Requiring Flex-Fuel: A Giant Step Towards Energy Security
On July 22, 2008, a bipartisan panel of senators (Brownback, R-Kansas; Salazar, D-Colorado; Lieberman, I-Connecticut; Thune, R-South Dakota; and Collins, R-Maine) introduced a bill that promises to benefit us in the War on Terror, in the economy, and in the environment.
The Open Fuel Standard Act would require that beginning in 2012, 50% of new automobiles, and in 2014, 80% of new automobiles, sold in the U.S. (imported and produced domestically) be warranted to operate on gasoline, ethanol, and methanol, or be warranted to operate on biodiesel.
This is far from pie-in-the-sky technology and far from a too-simple solution to the problem of Islamic terrorism. Oil is virtually the only product that the fundamentalist Muslim nations produce; without oil revenue, their funding for nuclear reactors, schools, and terrorist training camps is cut off. As engineer and author Robert Zubrin also reports in his recent book Energy Victory, the technology for flex-fuel cars has been around for a while. Engineer Roberta Nichols and her team at Ford developed a commercially viable flex-fuel car in 1986. In the early 1990s Ford did a full-production run of flex-fuel cars, and other manufacturers like General Motors and Chrysler followed suit. But with oil prices dropping, interest in flex-fuel cars — except by the farm lobby, which saw an opportunity to expand ethanol sales — dropped.
Since the 1980s, the technology has become more sophisticated, allowing consumers to pump without worry any combination of the above-mentioned fuels. A major objection currently to running cars on ethanol has been the surge in food prices attributed to the increased demand for corn for ethanol production. But Zubrin demonstrates that the energy sources can come from elsewhere: virtually any waste product for methanol, and high-sugar-yield crops grown in tropical and often impoverished countries for ethanol. Using such fuel would carry the added benefit to the environment by using waste products and producing less pollution from the exhaust pipe. It would help third-world countries develop economic independence and thus provide disincentives to those who would enter the U.S. illegally to find work. And we already have the model of Brazil. Beginning in the 1970s, through government mandates and incentives, flex-fuel cars were developed and manufactured, and energy-appropriate alternatives were made available to consumers at all gas stations. As a result, 90% of cars now sold in Brazil are flex-fuel, and the country, which also maintains off-shore oil exploration, can boast of energy independence.
Just like CAFE, another chunk of government mandates that people cream themselves over. Screw the poor, they’re too damn ignorant to make their own decision. Mommy government must make the decisions for them.
Mary and her ilk just can’t help forcing people to do things *THEY* feel are right, while at the same time they decry being told what to do.
Here’s some news for you Mary: people are already making choices to reduce their fuel usage. They’re already buying fuel efficient cars, taking mass transit, and in general driving less. So much so that you better be prepared for some big tax hikes in the near future to cover the loss of toll and gas tax revenue due to these choices. But then again, Mary and her ilk are only interested in doing what feels right; not working through all the consequences of their need to regulate.
Why not do something a bit more tangible to solve the self-inflicted energy crunch: allow more power plants, allow companies to drill for oil (Both on land and off shore), and cut the regulations down so we can actually process more oil by building more refineries and ship gas across the country to places where it’s needed?
Then again, to you and your ilk those options are off the table. We, as a whole, must suffer and pay for your lifestyle choices, and feed your personal guilt and ego.
Government is not the solution. Anybody that looks to the US Congress for economic and technological solutions is a dangerously naive person.
Ms. Grabar should consider taking up residence in the EU if she needs someone to tell her what she can and cannot do, what she can and cannot use, and how she should run her life. Barring that, she might benefit from reading the US Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Anti-Federalist Papers for a better grasp of the proper role of government.
So in four years I can buy a car that gets crappy mileage on more expensive fuel? Thanks Congress! Thanks for the puff piece Mary!
Everything Tristan said, plus lift the regulations and extra tax burdens on diesel fuel – that is how we get better mileage and use less oil for automobiles.
Sorry, I’m not convinced burning our food, or crops grown instead of food, our fertilizer, is a great idea.
When opinion writers promote a scheme it is always dependent on shaping or forcing other people to accept a premise.
If there were some genuine value to this scheme it would have replaced our current method of driving automobiles powered with internal combustion engines. It would have been cheaper. more powerful and obviously advantageous. In other words a real step forward.
However, this is just another Utopian scheme and as I like to say, the first impulse of every Utopian is to make the people obey the government.
I agree with most of the comments above, Mary. If this is such a good idea, it will come about in the marketplace and there will be no stopping it. Government is rarely even a tiny bit of the solution. And everytime a law like this is passed and seems like such a good idea at the time, it back fires. Think of the Community Loan Act, or some such name like that, that passed in Congress a while back that required banks to start making loans to applicants who were not in the slightest bit qualified. The rest is history, but far from over for our economy.
The less laws and government intervention in markets the better, in my opinion. A nice story, but no cigar on this one.
This plan falls apart the moment you take into consideration two factors:
1) These new cars will be a drop in the bucket of what’s on the road in the U.S. (Brazil took decades)
2) People aren’t really buying new cars anywhere near as much as they used to because of the state of the economy.
Mary, your plan will never work, if for no other reason than half of the oil we consume isn’t even for fuel, it’s for plastic.
I suggest we petition for an amendment to this bill.
That all Federal agencies must comply with this bill 2 years sooner then the rest of us.
If it’s such a good idea, the government should lead the way. That would drive up demand all by itself.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_hassett&sid=aSVm3V6ipm8I
Ethanol’s a Big Scam.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15635751/the_ethanol_scam_one_of_americas_biggest_political_boondoggles
The Ethanol Scam: One of America’s Biggest Political Boondoggles
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7887994
If flex-fuel is so great open a business start building and selling them… Lots of rich ppl who believe in this stuff surely they will come in and help…lol
Flex fuel is great and all but its meaningless without fuel… Any fuel or “bio-waste” product are useless as fuel because they are very energy ineffecent… one of the great things that many ppl who talk about bio-fuels and even bio-waste is the fact that it takes huge amounts of energy to grow, collect and process… much of which is NOT accounted for in the energy rating. They also forget with things like “bio-waste” anything you take away from the ground means its not going in the ground. You take all the cron stalk or pine needles, etc, etc.. they’re not decaying and returning themselves back to the ground, inturn you cause major problems with the soil. Not only is this a huge issue but third world countries are clear cutting huge amounts of rain forest(brazil anyone…) to make this bio-fuel.
