The Clean Energy Scam

[GeoscienceStudent]

@geo,

technology is not really the big problem.  enviromental concerns has all but got the oil companies shut down in the US.  currently there is no expansion of refineries, or oil production in the US because of political reasons. our energy policy is insane.  i am forced to look at fuel ethanol because of these same political reasons.  since the current incentives will give me tax credits up to 75% for all of my research and development, labor, and actual ethanol plant expenses through 2010.  plus tax incentives per gallon, for actual production.  now if we could get the government to quiot proping up sugar,  we might actually get some farmers to plant sorgrum, to make it with.  however right now it makes just as much sincefor farmers to sit back and take the government subsidies to not plant.

but if it makes since then it makes since.  but i really don't think ethanol is the big problem that is causeing a food crisis worldwide.  that is just big oil propoganda.  i wonder if some of the problem might be the price of fuel? and the falling dollar.  that probably has more than doubled the cost of growing anything, so of course it costs more.

lolo
sam

There are some issues with ethanol, when they use food like corn.  I'm under the impression that corn is not really efficient for ethanol because it has so much protein and high carbohydrate is better, thus, consensus here at school is ... use sugar cane and beets and those kinds of sources,  the price would go up, people consume less, (those of us who budget that is) and we reduce obesity and tooth decay.  But they keep calling for corn and even suggested destroying rain forest by slash and burn to raise crops for biofuels.  (slash and burn is part of the global warming problem, as well as many others)
Yes I know we need more refineries and the prince from Saudi Arabia told the president so, but then congress did the finger pointing thing again, said noone has put in the request to build them.  Suggestion to use oil feilds from Alaska went South, finger pointing again, We have lots of petroleum fields around here,  finger pointing again...and on and on.
Environmentalists got upset when a report went out on oil shale from Green River Basin,, finger pointing again,  people said to keep out the poor looking for jobs because they owned lots of land there and were rich and others could basically "stuff it,"  (I'm not kidding) rich well paid organization tries to tell people we don't know how to get the oil out..but that's the way we got it before...first one build in Autun, France long ago, and spread to many countries, and included our own.  Only one doing it now is Estonia and China.
Someone told me if you knew the right mechanic, you could have your present car converted to use Ethanol for $1,000 or so???

[Koen1]

Henry Ford originally had planned his cars to run on ethanol.
After serious threats and other annoyance from the upcoming
oil barons he finally gave in and switched to petrol.
But his original idea was to use ethanol, as that could be produced
in a sustainable manner in any country.

In several South-American regions they've been using it for over 50 years now,
in large metropolitan areas. Works nicely, just gives off a bit of an alcohol smell.

But to be honest it is not really a solution to the multiple fuel-related problems,
in my opinion.
Yes, it is a more sustainable fuel than petroleum. Yes, it could significantly
decrease dependancy of middle-eastern oil and cut fuel costs. That is true.
But it will not help decrease CO2 levels structurally, it will increase the demand
for agricultural land which can have serious negative consequences for both
food and housing costs, the harvesting and refining processes are not very
efficient so a large part of the energy yield in the form of fuel is used in the
actual production process resulting in relatively low effective fuel yield.

I have said it several times before and I'll say it again: Fusion is the way to go.
Several years ago, when the "war on terror" hadn't started yet, there was a project
intended to build a working nuclear fusion power plant in France, with quite a number
of nations contributing funds and personnel. After a few decades of building test
reactors to study and test fusion processes, they had finally worked out a design
that promised a sustainable fusion reaction plus a viable way to extract the produced
energy in the form of electricity. The design involved a huge reactor plant, and something
like 10 billion Euros was gathered to complete the project.
Then the "war on terror" was called, a worldwide security panic hit, and most nations pulled
out the majority of the funds for that project, because now they had to invest in more
security personnel, more and newer scanners, and special measures to keep people
from bringing their deadly bottles of drinking water onboard airplanes, and more of those
extremely helpfull measures.
All of a sudden there was not enough money to actually build the fusion plant. Since they
had already started the preliminary construction work, they quickly pulled an older and simpler
design out of the box and built another test reactor from the little money they had left,
but the worlds first true fusion power plant was mothballed before it was even built,
because many governments under the enlightened leadership of George B decided
shooting Afganis and waterboarding hundreds of random arabs in concentration camps
was apparently much more important than ridding ourselves of the monetary ties
to the oil-hogging arab countries forever.
Now they're finally talking about starting such a project again, but with the current "crisis"
on the financial markets that appears to have been put on hold once again...
Just imagine what we can do when we have fusion plants?
And all we need to get the first one going is something like 10 to 20 billion Euros...
... that's what the US alone spends every couple of weeks they stay in Iraq!

Clearly someone has a crooked view somewhere; it is obvious that fusion can power our
respective countries for many centuries to come, much more advantageous than
securing a couple of oil fields in a desert country full of exploding maniacs.

[supersam]

@koen,

we have no diagreement that it would be great to have a working fusion plant.  hoever for our immediate concerns ethanol seems like a great way to go.  for me anyway.  actually producing it myself is what i am talking about.  and yes from sugar cane or actually sorgrum seems like it would work best.  however i have a small transportation business and am currently paying about $20,000 a month for gasoline. which is probably going to continue to increase for the forseeable future.  i am looking at the best use of the farmland for also making the feedstock to make biodiesel for running the farm equipment.  with the current tax incentives i can produce the biofuels in the state of florida for way less than half of what i am currently paying and the state will issue tax credits for 75% of all my research and development, labor materials, and distribution of my product and i will also be able to use all of my unused waste from the sorgrum to generate all of the energy i will need to power my ethanol plant and also cogenerate enogh to hopefully cover all of our aditional electricity needs.  in adittion the federal government also offers a 51 cent per gallon tax credit for every gallon of ethanol fuel i produce, and the same credits are available for biodiesel.  so for me it seems to make sense.  for someone pulling up to the pump and paying the equivalent of a price which is somewhere between 89 and 93 octane price i don't know.  but even small ethanol plants for your backyard also make alot of sense inmo.  but you also have to consider ethanol fuel and biodiesel have alot lower carbon emissions.  in a medium sized plant like i am looking at building,  al of the co2 can be captured for industrial use on a small plant the amount produced is really negligible. 

oh yea and about converting your car to run on e85 if you don't have a viehicle that is already flex fuel capable.  if your viehicle is manufactured since 1996 the only thing you will need to do is change the fuel managment system and can be done in five minutes with a $500 retail kit.  or if you are in the market for a new viehicle make sure and buy a flex fuel viehicle, and take your tax credit for about 100% of the difference in price.

and like said i wouldn't pay a bit of attention to all of the latest round of big hype about the world food shortage.  ethanol prodution is by know means to blame for this.  there are millions of acres in the US that lie fallow every year because our federal government pays farmers not to plant anything especially corn,  to artificially prop up the corn price.  if big oil is buying short on corn futures to drive up the price of ethanol produced from corn and then lobbying for the 54 cent per gallon imprt tarrif on brazilian ethanol to artificially keep the price of the brazillian ethanol arificially high, so that when it hits the retail market it is actually comparable in price when you factor in the 75% energy value that you get with e85 when burned in our current low compression engines.  however there is surely a motorhead out there that can confirm that if we were burning ethanol in high compression engine because of the 105 octane rateing of ethanol we could be getting for better fuel mileage and a much cleaner renewable fuel any way you slice it.

lol
sam

[sudds1113]

Here's a video of a guy who has spent the better part of his life on this topic. It's very interesting stuff.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jew3ah24Zj4&feature=related