Why is solar power a "hoax" to you? All that I have read about it suggests that it works. NASA uses solar power on their spaceships and orbital stations. It is quite relevant and useful in not only home energy, but space travel as well. It may not completely replace our dependency on fossil fuels on the ground right now but could certainly reduce that dependency and trim the cost down at least 10%.
They make ethanol out of whatever they want, even switch grass or the leftovers from sugar cane. The thing is, it takes land to grow whatever it is, and there isn't enough land to grow food and make much ethanol. And yes, I'm aware of how engines work, which might be a little evident by me bringing up GM's cars. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/e...l-coskata_N.htm http://www.gm.com/experience/fuel_economy/...amp;exist=false The second link being about E85 (85% alcohol). GM is a huge supplier of E85 autos to Brazil. I find it odd that I talk about lobbyists of all stripes while you seem to think some are good or something. For every powerful oil or auto lobbyist, there's many more who are more powerful (see California) environmental lobbyists. I also find it odd that you defend a system that makes it possible for lobbyists to use government to squash ingenuity, products, and services.
An anecdotal story. I invested in a company that makes gas valves that turn off in an earthquake. The business plan was to hire lobbyists to get government to mandate use of these valves, thus making a government holding guns to peoples' heads scenario for a buying audience. A California company, naturally. Not that the valves aren't a good idea.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Return of the Raider @ Jul 16 2008, 12:44 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Why is solar power a "hoax" to you? All that I have read about it suggests that it works. NASA uses solar power on their spaceships and orbital stations. It is quite relevant and useful in not only home energy, but space travel as well. It may not completely replace our dependency on fossil fuels on the ground right now but could certainly reduce that dependency and trim the cost down at least 10%.</div> In space, where you are powering teeny little electronic devices, solar is sufficient. But it's a sunk kind of cost anyway. Little about space is a profitable venture. It's worth burning some oil and polluting the air a little bit to make the solar panels for space exploration, just for the scientific value. Just as I've pointed out how California is outsourcing its pollution to other places (like Houston), making solar panels does the same. It takes MORE energy to make a solar panel and batteries than they'll ever produce in their lifetime. The same is true for wind turbines. It's really common sense if you think about it for about 10 seconds: you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put in. Unless it's a nuclear chain reaction. In fact, there's always some energy lost when you convert it from one form (like friction) to another (heat). Truly, the more solar panels we put up, the less a % of all energy produced is from solar power.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jul 16 2008, 02:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>They make ethanol out of whatever they want, even switch grass or the leftovers from sugar cane. The thing is, it takes land to grow whatever it is, and there isn't enough land to grow food and make much ethanol. And yes, I'm aware of how engines work, which might be a little evident by me bringing up GM's cars. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/e...l-coskata_N.htm http://www.gm.com/experience/fuel_economy/...amp;exist=false The second link being about E85 (85% alcohol). GM is a huge supplier of E85 autos to Brazil. I find it odd that I talk about lobbyists of all stripes while you seem to think some are good or something. For every powerful oil or auto lobbyist, there's many more who are more powerful (see California) environmental lobbyists. I also find it odd that you defend a system that makes it possible for lobbyists to use government to squash ingenuity, products, and services.</div> Yes, we have land to grown the plants, and we are already doing so with the 10% blend fuels. We have been doing this for at least a decade now. Adding ethanol to fuel is nothing new. I never said one lobbyist is better than another. Perhaps I missed the conversations you had against *all* types of lobbyists, and have only noticed you bashing the solar and ethanol lobby. How did you interpret that I support the squashing of ingenuity?
