OT of an OT: Ethanol

[Renegade 13]

I have a question for those of you who might know. What's the big deal about greenhouse gases and global warming?

What I mean to say is, is there any conclusive evidence linking the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases and a rising average world temperature? Or is it the political maneuvering of environmentalists, or just spouted off by people who have taken one too many looks at Venus?

Do we really know that this is not a part of a natural cycle that the Earth goes through? After all, we don't exactly have detailed records beyond a few decades ago, and a few decades on a geological timescale isn't exactly an amount of time that would allow detailed conclusions to be drawn. And yet it appears that everyone is freaking out about "global warming". Or could it just be the media making a big deal out of nothing?

There have been times in the Earth's not-to-distant history when the Earth was a lot warmer globally than it is now. Something like 4-8 degrees C warmer at the poles. Life didn't become extinct after that happened! That suggests to me that this whole 'global warming' thing is a natural cycle.

What do you guys think?

[Phoenix-D]

"Life becoming extinct" is a pretty severe standard. There have been periods where 80-90% of all life on the planet died. You'd consider that pretty nasty, and it'd likely take *us* out, but it wouldn't fit that standard.

Read your statements again. "We don't have records beyond a few decades ago" and "There have been times when it was warmer than now" DON'T fit together.

The answer there is we do have records, care of trapped air bubbles in ice sheets and the like.

More to the point, global warming is a problem regardless of the cause. There are countries that will *cease to exist* if the sea level rises too much, and most of the human population lies close to a coast. Beyond that you have increased storm power, desertifcation of previous cropland, all sorts of unpleasant crap.

[geoschmo]

Renegade 13 said:
Life didn't become extinct after that happened! That suggests to me that this whole 'global warming' thing is a natural cycle.

Life, capital L, did not go exitnct, but many many species of life did. Some of the mass extictinctions in the past may have wiped out as many as 90% of the species. Yes life recovered, after millions of years. Nobody rational is saying we are going to wipe out all life on earth, but the question is whether we are going to make earth unihabitable for species H. sapiens.

In fact there are massive global cycles that have been going on and will continue to go on regardless of human actions. If past occurances are a good forecaster of future events, and there is no reason to think they aren't on the epoch-time scales we are looking at, then earth will get much colder and much warmer many times between now and when the sun uses up it's fuel and expands to swallow the whole thing up billions of years from now.

The question is whether our actions as a species are precipitating climactic change and speeding it up. If we have 50,000 years before the climate changes to make life here inhospitable that gives us a decent shot at achieving the technological ability to deal with it. Maybe we could get to where we really could change the climate in predictable ways, or if not we could leave and find another home, or perhaps genetically modifiy ourselves to adapt to the new conditions here.

But if through our actions we speed up that process so that the planet becomes inhospitable to us in 500 years, we are probably screwed as a species.

The question is whether or not we have the capability to effect such a change. A lot of good research says we do. There are some indications even that we've gone beyond the point where we can undo the damage we've done.

On the other hand, maybe we aren't really having an effect on the climate.

But I would rather think we are and find out later that we aren't, then think we aren't and find out later that we are.

Geoschmo

[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.

[Phoenix-D]

geoschmo said:
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.

Not unless people always drive a lot less. I can see regional production happening, but local? Not likely. Your average gas station would need to produce 5,000 gallons or so *per day*, which they just don't have the room (or, likely, the waste) for..

[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!