Finding a real fuel that can be easily mass produced without destorying the planet(which bio-fuels do) is more important then getting off oil… oil doesn’t hurt the planet but bio-fuels heavily hurt both the planet and humans. The only bio-fuel that shows any promise is bio-disel made from algae… if this process can be prefected then ppl can make their own fuel at home on a small scale. The problem is the US(like many government)are turning more and more toward socialism/maxism and thus demand huge amounts of taxes. They are actively trying to make easily taxable/controled fuels again like oil in order to prevent ppl from making their own and thus the government having a hard time taxing it.
The greatest threat to any clean energy are Dems and their socialist ideas of needing to tax and control everything. As long as those ideas are at the forfront bio-fuel is a joke.
There seems to be little reason to believe the more money to muslim countries increases terrorism. Where is the evidence for this? 9/11 didn’t require very much money–certainly not billions of dollars. It is questionable that our security has been threatened because muslim countries have made a lot of money from oil. What are some examples of that?
The problem with biofuel is the price. If it doesn’t make economic sense now, will it ever? Here’s how we should deal with biofuel: http://www.dr5.org/?p=1775.
Anything that Salazar from Colorado introduces is highly suspect, he is a loser in the highest degree, and he hasn’t failed me this time either,nor has this Author Mary G., what a stupid article. This Bill is another of the worthless schemes to further suppress the American people rather than drill and get new energy other than oil. Disgusting approach.
A giant step backwards more like.
Pebble Bed Nuke Reactors (to both provide electricity and create hydrogen cheaply) and Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles – now that would be a gaint step towards energy security.
But that wouldn’t fit the meme.
Win the war on terror??? Look at what the filthy Saudis and Iranians have done to spread Islam when oil was oscillating between $8-$35 bbl… Whether we have flex fuels or not, with more than half their reserves still remaining to them, the Muslims will have exponentially more unearned loot to spread their war doctrine of Islam.
We have not yet even named our foe. The President holds hands with one of the hydra-heads of global terror. They continue to spew the exact same filth which created al Qaida, and continue to build mosques in the West at unprecedented rates. The Europeans insist we negotiate our way to suicide with the Muslim fascists in Iran. Those Mullahs have now captured Syria, Lebanon, and are doing their best to subvert Iraq. Muslim immigration into (invasion of) the West continues unabated.
Flex fuels will not “win the war on terror”, nor will “energy independence”, for that matter. As long as Jihad is funded by oil, we will have more Islam, and therefore more terror.
Is it a good idea to be dependent on a fuel such as corn etc that can easily be wiped out through bioterrorism?
Ms. Grabar is an excellent writer and a good conservative, and one of my favorite columnist who seems to have stepped on a libertarian landmine with this article. Maybe I’m paranoid about government, but with a self-serving congress and worse bureaucracy, they would turn it into hot air and self-promotion.
This idea makes a classic central planning mistake – choosing the “winning” technology.
It may be that by the time this has any effect, hydrogen fuel cells are the right technology, and all these dual-fuel cars will still be running on gasoline.
As an engineer, I think politicians making us spend big money on future technology bets are rubes at best and evil at worst. Technology rarely moves linearly, especially in chaotic times.
Arizona put in a flex-fuel rebate scheme a few years ago. I was in the market for a new vehicle, so I tried to buy one of these. The flex-fuel was not $100/vehicle, it was about $1500. The filling stations for the fuel were widely scattered.
This idea should be shelved.
I am reading “The Really Inconvenient Truths” by Iain Murray. His chapters on ethanol, biofuels and alternative energy was a real eye opener for me. I don’t know if all his facts and figures are correct, but even if you cut his projections in half they are not the silver bullet.
I think T.Boone Pickens has about the most comprehensive plan. I know the MSM keep touting him as an oil man who says we can’t drill our way out of this but if you listen to his entire proposals, he is saying that it is important to get electricity and power for stationary needs, i.e. houses, business, industry from other sources which will free up oil and gas for autos.
I suggest all those posting comments read Robert Zubrin’s book. Most of the objections are answered with the appropriate research and calculations. Philosophically, I too am opposed to excessive government intervention in the marketplace. But as far as the production of cars goes, we have many in place as it is, including safety features like airbags. With the types of automobiles produced, we have little “choice” at the present. If the cost is nominal and even if biofuels are not used one is still left with the option of using gasoline. And to correct some of the posters, the jihadists have a lot of money behind their efforts. They are setting up schools and indoctrinating young children with their programs. They have vast networks and infrastructures. They corrupt polticians. They could do none of these things without the billions they earn from oil. Read the book.
God Bless!
But not enough
there MUST be an executive order to MANDATE a conversion of all cars already on the roads to flex that can burn METHANOL
with the stimulus checks it is ALREADY paid for by the Government
Mary, Thank You very MUCH for this Article!
God Bless America
ETHANOL is also a very important step
ETHANOL program is one of the GREATEST achievements of Bush administration
It has a perspective of effectively ending WORLD POVERTY!
ENEMY is spreading disinformation against ETHANOL
WE MUST CONFRONT IT EVERYWHERE
Morton Doodslag: you did no t get it. USE YOU BRAINS
————-
I hope you read this AND START ACTING FAST despite the ignorance and institutional dumbness. Our nation faces a death threat as we speak.
I am writing this and praying that God will make me wrong
but RATIONAL analysis makes me continue.
Oil just hit a record on JUNE 30, 2008: $143.67
Ben Laden in 2001 announced that HIS TARGET PRICE FOR OIL IS $144.
We all heard that this is a time of WAR (with terrorism).
It is also a war against us in terms of making all of us pay a regressive tax on EVERYTHING by making us pay an enormous amount for transportation fuels.
Today we pay for imported oil MORE than we pay for our DEFENSE BUDGET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you think that enemy will be just collecting the pay and get rich:
YOU ARE DANGEROUSLY AND UNFORGIVABLY WRONG!!!!!
They will use this unique opportunity to destroy us with a devastating
strike. It is so simple. It is going to be THE BEST TIME TO ATTACK USA
when everyone is SO MUCH demoralized by economy going fast into decline.
There is only one way out and it is DOABLE:
METHANOL ECONOMY.
Just think about it. If McCain camp aggressively promotes it-
Johnny will win and Country may get saved, at least for some time, from economic depression and
enemy attacks.