My parents get worse mpg when they use ethanol blended gas as opposed to regular unleaded. My dad stopped using ethanol when he discovered this. Not sure why we'd want to tie a food source into energy either (esp. corn). Dangerous.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Return of the Raider @ Jul 16 2008, 01:04 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jul 16 2008, 02:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>They make ethanol out of whatever they want, even switch grass or the leftovers from sugar cane. The thing is, it takes land to grow whatever it is, and there isn't enough land to grow food and make much ethanol. And yes, I'm aware of how engines work, which might be a little evident by me bringing up GM's cars. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/e...l-coskata_N.htm http://www.gm.com/experience/fuel_economy/...amp;exist=false The second link being about E85 (85% alcohol). GM is a huge supplier of E85 autos to Brazil. I find it odd that I talk about lobbyists of all stripes while you seem to think some are good or something. For every powerful oil or auto lobbyist, there's many more who are more powerful (see California) environmental lobbyists. I also find it odd that you defend a system that makes it possible for lobbyists to use government to squash ingenuity, products, and services.</div> Yes, we have land to grown the plants, and we are already doing so with the 10% blend fuels. We have been doing this for at least a decade now. Adding ethanol to fuel is nothing new. I never said one lobbyist is better than another. Perhaps I missed the conversations you had against *all* types of lobbyists, and have only noticed you bashing the solar and ethanol lobby. How did you interpret that I support the squashing of ingenuity? </div> <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ROTR)</div><div class='quotemain'>Do you think that the more powerful energy industries have their own lobbyists who will stop at nothing to keep other energy devices held back in favor of their own?</div> You mention squashing (held back) by lobbyists. I say ALL lobbyists do it, regardless of what side they're on. I say let the lobbyists lobby the people and let the people vote with their wallets. As for ethanol, they've been using it on farms for like forever to run farm vehicles. I don't have an issue with it, per se. What I have issue with is government regulations requiring 20% of our fuel be ethanol at the expense of our food supply and at the behest of lobbyists. The point, again, is the regulations have the unintended side effects and always do.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jul 16 2008, 02:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>In space, where you are powering teeny little electronic devices, solar is sufficient. But it's a sunk kind of cost anyway. Little about space is a profitable venture. It's worth burning some oil and polluting the air a little bit to make the solar panels for space exploration, just for the scientific value. Just as I've pointed out how California is outsourcing its pollution to other places (like Houston), making solar panels does the same. It takes MORE energy to make a solar panel and batteries than they'll ever produce in their lifetime. The same is true for wind turbines. It's really common sense if you think about it for about 10 seconds: you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put in. Unless it's a nuclear chain reaction. In fact, there's always some energy lost when you convert it from one form (like friction) to another (heat). Truly, the more solar panels we put up, the less a % of all energy produced is from solar power.</div> I only brought up space because of your pretty open-ended declaration that solar power is a hoax. I am aware of how much it costs to perform space travel. Using solar energy to power your TV *is* a small, and practical application of solar energy. How much are you really expecting to use in your own home? Solar tech is relatively new. As with any emerging technology, the costs to produce it will go down as it improves. People are looking to solar power for more than it can handle at the present time, because of the desperation we have with rising petroleum prices. It's not ready yet, but that's not to say that it won't someday become. Again, I have never claimed that solar would outright replace anything, but merely reduce it.
NPR is a left-leaning news outlet, eh? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=92559699 High Corn Prices Cast Shadow Over Ethanol Plants All Things Considered, July 15, 2008 · A rush to cash in on ethanol has slowed as soaring corn prices squeeze profit margins for producers of the alternative fuel. At a recent high of $7 per bushel, the corn used to make ethanol has tripled in price since many plants were built two years ago, and some facilities have been shut down or put on hold. Ethanol took off in 2006, in response to two federal policies. One policy was longstanding: Most gasoline had to include an additive that would oxygenate it, make it burn cleaner and reduce air pollution. The other policy was new: The government decided not to shield the oil companies against lawsuits over the additive that they had been using — methyl tertiary-butyl ether, or MTBE, which was found to contaminate groundwater. So there had to be a different additive. Ethanol, a type of alcohol that is distilled from corn, fit the bill. And the oil companies could get a 51-cent-per-gallon tax credit for using ethanol. The rush was on, and producers moved quickly to get ethanol plants online. But recent ethanol news from the Corn Belt has been a lot less upbeat, as many ethanol-plant projects have stalled. Changing Economics "The ethanol industry is going through some ... adjustments or, we might say, growing pains," says Chris Hurt, a professor of agricultural economics in the heart of the Corn Belt at Indiana's Purdue University. "Obviously, we've seen a massive boom in ethanol," he says. "We've seen a lot of capacity put in place. We've had some infrastructure problems in terms of moving all of that ethanol. And we've seen some very rapid changes in prices." Corn is now more expensive than it was when many of the ethanol plants were built, Hurt says. Two years ago, when many of the plants were being built, corn was $2 per bushel, making ethanol production so profitable, that in some cases a plant could be paid off in just 6 months, he says. "We were in largely a surplus corn production situation. Today, we've seen corn go to $6, and then, with the flooding most recently through the