OT of an OT: Ethanol

[Captain Kwok]

I understand your comments re: rural areas - but keep in mind in North America and most other developed nations over 80% of people live in urban areas - so it makes good sense to encourage the use of public transportation etc. as a general policy. A single bus at capacity can remove 20-25 cars on the road. My personal beef is with long-distance commuters and (beyond responsible) multi-car families. Also another beef I have is with the design of housing communities these days too - it pratically forces people into their cars for everything...

Fuel tariffs on new vehicles with poor fuel economy can also be configured based on rural vs. urban etc. For things like small vehicles, many snowmobiles etc. are already configured to run on pure ethanol fuel...

Also for the record, urban areas receive less back in services/infrastructure than what they pay for in taxes in comparison to rural areas.

Also, solar power is far more expensive than wind power. A wind turbine in a windy area costs about 3-5 cents/kwh, where solar power can range from 20-50 cents/kwh. The technology is still expensive and the return low. Wind turbines are a good bet for the windy northwest!

I do agree it would be difficult for the U.S. to impose tariffs based on fossil fuel products etc. when it is the U.S. that by far that uses the most per capita...

[Renegade 13]

Captain Kwok said:
I understand your comments re: rural areas - but keep in mind in North America and most other developed nations over 80% of people live in urban areas - so it makes good sense to encourage the use of public transportation etc. as a general policy. A single bus at capacity can remove 20-25 cars on the road. My personal beef is with long-distance commuters and (beyond responsible) multi-car families. Also another beef I have is with the design of housing communities these days too - it pratically forces people into their cars for everything...

Fuel tariffs on new vehicles with poor fuel economy can also be configured based on rural vs. urban etc. For things like small vehicles, many snowmobiles etc. are already configured to run on pure ethanol fuel...

Also for the record, urban areas receive less back in services/infrastructure than what they pay for in taxes in comparison to rural areas.

Also, solar power is far more expensive than wind power. A wind turbine in a windy area costs about 3-5 cents/kwh, where solar power can range from 20-50 cents/kwh. The technology is still expensive and the return low. Wind turbines are a good bet for the windy northwest!

I do agree it would be difficult for the U.S. to impose tariffs based on fossil fuel products etc. when it is the U.S. that by far that uses the most per capita...

Well, I'm always happy to have my ignorance exposed. After all, how else will I learn!??

I agree that with the sheer number of city dwellers that there are, it is sensible to encourage mass transit. Makes a lot of sense. But charging those who have no choice about travelling for how much they travel and putting it into the endless pit that is mass transit isn't a good idea, I think. But maybe that's just me.

I didn't realize urban areas didn't get as much back as compared to rural areas. But most of what is put into rural areas are for things like the Trans-Canada highway maintenance which doesn't specifically benefit any demographic, it benefits both rural and urban people equally when they travel across the country. In fact, roads are pretty much all that money gets spent on in rural areas. After all, what else can it be spent on!

Also didn't realize the economic comparison between wind and solar. Still would be difficult though to fit a wind turbine in the yard of the average city person!

What really needs to be looked at is energy generated from tidal turbines. Use waves and tidal action to generate power. Since neither the wind nor the moon are going away any time soon, it'd work well.

[Suicide Junkie]

Seems to me that the US needs a department of Global Public Relations far more than the so-called Homeland security.

Accomplish the goal of security, with none of the anti-privacy and pro-government-secrecy stuff.

[Thermodyne]

Renegade 13 said:

Inaccurate. There is no net release of carbon.

Where the heck are you going to get the energy to till, plant, harvest, ferment, and refine the alky? Do you have any idea how much carbon is vented by an acre of tilled land? Do you have any idea how many regulated chemicals are needed to grow a crop like hybrid corn? 0 waste carbon is an invention from some slick publicity agency. It only has value when only the actual carbon in the fuel in measured. When the Brazilians’ were doing it they were using some purpose grown crops and a lot of waste biomaterial from the sugar industry. They still had almost a man hour per gallon of fuel produced. It was never profitable and as demand for fuel rose, they couldn’t justify the costs of expansion. Bio alky is one of the biggest fictions of the decade. It’s typical politics and almost totally promoted by the bio industry. If you were Conaggra, would you rather sell a million tons of corn as feed and get $3.40 a bushel? Or would you rather turn it into alky and realize $5.00 per bushel. Of course feed corn will rise to the same level. So beef and chicken will more or less double in price. But the big Farm corporations will plant lots of corn and make lots of money. Their lawyers will be able to handle the subsidy paper work, and their congressmen will provide tax loop holes. The little guys with a 1000 acres or so will be right where they are today. The demand for fertilizer and chemicals will cause the prices to rise, absorbing any increase in the profits that they were expecting. Oh, and lets not forget the down side of speed fermenting, many of these fermentation plants will be located right in those nice quiet little country towns.

