Big puff piece in the NY Times on the benefits of ethanol based fuels, which, if you didn’t know any better, you would think was written by a Senator from the midwest. Finally, on page two of the piece, they get to the problems with ethanol:
A recent study published in the journal BioScience forecast that for all cars and trucks to run on ethanol by 2048, “virtually the entire country, with the exception of cities, would be covered with corn plantations.” Using more farmland to produce ethanol would also drive up food prices. And E85 cannot be transported through gasoline pipelines, because it sucks up grime and water.
E85 is also less energy-dense than gasoline, so a driver goes a bit less far on a gallon. Its current cost advantage is dependent on a 43-cents-a-gallon subsidy, versus a roughly 40-cent tax on a gallon of gasoline. Environmentalists have generally viewed the rise of flex-fuel vehicles as a boondoggle for automakers, because they are afforded fuel economy credits for making them. The credits have had the effect of driving up oil consumption. Many consumers who buy flex-fuel vehicles are not even made aware of the capability.
I am all for a balanced approach to future fuel sources, but the folks who think ethanol is the answer overstate the case. I don’t know if it is still the case, but I was under the impression that it takes more energy to create ethanol than you get from burning it.
tBone
I think you meant “it takes more energy to create ethanol than you get from burning it.”
Anyway, there have been contradictory studies on this – some put net energy balance for producing ethanol at 1.5-2 to 1. In other words ethanol produces about a third to a half more energy than it takes to grow, transport, and render the corn.
Other studies disagree. They’ve been criticized for basing their results on outdated methods of production; they in turn criticize others for not factoring in all of the relevant inputs.
All I know is that I still wish I had a flex-fuel vehicle; E85 is a lot cheaper around here than regular gas right now.
scs
You know what I was wondering, I was wondering about palm oil. I put some canned oysters in palm oil on bread in my toaster oven the other day and it burst into flames. I nearly burnt my house down. (They should have had a warning on that thing.) Anyway, I was thinking, we should put THAT stuff in our cars. Any research into different kinds of oil other than corn?
tBone
Sure – lots of different types of biodiesels, from soybeans, coconut oil, you name it. There’s some good reading on Wikipedia.
JonBuck
I’ve become a very strong proponent of biodiesel. It has a much better energy balance than ethanol (3.2:1 using soybeans), can be mixed in any fraction with petrodiesel, and can run in modern engines without modification. Diesel engines were originally intended to run on peanut oil, after all.
Ethanol, frankly, sucks if only for its low energy density.
Zifnab
Ethanol was an interesting idea twenty years ago, but I don’t see why people continue to bring it up as some sort of magic bullet to the energy problem.
I’ve heard there’s also a technique for turning coal into petroleum, which remains fairly efficent. And coal we have in massive supply. I don’t know how environmentally friendly the technique or the resulting gas is, but at the least I think it would be better to drill up Montana than to keep kow-towing to Saudi Arabia.
JonBuck
Zifnab: That’s the Fischer-Tropsch Process, invented in Germany in the 1920s.
There’s also a process called Thermal Depolymerization. Turns certain kinds of high carbon waste into light crude.
What we really need right now is for oil companies to build new refineries. They’re making billions and billions in profit right now. I think they can afford it.
ppGaz
Well, that kind of defeatist thinking is what we get from godless scientists who claim that “energy can be neither created nor destroyed.”
Anybody who has ever lit a fart knows that isn’t true.
demimondian
The issue with corn ethanol is that it’s only made from the kernels on the ears. The reason that Brazil’s ethanol production is already so cheap (and it is), is that Brazil uses sugar cane as the base of the process, and…well, the whole plant becomes a precursor. Much, much more eficient use of land, water, and sun.
To be fair, that’s a bit disingenuous. First, the rest of the corn plants wind up being recycled into other products right now, and the studies which claim ethanol is inefficient deliberately ignore those benefits, just as the high multiplier studies sometimes ignore the extra costs. I’ve never tried to drill down into the figures, but my guess is that the numbers balance out considerably after that.
