Cellulosic ethanol is here. S. degradens does the trick according to the link. General Motors is serious about cellulosic ethanol according to a link on that thread. Cellulosic ethanol is part of energy independence, along with new sources of all types of energy. Once there's plenty of ethanol, it can be used as a feedstock. "Ethyl alcohol is not only the oldest synthetic organic compound used by man, but it is also one of the most important." (Organic Chemistry, Morrison and Boyd, 3rd Ed., P. 499)
We need a national strategy of energy independence and to hell with global warming B.S. Better yet, would be to flood the world with the technology for energy from cellulosic ethanol and hamstring the oil and gasoline exporters.
And of course new cars........who sells those cars again ? GM ?........Stay Safe ~!~:o)
Jeez!
well if you move the global market away from oil, the global warming people will be happy but a lot of conservatives will be happy that rest of the world won’t be kissing the hand of the saudis, Iran, Putin and chavez.
You and the rest of the biofuel backers have the cart before the horse. If ethanol (corn or cellulosic) is the substitute that you claim, let’s wait until it becomes commercially viable. These ethanol mandates are madness. We have a no-energy energy policy. Let the market find the appropriate energy portfolio.
CO2 output must cease altogether, studies warn (sky is falling alert)
The Epicycles of Global Warming
The author of the last link also wrote Recycling Is Garbage
If you haven't read it, it's a hoot!
I agree with you unequivocally and completely. It is ridiculous and just gets worse from there. We have single states that have more energy potential in coal than Saudi Arabia has in oil. Knowing that, Government subsidized ethanol is the best we could come up with in the last 30 years?
Ethanol has done exactly what I said it would and that is to be the tip of the spear in creating inflation that will have the Dems squawking about “people hurting” in the general election.
In many places, like UNC, Fischer-Tropsch has been improved on and they are actually capable of producing a fuel that burns cleaner than gasoline. So what are we waiting for exactly? Four dollar/gal. gasoline, another war in the ME, what? Let OPEC, the Enviro-whackos and the speculators on Wall St. go pound sand. We need to be do something new, different and effective that releases us from having to worry about energy shortages and price increases, every time some jackass in the ME brays.
The entire . . .
toilet bowl full of 16 or so Presidential candidates
this time
were ALL CLUELESS ABOUT
—FREEDOM
—CAPITALISM
—OUR FOUNDING VALUES
—STATES RIGHTS
—GUN RIGHTS
—GLOBALISM AND TYRANNY
—LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE TRUE AMERICAN WAY
—MODERN SLAVERY
—
. . .
Sigh.
Yuck, yuck....President Bush figured it out just last week when he said we’ve got to get rid of our oil addiction. Yuck, yuck....
Maybe when the enter office. Any bets on the price when they leave office in 4 or 8 years?
“that weaning the United States off foreign oil must become a national purpose, that doing it within 10 to 15 years would be a centerpiece of a Giuliani presidency. The federal government must treat energy independence as a matter of national security,” he said, comparing it to the effort in the 1950’s and ’60’s to put men on the moon”
Sen. John McCain has declared, “We need energy independence”
He promised to make the U.S. oil independent within five years.The Senator says he’ll make it happen quickly, with a program like the Manhattan Project. That was the big push the U.S. made to build an atomic bomb before Germany could get one.
Notice the reference to the Manhattan project and the Moon Shot.
Mitt Romney put up a dollar number for increasing increasing energy R&D. Romney
advocates increasing federal investments in energy, materials science, automotive technology and fuel technology from $4 billion a year — its current level — to $20 billion a year.
Why the the reference to war time projects like the moon shot and the manhattan project? And why have the time frames been shortened to 5-10 years? Its not just environmental or national security concerns. Now even big oil is buying into the peak oil argument. Shell Oil CEO Jeroen van der Veer this week wrote “Shell estimates that after 2015 supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with demand.” That means that unless crash programs are enacted to bring down demand for oil–especially in the USA–oil prices are going to the moon. One way or the other a radical rewrite of the energy picture is coming.
LOL, presidential candidates are cluless on most topics.
Chapter 6 (the Energy Chapter) of NAFTA guarantees the U.S. secure access to Canadian oil, gas, coal and electricity — at Canadian prices. Canada's oil reserves are larger than Saudi Arabia's. Canada supplies more oil to the U.S. than Saudia Arabia and Iraq combined. Chapter 6 also (effectively) prevents Canada from selling oil to other countries — China, for instance, would like to buy a lot of it.
NAFTA has been a sleeping dog here in Canada — but, it has a lot of opponents. If it were reopened to squeeze out concessions to "protect" rust-belt workers (hello! can you say "China") — there's no way any Canadian government could allow Chapter 6 to remain intact. If our current (minority) Conservative government let that happen — we wouldn't have another Conservative government for several generations. And yet — and yet Obama is kicking that dog.
“conservation (something that has never played any major role in US total energy demand)”
I am in agreement with just about everything in the article but I am puzzled by the quote above.
Perhaps by conservation he means lowering your thermostat, wearing a sweater, driving less, forgoing a summer trip and the like. Presumably he does not mean EFFICIENCY as a form of conservation because I am under the impression that advances in efficiency can and have made significant contributions.
Double (even triple) pane windows, better gas mileage, more insulation, more efficient furnaces, refrigerators, washers, LEDs, compact fluorescents, timer thermostats, smart building design, aluminum recycling, advanced manufacturing techniques and many more incremental changes make energy go farther and add up to sizeable energy savings over time.
Other than that I liked the article as I am quite negative on biofuels, wind farms polluting the landscape, the global warming charade, the blocking of drilling in ANWAR etc.
It irks me that POPULATION GROWTH is seldom mentioned as part of the energy equation. How much less would we depend upon foreign oil if our population weren’t exploding via massive immigration. But for that we would have a population today of about 240 million vs over 300 million.
WOULDN’T THAT MAKE HUGE DIFFERENCE?
240 million is about what we would have extrapolated from the descendents of Americans here in 1970.
Most of the environmental orgs won’t touch that issue because they are part of the Dem coalition which prefers the remaking of America for multicultural ideology reasons and plain partisan advantage.
The silence of much of the environmental movement on US population issues is a huge scandal. Dissidents in the Sierra Club have been waging this battle for years.
ping
It’s not the technology of converting this or that into fuel, it’s the ifrastructure and the diversion of resources from other uses. If food crops are not to be used it means that another crop will have to cultivated for fuel and where is it to grown? Take farm land out of production or grow switch grass in your backyard? And how much extra oil is that going to take since ethanol is at best a breakeven on energy. A better use our resources would be to use some of the natural gas that is flared off, burned, wasted because there is no way to bring it to market. How about LNG? No new technology needed just a place to off load it. Ethanol is the least good idea for energy.
planet gore
Drew Thornley
Monday, March 10, 2008
National Review
“So let’s do a quick review of the energy bill so far: environmental degradation, rampant food inflation, and a potential Third World famine due to corn ethanol; increased potential for mercury exposure from mandatory CFL bulbs; and the prospect of a ticked-off major trading partner on our northern border and an increased dependence on ever-more-expensive Middle Eastern crude.”
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDUwMGQ2ZDlmYzFkODA3MTg4YmJlMjExNGJmOTJhYWU=
Yes, the candidates are clueless about scientific matters, but they are up to date on legal matters. It is clear which they view as reality.