As you mentioned, in Northern areas this would not work. Winter isn't a great time of year for sunlight. I think wind turbines would be a lot more expensive than solar, and for that matter where would the average city-dwelling person put a wind turbine? You'd need a lot of them and a good, constant wind to be of any use. Wind is impractical in cities and solar is no good in Northern areas. So what do people in those positions do?

Mass production on this scale would reduce the costs significantly. The fan head on a 12 foot generator would be about the price of a good lawn mower. In cities, the tall buildings would provide excellent sites for generation units. And remember, they don’t have to look like aircraft engines. They can have ducted parallel blades also. These could be mounted on the sides of tall buildings.

As for solar panels, the technology to spray the materials onto a backing material with an inkjet printing process is in use today. If this was scaled up in size, it could economically be used in housing.

Again, I do not like this idea. Those of us who need trucks for the 4x4 ability, just to get around in the spring/fall when the roads turn to slippery ****e, should we take a massive hit just because of our geographical location? I don't think so.

Save that for someone who doesn't know better. You do not need a big Cummings Turbo powered 4x4 to get around in when the weather is bad. Hey, I feel your need, but I don’t buy the reason. I’ve got my full size Chevy 4x4 sitting out back. Biggest engine I could get in a half ton at the time. Heavy duty everything. But I drive a Honda Civic Hybrid to work everyday. And I’ve got a little 44 jeep that will go through any snow and muck that the truck will, on a quarter of the gas. Those big pickups could easily be replaced with smaller more fuel efficient 4x4’s. I have yet to see a farm that didn’t have tractors, wagons, and heavy trucks, what do you really need a big pick up for. Around here every farmer has several. The tax laws encouraged them to buy them. They ride around in them with 40 or 50 pounds of junk in the back and brag about how little fuel they use.


I won’t get into the rural vs. urban thing. I type way to slow for that. I will say that most big cities have a net loss on revenues. As do the rural areas. The revenue hogs are the outer suburbs where development has outrun infrastructure.

Oh, and while we are on the subject…….I thought that up there in the far north, people just got snowed in for the winter. That’s why all the birthdays are in the early summer

[StarShadow]

As far as the crop used goes, I would recommend hemp. It grows well, even on marginal land, and can be planted/harvested 3 times per year.

[Hunpecked]

Renegade 13: "And since the American economy is in the crapper unlike ours, guess who's going to be hurt the most from all the tariff's flying around?"

From the CIA Factbook, 2005 figures:

GDP per Capita: US $41,800, Canada $32,900
GDP growth: US 3.5%, Canada 2.9%
Unemployment: US 5.1%, Canada 6.8%

As of February 2006 US unemployment was listed as 4.8%. These are limited statistics, of course, but it's pretty clear that neither economy is "in the crapper". Both the US and Canada have modern, robust, and growing economies that are closely tied to each other by our common border. Indeed, each country is the other's biggest trading partner.

I share Renegade's distaste for tariffs in support of dubious energy initiatives, not because I dislike American "arrogance" but because free trade is good business for everybody. I trust the market a lot more than I trust politicians. If biofuels are worthwhile, they'll make it in the marketplace on their own; if not, they won't.

[geoschmo]

The most fascinating aspect of biofuels for me is the possiblilty of decentralizing the production of vehicle fuel. Even if he could get his hands on a barrel of crude, the average joe can't turn it into gasoline in his shed. But small scale ethanol and alcohol fuel production might actually be feasible. Maybe someday the gas station won't need to have trucks delivering gas, cause they'll be destilling there own ethanol from local waste biomass that people are more then happy to drop off rather then pay to take it to the landfill.