Second, and further out, a number of groups have published industrializable processes for reducing the plant material itself to an ethanol precursor. Those processes would gratly improve the efficiency of ethanol production. They’re speculative, for now, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Bottom line: the scare quotes are media manipulation, John. I’d say that the NYT was correct in publishing them, but “deemphasizing” (i.e. burying) them.
In the long run, though, I don’t see ethanol as the best solution to energy independence. Current biodiesel processes are already effective, and would not consume any more net land. (Rape [canola, in the US] is a standard rotation crop for grain, so land raising rape instead of lying fallow would provide the precursors without taking food land out of production.)
JonBuck
demimondian:
There are also some species of algae that are over 50% oil by mass. They have a vast potential for biodiesel production (10-20,000 gallons per acre/year vs. 50 for soybeans). However, they haven’t been tested commercially yet. If we’re really motivated we could bring this stuff to market pretty fast. But the day hasn’t arrived yet.
Dave Ruddell
I’m suddenly reminded of Corn Cob Bob…
Steve S
Ethanol has 90% of the energy that Gasoline has. It’s frankly not that signifigant of a difference.
I am unsure of the studies stating it takes more energy to produce ethanol than we get back. There needs to be more investigation into that. As well as other alternatives as others have mentioned.
The one thing that is pretty clear at this point… There was a period about 5 years ago(you know before Bush) when people were complaining that Ethanol was more expensive than gas, and the only way it was economical was with the big tax breaks.
With gas at $3/gallon now… I’m fairly certain the economics work out fine, now.
Minnesota has mandated their gas contain 20% ethanol over the next couple of years. We’ll have to see what happens with that.
Richard Aubrey
I’d be interested in seeing the numbers done without any of the subsidies–farm subsidies, tax breaks for inputs, and so forth.
The problem is that oil and coal give us energy which was laid down over millions and millions of years. We use up, say, a quarter-million years’ solar energy in a year. The use of ethanol means we get a year’s worth of energy in a year. Wrong ratio.
John S.
Between the high fructose corn syrup that already infects most of our food and pushing for more ethanol usage, whatever lobby represents the corn growers of America is doing one HELL of a job.
demimondian
Yes, there are — but they have significant technical hurdles of their own.Since they are salt-water organisms, they poison the soil beneath the tanks in which they are grown.No oil-extraction process for those algae has been developed.They would form a monoculture, upon which our entire portable energy supply would depend, with all the associated risks and dangers that entails.I’m not going to say that the UNH proposal isn’t exciting, but I also think it’s more speculative than the popular press has made it out to be. For now, we need a transitional solution based on proven technology.
demimondian
You’re ignoring the inefficiency at which oil and coal deposits are layed down. We make much more efficient use of solar energy to grow crops than geological processes did to make petrochemical energy deposits.
jobiuspublius
My noob opinion:
I don’t see why some alternative fuel refineries can’t use some alternative fuel, like wind or solar, to get some “free” energy to run the refiner. Maybe, it’s too complicated and not universal enough.
I hate kow-towing. Unfortunately, I suspect, the whole planet is invested in Saudi Arabian oil. I don’t know how to divest from them and the haliburton’s without hurting ourselves. I hope they’re not that significant. Duh, free markets, I’ll just buy energy from someone else. Hehe, dodged another meme.
demimondian
In priciple, they could. The problem isn’t the energy, though, it’s the material. Where do you get the stuff you’re making the gasoline/diesel/kerosene from? If someone had a solution to manufacturing octane directly from atmospheric CO2 and water, we’d be in great shape (NUKES ‘r Us), but…we just don’t know how to do that, much less do it efficiently.
capelza
Get rid of the high fructose corn syrup…it would free up the corn for ethanol and also get rid of that crap in our food chain. I hate that stuff…we’re addicted to it in this country. It’s like pouring Karo syrup over every thing we eat.
Seriously, I have wondered if there is the will in this country to change our energy stratagies? To think outside the one source (fossil fuels)box. As was said above, why not utilize several different technologies? Set out a goal of 5, 10, 15 years, whatever…and say we are going to break our dependency on fossil fuels and all you foreign nations that have us by the short hairs can go screw yourselves.
