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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / “First You Get The Sugar…”

“First You Get The Sugar…”

by Michael D.|  November 5, 20079:15 am| 93 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Science & Technology

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Radly Balko has some issues with U.S. sugar lobby (they’ll create a lobby for anything, won’t they?) I encourage you to read it and the accompanying Washington Post article. Radly sums it up as follows:

If an “alternative energy” source is so efficient that it needs massive government subsidy to event (sic) exist, much less survive, it’s not a viable long-term source of energy.

No kidding (and, by the way, it’s exactly what’s happening with the corn-based ethanol industry here.)

But look to Brazil – they’re doing just fine with sugar cane ethanol. In fact, Brazil has achieved what has eluded us forever – energy independence. In fact, three-quarters of its automobiles are able to run on ethanol, and there is an ethanol pump at just about every fuel station. Cane ethanol now accounts for 40% of Brazil’s transportation fuel. And one thing Brazil has figured out that we have not: corn-based ethanol (the type we produce here) is not energy efficient. It takes nearly as much energy to produce corn ethanol as it saves (cane ethanol doesn’t need to make the transformation from carb to sugar) – not to mention the adverse effects that increasing corn prices will have on the world economy.

All this leads me to ask a question, because I have not been able to find an answer. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough. Can we produce sugar cane here? And, even if we could, would enough people have the guts to stand up to the corn lobby to make anything happen anyway?

Or, are we all just that apathetic?

Update: Here is another option I meant to mention. Cellulose ethanol.

Cellulosic ethanol is attractive because the feedstock, which includes wheat straw, corn stover, grass, and wood chips, is cheap and abundant. Converting it into ethanol requires less fossil fuel, so it can have a bigger effect than corn ethanol on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

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93Comments

  1. 1.

    Punchy

    November 5, 2007 at 9:21 am

    Can we produce sugar cane here?

    Pretty sure this needs tropical climate. It’s produced (or was?) in the Everglades area of FL. The phosphorus used to process/refine it just crushed the ecosystem, so they had to dial it back a notch. No way in hell it could be mass-produced on a scale necessary to make a diff.

    And I don’t care whether my ethanol comes from corn or not. Just keep it coming. Preferably with some OJ.

  2. 2.

    cleek

    November 5, 2007 at 9:24 am

    maybe we need to ramp-up our sugar shark farming programs ?

  3. 3.

    Michael D.

    November 5, 2007 at 9:26 am

    And I don’t care whether my ethanol comes from corn or not. Just keep it coming.

    If we’re burning as much fossil fuels to produce it as we’re saving by using it, then we’re not really doing anything to save the planet. The reason ethanol is a inexpensive as it is is completely due to government subsidies to corn producers.

  4. 4.

    Armando

    November 5, 2007 at 9:32 am

    Yes we can and do produce cane and beet sugar here (if here is the United States.) It has been produced in the US for decdades.

    And it does no damage due to phosphorus. That is nonsense. That was a little game played by Ileana Ros Lehtinen’s husband in an attempt at grandstanding.

    The issue is subsisidies.

    “Energy independence” is a weaselly concept. What we mean is petroleum independence.

    If sugar is imported in order to produce fuel, we become less dependent on petroleum.

    That is the real goal imo.

  5. 5.

    Zifnab

    November 5, 2007 at 9:32 am

    You know, Cuba was once the sugar cane capital of the world. I suppose we could talk to them… but… oh wait… they’re dirty stinking communists. I guess that means we’ll just have to go back to sucking on Saudi Arabia’s teet.

  6. 6.

    Xenos

    November 5, 2007 at 9:34 am

    Sugar cane won’t grow anywhere but in South Florida, although a few families have made a mint at it by getting subsidies, tariffs (US consumers pay a lot more for cane sugar than consumers in other countries, resulting in our drinking crappy Coca-cola made with corn syrup, while Mexican get the real thing), and getting away with scandalous labor practices. It is a GOP thing (cosa GOPa?), of course.

    I don’t know enough about switch-grass and so on: it might be efficient enough in a few years to make a difference. If it is all a matter of engineering the right microbes to break the stuff down efficiently, we could probably make it happen.

  7. 7.

    jenniebee

    November 5, 2007 at 9:34 am

    According to Wiki, Brazil is the world’s largest sugar producer, growing almost 30% of all sugar produced globally. I don’t think that’s copyable here.

  8. 8.

    Fwiffo

    November 5, 2007 at 9:40 am

    Why hasn’t somebody come up with a fuel cell that consumes carbohydrates? Or at least glucose? That’s what we do, and that’s what the yeast are doing when they convert sugars to ethanol, and the process is exothermic.

    I’m not saying there isn’t a good reason, as I’m sure some chemist can tell me. I’m just wondering what that reason is.

  9. 9.

    wvng

    November 5, 2007 at 9:41 am

    Nope, we can’t grow cane like Brazil. And there are more problems with corn ethanol than just the fact that the net energy gains are miniscule. Growing corn also uses a lot of fertilizer, and corn ground looses massive amounts of the nitrogen used. Growing a lot more corn is a big big problem for our rivers, streams, and particularly our coastal waters. All of the gains in reducing nitrogen inputs to the Chesapeake Bay have about been wiped out in a couple of years because of all the “new” corn being grown. The same thing for the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. Corn ethanol is an environmental disaster that serves no real countervaling good.

    “The Bay region will write off any hope of meeting its cleanup goals by 2010 or any time in the foreseeable future unless leaders quickly come up with a plan to mitigate the added pollution that is already on its way from increasing corn production for ethanol.” http://www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=3178

  10. 10.

    Dennis-SGMM

    November 5, 2007 at 9:42 am

    Sugar cane is grown in Hawaii with about 70,000 acres under cultivation on the islands of Kauai and Maui. It was the economic mainstay of the islands’ economy from the late 1800’s until the late 1950’s when tourism started to boom. Because most of Hawaii’s tillable land is located along the coasts, the sugar plantations started there and slowly extended themselves up the mountainsides. The limitations on growing sugar cane in Hawaii are soils, the topography and the fact that most of the tillable land is now more valuable for building than it is for growing.

  11. 11.