Methanol is like ethanol in terms of been liquid transportation fuel.
But it is NOT depending on agriculture AT ALL. Meaning: floods are not effecting its price, food shortages are not the issue and so on.
Do yourselves a favor- RESEARCH IT. It is so simple you can get all
answers in 1 hour.
(1)
in order to completely substitute petroleum in transportation needs in this country we need :
a total capacity to produce methanol at the level of 500 billion gallons a year
Right now we produce around 1% of the above amount.
So here is a plan:
we need either 2000 big METHANOL plants producing 250 million gallons
of METHANOL each.
Cost to construct 1 big METHANOL plant is around $100 million if money
is not wasted of course.
It is a typical capacity for any existing big methanol factory that could be
constructed in the near proximity to substantial coal mine.
Because coal is a highly concentrated feedstock for METHANOL production
Or we can solve it by constructing many more smaller METHANOL plants
next to
-garbage landfills,
-lumber plants,
-crop fields:
because all mentioned is a good feedstock for METHANOL production including but not limited to:
coal,
natural gas,
crop residues,
urban trash,
dry leaves,
wood
residues,
dry trees from the forests, -
you name it: any kind of biomass.
Methanol is produced for over a century through different chemical
processes: known and tested.
AND CHEAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND DOMESTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
=====================================================
(2)
Re-equipment of
-fuel distribution and
-existing cars to METHANOL.
This will cost our nation under 10 billion, including fuel lines in
existing cars and METHANOL pumps at gas stations, may be not at all of
them at once- but at least 25% of all gas station will do good.
—————
So all together:
we look at total investment on national scale in the amount under $500 billion.
Compare this with what this nation pays for petroleum at the price of
$144 a barrel: this year it is going to be OVER 1 TRILLION DOLLARS
From which $650 billion will go to foreign powers, including:
middle eastern totalitarian regimes,
Hugo Chavez,
Kremlin and alike
Today USA consumes little less then 20 million barrel a day and it is growing.
Get the calculator, folks!!!!!
At $650 billion for oil imports a year we pay more for oil imports then we pay for DEFENSE BUDGET!!!!!!!!!!
(3)
The plan to TRANSFER our transportation industry as a whole to METHANOL
will give US economy a huge boost:
1.Domestic construction and chemical industry will get a HUGE kick:
plants will be build, technologies applied, etc.
2.A new industry of BIG METHANOL will emerge, including network of
Methanol fueling stations
3.AUTO industry will get up to 300 million orders to re-equip ALL existing cars and TRUCKS !!!!
4.Other transportation industries will get a kick:
aircraft industry, ship building, train building: EVERYTHING THAT MOVES WILL HAVE TO REENVENT ITSELF in a doable manner.
4.Application of Flex-fuel laws as in
Open Fuel Standard Act
will add to the AUTO industry even more momentum:
Automakers will have to start producing all car able to burn METHANOL.
Mind: if car is good to burn METHANOL it is good to burn ETHANOL AS WELL(not the other way around)
and finally:
(4)
In 1989 President Bush senior said:
On June 12,1989, President Bush addressed his campaign promises to
deal with the pollution problems long facing the United States.
He unveiled an ambitious plan to remove smog from California and the
nation’s most populous cities, as well as efforts to reduce acid rain
pollution. Bush recommended auto makers be required to make
methanol-powered cars for use in nine urban areas plagued by air
pollution. Methanol is the simplest form of primary alcohol and is
commonly called wood alcohol.
Bush called methanol “home-grown energy for America.” He further
proposed a 10 million ton reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions from
coal-burning power plants; that’s a 50% reduction over present
standards. Sulfur dioxide is a major cause of acid rain, which kills
50,000 Americans and 5,000-10,000 Canadians yearly. (Brookhaven
National Laboratory 1986)
William Reilly, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, at a
briefing before Bush’s speech, estimated the cost of the plan would be
between $14 billion and $19 billion a year after its full
implementation at the turn of the century. Bush said, “Too many
Americans continue to breathe dirty air, and political paralysis has
plagued further progress against air pollution. We’ve seen enough of
this stalemate. It’s time to clear the air.
==========================================
To McCain camp:
USE THIS SIMPLE PLAN AND WIN.
PUBLIC WILL SUPPORT YOU OVERWHELMINGLY !!!!!!!!!!!
While it is true that the money they make on oil has funded and been used to fuel a lot of hatred towards the west, the truth is that the hatred is based on our support of Israel. What you are suggesting is just one step in the fight against them.
You know, what you are saying seems so simple, but it is not. For example, the left always says they support our troops by wanting them to come home as if the right doesn’t want them to come home. The question is how and at what cost?
Conservatives want oil independence from maniac totalitarian governments but how and at what cost? All this talk of alternative energy is great but does nothing to alleviate the situation as it stands now.
There are hundreds of millions of cars on the road. My car is 21 years old, my husband’s 17, we are not in the position to buy a new car. Are you going to force everyone to do so?
What is more realistic, what would work better in the short and mid term is to funnel the funds confiscated for alternative energy R&D into real life grants for home and business owners to convert to renewable methods of getting electricity.
I live in Las Vegas where the sun shines 350 days a year yet few new homes are built with solar panels or solar water heaters. Windows are not energy savers. I have an older home and cannot afford to put these up myself, but with a grant, I and others could, thereby freeing up gas and oil for transportation.
Jvette:
hatred to Israel is a KEY element of kremlin policy in ME
The only solution is : REGIME CHANGE in MOSCOW
Islamic world has NO PUBLIC OPINION WHATSOEVER
they are used as a martyr meat
US must put all our strength to support regime change in Russia from inside
As far as ME we should demonstratively let Israel do whatever they want.
We should be officially neutral to Israel situation, support them secretly even more, make statementrs that WE are getting out of ME game
Israel will take the whole region under its control effectively ending ALL inhumane regimes from Lybia to Saudi Arabia:
because Israel will have no other choice
Jvette:
>There are hundreds of millions of cars on the road. My car is 21 years old, my husband’s 17, we are not in the position to buy a new car. Are you going to force everyone to do so?
actually 220 million cars and trucks
conversion kit to make your car able to burn ethanol costs less $500
u can find a mechanic that will do it for you TODAY
you got a stimulus check- so you can afford it
You want to save money on fuel? You claim that you are poor?
here what you can do:
make your own ethanol at home. You have a garage or a back yard, i assume.