There hasn’t been any national will to change the paradigm, so it has languished. What percentage of the world’s gasoline does this nation of 300M consume? When China and India really start coming online with a comensurate demand for the same finite supply, will we be still be stranded in gas lines bitching about the price or when the heating bill shows up in winter?
Mark-NC
For all interested, there is a guy three doors down from me that is semi-retired after a life of construction that has a new project to keep from being bored.
He is planning to build THREE ethanol plants to produce 2,000,000 gallons/day each.
These should prove whether any of this is worth chasing!
Richard Aubrey
Demimondian. I wasn’t paying much attention to the inefficiencies because the putative ratio of 250,000 to one eats up a lot of them.
The point is, we didn’t have to do anything to get that stuff laid down. All we have to do is extract and convert to usable form. Not inconsiderable.
However, the fact remains, at 100% efficiency, we get about one/third hp per square meter. That, my extremely random access memory tells me is the insolation in the southwest. If we get it at one hundred percent and take it away to someplace else, what happens to the ground which is under the solar collector? Of course, corn will allow for solar radiation to heat the ground and so forth, so we won’t be getting the entire 1/3hp.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m saying that, without subsidies, it might not be a good idea. And if it needs subsidies, it’s not a good idea.
People can do what they want, but you can’t make something out of nothing, except in politicians’ promises.
JonBuck
Demimondian:
I know the algae hasn’t been commercially proven yet, and there are problems to solve. R&D is continuing. In the intrim, there are more suitable plants for biodiesel than soybeans. Previously mentioned rapeseed (about 3x as much oil per acre), mustard, even corn oil.
Far as I can tell, we’re only just starting to get motivated to find alternatives in this country. It’s going to take some time.
Gary Farber
That evil knee-jerk liberal tv program, The West Wing has savaged ethanol in entire programs, at whole length, incidentally.
jobiuspublius
I keep hearing about all the problems with alternative fuels and yet, progress in them is being made. I bet we can do better still if we’d just stop paying attention to entrenched oil interests.
We’re just starting to get serious about hydrogen, maybe:
Iceland is ahead and has an advantage, geothermal everywhere:
Two years ago in Europe:
Energy diversification has advantages. Why not turn waste into energy to recoup some cost and, maybe, pollute less. I propose we raise the status of the lowly turd. Go crap power! Methanol and Methane, I think it would be a tremendous waste not to put our turds to work. There seems to be a unexpected and elegant efficieny about it, a poetic justice if you will. Even crap should have a place in our society. What’s that about judging our society by the treatment of the least amongst us?
Methanol fuel cell are not the best idea for powering an automobile. The reason being, efficiency is low because it permeates thru the fuel cell membrane. I don’t know enough to be able to rule out an improvement in technology that will remedy this problem. Toshiba has set a record with a fuel cell of this type.
And there are a ton more links out there.
Steve S
Interestingly, the only group that’s not doing well as a result of that lobbying effort.
Are the guys who produce the corn.
scs
Do any of you enviros know what part of global warming is supposed to be caused by cars and what percent is caused by heating your home? Just curious.
jobiuspublius
I don’t. Please enlighten me.
scs
No, I was just asking. You all always think I’m being sarcastic or such. I was also wondering about fuel cells and biodiesel as compared to gas. Do they make those?
Narvy
Re jobiuspublius’s informative post about other countries’ experiments with alternative fuels:
The current business climate in the US and the money that flows to Congress from major industries, not to mention religiously dictated suppression of at least one research subject, are discouraging serious research and experimentation in vital fields and turning the US into a backwater. We used to be the leading country in scientific endeavor, particularly after the European brain drain inspired by Hitler. No longer. New energy sources, vehicles that use alternative energy sources, cellphone technology, medical research, and I don’t know how many other fields are being pursued elsewhere while we act as though pure scientific research and non-military technology are either unnecessary or threatening to special interests – yes, I know that phrase is a mantra of the looney liberal left. We are squandering our scientific patrimony and turning ourselves into a scientific third world country.
jobiuspublius
Sorry, scs, I think I confused you with another poster. I have a methanol fuel cell link in my post.