    Cinderella Ferret

    November 5, 2007 at 9:43 am

    Brazil began their move to energy independence almost 30 years ago. Ethanol production and use, whatever the source, will be part of a bridge to other alternative fuel sources in the future. Electric and other fuel model vehicles are the most likely transportation of the future. Battery technology is almost to the point where mass production of electric vehicles will be possible. Several models of electric cars are near production and will have a 200+ mile per charge range. That is more than enough for the Average family use. Yes, yes, I know their are exceptions, but the Average us will be more than met by this early generation of vehicle. Go to this blog and read more about it.

    This issue is as much about our immediate National Security as it is about long term environmental damage. Ethanol is not a magical solution. But it will help over a short term, and current estimates say that period is no more than about 10 years.

  12. 12.

    sparky

    November 5, 2007 at 9:44 am

    Biofuel is an incredibly complicated subject, but there’s one easy point to be made here: Every acre planted is one less acre of food. Ethanol production is already driving food prices up.

    Incidentally, sugar cane requires a specific climate, e.g., the Glades or similar. But you can grow sugar beets in the midwest. I don’t know the conversion potential for beet sugar.

    And I disagree about the pollution in the Glades. It’s no secret that sugar farming has been a major factor in the destruction of the Glades.

  13. 13.

    Michael D.

    November 5, 2007 at 9:45 am

    Why hasn’t somebody come up with a fuel cell that consumes carbohydrates?

    I believe that’s Dennis Hastert.

  14. 14.

    Mr Furious

    November 5, 2007 at 9:47 am

    I believe most sugar in this country is produced from beets, and I imagine that would come with much of the disadvantages of corn. It’s the cane sugar that reslts in the vast advantage in efficiency. Most of this county can’t grow cane sugar. Somebody mentioned the Everglades, and I know they grow it in Louisiana, etc, but I’m not sure we could ever achieve what Brazil did.

    The cane is basically like grass, grows quickly, is harvested easily, and requires far less water, energy and fertilizer. Corn uses more land, petoleum based fertilizers, tons of water, and does a lot of environmental damage, and then you end up barely breaking even on energy in vs energy achieved.

    National Geographic had a cover feature on this last month. You can view a pretty convincing set of graphics here. Be sure to check out the “Energy Balance” for each biofuel—corn is far and away the worst of the bunch… And it’s the same for emissions—corn is markedly less clean-burning than the others, and of course that’s not including the emissions from production.

    In short? Corn-based ethanol is a crock of shit and is not a long-term solution.

  15. 15.

    Temple

    November 5, 2007 at 9:53 am

    I wanted to say this once to those who say I and others don’t like the new person because we disagree. That presupposes I / we agree with Tim F. and John Cole all the time. Both ideas are completely simplistic. It’s the way a person presents themselves and their arguments that can make one sick and nauseous; you can only read so much of taking all sides of an issue – and reading the person seemingly ignorant of their position 24 hours ago – before it becomes a worthless exercise for both parties.

    I’m not into wasting my time doing so or reading disengaging writing, thus I will be coming here less.

  16. 16.

    Zifnab

    November 5, 2007 at 9:53 am

    Several models of electric cars are near production and will have a 200+ mile per charge range. That is more than enough for the Average family use. Yes, yes, I know their are exceptions, but the Average us will be more than met by this early generation of vehicle.

    Also keep in mind the 200-300 miles/tank goal is optimized for the Average Family. Companies target that range because they know its what they can get away with for that demographic. If I’m a trucker or a door-to-door salesman or Mel Gibson from Mad Max, there will be other solutions that most likely suit me better. Probably a multi-battery solution or a solar panel solution or a continued reliance on hybrid gas-electric engines to reduce the need to refuel.

  17. 17.

    Michael D.

    November 5, 2007 at 9:56 am

    Zifnab: I would be happy to see the Chevy Volt get off the ground. 40 miles on one charge? That would be perfect for me.

    Temple: See ya.

  18. 18.

    The Other Steve

    November 5, 2007 at 9:56 am

    It takes nearly as much energy to produce corn ethanol as it saves

    Be careful with this claim. I realize it’s a Known Truth(tm), but only one study has made this claim. The rest of the studies indicate there is a net gain in energy from corn based ethanol. That gain is even greater when we look at cellulose derived ethanol.

    The opposition to ethanol started based on cost. Back in 1998 it cost considerably more to produce ethanol than you could buy a galloon of gasoline. That’s no longer true. But while there is an ethanol lobby, there is also an anti-ethanol lobby who spreads a lot of FUD on this issue.

    This is a good article on ethanol costs and different sources(such as sugar

  19. 19.

    Temple

    November 5, 2007 at 9:56 am

    >>Corn-based ethanol is a crock of shit and is not a long-term solution.

    And to say people don’t know this as Michael D. does as well is blatantly ignorant. Some / most politicians prop it up to get votes, but it’s not catching on as the killer fuel solution. It’s a non-starter and most people are aware of this if they’re aware of the word ethanol.

  20. 20.

    Paul L.

    November 5, 2007 at 10:02 am

    You know, Cuba was once the sugar cane capital of the world. I suppose we could talk to them… but… oh wait… they’re dirty stinking communists.

    That occurred under the “Military thug” Batista who exploited his people was replaced by the “enlightened” Castro who cares about his people (according to the New York Times).

    I guess that means we’ll just have to go back to sucking on Saudi Arabia’s teet

    You forgot Hugo Chávez the commie in Venezuela who we buy oil from.

  21. 21.

    Rudi

    November 5, 2007 at 10:02 am

    Maybe we should just pay the moonshiners to get us off ME oil. Just run that still a little longer and destill like Everclear. ADM and the midwest lobbyist will kill cane and beet sugar out of the picture. Were all just Ned Beatty’s to ADM. Squeal like a pig…
    Pork eats corn, not simpler crops like beets or cane. (/end snark)

    While a cooking article, this from SFG is somewhat informative.
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/03/31/FD91867.DTL

    One reason is that beet sugar is generally cheaper to produce. It requires just one refining process at a single plant. Traditional cane refining demands two processes at two different facilities.

    Beets can also thrive in a wider range of climates. This large, homely root — not anything like a regular beet — is cultivated in 12 states; cane grows in just four.