Midwest, above $7 a bushel," Hurt says. Mark Stowers of Poet Ethanol Products, one of the biggest ethanol companies, says the economic picture has changed. "That may have been the case in 2006, but typically that would not be the forecasted return" this year, he says. Stowers says that while the gold rush may be finished, Poet is not. "There's already evidence that some people have closed plants, and some people have not started up plants. I don't see that impacting Poet," he says. Stowers says the company expects to open three plants later this year. But Poet did have to cancel plans for a plant in Minnesota this year for lack of an air quality permit. That's one of 18 problem plants listed on a "Biofuels Deathwatch" map at Earth2Tech.com. The plants are either late to open, soon to close, or already out of business. A Plant 'On The Edge' Some plants are just barely making it. "We're on the edge right now," says Ken DeCubellis, the CEO of AltraBiofuels. In April, his California-based ethanol company opened a $170 million plant in Cloverdale, Ind. "We are one bad day of ethanol pricing from having to decide to shut the plant down," DeCubellis says. At AltraBiofuels' Indiana plant, trucks drive in and dump their loads of corn to be distilled into alcohol and then shipped off to be blended into auto fuel. The plant is powered by natural gas and employs 47 people. Two giant storage tanks hold as much as half a million bushels each of dried corn, ready to be processed. A few years ago, filling them both with corn that cost $2 a bushel would have been easy. But today, DeCubellis says AltraBiofuels has to watch its costs very carefully. "We run lean and mean," he says. "With corn at $7 a bushel, you don't have the working capital to fill these things up" DeCubellis is an engineer/MBA who used to work for Exxon Mobil. Having made the switch to biofuels, he is a gung-ho proponent of ethanol. But he's also realistic about the business and the impact of rising prices for his inputs. "If we aren't able to cover our variable costs" — for corn, natural gas and other raw materials — "we will not run the plant," he says. Not Enough Corn Hurt, the Purdue economist, says two big changes explain what's happened to the ethanol producers. Once the federal requirement for a clean additive has been met, ethanol is only worth as much as the energy it packs, plus the tax break it conveys. And in fact, ethanol packs less energy than gasoline. So ethanol can't sell for as much as gasoline, but it has to sell for more than corn. Hurt has plotted corn prices and ethanol prices for the past year. His studies show that profit margins have mostly been slim and sometimes negative. The second big change, he says, has to do with what used to be seen as the perennial problem facing the Corn Belt: the threat of producing too much corn. "That concept that corn was unlimited" is no longer valid, Hurt says. "Corn is not unlimited. If we used every bushel of corn that we produce this year, we could only substitute for about 14 to 15 percent of the gasoline." According to the most recent figures, more than 30 percent of this year's U.S. corn crop is going to ethanol, and it accounts for about 8 percent of all the blended gasoline sold at the pump.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jul 16 2008, 03:09 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>You mention squashing (held back) by lobbyists. I say ALL lobbyists do it, regardless of what side they're on. I say let the lobbyists lobby the people and let the people vote with their wallets. As for ethanol, they've been using it on farms for like forever to run farm vehicles. I don't have an issue with it, per se. What I have issue with is government regulations requiring 20% of our fuel be ethanol at the expense of our food supply and at the behest of lobbyists. The point, again, is the regulations have the unintended side effects and always do.</div> Okay, I understand that. I offered that they can make the ethanol out of non-food sources. There is a ton of non-developed land within this country, and it would have zero effect on food sources. If they have land, and they haven't already developed it for food, what reason do we have to believe that they would have done it anyway? Why didn't they worry about that before we ever brought up using it for ethanol? I think that is just a lame excuse for not doing it.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>According to the most recent figures, more than 30 percent of this year's U.S. corn crop is going to ethanol, and it accounts for about 8 percent of all the blended gasoline sold at the pump.</div> again, they don't have to use food crops, and we have plenty of undeveloped land to grow whatever we want to. Who will show initiative and do this?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Return of the Raider @ Jul 16 2008, 01:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jul 16 2008, 02:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>In space, where you are powering teeny little electronic devices, solar is sufficient. But it's a sunk kind of cost anyway. Little about space is a profitable venture. It's worth burning some oil and polluting the air a little bit to make the solar panels for space exploration, just for the scientific value. Just as I've pointed out how California is outsourcing its pollution to other places (like Houston), making solar panels does the same. It takes MORE energy to make a solar panel and batteries than they'll ever produce in their lifetime. The same is true for wind turbines. It's really common sense if you think about it for about 10 seconds: you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put in. Unless it's a nuclear chain reaction. In fact, there's always some energy lost when you convert it from one form (like friction) to another (heat). Truly, the more solar panels we put up, the less a % of all energy produced is from solar power.</div> I only brought up space because of your pretty open-ended declaration that solar power is a hoax. I am aware of how much it costs to perform space travel. Using solar energy to power your TV *is* a small, and practical application of solar energy. How much are you really expecting to use in your own home? Solar tech is relatively new. As with any emerging technology, the costs to produce it will go down as it improves. People are looking to solar power for more than it can handle at the present time, because of the desperation we have with rising petroleum prices. It's not ready yet, but that's not to say that it won't someday become. Again, I have never claimed that solar would outright replace anything, but merely reduce it. </div> It can cost $0 to produce, but the more of it you produce, the less a % of all energy that comes from solar will decrease the more you deploy it. That's why it's a hoax. The only reason it's viable at all is due to massive government subsidies. The governments are buying energy from Peter to pay Paul, so to speak.