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    Posted: 20 Jul 2006 at 5:15pm
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Originally posted by NoSUV
[br]Actually wagonman, we know it IS the case. Hope everyone read the article in Sunday's (7/2) Post (Outlook) about how ethanol isn't an option - the authors did the research fairly extensively. Seems that going yellow causes far more problems than it solves. And yet, there are still people who think the earth is flat and hybrids are no better than conventional vehicles. Guess we should refer to them as hybrid hating flat earth 8 track owners.



Ugh, stop your misinformation campaign! Go look up the emissions ratings for the Insight (bin 5 and bin 9). Go compare a 2005 or older Honda Civic hybrid to almost and other car its size. The ones that were sold here are dirtier in a straight comparison. Do you know how many SULEV vehicles there are available out there that are just plain old gasoline vehicles?
You're as bad as the ACEEE. They put out some "Green Book" for "clean" cars and some of their "superior" picks have Tier 2 bin 9 ratings! Welcome to bizarro world! They heavily weight mileage over emissions and obviously don't care about air quality. Bin 9 gets phased out next year becuase it is too dirty and the ACEEE is selecting these cars as "superior". What a load of bullpoop.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote n/a Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Jul 2006 at 8:21am
Victory gardens! What a concept!

Yes, NoSUV I read the article and several others in the Post archives; revelations of where their loyalties and affiliations lie (in the hip pockets of the petro lobbies). No I don't dismiss the science and I agree there are challenges to any new technology, but these these options have real potential, and we are good at solving problems!

NoSb you are right about government farming subsidies. And there is a whole generation of tobacco farmers who sit on some of the richest farm land in the world, but have a shrinking market for their product. These farms could be converted to grow corn, soybeans or sawgrass for ethanol or biodiesel, instead of becoming the next example of suburban sprawl. Many of these crops, if rotated properly, could replenish farm soil nutri-content. If only there was a market for it, instead our government pays subsidies to farmers to let their land lie fallow, artificially inflating market prices. And what about biomass? Organic consumer waste that currently feeds landfills; could be used for alternative fuels. Now there's a sustainable alternative fuel supply. These options address so many issues. See what happens when people start thinking instead of just throwing money at problems.

BTW, where do you think the government incentives for hybrids comes from? Same place the farming subsidies come from; the pockets of American taxpayers! We need to stop paying to support a broken system and start think of ways to address our problems.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote N_or_S_bound Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Jul 2006 at 7:35am
Who pays the advertising for the paper that ran the article? May I suggest oil companies know better than to mount a frontal assault against ethanol. Sniping, doubt-inducing potshots taken obliquely only serve to erode the mounting support for TRUE alternative fuels to feed our ever-increasing demand for energy.

Insufficient quantities? Hmm, tell Brazil that. How many acres is our govt paying farmers to NOT grow certain crops...like corn? Those numbers are available, go find them yourself and become informed.

Soil conservation? Agribusiness has already depleted the nutritional quotient in our soil to such an extent that "going green" in your food choices will ultimately mean "growing and rolling your own" instead of depending on AB to bring you fruits and veggies out of season. Organic backyard gardens would go a long way toward holistic approaches to a multitude of problems. Examples: exercise brought thru gardening, organic fruits and vegetables with richer nutrients, less fuel burned to ship grapes from Cuba year round. One can easily read in the geopolitical ramifications of going (and growing) local produce.

World hunger? GMAB! Those most in the know on this subject know the real problem is one of distribution, not one of production.

Who you going to believe? I'm thinking it's time to start thinking about how you think and what you think about. Think differently...and rationally. "Information distribution" is easily manipulated if you tell people that only certain media are to be trusted while all the while these media's bills are paid by those with ulterior motives.



NoSb

SOV because you can, HOV because you care!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NoSUV Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jul 2006 at 3:33pm
raymond - did you ever get around to reading that Post article about ethanol and how it won't work? Had much to do with stuff like insufficient quantities, soil conservation, and world hunger. But they said it better.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote n/a Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jul 2006 at 10:21am
WHY? Because oil is still so profitable. And as you said, the oil PR battle is still easier to win than with nuclear power.

And I just said 'century' because we have been driving cars around with the current fossil fuel based internal combustion technology for about that long. Sure, I hope we come up with viable alternatives sooner! But nuclear cars? Imagine if every fender-bender had the risk of nuclear fallout. There has got to be a better way!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote SpongeBob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Jul 2006 at 3:41pm
Yes, I used safe and nuclear in the same sentence. Are we so dumb (or scared?) that we cannot build safe nuclear plants? The issue isn't the technology, that is old hat -- as anyone in the industry will tell you, the problem has always been political. NIMBY, in other words. You cannot build or replace nuclear plants because you cannot win the PR battle.