  22. 22.

    The Other Steve

    November 5, 2007 at 10:03 am

    The key with any of these discussions is starting somewhere, gaining knowledge and working forward from that. That’s how you build a viable industry. Don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good.

    Biofuel is an incredibly complicated subject, but there’s one easy point to be made here: Every acre planted is one less acre of food. Ethanol production is already driving food prices up.

    Ohwell. Food prices have been artificially low for a decade or two. Corn for years was selling for less than it cost to produce. Farmers are finally starting to make some money because of the increased price of corn, beans and so on.

    That’s not a bad thing, as far as I’m concerned.

  23. 23.

    Dennis-SGMM

    November 5, 2007 at 10:04 am

    There’s always a silver lining: one of my great-great-grandfathers was an unrepentant lifelong moonshiner. I shall henceforward refer to great-great-grandpa as a “Biofuels Pioneer.”

  24. 24.

    El Cid

    November 5, 2007 at 10:05 am

    No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I absolutely disagree with that notion mentioned at first.

    PLEEEEEEEEEZ, WASTE MY MONEY on investments in energy efficiency, conservation, and sane sources of power!!!

    I don’t consider that a “waste”!!! I WANT MY GOVERNMENT TO SINK MY MONEY INTO BETTER POWER & ENERGY USE!!!

    This is among the stupidest notions in the entire universe of American politics that our highest national priority for energy use, distribution, and production is its cheap profit return.

    We have a space program, but not because it has a cash return. We have science research labs, but not just because they later trickle down to the market as gadgets.

    No, our priorities right now should most definitely NOT be on fetishistically focusing on which energy use, distribution, or production cycles are most stingy on the cost / profit analysis.

    And I would really, really wager that this perspective is not rare either.

    If the US and state governments “lost” a bunch of money investing in, say, viable solar generation plants which produced reliable clean power but would require subsidy for a long time — do you think people would say, “Oh, well, fergit it then, let’s just dig up some more coal for a while…”??? I don’t think so, and if they do, I’m in crazy strong disagreement.

  25. 25.

    Dreggas

    November 5, 2007 at 10:06 am

    Leave it to republicans to be the ones pimping corn ethanol because their main votes come from the midwest, and leave it to both to pander on the issue given iowa’s primary.

    The reality is while we might end up energy independent on ethanol, it’s still polluting the atmosphere and, as others have pointed out, the rivers and land in general. This is just another ploy by agri-business (because let’s face it the family farm is a load of shit) to get more money in the form of subsidies.

    Of course if global warming continues and sea levels rise and the northern hemisphere warms that much, well I guess iowa can look forward to becoming famous for its sugar.

  26. 26.

    laneman

    November 5, 2007 at 10:08 am

    Cane industry vs. ADM – no competition.

    And cane is hell on soil viability.

  27. 27.

    Mr Furious

    November 5, 2007 at 10:09 am

    That gain is even greater when we look at cellulose derived ethanol.

    Yeah, no kidding, my problem isn’t with ethanol, it’s with corn as the source. Go to the NG site I linked to—all of the other biofuels give back much more energy and burn much cleaner.

    Energy Input —> Energy Output
    Corn: 1.0 —> 1.3
    Sugar: 1.0 —> 8.0
    Cellulose 1.0 —> up to 36.0 (depends on type)

    Emissions compared to gasoline:
    Corn: 22% less
    Sugarcane: 56% less
    Cellulose: 91% less

    I hate to agree with the President, but switchgrass and cellulose is the way to go…

  28. 28.

    Timmy Mac

    November 5, 2007 at 10:13 am

    Did anyone else see the movie “Who Killed The Electric Car?” Why can’t we just ramp up production on that model and start mass producing ’em again?

  29. 29.

    The Other Steve

    November 5, 2007 at 10:14 am

    The reality is while we might end up energy independent on ethanol, it’s still polluting the atmosphere and, as others have pointed out, the rivers and land in general.

    Back in the 1990s I was working with a mapping company on variable rate fertilizer application, the goal being by studying the soil type one could scientifically apply the correct rate such that there was limited runoff.

    The problem is it’s expensive, but as crop prices rise, it makes more economical sense.

    Second… We’re already growing corn. Did you think the land was just sitting idle until someone said “hey, we can plant something here and make money.” No. The ethanol industry was spawned because we had such a great surplus of corn.

    Sheesh

    I admit maybe I’m a bit biased, as I did used to work for the Soil Conservation Service in Iowa, but christ, how many of you have ever actually stepped foot on a farm?

  30. 30.

    Nicholas Weaver

    November 5, 2007 at 10:17 am

    Two comments:

    a: The WORLD price for sugar is an order of magnitude cheaper than the US price for sugar, because of the massive tariffs on imported sugar. Candy factories have set up in Canada specifically to buy less expensive sugar.

    b: Cellulistic Ethanol is a ways a way (the problem would be low cost, industrial breakdown of cellulose into sugars), but has a huge advantage in that it can use agricultural waste material as well as dedicated more efficient crops: Plants put a huge amount of the energy they collect into cellulose rather than digestible starches/sugars.

    c: There is also a huge infrastructure needed to TRANSPORT ethanol, E80+ can’t be run in our existing gasoline pipes.

  31. 31.

    The Other Steve

    November 5, 2007 at 10:17 am

    I hate to agree with the President, but switchgrass and cellulose is the way to go…

    It certainly is, but we don’t have the technology yet to commercialize it. It’s being worked on, and the fact is that the increase in our use of ethanol derived from corn has what has made looking at cellulose economically viable.

    We we’re even talking about this shit back in 1999. We should have been, but we were not. It wasn’t until they mandated 10% ethanol in our gasoline, and the price of oil went up, that we started a debate.

  32. 32.

    The Other Steve

    November 5, 2007 at 10:19 am

    The WORLD price for sugar is an order of magnitude cheaper than the US price for sugar, because of the massive tariffs on imported sugar. Candy factories have set up in Canada specifically to buy less expensive sugar.

    And if the US uses it’s corn for ethanol, that’ll drive the price of HFCS up, and we can enjoy sugar again in our sodie pops!