[Renegade 13]

Hunpecked said:
Renegade 13: "And since the American economy is in the crapper unlike ours, guess who's going to be hurt the most from all the tariff's flying around?"

From the CIA Factbook, 2005 figures:

GDP per Capita: US $41,800, Canada $32,900
GDP growth: US 3.5%, Canada 2.9%
Unemployment: US 5.1%, Canada 6.8%

As of February 2006 US unemployment was listed as 4.8%. These are limited statistics, of course, but it's pretty clear that neither economy is "in the crapper". Both the US and Canada have modern, robust, and growing economies that are closely tied to each other by our common border. Indeed, each country is the other's biggest trading partner.

True, but the state of an economy can not be measured by unemployment alone. For example:

Wikipedia says:
When a common measure is used, such as that of the Luxembourg Income Study, the United States has relatively higher rates [of poverty]. The LIS reports that Canada has a poverty rate of 15.4% and the United States 18.7%.[9] In both countries those most affected by poverty include single-parent families and single elderly people.

There's another couple huge economic differences. The US runs a trade deficit to Canada, Asia and Europe. Canada has a trade deficit to Asia and Europe as well, but a huge surplus to the US ($100 Billion per year), resulting in an overall trade surplus of $17 Billion/yr.

Also if you take a look at the governmental deficits...The US runs a huge annual deficit. If you look at this site -> www.brillig.com/debt_clock , you'll see that the US debt is currently getting close to $8.4 Trillion USD, with the annual deficit sitting at (in 2004) $477 Billion. ( http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/26/budget.deficits.ap/ )

This works out to each citizen's share of the debt being almost $28,000. In contrast, Canada's debt is roughly $800 Billion CDN or about $688 Billion USD. Works out to ~$21,500 USD per Canadian. A lot less than in the States, and we're actually paying down the debt not increasing it by almost half a trillion per year!

[Thermodyne]

OK, so where are we? Alcohol cost too much and dumps more carbon into the air per unit of energy than just burning gas. Hydrogen is too far off. It’s not an energy issue, is a manufacturing issue. You can catalyze hydrogen from oil and coal. You just need the plants and transportation system.

That leaves us with conservation and alternative energy.

What if every new home had to have some form of solar power installed? It could be power cells or heat panels. In the Northern areas wind turbines could be substituted. 20k added to a 400k home is not that big of a deal over 30 years

What if every new car or truck under 2 tons had a meaningful fuel tariff added to the price.
35mpg+ no tariff
35-28 $300
27-23 $500
22-18 $1000
Less than 18mpg $5000

No fleet loading as was done in the past, build and sell fuel efficient vehicles or get out of the business.

Additionally, each state would collect additional fees based on the formula for tags. All collected funds go to energy research and mass transit. No use of these funds for roads.

Business use would be exempted but regulated. Something along the lines of demonstrated need and no take home allowed.

Airlines not allowed to fly unless planes are at least 75% capacity.

Recreational fuel for boats, small aircraft, and such where it can be regulated surcharged and set at say 300%.

No tax deduction for business travel---Learn to use technology for meetings and skip the trips to the resorts.

And lastly, countries not adopting economy and environmental measures at least equal to those in the US will be subjected to stiff tariffs on their good imported into the US. If we are going to bite the bullet, then so should the rest of the world.


I’ll bet 50 of Nolan’s dollars that you would see a 10% reduction in energy use in less than 5 years.

[Captain Kwok]

Economic penalties for pursuing increased fossil fuel usage is a good idea IMO. It's the fastest ways to get things done.

There is no way that biofuels could meet energy or fuel needs of the US ever, but as a way to displace some of the fossil fuel consumption it can help. Conservation can also help a lot but good luck trying to get that to work without some sort of penalties.

Any C released by biofuels is used by the next generation of crops, so that's covered more or less.

The US already makes so much more food than it needs, so the land issue for a 15-20% displacement is not excessive. Also keep in mind that at any given time at least a quarter of farmland is not in use ("to regenerate") - low impact biocrops like switchgrass etc. could be used here. Also, it's an additional source of income for poor farmers who already need subsidies to support themselves as their crop prices are so low because there is so much extra food.