You will need an old bathtub where you going to put starchy or sweet food leftovers and some cooking yeast(not the one from the yeast infection of course:))
Leave it in the open for couple of days – it will turn sugars and starch in the solution into 10% alcohol brew
Then you will need to read and do something like this:
http://homedistiller.org/static_menu.htm
I agree with Mary in her sumation that we can not – can not – go on being dependent upon the Mullahs (Opec) for our oil – the life blood of our economy and very existence. These nuts hate us.
I agree with the libertarians that the liberals creating a grand regulated energy and transportation scheme would have us all driving bicycles while they figured out their plan sucks. We would look like China and be totally at the mercy of stupid (Republican) and evil (Democrat) politicans for all means of production. That is like putting us at the mercy of the Mullahs who are both stupid and evil.
If Congress wants to get involved – and they will – they should ban the import of oil from Nations who can not be trusted. They should permit the production of oil on our shores to make up the difference and deregulate. American oil will be expensive and will move the market to develop and sell the best alternatives they can create. Americans are going to have to change from what we have now. Hopefully, and in the tradition of American innovation, something better will eventually replace what we have now.
Americans hate massive transit systems and won’t use it as we have found out before during the global cooling scare. They want the freedom and personal independence to live and move about under their own control and with whom they choose to associate. The best Congress can do is stay out of the way and dampen the socialist impulse and ego to orchestrate, regulate and control the transition from foreign oil dependence. But there is no choice but to cut our dependence on OPEC oil. This won’t hurt OPEC too much. They will have developing countries, China and India take up the slack. But it will make us and our economy more stable.
Sara:
China is building SCORES of methanol plants, methanol burning cars and they even let methanol cars pass the roads with NO TOLL PAY.
from Gal Luft July 22 testimony to US Senate:
Methanol
True flex fuel cars should also accommodate another important fuel called methanol. China has embraced this alcohol fuel. Several provinces in China already blend their gasoline with methanol and scores of methanol plants are currently under construction there. The
Chinese auto industry has already begun to produce flex-fuel models that can run on methanol. Methanol packs less energy per gallon and is more corrosive than ethanol. But it is cheaper and far easier to produce in bulk. While ethanol can be made only from agricultural products such as corn and sugar cane, methanol can be made from agricultural waste, natural gas, coal, industrial garbage and even recycled carbon dioxide captured from power stations’ smokestacks — an elegant way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Kabud, two hundred would qualify as hundreds of millions.
Also, I never said that I was poor. What I said is that I cannot afford a new car for myself and my husband. If I cannot pay cash for it, I won’t get it. That is one reason why I am not as hurt by this economy as others. We have not overextended ourselves with credit. We live within our means. We didn’t buy a bigger house, newer cars, lots of new furniture or clothes, I have no jewelry except a wedding ring, a pair of gold hoop earrings and a crucifix on a gold chain. That has been our choice and I was certainly not whining about being poor.
MY point is simply that this will not be resolved overnight or in ten years. Retrofitting or removing all cars that use gasoline produced solely from oil will take a long time. Ethanol is not the answer, in terms of land used and energy used to produce it means it is not cost effective. Also, gas with ethanol is still nearly $4.00 a gallon and gets fewer MPG. How is that the answer?
It is more realistic to set our immediate sights on alternative energy for homes, businesses and schools while R&D continues to search for ways to fuel transportation in a different way. Drilling now buys time for the market to work. This is not a repeat of the 70′s in that the American people truly understand now that action is necessary and will bring pressure on private parties to develop for mass production better modes of transportation. Until then, something must be done now.
I just finished renting a Flex fuel car in Brazil, which runs on Ethanol or gasoline. Ethanol (or Alcool as they say in Brazil) costs about 62 cents less per liter, which is quite a difference. The car ran great. Ford, Volkswagen, GM all have cars that are flex fuel ready.
Also, more cars are changing to Natural gas, which is even cheaper.
Just some reporting from Brasil! A great place for a vacation.
Jvette: where do you get your disinformation?
Ethanol is a GREAT answer :
more ethanol corn is planted->more food is produced. Only part of ethanol corn goes to distillation, the rest: EAT PIGS.
last year USA exported record volumes of food : increase of 23% by volume))))
methanol is even better answer:
http://xyu.livejournal.com/662942.html
MikeT: Your statement is incorrect. In fact, very little of U.S. oil demand is due to plastics (or petrochemicals overall). You can see on this chart that petrochemicals account for about 3.5% of oil demand: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbbl_m.htm
Most of U.S. oil demand is due to transportation.
Dan Irving: Only 3% of U.S. oil demand is due to electricity generation. See http://www.setamericafree.org/images/oildemand1.jpg
So nuclear, while a great technology, has nothing to do with reducing foreign oil dependence.
Angie:
by the way, almost any plastic is cheaply produced from SYNGAS
SYNGAS is a made thru gasification of biomass, coal or any trash
SYNGAS is a feedstock for methanol also
oil is just NOT NEEDED except for our enemy to keep their grip on every single on of us
If flex-fuel cars are so wonderful, why do they need government help to succeed?
Fat Jolly Penguin:
you have to read more attentively
CAR is a product that has dozens of things mandated on it
would the auto industry ITSELF put a seat belt on the car if not for the seat belt law?
oil industry is 4 trillion industry/year
imagine WAYS and methods they have at their disposal including but not limited to russian nuclear arsenal
I think the conference’s location in Des Moines, heart of corn country, puts the lie to the political viability of alternative feedstocks. Politics got us into this mess, free markets can get us out, if we have the will.
tomdslm:
very good thought.
May i sugest even more WILLFUL vision:
GRASS ROOT CAMPAIGN, INDIVIDUAL EXAMPLE
to convert OUR CURRENT cars, those that we drive TODAY to flex.