  33. 33.

    Bob In Pacifica

    November 5, 2007 at 10:21 am

    Solar, wind, tidal power. Solar has an advantage in that individuals can potentially control the means of production. That’s why Ronald Reagan took the solar panels off the roof of the White House.

    I would be wary of the estimates of the amount of oil left in the world’s reserves. The oil industry and the CIA (which has historically been filled with oil people and has been doing coups all over the world for the oil industry) have used low estimates to start wars or to otherwise engage the US in foreign wars.

    Since corn as a crop uses lots of petroleum-based fertilizers, it’s sort of self-defeating way to create an energy source. Growing something like hemp, which doesn’t require the same fertilizer burden, would be more efficient. But why go through photosynthesis at all?

  34. 34.

    David Hunt

    November 5, 2007 at 10:24 am

    I talked to an agricultural engineer friend of mine about this last year. She informed me that there is not enough arable land in entire United States to produce enough corn to gives us enough ethanol replace our gasoline use. More concerning, she also told me saying corn ethanol was a “slight net energy gain vs petroleum” was likely to be the optimsitic presentation. It was her opinion that it was a net energy loss.

    Another thing that she told me was that the Brazilians were not (primarily at least) growing sugar for the purpose of making ethanol fuel. According to her, they’re using some by-product of their sugar production that doesn’t go into the actual sugar turning what would have been garbage/polution into fuel…which is what brought us into how much land it would take to grow massive amount of corn needed to have a major effect on our fuel needs…assuming of course that corn ethanol gave us any energy savings anyway.

    Short answer: until we can find some agricultural by-product/dross that has no signifacant extra marginal cost to turn into ethanol fuel, the whole bio-fuel line is likely a bust. Otherwise, we are not going to have enough land to grow food.

    Personally, I’m all for getting good electrical cars on the market. Unlike hydrogen cells, we’ve already got a huge infrastructure built for delivering electrical power anywhere in the country. Getting that up and running for hydrogen would likely be a (wild guess) 10 figure cost endeavor. We’d have to come up with more electical generation capacity, but I think nuclear power is the way to go with that. It creates a some incrediby toxic by-products, but it’s concentrated in a very small space. I think that we can come up with something that can work for containing the nuclear waste, and nuclear power produces no carbon by-poducts.

    Just my (rambling) two cents.

  35. 35.

    capelza

    November 5, 2007 at 10:25 am

    Every acre of corn that is used to produce ethanol is not producing HFCS… ;P

    Isn’t it North Dakota that apporoved rules for growing hemp, as a source for bio fuels. A cellulose source. Of course that runs right into the “War on Drugs” so I doubt that at the current Federal level it will happen.

    Though industrial hemp would be like smoking a rope…but lord apparantly even the “appearance” of it negates the risk of something possibly intelligent and useful.

  36. 36.

    Zifnab

    November 5, 2007 at 10:26 am

    We we’re even talking about this shit back in 1999. We should have been, but we were not. It wasn’t until they mandated 10% ethanol in our gasoline, and the price of oil went up, that we started a debate.

    Yes. But back in 1999 we were debating whether we should elect President “Invented the Internet” Gore over President “I like to drink beer with you” Bush. We made a number of poor decisions back then.

  37. 37.

    Randolph Fritz

    November 5, 2007 at 10:28 am

    Basics, basics. Biofuels are a way to gather solar energy. The problem is, grow plants, process plants into fuel, burn fuel is a damn inefficient way to run a railroad (or any transporation system). This is an area where PV farms are the big win; you want to go straight from light to electric power and use that to run your transport. Or perhaps GM plants…

  38. 38.

    Michael D.

    November 5, 2007 at 10:40 am

    Maybe ethanol isn’t the way to go then. Perhaps something would get done in Congress if we told them they could make fuel out of pandas.

  39. 39.

    Zifnab

    November 5, 2007 at 10:57 am

    Maybe ethanol isn’t the way to go then. Perhaps something would get done in Congress if we told them they could make fuel out of pandas.

    “Can we make shit-tons of money as middle men” seems to be the optimal question when determining America’s next major energy source. If you can convince oil-ites and their Congressional cronies that 800 lb live pandas on treadmills will reap a sufficent economic windfall for them, then 800 lb pandas on treadmills will power our cities and heat our homes for the next three generations.

  40. 40.

    Punchy

    November 5, 2007 at 10:58 am

    And it does no damage due to phosphorus. That is nonsense.

    Wiki says “nice try!”

    A settlement agreement between the federal government and the State of Florida, and approved by Judge William Hoeveler, imposed a plan to reduce damaging phosphorus levels in the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and Everglades National Park by December 31, 2006. Additionally, in 2004 the State of Florida adopted a 10 parts per billion numeric criteria for phosphorus within the Everglades Protection Area, which consists of the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, Everglades National Park, and Water Conservation Areas 2 and 3. The excessive phosphorus derives primarily from fertilizer used by sugarcane growers and other agricultural operations as well as construction runoff from the development of coastal areas such as Palm Beach County.

    Nonsense, eh?

  41. 41.

    Bombadil

    November 5, 2007 at 10:59 am

    We we’re even talking about this shit back in 1999. We should have been, but we were not. It wasn’t until they mandated 10% ethanol in our gasoline, and the price of oil went up, that we started a debate.

    We were talking about this back in 1978, and I recall filling the tank on my motorcycle with a gas-ethanol mix.

    We’ll still be talking about it in 2028.

  42. 42.

    Bombadil

    November 5, 2007 at 11:00 am

    Nonsense, eh?

    How “inconvenient”!

  43. 43.

    zmulls

    November 5, 2007 at 11:00 am

    Michael Pollin’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” devotes many pages to how and why corn became such a dominant crop in this country, and how it started to drive agriculture policy. Fascinating reading.

  44. 44.

    libarbarian

    November 5, 2007 at 11:01 am

    Prof Cole,

    Stop giving them more reasons to want to invade Cuba :).

  45. 45.

    cleek

    November 5, 2007 at 11:04 am

    No Blood For Sugar!

  46. 46.

    TenguPhule

    November 5, 2007 at 11:51 am

    Biofuels are a no-go.

