike to work for a short while last year, and I would like to start doing it again, but the major problem I have is that I get to work as a sweaty mess. I have heard bicycle advocates play this down by saying that once you get in shape this wont happen, but I don't buy it. I am an avid runner. I would say that I am in pretty good shape, I just sweat a lot more than the average person when I am engaged in even moderate exercise. I am sure that this issue applies to more than just me.
Another problem is that many people live in an area where the weather is only suitable for biking for half of the year. Furthermore, most people would rather not bike in the rain. Good or bad, we've become spoiled in our isolation from nature. A couple hundred years ago people were able to accept that if you traveled in the rain you would get wet, but nobody, including myself, wants to go back to that. We have come to expect that we can stay warm and dry when we drive, not matter what kind of storm is going on outside.
On the other hand, if everybody biked during nice weather, and only drove/carpooled when it was nasty out, that would be a huge improvement on its own. - apeweek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ebfoxbat
Better batteries are already here. Take a look at this electric vehicle:
http://phoenixmotorcars.com/models/fleet.html
The Altairnano Nanosafe batteries are safe, and very long lived (250,000 miles is the claim.) They also can charge in only TEN MINUTES. The Phoenix electric truck can travel up to 250 miles per charge, and goes 95mph with a full load.
The Phoenix is a real car, being built right now for fleet use. Other EV projects are in the works, designed around the same batteries. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Every pump in America should contain E10 for three reasons.
1. Most cars on the road are compatible with E10.
2. Ethanol can replace the poisonous chemical MTBE as an oxygenator.
3. It would not strain our food supply as much as going full bore into E85.
Replacing pure gasoline with E10 would be a good first step for reducing our reliance on petroleum. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm sorry, i misspoke: it's Thorium reactors. i'm reading about them now. There are lithium reactors but i think it's Thorium reactors that are the ones that can' go critical mass and melt down, and the waste is about 3% of a uranium reactor's.
also, a thorium reactor, doesn't MAKE plutonium, the premium nuclear weap fuel. It'll burn it for you, and you can actually dispose of the stuff.
Also, the waste from a thorium reactor is only radioactive for about 500 years: as opposed to uranium waste which is radioactive for 250, 000 years. Two-hundred fifty thousand .
I'm not sure why they don't use them i'm reading up on it now. - Ecowarrior, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This article ignores Cellulosic Ethanol so it's a bit behind the times.
That and even though these numbers are inflated they pale in comparison to the numbers of deaths and disease caused by emissions of coal fired power plants... and that's been going on for decades. - jlebrech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Pollution Problem: Check.
Overpopulation Problem: Check. - Endeavour3d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Stigma15-
This is from a bio-diesel website, but the facts are the same:
http://www.oilgae.com/algae/oil/yield/yield.html
This shows the oil yields from various sources:
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html
From the site:
Yield of Various Plant Oils:
Crop Oil in Liters per hectare
Castor 1413
Sunflower 952
Safflower 779
Palm 5950
Soy 446
Coconut 2689
Algae 100000 - Gahahaha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Not algae, but ANYTHING BUT CORN! Corn is (right now) a really, really bad way to produce ethanol, and it's only being done because of subsidies and the corn lobby. Personally I think cellulosic ethanol is the future, and it will out compete corn based ethanol when the technology matures.
- apeweek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@arpad
I'm a freeway-capable electric car owner, and I can attest that EVs do indeed require far fewer repairs. This just makes common sense when you realize that electric motors have only one moving part. My own 25-year-old EV has all the original motor parts, it has never needed service. As for when there are millions of EVs around, don't products generally get MORE reliable when they mature?
As for "claims" about battery longevity, I have two answers. My old EV uses lead-acid batteries which are good for about 20,000 miles, and cost me $800 to replace. That's 4 cents per mile. My electric rate (special off-peak rate, it's Rate D1.7 in this document: http://my.dteenergy.com/myAccount/pdfs/rates.pdf ) is 3 cents per KWH, and my EV gets about 4 miles per KWH, so that's under a cent per mile for electricity. My total cost per mile: about 5 cents. This FAR less than gasoline, and clearly "economical."
The second part of the answer is to point to the newest batteries on the market, used in the Phoenix EV (which is a real car, being built right now.) They have a 250,000 mile lifespan. :
http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com
The Phoenix can do up to 250 miles per charge (with expanded battery pack), 95mph with a full cargo load, and charges batteries in only 10 minutes.
Solar charging an EV is no big deal. One small panel is enough to supplement grid charging, and electricity can be sold to the grid instead of investing in your own energy storage.
More info on cheap EVs: http://www.squidoo.com/cheap-electric-car/ - GlargTheKelfn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2the real stupidity of corn based fuel is in the fact that food prices are already going up because corn is going for fuel instead of food. it just boggles my mind that with all the starving ppl in the world, we are taking food and making it into gas.
WHAT THE *****?
not to mention corn is in 90% of the food in america. enjoy your 0.01 cheaper gas, as you pay 5-10% more for all your food - roadracersweet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I am slowly become increasingly disappointed with the digg community. Why are you digging down people with perfectly valid criticisms of biofuel solutions? Why does everyone refrain from independent thought and simply spew rhetoric from some website they read? Biofuels will never be a solution for the problems it is being proposed for and that is because of the sheer volumes of which we are speaking. If your concern if greenhouse gases, transportation accounts for maybe 15% of that. many consider that to be a high estimate. Even if you could, through fuels and technology, reduce that by an overall 40%, you have a total reduction of 6%. Thus for 6% you are willing to sacrifice all of that land, and its a HUGE amount of land for the numbers we need, simply for this? We need to start thinking of the other 85%, not the 15%, and we need to educate ourselves with legitimate information, and make some hard choices, about that 85%. I seems as if the majority who consider themselves to be "green" of eviro friendly and nothing more than bandwagon jumpers beating a drum. To them I say this: North America is a food exporter. Are you content in the knowledge that this is both removing food from the system and driving up the price for the poor of the world? Granted, there is hope for ethanol from cellulose, but ethanol is not the only biofuel, and I am sorry, all the oil Macdonald's produces will do no more than fuel the trucks that ship its own raw materials. I am sure many in this camp also support organic agriculture, which I do as well in a big way. Do you not realize the massive amount of land used to grow this fuel will NEVER be organic? I would go so far as to suggest the chemicals used (fertilizer etc) will significantly increase per acre as the the profit margins will allow for this. I am also quite convinced that Monsanto etc are already developing GMO ethanol specific versions of these crops that will tolerate these increased inputs for greater yield. People need to start thinking for themselves. The ignorance of arm chair academics is starting to make me queasy.
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