Well, lets start from gasoline/ethanol, later, when methanol will be available- will go there too
Add to that HOME ETHANOL PRODUCTION that MANY of us can do and lets COOPERATE
Step by step some of us, citizens, will go to bigger scale:
ethanol cooperative, ethanol small business, gallons of 100% or 96% ethanol sold as drinking water in plastic gallon or 10 gallon containers in 7-11, wallmarts or FARMERS MARKETS
ETHANOL is easier produced at home then even it is to cook diner
Requiring Flex-Fuel: A Giant Step Towards Energy Security
Requiring Government Schools: A Giant Step Towards Free, High-Quality Education
Requiring Welfare: A Giant Step Towards Eliminating The Urban Slum
Requiring Social Security: A Giant Step Towards Universal Fiscal Responsibility
Requiring Personal Income Tax: A Giant Step Towards Balanced Budgets
Requiring Medicare/Medicaid: Another Giant Step Towards Balanced Budgets
Requiring About A Million Social Laws Be Put On The Books Without Your Real Approval: A Giant Step Towards A Personally Freer America
Requiring Federal Licensing for Any Number of Things: A Giant Step Towards Suing Our Tails Off When We Screw You Into The Ground For Something We Had No Real Right To Do Anyway.
What are you, author, a comedian?
Oh, and about ethanol, folks, it runs about a third less efficiently, meaning, you guessed it, you fill up a third more often.
Ten:
soviet anthrax that u pay with your gasoline dollar will run very efficiently on your body: will kill in couple of days
Mary is wearing out her crack pipe.
SYNGAS is about 200 years old, first being made from coal in 1816, IIRC
http://www.worldcoal.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=424
The traditional term is “coal gasification”. SYNGAS is just an attempt to fool the ignorant by changing the name.
From Wikipedia;
“Professor Jan Pieter Minckeleers lit his lecture room at the University of Louvain in 1783 and Lord Dundonald lit his house at Culross, Scotland, in 1787, the gas being carried in sealed vessels from the local tar works. In France, Philippe le Bon patented a gas fire in 1799 and demonstrated street lighting in 1801. Other demonstrations followed in France and in the United States, but, it is generally recognized that the first commercial gas works was built by the London and Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company in Great Peter Street in 1812 laying wooden pipes to illuminate Westminster Bridge with gas lights on New Year’s Eve in 1813.”
So there is nothing ‘new’ about SYNGAS. It predates Natural gas and OIL by a little bit.
Mary needs to put down her crack pipe and ask herself why SNYGAS hasn’t been used all along.
The facts are the SYNGAS is no cleaner then any other form of gas and is nowhere near as efficient.
There is no practical, cost effective substitute for gasoline. Period.
ALL the claims other wise are nothing more then an attept to seperate the suckers from their money.
If it is a cold winter in New York, be sure you have LOTS of warn blankets in your Prius before you set off for work. And double check your charge, cold temperatures drain batteries faster.
John Samford:
you are a disinformator or an ignorant person who have a reading comprehension issues
Looks to me like a great idea. Every alternative to petroleum deserves support simply because nobody is more addicted to it than the petro producers. The Islamists have no economy other than petro, and Chavez of Venezuela is rapidly destroying his. Most, but not all, government mandates are bad; if this jump starts the move to other fuels its purpose will have been served and the entire energy consuming world will be better for it.
Mary, why would you not also count electricity (as with plug-in hybrids) as a flex-fuel alternative, or for that matter, natural gas (as in the Boone Pickens proposal)?
As this stage in the technology evolution, it’s not at all clear what the “right” solution (or solutions) will be.
In my post a above in no way am I discouraging the extreme expansion of our energy supplies. It is inevitable that such a move will firectly deflate the “value” of petroleum vs. other energy resources.
What Mary fails to address in her brief response is the FACT that Muslims have resurrected their hateful religion from the slagheap of history on a mere $8-$35 dollars per barrel.
A direct question to Mary: Even if developing new competition for the Muslim oil weapon drive oil prices down to former levels of $8-$35 per barrel (and I think this is insanely over-optimistic) then how will our so-called war on Islamic terror be won?
I repeat my points: Our enemy made staggering progress on a mere fraction of today’s oil valuations. The Islamic invasion into the West continues unabated. Even if new Islamic immigration ceased today, as authors such as Bruce Bawer have warned, Muslim demographic outbreeding of “infidel” counterparts will gradually and inevitably swell their ranks relative to ours.
Further, Muslims who’ve arrived in the House of War no longer rely on oil revenues to perpetuate their Jihad. Suicidal socialist programs across the West, our ongoing tolerance of their harems and polygamy, an arrangement fed on dole from we taxpayers — all of this conspires to their benefit and our eventual destruction. Jihad will continue, and, what is more, it will pick up steam no matter what happens in the oil markets.
As long as Muslims continue to receive oil revenues, or payments of blackmail moneys to places like Pakistan, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Indonesia, etc. They will continue to wage Jihad.
david foster:
may i offer mys view as an engineer with an advanced degree in air-space mechanics and years of experience in computer systems design :
an effective transportation solution is needed for a task:
to move an object of 4000 pounds(this is an average car plus several passengers, MIND that for a truck it may be 10 times heavier) at the speed of 50 mph for at least 2 hours
when you think in terms of energy stored as ELECTRONS IN A BATTERY
you need to have enough of them on board to achieve the above
Also you will need to have them replenished in relatively small time frame: refueling
Big enough battery also has WEIGHT, so you will be moving that battery as well as the car , cargo and passengers
One may think of a battery that get replaced at the fueling station with an already charged one for some fee as we replace gasoline today at the pump
A battery that is used on TOYOTA PRIUS is a very heavy one: you need TWO people to carry it
Some people had a second battery added to their PRIUSES to make the car PLUG-IN. May be you can do it also but it will cost you $10,000.
PRIUS is a very bad car: it breaks and repair sometimes may cost you $12,000. You can find it in forums of PRIUS owners yourself
Batteries that PRIUS has are nickel hydride. Toyota is talking, yes JUST TALKING to replace those with lithium in the future.
You may check yourself that the global lithium reserves are not sufficient enough to have even a small fraction of cars as plug-in electric(around 1%) and later you will have to get a new battery when old one resource is finished
So what we face for the electric car solution is:
for the next 20 years at best we are stuck with nickel hydride batteries that can only provide for under 100 miles without recharge and are recharged for hours.
Don’t expect any new technology to come out on the scale of 17 million cars sold annually in USA for a price under $30000
IT IS UNREALISTIC
And remember we must have at minimum 100000 new fueling stations for that imaginable new technology
Realistic solution that can be deployed in a short period of time should
1.be inexpensive
2.be minimally different from existing industrial procedures for car manufacturing and fueling
3.be applicable to existing 220 million cars on the roads
4.preferably be the one that is already successfully applied somewhere somehow
—————
Electric motor is very good motor: it is much less expensive then combustion engine, much more reliable and lighter in weight
But as i described above it will require a big, heavy and expensive battery and we don’t have any better solution then nickel hydride and will not have ANY mass produced NEW solution in the next 20-50 years.