    As has been pointed out above thread, every acre of fuel is one less of food. And if anyone has been paying attention, food prices have been running up and up for the last year or so. And it’s going to get a *LOT* worse before it stabilizes again.

    It’s easy to dismiss this now, but combine stagnant wages with rising basic supply prices and neo-serfdom looks to be making a comeback.

  47. 47.

    akaoni

    November 5, 2007 at 11:56 am

    I’ve always been attracted to bio-diesel and SVO fuel alternatives. That said, here in Iowa corporations have natuarlly adopted the least green methods to mass-produce bio-diesel and communities and the environment have suffered…

  48. 48.

    capelza

    November 5, 2007 at 11:59 am

    Of course it would never occur to the majority of Americans to try to drive less?
    And that “acre of food” thing? How many of those “acres of food” are actually acres of feed for meat production?

    One thing about cellulose is that it can also be an alternative to petroleum based plastics.

    Looking for a replacement for oil for this country is like replacing heroin with methadone. You’re still an addict, just a different drug.

  49. 49.

    The Other Steve

    November 5, 2007 at 12:05 pm

    Let’s see… We can’t do biofuels.

    Nuclear is out of the question.

    Wind power hurts birds.

    I think TenguPhule is right, we ought to just go back to neo-serfdom and the bronze age.

  50. 50.

    Dreggas

    November 5, 2007 at 12:11 pm

    We were talking about this back in 1978, and I recall filling the tank on my motorcycle with a gas-ethanol mix.

    You know, it’s highly ironic that for years after the OPEC deal back in the 70’s we produced fuel efficient cars and MPG was a big concern. Then, not more than 2 decades later we went right back to producing gas guzzlers. Obviously we learned nothing.

  51. 51.

    David Hunt

    November 5, 2007 at 12:23 pm

    Other Steve, Why is nuclear out of the question? I’ve only read the last 20 or so post carefully, but is it simply the toxicity and duration of the waste. Personally I think there are realistic ways to deal with that even without any gains in our technology. If you want to talk sustainability, that’s another matter, but I’d be interested in reading your thoughts on why nuclear’s an automatic out.

  52. 52.

    Bombadil

    November 5, 2007 at 12:25 pm

    You know, it’s highly ironic that for years after the OPEC deal back in the 70’s we produced fuel efficient cars and MPG was a big concern. Then, not more than 2 decades later we went right back to producing gas guzzlers. Obviously we learned nothing.

    And it’s impossible — IMPOSSIBLE — for Detroit to mass produce a car that gets better gas mileage.

    Meanwhile, I’ll continue to drive my 2003 Prius, with 145,000 miles on it, and enjoy the average 47.5 miles per gallon I get.

  53. 53.

    capelza

    November 5, 2007 at 12:25 pm

    Dreggas..it was worse than learning nothing, it was a major regression. People who continued to drive more efficient cars, that is small cars were the butt of jokes. It became harder and harder to find a manual tranny. The choice, in American cars, for something small were I think deliberately abysmal. The Geo? The fucking Ford Fiesta?

    Only “hippies” and “liberals” worried about things like that! We didn’t just not learn anything, we went batshit nuts…A “real” American just had to have a huge vehicle with 4WD to get from their house to the store. It disgusts me, sorry if that offends anyone.

    There is the free market, etc, etc. but it’s been a collective kind of denialist insanity that ignored for too long where our oil came from (the ramifications (the oil crisis of the 70’s clearly forgotten)…grrrrrrrrrrr…

  54. 54.

    capelza

    November 5, 2007 at 12:28 pm

    Forgot…the signal event in this attitude came for me when Reagan took down the solar panels from the White House roof (the ones that Carter had put up there).

    Solar? We don’t need no stinking solar! That’s hippie crap, we Americans!!!!

  55. 55.

    Xenos

    November 5, 2007 at 12:31 pm

    The long term solution is for electric and hydrogen fueled cars – the problem is where to find the energy source to power it all. It would apparantly be easy to run fusion reactors on He3 – the problem is that there is no He3 on earth. The sun produces a lot of it, so maybe in a hundred years, if we fund the space program well, we will develop the technology to collect the stuff.

    Maybe we could go on a strict energy diet for a century or so. That might beat the alternative.

  56. 56.

    Bombadil

    November 5, 2007 at 12:32 pm

    Well, we all know that Carter was such a wimp that anything he was for had to have been weak and silly and we need to be far more macho that all that.

    What’s more manly than a big ol’ internal combustion engine? Solar is for pansies. Small cars are for sissies. If you drive a fuel efficient car your penis or breasts just aren’t big enough.

    And didn’t Detroit do a great job? The best they can come up with is the Pinto and the Vega.

  57. 57.

    Zifnab

    November 5, 2007 at 12:33 pm

    Dreggas..it was worse than learning nothing, it was a major regression. People who continued to drive more efficient cars, that is small cars were the butt of jokes. It became harder and harder to find a manual tranny. The choice, in American cars, for something small were I think deliberately abysmal. The Geo? The fucking Ford Fiesta?

    Or one of those god-awful volkswagon Beetles. You remember how everyone hated them. Oh… wait.

    And, of course, when it was re-released, what was the slogan? Less Flower, more Power. Because my primary concern when driving a Beetle was pick-up speed. Yeah, right.

    The biggest joke of all was how American Car Companies have virtually refused to sell respectable, comfortable, high MPG cars to people who will pay for them. If you want all the bells and whistles, its almost mandated that you buy a land-yaht. If they can’t slap a few hundred extra pounds of scrap metal on your car, they won’t sell you a half-decent auto-mobile.

    I still remember the screaming fits back in the 80s, when Japanese cars really took off. Economists and politicians and Detroit auto-makers couldn’t figure out why small, afforable, easily fixed, comfortable cars were putting them out of business. Ford/GM/Chevy could have released the Corolla in the 50s if they’d wanted to. There is really no excuse for the situation we find ourselves in today.

  58. 58.

    Xenos

    November 5, 2007 at 12:37 pm

    cleek Says:

    No Blood For Sugar!

    That would have made a great anti-colonialism slogan in the 18th century. See Mintz, Sidney: Sweetness and Power.

