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63 comments on From Botswana to New England - a different story
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63 comments on From Botswana to New England - a different story
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There is a fixation on natural gas usage for ethanol on TOD which does not make much sense and may reflect on the U.S. in general. Electricity production uses more natural gas than ethanol. When EROEI is applied (erroneously IMO due to unlike and unlike) it is lower than ethanol. Not only that, ethanol's usage of natural gas largely just replaces the usage of natural gas for MTBE before its phase out.
Electricity is almost a sacred cow even though most of it is produced from fossil fuels. It is hard for me to see the energy gain in switching to electric powered cars with the current infrastructure. True there may be an environmental gain as pollution may be easier to control at central plants, but there is a big loss of energy in electricity production unless it comes from solar or wind. And there is not enough of that currently.
I have to agree with Franz, it is difficult for Americans to apply logic. Being an atheist I think it is because the U.S. prides itself on being a religious nation. Logic and religion do not mix.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein
Your ethanol drivel is as logical as Pat Robertson's sermons are religious.
Recommended reading:
"I Don't Believe in Atheists", Chris Hedges, Free Press, 2008
and for people interested in an informed analysis of the best use of land and insolation in the (non-food) bio-energy domain:
http://www.reap-canada.com/library/Bioenergy/BIOCAP_REAP_bioenergy_polic...
The linked study deals specifically with the comparative effectiveness of various energy production incentives for greenhouse gas mitigation, but is nonetheless very useful in understanding why ethanol production is a tragic waste of resources.
"Logic and religion do not mix."
I disagree with that statement personally, but unfortunately, for the majority of Americans, it is all too true.
http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/tomorrow.htm
About 1/3 of Americans believe that Jesus will come and save them within their lifetime, so there is no reason to conserve energy/invest in renewables/worry about peak oil/think at all.
Luckily, Britain isn't quite as 'retarded' (to quote the above poster), but our politicians are almost as short-sighted.
What evidence can you provide that support your linking these two assertions?
If you just replaced all cars with plug-in hybrids and used eletricity (derived from the gas the cars wold be burning) to power short trips, you'd reduce fuel consuption by nearly half. (Engineer-poet already made those calculations.) That is because big generators are more efficient than car motors.
And, there seems to be no viable route to renewably powered cars except by eletrifying them, since most renewable (and nuclear) are good for generating eletricity, and hydrogen (the second best candidate) has a very big set of problems. Ok, maybe hydrogen-eletricity hybrids are more viable, but those still count as eletrical cars.