Petroleum-Based Fuels Property Database
TallDave
With gas prices this high, ethanol is actually viable — even with the subsidies factored in.
jobiuspublius
Considering what Narvy said, someone please remind me what course we are staying, again?
While I was searching for links, it seemed to me that even Canada is kicking US ass. Clearly, they should not have allowed to win the bacon wars. Hubris, those Canadians!
Maybe Chrysler-Benz will take pity on US. They are half American.
TallDave
Oh, and there was a WSJ article a few months back; farmers all over the Midwest are investing their life’s savings to build ethanol refineries. In 2006 ethanol production is supposed to be four times what it was 4 years ago.
There are better alternatives for fuel production than corn, too. And just think what might be bioengineered in the next 20 years.
TallDave
jobious,
Sure, if you call a 30% higher standard of living “getting our assed kicked.”
The U.S. a backwater? Pardon me while I spew laughter.
And lefties wonder why people call them anti-American. Sheesh.
ppGaz
You appear to be talking strictly about the costs of production.
But retail fuel prices are driven largely by the costs of distribution, and by supply-demand cycles that are largely local and regional in nature. In this context, the wholesale cost to the retailer is driven by a very sensitive cash-based supply-demand situation.
If it cost, say, $2.40 to get a gallon of any fuel into a large tank farm for regional distribution, what would the wholesale price be to the retailer, and thus, the retail price to the consumer?
Along that line of thought, are we musing about alternative fuels in terms of relief from petroleum prices in the mid term …. or as a replacement for petroleum fuels in the long term? Two very different problem sets.
Thoughts?
TallDave
Well, ethanol will probably always be a 10% – 30% additive for commercial purposes, so that normal cars can run on it. Now the ethanol subsidy itself can be eliminated, and ethanol will still be competitive at $1.92 (with the corn subsidy intact; we have massive ag subsidies anyway).
The question is really whether oil prices will remain this high long-term. If they do, ethanol probably makes a lot of sense, along with other things like tar sands and shale oil, of which we have the larget deposits in the world.
TallDave
Economics of shale oil, if anyone’s interested.
Narvy
TallDave –
There are 137 other words in that paragraph. Perhaps you should read those, too.
Narvy
I was not aware that concern about the decline in scientific research in the US and the loss of scientific and technological leadership was anti-American. Thank you for setting me straight.
Narvy
The course of water swirling down the toilet. Of course.
Dude, you shouldn’t feed me straight lines like that. It only encourages me.
jobiuspublius
Muahahaha :)
Narvy
I’ve been thinking (always dangerous) about TallDave’s remark about “anti-American”. It seems to me that whenever someone talks about a social or economic problem in the US, a sizeable contingent of self-declared conservatives immediately starts pointing fingers (although they’ll probably stop now that the President has said he doesn’t want it) at the speaker and shouts “anti-American”. Well, if a problem exists, it needs to be discussed so it can be solved for the betterment of the country. That won’t happen if the people who identify the problem are shouted down and dismissed. You can’t solve a problem if you don’t articulate it.
People who identify problems in the US are not necessarily anti-American. Their motivation could be to improve the country, possibly because they really love it and don’t want to see it diminshed. It’s true that what seems to be a problem to one person may seem not to be one to another. But I was taught in Civics and History classes that in this country we work through these differences by public discussion and negotiation, and we reach a consensus, maybe through (horrors) compromise.(Oh, God, he said the C word. Cover the children’s ears.) Those of us who are prone to crying “anti-American” at people who want to start a conversation might benefit from drinking that particular flavor of Kool-Aid.
tBone
I can attest to that. In my little (red)neck of the woods, there are ethanol plants going up everywhere, along with a lot of E85 pumps. The entire Midwest will smell like a yeast factory before long. :)
TallDave
concern about the decline in scientific research in the US and the loss of scientific and technological leadership was anti-American. Thank you for setting me straight.
You’re welcome. For future reference, calling America a “backwater” and “a scientific third world country” doesn’t exactly convey patriotism, especially when it’s not remotely true.
Sandi
I’m not so sure I put much stock in any of these studies. Do they take in account the subsidies. Does anyone realise for companies like ADM to make a $1 profit in ethanol it costs the taxpayer $30? I think Cecil Adams put it plainly.