  59. 59.

    capelza

    November 5, 2007 at 12:39 pm

    I had a beat up Pinto station wagon in Kodiak in the early 80’s. I mean really beat up, the weather and volcanic dust up there is bad for cars, very bad.

    But that little thing would drive on the worst icy roads. Throw some cinder blocks in the bak and it was great. Folks up there don’t use chains, btw…

    It had a lot of storage, and as I didn’t live in the fancy part of town where you really did need a 4WD to get up out of your driveway, it was just perfect.

    I then had a newish Corolla stationwagon, not front wheel drive yet, but that was also a fine car up there. The most famous rental car up there “the Granada” would get you over every road on the island. When someone stole it and wrecked it, it was on the front page of the paper…with a picutre.

    Bombadil, you said it perfectly…

  60. 60.

    Bombadil

    November 5, 2007 at 12:44 pm

    Detroit has a history of “we’ll design it, you’ll like it”. Come up with something new and whiz-bang, market the hell out of it, and people will buy it.

    Japan, on the other hand, took a look and who was buying, asked them what they wanted, and desgined accordingly.

    Hell, I remember when I got my first Japanese car (a 1976 Datsun F-10 hatchback) and was so damned impressed that they’d actually put cup holders in it. It was years before American cars had them. Four cylinder transverse mounted engine with front-wheel drive. Got great mileage for the time (nearly 35 mpg on a long trip), had terrific traction in the snow (5-speed manual shift and the engine sat directly over the front axle, so all the weight was where it was needed), plenty of room. Yeah, it had plastic seats, and no tape player, but I wasn’t making a lot of money (as a teacher) then.

    We finally gave it up when the kids started coming and a two-door hatchback was inconvenient (ever try to get a kid into a car seat in the back of a two door?). We got a Toyota Corolla wagon to replace it — nothing American in our price range came close to the style, quality or reliability.

  61. 61.

    Bruce Moomaw

    November 5, 2007 at 1:00 pm

    There was a whole multi-article section on ethanol in the Feb. 9 “Science”. Short answers to your questions: the US, dammit, is too cold for sugar cane (although enough other countries can grow it that it could replace fully 10% of the world’s gasoline demand, which is not to be sneezed at. And while the technological community is VERY interested in cellulosic ethanol (for obvious reasons), we are still far from developing enzymes that are both efficient enough at breaking down lignin (which Mother Nature designed, after all, to be durable) AND cheap enough. Research is currently going on frantically, since — if we can find them — this could be the solution to humanity’s energy problems right there, and there is currently hope that we may be able to produce it at current gasoline prices within 10-15 years. (Let’s hope that prediction works out better than all the optimistic predictions we used to hear about fusion power.)

    It’s cheaper to raise soybeans for ethanol than corn — but it’s still not economical by comparison with current oil prices. I suppose we could fall bck on it in a real emergency.

    Meanwhile, would it be asking too much for Congress to get off its [extremely bad word] duff and repeal the artificial subsldies that currently exist for SUV ownership? The last time they tried that, the measure failed in the Senate despite support from 8 Republicans, because 13 Democrats voted against it. I can understand the two Dem Senators from Michigan doing so — I mean,voters always put their own interests before those of the country — but MIKULSKI?

  62. 62.

    Bombadil

    November 5, 2007 at 1:06 pm

    Mikulski couldn’t even see over the steering wheel of an SUV.

  63. 63.

    BARRASSO

    November 5, 2007 at 1:06 pm

    The objection to subsidizing alternate energy is totally silly, the largest single subsidized thing in the US is oil, the entire military budget is spent for a robust foreign policy to “protect our interests”. I always found that strange most right wingers think they are christians and would think it wrong to kill for money, but have no problem killing for our interests.

    Why all the GEO bashing I love my 1992 GEO convertible I STILL get 45 mpg.

  64. 64.

    srv

    November 5, 2007 at 1:09 pm

    There’s algea, which would have a lot higher energy density per area. But they can’t figure out how to scale it:

    http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

    switchgrass, soybeans and what-not:

    http://www.springerlink.com/content/r1552355771656v0/

    Abstract Energy outputs from ethanol produced using corn, switchgrass, and wood biomass were each less than the respective fossil energy inputs. The same was true for producing biodiesel using soybeans and sunflower, however, the energy cost for producing soybean biodiesel was only slightly negative compared with ethanol production. Findings in terms of energy outputs compared with the energy inputs were: • Ethanol production using corn grain required 29% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Ethanol production using switchgrass required 50% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Ethanol production using wood biomass required 57% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Biodiesel production using soybean required 27% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced (Note, the energy yield from soy oil per hectare is far lower than the ethanol yield from corn). • Biodiesel production using sunflower required 118% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced.

  65. 65.

    Llelldorin

    November 5, 2007 at 1:20 pm

    But why go through photosynthesis at all?

    In a strange way, this is exactly backwards. Any form of motor vehicle is going to depend upon chemical storage–either in a battery or in a fuel tank of some form. Cars don’t really get enough exposure to sunlight by themselves to be cars.

    Think about the total insolation of crop areas compared to any possible solar panel insolation, and you’ll quickly see why biofuels are at the very least interesting. Cellulose-based ethanol would easily be the most interesting, because you could in principle (with technologies that don’t currently exist, but which appear to be achievable in the relatively near term) convert waste portions of crops into fuel.

    Corn-based ethanol might be worth subsidizing in the extremely short term to allow us to develop an ethanol infrastructure based on existing technology. That’s a good use of government resources, actually–if we know that having the infrastructure would be socially beneficial, and know that it won’t be built purely on market forces, then there’s a good reason for the government to make or to encourage the initial investment. (Much as it did with the Internet, for example, or in a different fashion with the highway system.)

  66. 66.

    srv

    November 5, 2007 at 1:21 pm

    Algae:

    NREL’s research showed that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced from 200,000 hectares of desert land (200,000 hectares is equivalent to 780 square miles, roughly 500,000 acres)… In the previous section, we found that to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert… That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres – far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals.

    Iowa has 15 million corn acres. So all you need is water and a method. That much algae would also be a big carbon sink.