Is there any other country better equipped to develop reliable and safe nuclear power than the U.S.? We certainly lead the world in building nuclear weapons, right? Are we proud that we invented the stuff, unleashed it on the world, and now are too bumbling to use it correctly except to threaten our planet with annihilation?

And why do you think 100 years is any kind of reasonable timeframe? Do computer companies think that way? Why should the energy companies, or the U.S. government? We put a man on the moon in ten years using slide rules and a computer smaller than the one in your car. But we can't build a safe nuclear plant like the Japanese? We can't figure out a good disposal system?

Why?

Well, just consider where Bush and Cheney hail from, after all....
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote n/a Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Jul 2006 at 12:48pm
Sponge, did you actually use "safe" and "nuclear" in the same sentence? Hmmmmm. I think there are about a million families living near three-mile island who would have doubts about that. Could you imagine millions of cars with little onboard nuke power plants driving around the US? Scarry!

I agree with your reasoning, though, and agree that there are better alternatives to power our cars than the internal combustion engine. And while auto R&D teams work out the details on the hydrogen powered car, we still need a reliable, realistically implementable and sustainable fuel to power our vehicles for the next century. And I think we all agree that oil is not it. Hybrids don't really address the issues either. So is the answer ethanol, bio-diesel, or "plug-in-electric?" I really don't care which, as long as we do something smarter than we are doing now, and soon!

On a wider scale, I agree that we should harness hydro, wind, solar, etc. energy sources for our power needs. Think of all the wasted space on the roof of your house that could be used for solar panels and passive solar water heaters. I'd even be willing to cut off Dominion Power and mount a windmill on my chimney if I could!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote SpongeBob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Jul 2006 at 9:48am
I'm not a scientist (just an invertebrate), but all of these "burning" technologies are just variations on a theme, aren't they? We extract fossil carbon from the ground, burn it as gasoline in our cars, release the carbon thereby back into the air where the corn or trees trap it via photosynthesis, then we burn the corn and release it back into the atmosphere, and so on.

I know, I know: corn-burning is not re-introducing fossil carbon into the big greenhouse, but neither is it reducing the planet's atmospheric carbon load. It is an equilibrium strategy at best.

What we really need is safe nuclear-generated electricity, tide/wind farms, and bigger, better batteries in our vehicles. Imagine a true zero-emissions vehicle... I know you can.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote n/a Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Jul 2006 at 9:31am
This from and article in the June 19, 2006 issue of Crain's Detroit Business:

"Suppliers fuel up to fill demand for ethanol, by Anjali Fluker, June 20, 2006. Proponents cite many advantages of ethanol, produced from crops such as corn. It burns cleaner than gasoline, is a renewable product, and is made in U.S., which reduces the nation’s dependency on foreign oil, among other things.

Last year, ethanol displaced 170 million barrels of oil, lowered consumer gasoline prices about eight cents a gallon and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 8 million tons — the equivalent of taking more than a million vehicles off the road, according to a speech made at February’s National Ethanol Conference by Bob Dinneen, president of the Washington-based Renewable Fuels Association."

The article discussed how more and more gas station owners are preparing to carry ethanol based fuels.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote n/a Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 Jul 2006 at 8:30am
NoSUV, I actually think 8-tracks are kind of cool, in a retro kind of way! (Just like hybrids will be in a few years)

And I'll go back and read that article, because I believe that all information is good, but I have already read several interesting pieces on this subject that support renewable alternatives as the next significant step in fuel technology. I suspect that this article will present a balanced debate on the benefits and challenges of alternative fuel technologies, as opposed to your discouraging description.

And I agree with your walk the talk challenge, that there will come a day when we will not drive fossil fueled cars. But unfotunately, that day is not today. Our infrastructure is built around fossil fuels and it will take time and effort to change it. For now the best options for most people are to reduce our fossil fuel consumption, and to communicate to marketers that we want renewable fuel alternatives. The best way to communicate to marketers is with our $$, to reduce our investments in fossil fuel consuming products.

We need to open our eyes to the reality that auto and fuel companies will sell us whatever is most profitable for them, not necessarily what is the best thing for our environment or our pocketbooks. If we demand more alternative fuels and flex-fuel cars, they will build them.
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