TallDave
Narvy, you’re not pointing out real problems or offering any solutions; you’re just bashing America. We lead the world in R&D in numerous areas, and that’s thanks in large part to the same corporate system you decry. Just for instance, we spend far more than any other country on pharmaceutical research. We have the best venture capital system in the world, which leads to technical innovations. Military research leads to all kind of civilian benefits, from the Internet to GPS.
We see lots alarmist rhetoric about America losing it’s “leadership,” but a shrinking share of something is not the same as total shrinkage. The US loss of “science leadership” is simply due to improvement in India and China. The advancement of science is not a limited good or zero-sum game. This is the upside of public goods. Their gain is our gain, and vice versa. An economically strong and scientifically productive Asia and Europe would produce benefits that lift all boats, in the scientific and economic realms. “Leadership” is simply the wrong metric at this stage, where we’re more eyeing the size of the pie than discussing how to slice it and allot it. The only downside to a billion people in India and a billion people in China contributing more and gaining a larger share of scientific publications is purely rhetorical and demogogic.
jobiuspublius
He’s refering to a trend, TallDave. Reading comprehension, try it on for size.
Narvy
Yes. In the Washington Times
and on the BBC
and in Foreign Affairs Magazine
and others.
These three examples all state that while America is still Number One, the gap between us and other industrial nations in science and technology is narrowing and the trend is alarming. We are at risk.
If you read them, please don’t retort here with out-of-context positive quotes. There are positive statements about the present, but the theme of all three is there is a real problem looming in the future.
If you find my rhetoric unpatriotic, so be it. But if you read what I wrote without filtering it through a political preconception, you might find concern that we are at risk, the sort of concern that patriots have been known to express.
Read the links and then decide whether there is not a real problem. And when you read them, don’t skip the parts about the Bush administration being hostile to science.
It’s true I don’t offer any solutions in my post; its purpose was to state what I and others see as a growing problem. Proposed solutions can be found in the news reports and articles. And as far as “bashing” goes, that statement is like telling someone who says his city is at risk for flooding that he’s bashing the people who choose to live there.
The remainder of your comment recites one school of economic thought. There are others that see the tide that lifts all boats as a teeter-totter. Maybe I’m a pessimist, where you see an acceptable slice of a pie, I see dependency on other nations for finding out how the universe works and how humanity can benefit from the knowledge. I really do not want to see the United States lose its ability to explore and develop, but that may be starting to happen. I do not believe that that is unpatriotic.
I can’t parse the last sentence, but I think your’re saying I’m a demagogue. The captain of the Titanic didn’t think that the ship, which was thought to be unsinkable, would ever encounter an iceberg in its path. Unfortunately, there were no demagogues there to warn him.
Narvy
jobiuspublius –
Thanks for pointing out turning and trend bits.
Narvy
I am going to have very limited time for this frivolity over the next few days. My silence should not be construed as slinking away in defeat. I really want to continue this engagement (especially since seem to be have no rules of same), but I’m afraid that the thread may become last week’s trendy (the T word again) and no one will be here by the time I get back. Cést la vie. (Damn! I just let slip a sentence in the most unAmerican unpatriotic language in the world.)
Narvy
That should have been “trendy restaurant”. Oops! Another French word.
Bob Munck
Of course it takes more energy to create ethanol than you get from burning it. That’s true of everything; it’s called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The question is, does the energy used to create ethanol cost more than the value of the energy you get from burning it? That’s a simple question, but it’s hard to answer because our measures of the costs and values of various forms of energy are skewed by politics. For example, the cost of oil is subsidized by the DoD Budget.
DougJ
You don’t change toilets mid-flush. That’s why people voted for Bush.
ArtD0dger
Even before you consider whether you break even in terms of farming, distilling, and other production costs, you have to consider the solar efficiency. The efficiency going from photons through photosynthesis, plant metabolism, and finally to ethanol is at best about half a percent. In other words, we would be utilizing arable land — enormous amounts of it — as dismally inefficient solar collectors rather than for other human uses or conservation. And sunlight is already a rather diffuse power source by modern industrial standards, even when captured efficiently.
