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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices

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To: stribe30 who wrote (136955)	5/18/2001 2:48:21 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) of 1580023

So let me get this straight: you're advocating you dont research any alternative fuels until you absolutely have to when the oil runs out?? No, that is not what I advocated. 1 - Not all research is government research. 2 - The oil won't just run out. It won't be flowing in massive quantities one day and then be gone the next. It will gradually become less available and more expensive. The price will swing up and down sometimes violently but the long run trend should be a gradual increase in price. When it becomes expensive enough alternate fuels will be used. The oil will not have run out people will still be using it as well but less and less of it as the price goes up. Ethanol is not ridiculously expensive like some of the other alternatives. But it is still more expensive then gasoline. Also a very large amount of land would have to be devoted to growing crops for conversion to ethanol if it was to replace most gasoline use. It isn't necessarily any better for the environment then burning gasoline. It doesn't work as well when its very cold and it is more corrosive then gasoline. Also some studies suggest that it can take more energy to produce ethanol then you would get from burning it as a fuel. (These studies vary a lot in their conclusions so it isn't really clear at this point) It does have an advantage in that it would allow for higher compression ratios and thus more power per engine volume, but their would be a high cost to convert cars and the distribution network to use ethanol. Check out this site afdcmap.nrel.gov it shows one gas station within 100 miles of my house that will supply 85% ethanol. Wind power isn't an "alternate fuel". It is useful in some situations but will never be more then a marginal contributor as an energy source. Solar power has a slightly larger change to make some significant contribution but it can not replace oil and gas. It will only meet a small % of our energy needs unless you go to exotic and expensive solutions like solar power satellites. I can see a push for more conservation but ethanol, solar power, and windmills are not going to be significant contributors. Tim

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