  67. 67.

    srv

    November 5, 2007 at 1:27 pm

    So biofuels still look a lot harder than even oil shale:

    http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660227927,00.html

  68. 68.

    Michael D.

    November 5, 2007 at 1:42 pm

    And it’s impossible—IMPOSSIBLE —for Detroit to mass produce a car that gets better gas mileage.

    I’m not a conspiracy theorist by nature, but I have always believed that Detroit has had the technology to increase fuel effieiency by at least 50-60% better than the average at any given time.

    But that’s just me. I’ve also always believed that Intel had Pentium IV processors while I was still using my top-of-the-line 386! :-)

  69. 69.

    Punchy

    November 5, 2007 at 1:47 pm

    volcanic dust up there is bad for cars, very bad.

    Damn, I learn something new every day. I wouldn’t even know what “volcanic dust” looks like.

    Short answers to your questions: the US, dammit, is too cold for sugar cane

    As of now, Bruce. As of now. In 10 years, when they’re growing palm trees in Chicago and the average temp in the Windy City is 83, maybe they tap some of the fine Illy soil to grow some sugah cane.

  70. 70.

    capelza

    November 5, 2007 at 1:52 pm

    Punchy, the volcanic dust on Kodiak island is from the Katmai eruption about a century ago. You can’t do any construction without disturbing several feet of it just below the surface.

    It’s gray, dour mud in the winter and gritty, with every particle being a tiny shard of glass, in the drier months.

  71. 71.

    Evinfuilt

    November 5, 2007 at 1:58 pm

    Corn Ethanol is failure, but thats been covered extensively already (hopefully the country will realize that Corn Syrup has to go next, I love Mexican Coke, and pay extra to get it whenever I can… in Texas thats often.)

    Hydrogen Fuel Cells could be a real viable future. It would require lots of work on infrastructure, but there’s a viable plan.

    Oil Rigs + Gulf Coast + Modern Nuclear Plants = abundant Hydrogen production. Hurricane season is the only tricky bit. Also we need to implement Nuclear Recycling, would be nice to suddenly have a ton more material and barely any waste (which can be sealed in glass, then locked into steel/concrete containers and finally buried deep.

    I do think Switch Grass Ethanol has some potential. But the amount grown, and moved to factories for processing is huge. We’ll have semi’s driving 24×7 just delivering the grass to be turned into fuel.

  72. 72.

    Bombadil

    November 5, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    I love Mexican Coke, and pay extra to get it whenever I can… in Texas thats often

    You might want to reconsider posting something like that to a public forum.

    Just sayin’….

  73. 73.

    shaker o salt

    November 5, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    Can we grow sugar cane here? Um, yeah, I’m sure you’ve seen the ads, “C&H, C&H, pure cain sugar from Hawaii!” Then there are our “tropical holdings, ie Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.

    BTW, what’s the difference between buying foreign oil vs. foreign sugar cane?

    I sure do remember a lot of discussion about solar and wind power in all those science fiction books I read back in the 60’s and 70’s. I would have thought we’d be much further along then we are now, especially with solar power. I know this doesn’t directly rate to automobile fuel, but look at the big picture in the countless other ways we burn fossil fuels.

  74. 74.

    Perry Como

    November 5, 2007 at 2:24 pm

    Can’t we just burn one dollar bills?

  75. 75.

    Cain

    November 5, 2007 at 2:50 pm

    But that’s just me. I’ve also always believed that Intel had Pentium IV processors while I was still using my top-of-the-line 386! :-)

    They started working on the P4 after the Pentium Pro came out. It took them about 2-3 years to get P4 out. In the mean time you had the various iterations of the Pentium Pro core (eg pentium 2) until the P4 came out.

    Worked as a support group for the P4 engineers. :-) They needed therapy ;)

    cain

  76. 76.

    Cain

    November 5, 2007 at 2:51 pm

    That should be “in” a support group.

  77. 77.

    BIRDZILLA

    November 5, 2007 at 3:55 pm

    MARY POPPINS was right A SPOONFULL OF SUGAR HELPS THE MEDCINE GO DOWN and never mind the food police wackos from CSPI and PCRM

  78. 78.

    Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop

    November 5, 2007 at 3:57 pm

    Forgot…the signal event in this attitude came for me when Reagan took down the solar panels from the White House roof (the ones that Carter had put up there).

    This old saw is somewhere between a half-truth and an urban myth. The solar panels, which heated the White House’s water, were up for the first 5+ years of the Reagan presidency (heck, he had them 2+ years longer than Carter did!). In 1986, the roof of the White House was removed for repairs. When it was replaced, the solar panels were not reinstalled due to damage and cost concerns (also, remember that oil had plummeted to under $10/barrel in 1986). There is no evidence that Reagan had anything to do with these decisions.

    This reality has often been contorted by the eco-left into “Ronald Reagan’s first act of his presidency was to pull down Carter’s solar panels.”

  79. 79.

    capelza

    November 5, 2007 at 4:07 pm

    EEEL…they were taken down and not put up again…THAT IS MY POINT>

    So, instead of, say even 20 years ago, instead of continuing the even symbolic idea of alternate fuels and energy sources it was not put back up. Because AT THAT MOMENT oil was cheap…forgetting that a decade before we had an an oil crisis precisely because we were dependent on oil. So much for “never forget”.

    Do you know what the word shortsighted means? So yea, symbollically, it still stands.

  80. 80.

    demimondian

    November 5, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    There was a wonderful discussion in Kos, of all places, where somebody actually did the efficiency calculation for running an H2 at 60 MPH. Just to overcome rolling resistance (which plays a key role in minor things like *braking*), you need to burn about 12MPG. And that is before you worry about less than perfect engine efficiency or air resistance.

  81. 81.

    Kevin

    November 5, 2007 at 4:35 pm

    “BTW, what’s the difference between buying foreign oil vs. foreign sugar cane?”

    foreign sugar cane is renewable foreign oil isn’t

    foreign sugar cane can be grown in a number areas of the world including the caribean Islands on our southern doorstep. The majority of foreign oil can be found under the soil of countries that hate us.

    just a few differences.

  82. 82.

    MW

    November 5, 2007 at 4:50 pm

    If an “alternative energy” source is so efficient that it needs massive government subsidy to event (sic) exist, much less survive, it’s not a viable long-term source of energy.