Folks, if this is the best energy technology we can come up with after fossil fuels, we are screwed.
Shygetz
The difference is that biomass is an easy and cheap solar collector to produce compared with mechanical solar collectors. Hell, they will self-reproduce if you let them. And they can be used to distill portable energy that can be relatively easily converted to run using our current infrastructure. And the point in solar is not the energy density–it’s the energy abundance. The technical challenges are still there, but it’s the closest thing to a medium-term solution that we have.
jobiuspublius
Luckily, it is not. We have wind, biomass, and more.
TM Lutas
Zifnab – The coal to diesel process is called Fischer-Tropsch and runs about $32 a barrel.
ppGaz – It figures, a serious conversation and your first contribution is fart jokes.
On your more substantive point of distribution costs, distribution issues are local and regional because our environmental regulation system balkanizes our fuel market in a way that leads to higher prices for everybody.
demimondian – You probably want to take a google at cellulose ethanol. It’s more than a lab experiment. The first production plant is up and running in Canada, run by Iogen.
John S – The major reason we use corn syrup instead of sugar is that we keep inexpensive 3rd world sugar out of the market with a quota system, decimating our candy makers, and making corn the only economically viable choice as a sweetner in a large number of use cases. As a bonus, that increases our foreign aid requirements as impoverished 3rd world nations live neurotically on our dole, resenting their dependence on Uncle Sam. Instead, they could be selling us sugar and hold their heads high and be real friends to the US.
jobiuspublius – There is no such thing as free energy. The closest you can get is reducing costs to make it practical to extract stranded energy. There is always an opportunity cost to any generation use. For instance, if you use solar to crack hydrogen, the opportunity cost is the money you could have gotten from the solar panels’ electricity on the spot market.
GM is going to decide next year whether to replace their V6 engines with hydrogen fuel cells starting in 2011. I think a great deal of progress is going on quietly due to a fear of fostering panic in the oil market.
scs – The estimates of global warming are changing over time. Just looking at the IPCC reports, the estimates seem to be trending from the early 4+ degrees celsius to a more moderate number. Those early climate models were a joke, failing to take into consideration such basics as day and night, wind, cloud cover among other important factors. When you can’t even sort out the gross figures, the percentage contribution is even less reliable.
Narvy – I assume that the religiously dictated suppression of research is in embryonic stem cell research. One can, and I’ve seen it done, create an entirely atheistic justification for banning destructive embryonic stem cell research as we ban many other research methods. Every country in the world has limits on scientific research because when you don’t, you end up with Pitesti, Mengele, and Tuskegee, to cite past communist (Romanian), nazi (German), and US scientific atrocities.
This isn’t to say that the US science system is without its problems. It has them. Misidentifying what needs improvement isn’t going to help.
The largest world problem is that certain large population polities are overproducing scientists and engineers by political fiat. This depresses pay in the science and engineering fields and costs the distorting society plenty as their labor force is misallocated. For areas outside the labor distortion zones, it makes sense to dial down the production of your indigenous talent, keeping the best and encouraging the mediocre to go elsewhere. You make up your shortfall by hiring your labor abroad cheaply as long as the PRC or the Indian government is willing to pay you to do so. The alternative is to politically distort our own labor market, misallocating resources so that we don’t lose “the race” and end up making ourselves poorer for it over time. No thanks!
Science and engineering can be vocations and there will always be US ones because of that basic fact of human nature. As long as we maintain our education infrastructure and train the best engineers in the world, I’m not so concerned that their passports have a different color. When the distortions end, remuneration will rise and we’ll dial up our native talent production.
jobiuspublius
Ah, free markets, it’s amazing how companies pay lip service to it then lobby for protections.
I imagine that there are people who see protectionism and foreign aid as a necessary carrot and stick to keep “us” or us safe. I’m not arguing that it does, or doesn’t. I’m just trying to point out possible constituents for it.
How do we compete with countries that allow their companies to cut costs at the expense of progress?
I put “free” in quotes to show that I did not mean it literally. Nonetheless, thank you for the explanation.