HYBRID cars are good, but will always remain at least $10000 more expansive then regulars and will be much MUCH less reliable.
short range electric cars are possible, but as you can see they will only take a very small %%% of car fleet: a second family car, a short range car, etc
There is a very promising solution known as fuel-cell car with METHANOL tank and CONVERTER device that converts METHANOL to HYDROGEN on board of your car and hydrogen is powering electric engine
Check NECAR 5 in google.
But as in the above: it is a new technology that will require considerably more CHANGE in INDUSTRIES then ETHANOL-METHANOL solution for an internal combustion EXISTING engines
And also we will need to develop METHANOL industry that will be producing 100 times more methanol then we produce today
So, METHANOL is something that we will not be able to by-pass unless we ride horses again
Is is not a very simple matter to understand and WISHFULL thinking is ALWAYS you enemy
because transportation solution is not just technological one:
There are also industrial, energetic, mass-production, cost, investment, material and other aspects involved
Lots of people missing the point.
With the current gasoline-only fleet, nobody’s going to build an infrastructure that supplies methanol or ethanol, because there would be no return, since nobody could buy either, since their cars only run on gasoline. This will remain true even if somebody develops a methanol-production process tomorrow that is $0.75/gallon in price (equivalent to $1.40/gallon gasoline given the lower efficiency). Since there will be no such infrastructure, there’s no point in a private individual buying flex-fuel cars; the car will wind up running on gasoline-only anyway, because that’s all the filling stations will be equipped to provide.
(Think of it like buying a DVD player that does both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. There’s no point, because you can’t buy Beta tapes or HD-DVDs. So nobody would pay extra for the capability, given a choice, even if HD-DVDs were 20% cheaper to make than Blu-Ray. But without HD-DVD-capable players out there, nobody’s going to sell HD-DVDs, even if HD-DVDs could be made for 80% of the price of Blu-Ray.)
But, if the government requires all cars to be flex-fuel, there is no longer a gasoline-only fleet. There becomes an established base of cars that, while they’ll probably all run on gasoline in the short run, can run on methanol and ethanol. Suddenly, there’s a potential market for providers of cheaply-produced ethanol or methanol motor fuel. Even if gasoline remains the best choice for the next decade, there’s a market-based limit on the price. As soon as prices go above ethanol or methanol motor fuels, owners of cars made in 2012 or later will switch fuels as entrepreneurs make them available to an already-existing potential market . . . and the decline in demand for gas would force gas prices back down.
It’s a specific and, more importantly, limited government intervention to break a chicken-or-egg economic problem.
Is it government messing with the economy? Sure. But it’s far less intrusive and far less distorting, economically, than stuff like CAFE requirements, hybrid or electric car mandates, alternative fuel subsidies, or pretty much anything else any political body has ever done or threatened about energy policy in all of human history, and it’s got an upside potential as great or greater than any of the more-distorting policies.
Joe: very true
President MUST issue an executive order for all cars to be converted by the end of 2008 and Congress MUST support it.
In the danger of WAR it is something that IF NOT DONE: we will have a reason to hang politicians for not DOING IT IN CASE A WAR STARTS. AND IT IS VERY LIKELY EVENT.
It will trigger massive construction of ALCOHOL PANTS and
AUTO INDUSTRY WILL HAVE ITS SALE FIGURES GROWING FAST!
in some area like in Minnesota you can fuel with ethanol and people do it in regular non-flex cars: some fueling pumps provide you with even a choice of % of mix
some people do it up to 50% ethanol 50% gas
Actually regular gasoline in Basil is 20% ethanol
in USA it is 10% ethanol almost everywhere where i fuel my car
It is safe to fuel 20% in any American gasoline car
and you can convert your car to ethanol 85% for under $1000 – depending on your bargaining ability
If we really want : we should convert and farmers can start selling ethanol NOT just FROM THE PUMPS but in plastic containers everywhere
Those of us who is more dedicated can moonshine at home. You can even get a fuel ethanol license or just do it without license – it is a simple process
But, of course, we don’t have a gasoline-powered automobile fleet either…by Joe‘s logic, anyway: there was once no gasoline distribution system in the U.S., so there was no sense in buying gasoline-fueled I/C engines; and, since no one would buy an I/C-powered car, there was no point in refining gasoline and building a distribution system.
Somehow, we overcame those obstacles. It was probably before Joe birth, and certainly before Dr. Grabar’s, which is why they don’t seem to know about it.
Incidentally, one of the service stations-cum-convenience stores (aren’t they all, these days?) near my house sells E85 (85% ethanol) for use in flex-fuel vehicles, and has for several years. They must not have gotten the message that there won’t be any flex-fuel vehicles unless and until it’s mandated by illuminized government.
I’m somewhat amazed at the way most posters blithsly paper over Mary Grabar’s contention that flex fuels will win the war on terror.
Exactly how?
Most posters above become lost in the thicket of mundane details surrounding the logistics and cost/benefit of flex fuels. But their various thrusts fail altogether to explain exactly how these flex fuels will win security from Islamic Jihad.
One last time : even if flex fuels help drive the price of oil back into the $8-$35 range, as they were during the three decades when Islamic Jihad began to reassert itself, then all we would have done would be to turn back the pace of Jihad to ore-2006 levels, and we see that’s not enough.
On $8-$35 per barrel oil, the Nazi regimes of Islam have no problem waging Global Jihad. So what will flex fuels magically accomplish? After all, isn’t this the entire premise of Ms. Grabar’s article?
She correctly suggests that oil is nearly the only things Muslim nation produce to pay for all the terror mosques, and terror toys such as nukes. But unless the revenue stream from oil is entirely cut off, won’t their Jihad continue? This little detail is glibly ignored by virtually everyone discussing the topic. Am I Cassandra?
kabud…not sure how you can be so confident about the path of battery technology over the next *20 to 50 years*. What might a projection of future computer technology from 1958 have looked like?
Morton Doodslag:
good point
answer is simple- foreign sovereign funds are buying USA companies
with the current situation with oil price total oil/n-gas proved and easily recoverable reserves owned by OPEC and RUSSIA are double in $ volume compared to all world securities
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/luf052108.htm
There is no need today to bomb NY skyscrapers, for now at least,-
enemy withholds oil, stock markets decline, then they just buy into american companies and create a `legitimate` presence in your life
We are just in the begining of war, in the phase of gray terror.
