"we could replace every single gallon of gas consumed in the United States"
For the sake of argument, lets assume the possibility that switchgrass could somehow be grown fast enough to net the equivalent of 20 million barrels of oil energy each day, every day, all year round, throughout the elements.
Acquiring ownership of and planting 15% of the North American continent is no small task. It would also take decades to completely retrofit our entire existing infrastructure and industrial and manufacturing sectors to run on ethanol.
Are the inventors in contact with our leadership making plans to get this started? Considering that our leadership, including the CIA, have known about Peak Oil for 30 years, what makes you think they're interested in finally beginning this transition now? Considering what happened to Jimmy Carter, isn't this political suicide for anyone brave enough to try?
How much money is being devoted in the 2005 FY budget to this project, and what specific implementation procedures are underway? How much time has been devoted to debating this subject in Capital Hill?
Is there a reason Bush has not mentioned (or even alluded to the need for) any such massive and sustained project? Does he have any plans to do so? Does anyone in our current leadership?
How much time will it take to acquire ownership, plant, and scale up production of switchgrass to the point of producing the equivalent of millions of oil barrels per day? Considering that we're soon about to enter an age of decreasing energy availability, what other sectors of our society are going to suffer while we get this going?
Considering that more oil energy is consumed in the production of a car than that car will consume in gasoline in its entire lifetime, what is your specific plan to retrofit the entire automobile manufacturing sector of our economy to run on ethanol? How much oil energy is it going to take to retrofit 100 million automobiles to run on ethanol? How much time and energy is it going to take to replace hundreds of thousands of gas stations with ethanol stations?
And most importantly, when food production literally collapses because 10 calories of fossil fuel energy are consumed in producing every ONE calorie of food energy we eat, are we going to eat switchgrass?
Can ethanol be used to produce the astronomical amounts of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides that prop up our current food production output? Can any amount of ethanol feed 100 million Americans, considering that without oil, all the arable land in the U.S. could only produce enough food to feed 200 million people?
Can any amount of ethanol replace the 500,000 plastic consumer products produced from fossil fuels? Is there any way our current market system can survive if 500,000 consumer items are simply taken off the market?
Can ethanol be used for heating?
What are the chances of overcoming the massive social and political opposition that this change will encounter at every step along the way, from both industry and ordinary people that simply don't want change (or don't understand the need for it)?
Is anyone else asking these questions?
Taking everything into consideration, how realistic is this, and what are the odds that such a project will even be attempted before its too late, considering that 99% of the American population do not even understand these issues? Are we as a tiny minority going to compel the ignorant masses to go along with any such project by force? |