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Return of the Raider @ Jul 16 2008, 01:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>According to the most recent figures, more than 30 percent of this year's U.S. corn crop is going to ethanol, and it accounts for about 8 percent of all the blended gasoline sold at the pump.</div> again, they don't have to use food crops, and we have plenty of undeveloped land to grow whatever we want to. Who will show initiative and do this? </div> http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=19333 To make ethanol a significant U.S. fuel source will require clearing a tremendous amount of forestland and turning it into farms. Supplying just 10 percent of our auto fuel with domestically produced ethanol right now would require us to burn up 55 percent of the corn crop currently being produced on 78 million high-yield U.S. acres. ... America has some 38 million acres of land in the Conservation Reserve, but little of it gets enough moisture to grow corn. It could grow switchgrass, which produces twice as much biomass per acre as corn. However, we don't yet have enzymes that can cost-effectively turn switchgrass into ethanol. Genetic engineers are making rapid progress on more aggressive enzymes for cellulose--but when we start to produce ethanol from switchgrass and wood chips, the $40 million corn ethanol plants will sit idle. We could clear forests to create additional farmland, but that land produces significantly less cornstarch per acre than does the high-quality land where we currently grow corn. The forestland is too steep, too rocky, too wet, or too "something," or it would already have been cleared for crops. The yield penalty on former forestland would certainly be severe. We will either have to clear a large amount of forestland to grow corn for ethanol or we will be forced to give up the U.S. feed and meat exports dependent on current farm utilization and the profits they have been earning.
OK, so in the link I posted.... It says, among many other interesting things, that energy created from windfarms costs 2.5X more than other forms of energy. Is it that inefficient?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Vintage @ Jul 16 2008, 01:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>OK, so in the link I posted.... It says, among many other interesting things, that energy created from windfarms costs 2.5X more than other forms of energy. Is it that inefficient?</div> That's only a measure of economic efficiency. In technical terms, efficiency means "it takes 6x more gallons of ethanol to make the same BTUs as 1 gallon of gasoline, thus ethanol is 1/6th as efficient as gasoline." Or solar panels convert 15% of the energy in sunlight received into electricity, so it's 85% inefficient.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jul 16 2008, 03:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>We will either have to clear a large amount of forestland to grow corn for ethanol or we will be forced to give up the U.S. feed and meat exports dependent on current farm utilization and the profits they have been earning.</div> Those are not our only options. In Kansas, they grow that crop that I was talking about earlier, called milo. There is no forest in Kansas and half of Colorado. Yes, the enzymes are extremely important, and there is an entire industry devoted to creating new ones. They can make 200 proof ethanol with current enzymes, molecular sieve beads, using milo, and not clearing forests.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Some regulations are good, some are bad. If there weren't rules against Abestos, DDT, Lead in gasoline, Lead paint, regulations on removal of poisonous chemicals that could contaminate water supplies, etc. Then I'm sure there would be some companies that would cut corners if needed.</div> I'm with you on this. Hell, I've seen the worst case scenario in an unregulated, developing country like India. Like most issues, the moderate middle ground between two extremes makes the most sense.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Return of the Raider @ Jul 16 2008, 01:34 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jul 16 2008, 03:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>We will either have to clear a large amount of forestland to grow corn for ethanol or we will be forced to give up the U.S. feed and meat exports dependent on current farm utilization and the profits they have been earning.</div> Those are not our only options. In Kansas, they grow that crop that I was talking about earlier, called milo. There is no forest in Kansas and half of Colorado. Yes, the enzymes are extremely important, and there is an entire industry devoted to creating new ones. They can make 200 proof ethanol with current enzymes, molecular sieve beads, using milo, and not clearing forests. </div> How are you going to get ethanol from Kansas to Chicago? If you put it in a tanker truck, the truck is going to burn fuel. You can't run it through pipelines because it is trivially polluted by even a small amount of water or condensation. There's also this: http://www.radioiowa.com/gestalt/go.cfm?ob...4113C7AF55EFA15 Besides water, Male says there are other issues arising within the ethanol industry. He says: "If you're using coal to produce (ethanol), you're ending up emitting more carbon dioxide than you'd save at the end of the day from just using conventional gasoline. That's a really unfortunate development.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Jul 16 2008, 01:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Some regulations are good, some are bad. If there weren't rules against Abestos, DDT, Lead in gasoline, Lead paint, regulations on removal of poisonous chemicals that could contaminate water supplies, etc. Then I'm sure there would be some companies that would cut corners if needed.</div> I'm with you on this. Hell, I've seen the worst case scenario in an unregulated, developing country like India. Like most issues, the moderate middle ground between two extremes makes the most sense. </div> No regulations are needed. If you get cancer from Asbestos or lead poisoning, you sue. Corporations are REALLY scared of lots of lawsuits.
