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#21
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Ethanol was a "Mistake" says Al Gore
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Ethanol was a "Mistake" says Al Gore
> wrote in message ... > On the web, > The Diesel fuel trees in Brazil > > There is a guy in Hawaii who is growing some of those trees.Or so I once > read about, a few years ago. > cuhulin When I lived there, PetroBras planted thousands of trees (eucalytus, IIRC) with the intent of making fuel from them by destructive distillation. Alcohol, I guess, turned out to be a better process. It is not hard to stay warm in Brasil, even for an old guy. |
#23
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Ethanol was a "Mistake" says Al Gore
Isn't hard to stay warm in Saigon/Tan Son Nhut either.First chance I
got, I went to a store in Saigon and I bought an electric fan.I hung the fan on my bunk with a coathanger wire.When I left Tan Son Nhut a year later, I said, Who wants my fan? http://www.tsna.org cuhulin |
#24
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Ethanol was a "Mistake" says Al Gore
On Nov 24, 2:50*pm, "Steve W." > wrote:
> ATHENS, Greece -- Former Vice President Al Gore reportedly has had a > change of heart on ethanol, telling a conference on green energy in > Europe that he supported tax breaks for the alternative fuel to pander > to farmers in his home state of Tennessee and the first-in-the-nation > caucuses state of Iowa. > > Speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by > Marfin Popular Bank, Gore said the lobbyists have wrongly kept alive the > program he once touted. > > "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for > first-generation ethanol," Reuters quoted Gore saying of the policy that > is about to come up for congressional review. "First-generation ethanol > I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small. > > "One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular > attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a > certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was > about to run for president," the wire service reported Gore saying. > > Ethanol is made by extracting sugar from corn, an energy-intensive > process. The ethanol industry will consume about 41 percent of the corn > crop this year, or 15 percent of the global corn crop, according to > Goldman Sachs analysts. > > A food-versus-fuel debate erupted in 2008, as a result of record food > prices, in which the biofuel industry was criticized for helping stoke > food prices. > > Gore supported so-called second generation technologies which do not > compete with food, for example cellulosic technologies which use > chemicals or enzymes to extract sugar from fiber for example in wood, > waste or grass The requirement for ethanol blended gasoline was little more than a taxpayer funded welfare program for corn farmers. |
#25
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Ethanol was a "Mistake" says Al Gore
"jim beam" > wrote in message t... > it's the only thing that makes any sense. but notice how little > agri-commodity and speculator interest there is in a scheme where they > have no market presence, and for which the raw materials are pretty much > unlimited and thus non-profitable. Actually I think there is quite a lot of interest in methods of producing ethanol by non-traditional means. Even GM invested quite a bit of money in schemes involving the use of algae to create ethanol. I got sucked into investing a small amount into a company promoting a similar scheme (orginal investment is now worth almost but not quite zero). Numerous companies have been trying to come up with schemes for converting wood pulp, switch grass, you name it, into ethanol but with only minimal sucess so far. The government is funding much of this research. You might like to read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol http://www.harvestcleanenergy.org/en...ic_Ethanol.htm http://e85.whipnet.net/ethanol.faq/c...c.ethanol.html I am not sure about your comment that the raw materials are unlimited. While there is quite a bit of marginal land that can grow switch grass, a lot of that land is already being used for pasture. Ant if they figure out how to make ethanol economically from wood pulp, how long before there is a shortage of that commodiity? In my area when they cut a piece of forest land, they pretty much haul off everything but the roots. My Mother just had a tract thinned, and anything not large enough to make into boards was chipped up and shipped to the paper plant. > bottom line - cellulosic ethanol will quietly die a death. the burning of > food, with all the fuel, fertilizer, machinery, tax subsidy and > speculation potential that it entails, will continue to receive political > backing. The tax subsidy for ethanol is not connected directly to the method of production (i.e., ethanol from wood pulp gets the same subsidy as ethanol from corn). In my area a company is trying to sign farmers up to grow barely to be used to produce ethanol. Not many takers at the moment. With weat prices almost back to the levels of the 70's, most farmers interested in planting winter small grain are planting large tracts of wheat. I only wish I could get corn prices (when adjusted for inflation) back to the prices my father got in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. I think one thing that could be done immeadiately to make ethanol more affordable would be to allow in ethanol from other countries (like Brazil). Of course this is where politics comes into play in a big way. I don't expect to see the barrier to foreign ethanol lowered anytime soon. Too bad the government doesn't treat imported oil the same way they treat imported ethanol. Ed |
#26
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Ethanol was a "Mistake" says Al Gore
On 11/30/2010 07:55 AM, C. E. White wrote:
<snip waffle> > > I think one thing that could be done immeadiately to make ethanol more > affordable would be to allow in ethanol from other countries (like Brazil). > Of course this is where politics comes into play in a big way. I don't > expect to see the barrier to foreign ethanol lowered anytime soon. Too bad > the government doesn't treat imported oil the same way they treat imported > ethanol. as usual ed, you're allowing the smoke screen to obscure and not focusing on the big picture. it's not about "ethanol", it's about boondoggle. the way to /keep/ it boondoggle is to ensure the market is rigged, and ethanol is simply a part of that. so you got one bit right, but you're missing the bit about the big recipients, the big commodity houses, which would include companies like cargill, a.d.m., and the oilcos, that retain their ability to suck on the taxpayers teat. ethanol may have been initially intended to support farmers, and to some extent it still does, but it was quickly seized on by by the above as a spectacular windfall quite without precedent. and it's going to stay that way for as long as the public keep rolling over and taking it up the ass every day they /don't/ write their representatives to stop this rort. -- nomina rutrum rutrum |
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Ethanol was a "Mistake" says Al Gore
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Ethanol was a "Mistake" says Al Gore
On 2010-11-30, jim beam > wrote:
> spectacular windfall quite without precedent. and it's going to stay > that way for as long as the public keep rolling over and taking it up > the ass every day they /don't/ write their representatives to stop this > rort. The representives don't even read/listen. What are people going to do? Keep replacing Ds with Rs and Rs with Ds? Same difference as far as the corporate powers that be are concerned. |
#29
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Ethanol was a "Mistake" says Al Gore
On 11/30/2010 09:35 AM, Brent wrote:
> On 2010-11-30, jim > wrote: > >> spectacular windfall quite without precedent. and it's going to stay >> that way for as long as the public keep rolling over and taking it up >> the ass every day they /don't/ write their representatives to stop this >> rort. > > The representives don't even read/listen. not true. i always get responses when i write. now, they may not /always/ be more than a form letter [but often they're individually written by a real person], but someone has had to read them, and they pay as much attention as they think they have to without upsetting the balance between their voter interests and their funder interests. > What are people going to do? upset the above balance!!! there's only one thing a politician loves more than money - votes. if they seriously think their position is at risk because someone is expressing discontent with their activities, or lack thereof, and there are enough for them to have to pay attention, then pay attention they most certainly will do. even more especially if there's a check attached, albeit for a small amount. don't forget, unless your letter looks like the unhinged ramblings of a lunatic, they have to assume that for every person amped enough to write, there are thousands more discontents who might just be thinking the same thing and who are a vote risk. particularly if you can get it published and start a letter chain in one of the local newspapers criticizing your representatives for inaction. > Keep replacing Ds with Rs and Rs with Ds? Same difference as far as the > corporate powers that be are concerned. you can keep whichever one you want - just make them respond to your wishes. if you sit on your ass doing nothing, there's only one certain outcome - your voice will NOT be heard. -- nomina rutrum rutrum |
#30
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Ethanol was a "Mistake" says Al Gore
On 2010-11-30, jim beam > wrote:
> On 11/30/2010 09:35 AM, Brent wrote: >> On 2010-11-30, jim > wrote: >> >>> spectacular windfall quite without precedent. and it's going to stay >>> that way for as long as the public keep rolling over and taking it up >>> the ass every day they /don't/ write their representatives to stop this >>> rort. >> >> The representives don't even read/listen. > > not true. i always get responses when i write. So do I. They make absolutely no sense with regard to what I wrote. What I wrote was clearly not even read. > now, they may not > /always/ be more than a form letter [but often they're individually > written by a real person], but someone has had to read them, and they > pay as much attention as they think they have to without upsetting the > balance between their voter interests and their funder interests. That being about 95/5 in favor of the funders. >> What are people going to do? > upset the above balance!!! there's only one thing a politician loves > more than money - votes. if they seriously think their position is at > risk because someone is expressing discontent with their activities, or > lack thereof, and there are enough for them to have to pay attention, > then pay attention they most certainly will do. even more especially if > there's a check attached, albeit for a small amount. Two elections of wholesale replacements and yet, no change. Look at what is going on right now. A bunch of middle finger to the people legislation. > don't forget, unless your letter looks like the unhinged ramblings of a > lunatic, they have to assume that for every person amped enough to > write, there are thousands more discontents who might just be thinking > the same thing and who are a vote risk. particularly if you can get it > published and start a letter chain in one of the local newspapers > criticizing your representatives for inaction. And yet, despite getting input of 'no' and 'hell no' on various legislation, they still pass it. >> Keep replacing Ds with Rs and Rs with Ds? Same difference as far as the >> corporate powers that be are concerned. > you can keep whichever one you want - just make them respond to your > wishes. if you sit on your ass doing nothing, there's only one certain > outcome - your voice will NOT be heard. Experience tells me that is an illusion. I've written more than enough. It's fundamentally pointless. At the most they will make some verbal gesture or slight of hand and then go back to voting for the wars, the bailouts, the corporate cartels, the body scanners, the security state, and so on. All the people writing congress critters on the TSA and look what happened? The TSA doubled down and congress did nothing. The remaining avenue is to shatter the illusions like the one you state above such that actual change becomes possible. |
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