Strategy is not a two step game:
first you attack economy and financial system, which is happening full grown now, then you infiltrate ownership of key economical elements, create a board room presence
later there are many options to proceedAnd dont forget :
in this WAR OPEC is just an instrument in hands of kremlin-bejing axes
OPEC leaders may have a very limited knowledge of the MASTER plan
They certainly dont have tens of thousands of nukes and tonns of anthrah and alike material or severa million of soldiers like China has
Strategy to conquer the WEST is much more complicated game then rocket science and will unfold in years may be in dozens of years
today we lose our individual car mobility
tomorrow our comparatively free media
later we will face more dire straits
Maybe, when food gets really expensive, we will all be lean, mean, killing machines – and that will help us win the war.
david foster:
you got it:
1958 till circa 1995 : it took computer technology 40-45 years to become a household item
a car is more widely spread technology by the way then computer is
even today
Jarhead:
what stops you now?
can’t we MAKE OUR OWN CHOICES? are we pigs that can not stop eating until slaughtered ?
i don’t think so. BY the way : the only chance to sutvive a coming bio or chemical attack is to improve your health:
————————————————–
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/douglass/2002/1226.html
The Secret for Survival
Col. Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, aka Ken Alibek, is the top biological warfare expert in the United States. He headed a 30,000 man biological warfare (BW) development and production effort in Russia before he defected in 1992. His view of vaccines is worth careful consideration. Vaccines are the wrong approach to defense, he writes. First, diseases can be altered so that the vaccines are ineffective. Second, there are too many weaponized BW agents you need to defend against. By the time you take several vaccines your health becomes undermined by the vaccines. The only reasonable defense, he concluded, is to find out how to use the human body’s natural defense mechanisms to survive BW attacks, independent of what BW agent is being employed.
Dr. Russell Blaylock is a neurosurgeon who became very interested in diseases and natural defense mechanisms. How well the body is able to fight off diseases, he learned, is a function of the body’s overall health. In addition, the body’s ability to repair the damage caused by diseases – and by chemicals and radiation – is heavily influenced by nutrition. People who have poor nutritional habits are much less able to tolerate and recover from the effects of diseases or chemical toxins than people who eat properly and take care of their health.
Dr. Blaylock also became concerned about the threat of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, and nuclear). As he studied the problem, he recognized that our chances of surviving and recovering from any of these attacks will be a function of the body’s natural defense mechanisms, exactly as Dr. Alibekov reasoned. Moreover, if we are not careful about what we eat (especially with respect to various additives) then we are seriously undermining these same defense mechanisms. Conversely if we eat properly and supplement our diets with appropriate vitamins, mineral and special nutrient supplements, we can significantly enhance the body’s ability to neutralize and recover from biological, chemical and even moderate to normally lethal doses of radiation exposure. As Dr. Blaylock shows, all of this has been demonstrated in the scientific literature.
It was almost precisely at the time of 9-11 and the anthrax attack that Dr. Blaylock was completing a new book on nutrition, Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life. As it happened, he was considering a final chapter on terrorism and how correct nutrition could dramatically improve one’s chances of survival. The 9-11 attack ended the consideration and he set about to add that highly important chapter. His book is now available. The publisher is Health Press. Moreover, to help get the word out as quickly as possible, he wrote an introductory article that was published in the Winter 2001 issue of Medical Sentinel. This article was expanded into a monograph, Bioterrorism, that focused on biological terrorism.
His book, Health and Nutritional Secrets, may, indeed, save your life – providing, of course, you follow learning with action. His explanations are unusually clear and thorough. In the case of terrorism, he reviews the different areas of concern – chemical, biological, and nuclear – and the damage each produces. The introductory text also examines these injuries and precisely how your natural ability to recover can be undermined by poor nutrition, and what vitamins and supplements are most needed by the body to improve its natural ability to resist injury and repair what damage is done. Moreover, he discusses specifically what supplements should be taken as part of the process of being healthy and how our resistance to injury can be increased in times of emergency, including stimulating the immune system as a whole – one’s best defense against bioterrorism.
In the twenty-five years I have been involved with NBC (nuclear, biological, and chemical) warfare threat analysis and defense, this is the most innovative approach to self-defense I have encountered. It is probably the only approach that makes sense to any citizen. None of us have protective gear or are about to have any. Moreover, protective gear has serious limitations. Vaccinations for all the reasons above, not to mention concerns over the risks they pose, do not begin to solve or even lessen the problem.
Finally, those who are wise will not plan on receiving any help from our medical system. It did not respond well during the almost trivial load imposed by the anthrax attack in October 2001 and in any serious attack the system would almost certainly break down. Any idea how hard it would be to even get near a hospital in the case of a serious attack or how long it might take even a skilled physician to figure out what you had been exposed to? As explained in my earlier article, “Assessing the CBW Threat” (www.financialsense.com/editorials/douglass/121102.htm), a serious attack likely would involve several different agents and be devised to make diagnosis and treatment very difficult.
The First Step Towards Survival
If you have any doubts about the nature of the problem and the efficacy of Dr. Blaylock’s approach, read Dr. Alibek’s book Biohazard and then read Dr. Blaylock’s book Health and Nutritional Secrets That Can Save Your Life. What you learn in the first book will really point out how important what you can learn in the second book can be to saving your life and protecting the health and well being of your whole family. Even if there is no attack, you will be surprised at what you learn and its value in improving your overall health, not to mention its value should NBC terrorism strike us, as in the case of 9-11, when we least expect it.
© 2002 Joseph D. Douglass, Jr.
Until we’re blending the maximum amount of these alcohols into gasoline year-round, there’s no point to this. The fuels simply aren’t available in the quantities required.
John Moore nailed it above. Nobody in the government has a crystal ball that can see the best technology before they’ve had an opportunity to compete. Central planning brought the USSR famine. Are we really so narcissistic that we believe that our central planners are better?
Drill the dang oil and get the government out of our way.
If Joe Lieberman and RINO Collins of Maine are involved you can bet this is more government cr@ppola.
Wow. I mean, some of these posts here are just downright silly. Yes, requiring all cars to be flex fuel cars is a mandate of the Federal Government, but that doesn’t mean that the flex fuel mandate absolutely requires you to use ethanol or methanol. The cars will still run on gasoline. This mandate doesn’t in and of itself prevent the drilling of oil or the use of gasoline. Gasoline still has advantages over E85 and M85 with better gas mileage and optimal performance. Remember also that E85 and M85 are mixtures of each form of alcohol with …….. GASOLINE.