Seems like a reasonable suspicion to me. To me, market managers always seem nervouse about making the markets nervouse.
At the very least, I hope the global warming estimates are usefull errors. It’s an imaginable difficult problem to manage and we don’t really act all that swiftly or precisely all the time.
How is a perfectly allocated society possible in a free society? People make babies at their discretion. How can this be managed without interfering with freedom or nature.
Notice that dissatisfaction is built into the system you propose because of reliance on always seeking the best. If the best have been chosen and more are required then one has to make due with the non-best, no? What constitues the best is arguable, no?
I am not aware of an economic model that guarantees freedom, progress, human rights, civil liberties, etc.
jobiuspublius
Doh! I meant to type unimaginably, not imaginable.
narvy
TM Lutas –
Thank you for a courteous and thoughtful response. I’m not accustomed to that around here.
I know that non-religious ethical arguments against embryonic stem cell research can be made. But I do not think that the use of embryos that would otherwise be thrown away would lead to the horrors you refer to. I find disposal of embryos to be much more repugnant than using them as a potential source of medical treatment. The choice seems to be between unused disposable embryos and no in vitro fertilization for couples who cannot have children any other way, and the genie is out of that particular bottle, although I can imagine a political battle that resulted in outlawing the procedure. (I have always wondered why the people who object to embryonic stem cell research on religious grounds seem to be comfortable with throwing embryos away.)
I’m sorry, but I’m being called away. I’ll try to get back to discuss the rest of your post later.
Steve S
The fact that TallDave declares we should view the decline of America in a positive uplifting manner, while liberals rail against it, is not in and of itself proof that liberals hate America. Rather just the opposite, me thinks.
I’m getting a bit disturbed with the idiotarian philosophy that people like TallDave spread in this country.
narvy
Precisely the point. Anyone who says “We can be better” is accused of hating America, being unpatriotic, being unAmerican, etc. The logic seems to be that we have achieved perfection and any proposals for change come from evil intent to destroy that perfection. But those who take this position seem to have no problem with saying “We need to be better” by changing existing institutions or introducing new controls on the behavior of citizens, and they are patriots who love America (but apparently not as it is). This is cognitive dissonance at best and rank hypocrisy at worst.
I would say that TallDave’s philosophy is not idiotarian but rather idolitarian, worshiping the golden calf of contemporary conservatism.
Slartibartfast
I recommend The Ergosphere for discussion on this topic, if anyone’s interested. Go check him out.
Re: TallDave’s claims about ethanol: note the date on the production cost estimates: when oil costs were just a shade over half of what they are now. If oil-based energy is required to produce ethanol, ethanol cost of production is going to be a function of the price of oil.
goonie bird
How about horseradish fuel? that stuff is powerful enough to send the space shuttle to mars and back
scs
Thanks Jobious on diesel fuel cell technology info. That’s where I put my bet. And as for the posters decrying the declining prominence in US science, I think we should be secure enough in our national manhood to be happy if other countries improve their mastery of science. The more knowledge the better I think.
narvy
Sure, but I worry that it might be done at our expense. You can argue that it doesn’t matter who creates future Next Big Things in science, but the world is not one big happy pool of knowledge sharers, and I believe that the country’s financial wealth, psychological health, and military stealth (not an appropriate word, it should be superiority, but I can’t think of a rhyming word for it) may take a serious hit.
Gary Dikkers
In reply to the NY Times article telling us E85 is a way for drivers to save money:
E85 is not yet a good buy for those staggered by the high price of gasoline. Because of its lower energy density, the equivalent value price point of E85 is 72% of the cost of gasoline.
The energy in fuel is what does work, and what actually counts is the energy a fuel delivers, not its volume. At $3.00 per gallon for gasoline, a consumer pays $2.63 for 100,000 Btu of energy. At $2.40 per gallon for E85, a consumer must pay $2.93 for 100,000 Btu. The energy E85 delivers costs more and is no bargain, even when E85 is 60 cents a gallon less than gasoline.
Until E85 costs 72% or less than gasoline, gasoline remains the better buy.
(A gallon of E85 contains 82,000 Btu compared to 114,000 Btu in a gallon of gasoline.)