    As opposed to coal, oil and natural gas which receive subsidies of all kinds such as cheap royalties for use of public lands, tax breaks for exploration and the like eh?

  83. 83.

    MNPundit

    November 5, 2007 at 5:02 pm

    Hawaii uses sugar cane to power itself to some extent.

  84. 84.

    Gus

    November 5, 2007 at 5:13 pm

    I’d love to know how many millions of acres of rainforest got decimated in Brazil to accommodate sugar plantations so they could be energy self-sufficient.

  85. 85.

    Ice

    November 5, 2007 at 5:14 pm

    This blog has a zillion posts about this subject. I don’t know the guy, but he works in the industry and doesn’t approach it from any one particular ideological perspective.

    http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/

    You may have to go back a couple years to see all the relative posts, but he’s a scientist and obviously has no respect for political BS when it comes to what actually makes sense and what doesn’t.

  86. 86.

    Zifnab

    November 5, 2007 at 5:16 pm

    I’d love to know how many millions of acres of rainforest got decimated in Brazil to accommodate sugar plantations so they could be energy self-sufficient.

    Only if you were siding with the terrorists.

  87. 87.

    dbrown

    November 5, 2007 at 7:02 pm

    Danger Will Roberson, long winded words ahead – danger.

    People – please learn about a subject before you give half-baked ideas: all the solutions you offer have numerous technical problems. Being fairly smart is good but also bad when you get enough information to see some of the good aspects of a solution but do not know enough about technical engineering to realize all the drawbacks.

    Bio-fuels are not a solution. Corn, soybeans, sugar and other high-end crops are not good for producing fuels. Numerous experts have shown this and the fact that only by vast subsidies can it be produce also proves this point better than any technical argument. No one can chemically convert the low grade stuff in a manner that doesn’t use far more fuel then it produces.

    Solar – I use to do R&D in the manufacture of solar arrays; until a major break through occurs, their still too inefficient, expensive and very dirty to manufacture; for those who doubt, please price a system to just meet your home needs.

    Algae? Get real! No one has really tried this on any real scale because the technical difficulties are immense! Cover thousands of acres of water in a desert? Where is that water coming from? Why not just use the ocean – oops, feeding such crops the fertilizer they would need would be very costly and worse, damage the oceans. Harvest? How? Then process? Again, how and how can you convert the mess into fuel (please, real numbers/facts not worthless technical papers) So far, not even the most wild ass idea’s cover these minor problems. Please, if you think it will work, go ahead, buy the materials and run your own pilot plant at home (you can do that with bio-fuels from oils, so try it and solve the problems.)

    Fission? Well, unless you breed new (dirty) fuel, we don’t have enough uranium to meet more than a tiny fraction of our future energy needs. Breeders can work but they can also run away and explode like a small atomic bomb!!! (A regular fission plant can’t – chemically, yes; nuclear, no.)

    Hydrogen? What a joke – unless you use existing fossil fuels -MORE fuel is needed to create hydrogen then you can get – that is a law of physics. If you use fossil fuels, you gain very and the CO2 load is heavier!

    Fusion is possible, and they have made great progress over the last ten years (laser fusion, not so much on magnetic.) A Navy program has a super efficient laser (18% outlet to target) that meets all the requirements (wavelength, rate, reliability) and they can even make the damn pellets (about $0.25 each) – the will, however, is lacking so this, for now, is a no go, too.

    So we are back to coal or oil – oil will ‘run out’ for sure in the next ten years (ie be too expensive for common use like cars, not be gone) and coal will require a lot of work to make liquid, still needs sequestering to address CO2 (so forget cars) and will require digging up entire mountain ranges.

    Anyone of these non-working ideas may hit a break thought, or even a new thing out of left field but NOT for the next ten, maybe twenty years. We are in trouble and better start trying to use wisely and reduce our usage as much as possible. Still, the world will be VERY different in tens years and not in a nice way.

  88. 88.

    Cain

    November 5, 2007 at 7:48 pm

    shaker o salt Says:

    C&H, pure cain sugar from Hawaii!” Then there are our “tropical holdings, ie Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.

    That’s right baby, I’m pure sweetness. Taste it and you’ll never go back to the normal stuff.

    cain

  89. 89.

    Perry Como

    November 5, 2007 at 9:02 pm

    Hawaii uses sugar cane to power itself to some extent.

    I’m a lot like Hawaii, but instead of sugar cane I use hookers and blow.

  90. 90.

    TenguPhule

    November 5, 2007 at 10:41 pm

    And that “acre of food” thing? How many of those “acres of food” are actually acres of feed for meat production?

    Yes, a lot of grain/plant production goes to meat and that would be because a lot of the stuff isn’t suitable for human consumption. Feed Corn is not the same kind of corn on your dinner plate.

  91. 91.

    Bombadil

    November 6, 2007 at 9:22 am

    From today’s Boston Globe:

    Massachusetts political leaders yesterday proposed a combination of first-in-the-nation mandates and incentives to promote the development and use of biofuels, with the hope of reducing the state’s carbon emissions and dependence on foreign oil.

    The mandates would require all heating oil and diesel fuel to contain at least 2 percent of “renewable biobased alternatives” by the year 2010 and 5 percent by the year 2013.

    [snip]

    The bill filed yesterday also would exempt from the state’s 23-cent gasoline tax any gasoline that contains ethanol produced from plant products other than corn. The exemption would give gasoline dealers a financial incentive to buy fuel blended with the new type of ethanol and give a handful of Massachusetts high-tech companies an incentive to produce it.

    Full article here.

  92. 92.

    BIRDZILLA

    November 6, 2007 at 11:06 am

    Just how much rainforests were decimated and how many killowatt hours of electricity was used and how much CO2 was pumped into the atmospher by all those who attended that phonie RIO EARTH SUMMIT in 1992?

  93. 93.

    Bombadil

    November 6, 2007 at 3:40 pm

    Just how much rainforests were decimated and how many killowatt hours of electricity was used and how much CO2 was pumped into the atmospher by all those who attended that phonie RIO EARTH SUMMIT in 1992?

    I give up. How much?

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