Flex fuel cars cost about $150 more than a gasoline only car. If straight gasoline is cheaper than E85 or M85, then people will use straight gasoline. Frankly, my next car will be a flex fuel car with or without the mandate.
Richard:
methanol has higher octane rating, so as far as performance go- it may be even better in some respects
Toyota manufactures some cars, i think Corolas, that run on 96% or 100% ethanol
for Brazilian market. 100% ethanol is something i am not sure about cause it absorbs water from the air hence i am not sure if it is ok for an engine- will have to look into it
but i would prefer my car to run on ZERO gasoline even if i need to fuel up TWICE A WEEK WITHY METHANOL then ONCE A WEEK WITH GAS
methanol is not cancerogenic- this may and will sufficiently cut number of cancer cases in US
we just dont realise it how many of those happens just because 300 mil americans are in contact with this cancerogen: gasoline
it could be a nice added benefit
Anyway for a price to build 1 oil refinery which is 5 billion for a big one or 2-3 billions for a small one
one can build 50 methanol plants 100 million each
each of those methanol plants will be producing 250 million gallons of methanol a year
just the cost to build 1 refinery if properly routed to methanol industry build up
will take care of 1/40-th of our nation’s transportation fuel need WITHOUT any need to have even a drop of oil.
15% of gas that is added to M85 can be substituted with something that is not gasoline, i am sure
the only reason gasoline is added is:
to make the flames of methanol visible if a fire breakes out
other technological solutions are possible here
Do we have enough time to switch to alcohols?
not many of us realize that
WHEN USA PAYS ALMOST THE SIZE OF ITS DEFENSE BUDGET A YEAR TO TOTALITARIAN REGIMES
AND OTHER WESTERN IMPORTERS OF OIL/N-GAS PAY EVEN MORE-
it is not going to be nice in this world for long
enemy understands that we can do without oil/n-gas
so they MUST PLAN SOMETHING NOW
to take a full advantage of this temporary situation of wealth redistribution
Judging by russian action in the course of 2008-
a real HOT WAR is brewing
It may start in IRAN, create fuel shortages all over the world , economic chaos will definitely follow it
then we should expect a strike on USA with WMD
it is going to be a perfect moment to attack us
American elites will suffer MUCH MORE in it then we, the regular people,
because AFFLUENT AREAS are THE PRIMARY TARGET
Thats why i can not call todays energy policy of Washington nothing but SUICIDAL in a literal sense of this word
Kabud,
Yes, I agree with some of what you say. My remarks were addressed to those who I think are confused about government mandates. The flex fuel mandates give us the opportunity to choose our fuel, it doesn’t take away our choice of fuels.
Methanol can be made from coal and we have more coal reserves than almost any other country in the world. It has great advantages(high octane, clean burning) and a few disadvantages (mileage.) I suspect it can be produced and sold for a fraction of the cost of gasoline. It certainly won’t endanger the world’s food supply. But, in order to make M85 a going industry, we need to have enough cars on the road that can run on it.
If the government mandated flex fuel cars, it would have to repeal the CAFE standards, which have proven to be useless. Methanol would also make the Clean Air Act irrelevant.
Finally, to those who think hydrogen is a solution to the energy shortage, I can say that I already made an investment in that idea and I can tell you that its a dead end as a vehicle fuel. Sorry. The company I had an investment in commissioned an engineering study of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel. They were and are in business of producing viable standalone hydrogen electricity generating units. They found that it would take 22 compressed hydrogen tanker trucks to replace one tanker truck of gasoline. It was insanely inefficient, and deadly dangerous.
Richard:
>They found that it would take 22 compressed hydrogen tanker trucks to >replace one tanker truck of gasoline. It was insanely inefficient, and >deadly dangerous.
I hope your money is not wasted
You know anyone who is contemplating something serious in energy/transportation field
should AT LEAST talk to engineer or better to several different engineers
I was thinking today of an ideal individual-family hybrid vehicle for a city transportation solution and came up with an idea of a hybridizing of
pedaling(bicycle) and small electric motor on direct METHANOL-HYDROGEN fuel cell
well, it took google some fraction of a second and here we go:
http://xyu.livejournal.com/666914.html?mode=reply
i saw them in the city but out of my ignorance and stupidity never bothered to RESEARCH
In my prototype the vehicle is more suitable for roads and semi-highways then this City Cruiser II
it would have a pedaling sits for 4 and a non-pedaling bench in the back for tree
-seat belts
-convertible folding roof or something like family has
-a square bumper for head-in or side-in collisions
This prototype i guess will be able to achive speed up to 40mph and will be MUCH safer to drive or ride in then any vehicle known as CAR in the last century:):):):)
The KABUD WAGON could be ordered in 4 different varieties:
1.MIN style(pedal only for young and furious cyclist’s families)
and next 4 styles will have PEDALING hybridized with added engine:
2.CEL style(electric motor on direct methanol fuel cell)
3.WAT style(electric motor and regular battery
4.MET style(regular combustion flex fuel engine)
5.COATES style( coates sferical valve combustion flex fuel engine)
but i am serious. You should have invested in something more realistic and extremely inexpensive like this.
We may have turned the corner on battery technology:
http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com/vehicles/index.php
http://www.lightningcarcompany.co.uk/home.php
These batteries are advertised to recharge in 10 minutes. With reasonable manufacturing costs and good reliability, what more can we want? Especially if we’re generating the electricity with thorium nuclear reactors.
Jack Okie:
dream on)))
you can also dream about this one: http://www.teslamotors.com/
BUT YOU CAN NOT HAVE ONE
some scientists ain’t so bright nohow.
Ethanol requires subsidies and subsidies require payoffs in DC which creates PORK. A vicious circle.
Forests are a better source of fuel since we are not using them for 2×4′s. Wood has more BTU’s than corn as does sugar which is cheaper. But the smart scientist take a basic food and run up the price with no concern for crop rotation.
We have coal, we have shale, we have oil, we have wind, we have tides, we have solar, nuclear and natural gas.
WE need to be a net exporter of energy!
get Congress out of the legislation for profit business and dump the trial lawyers and enviro whack jobs.
DRILL, DIG and BUILD NOW