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To: rkral who wrote (12916)	9/8/2006 6:04:15 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Respond to of 19790

well rkral, I have heard from the VCs in my office, who are very high on ethanol, Litium batteries, electric vehicles and the Tesla, that the same is true. Corn based ethanol is a scam according to them. The sugar cane kind that they have in Brazil is another story apparently. But anyway what I think you are getting at, which I agree with is this whole "it takes the same amount of energy to build any alternatives so lets not do them" is a bit of camoflauged endorsement of the status quo. It does not take the same amount of OIL to make a battery to propel a car the same distance that he could drive with gasoline. If it did, these things would be non starters. It does take SOME ENERGY to create electricity. But the source does not have to be burning fossil fuels. Anyway these same VCs told me that the fossil fuel economy had one thing other alternatives didn't have 40 years ago- portability. But now that we have electric vehicles and other alternatives, oil is not the ONLY WAY you can have portable energy.

To: rkral who wrote (12916)	9/8/2006 6:19:11 PM
From: miraje	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19790

Several links addressing your question.. healthandenergy.com sciencedaily.com blog.sciam.com

To: rkral who wrote (12916)	9/9/2006 5:03:43 AM
From: dybdahl	Respond to of 19790

With the current production methods, it takes fuel to do farming, and to produce ethanol from the farming products. The next generation will produce ethanol from waste products from farming, instead of from the crops. This is significantly less a waste of ressources, but of course, bio-ethanol is a limited ressource and cannot replace oil, and right now it is very sure that bio-ethanol is a LOT more polluting and dangerous for your health in city areas. Ethanol produced from other means than farming, include waterpower, windpower, coal plants, nuclear power etc. These are all also limited ressources, until fusion nuclear power works. The question is therefore not to replace gas with ethanol, but to exploit energy sources efficiently and to use energy efficiently. Market economy can do this, if people do cost/benefit analysis on their gas usage in cars, electricity usage in the homes etc., but often they don't. When you buy a device, you don't think much about if this device uses 1W or 50W in standby-mode. This is where regulation comes in: Make sure that the device informs you about standby mode energy consumption and things like that. Why spend 500 Watt on standby modes and then spend energy on the A/C to get the heat out of your house? The ROI in this is huge. As long as we continue to pump as much oil, these energy efficiency improvements will just make oil cheaper and therefore make it more widely used for other purposes. Many countries have significantly reduced energy consumption without losing economic wealth - probably because the energy is instead used in other countries like China to produce cheap products. The benefit for the environment can be discussed, but these countries have an increased energy efficiency, which has reduced in less vulnerability to oil prices. I could imagine that a guy like Schwarzenegger knows that the environmental impact of his new CO2 politics isn't huge, but he knows that it makes California less vulnerable and may cause new high-tech companies. And experience from other countries shows, that he can keep his promises without having the citizens of California reduce their standard of living. That said, I really don't understand how we got into this topic :-)

To: rkral who wrote (12916)	9/9/2006 7:53:41 AM
From: John F. Dowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19790

rkral: It took millions of years of pressure to create fossil fuels and the density of energy stored therein. We are not going to replicate that kind of energy storage and subsequent release short of nuclear where the binding force of the atom is released (another form of energy that has been stored for a long time). The idiots on this board, who reflect at best a familiarity with pop junk science, know nothing about Thermodynamic, Physics and/or Chemistry Principles. Their economics are tinged with liberal talking points and their is no in depth scientific knowledge incorporated in anything they speak of. That is the problem with our country - most people don't know what the f' they are talking about because the Classic Education is dead. I would venture to say there are few members of this board who have degrees in Engineering,Chemistry or Physics that spout this crap. People should educate themselves about the cost of producing mobile energy before they start their lips moving. They should also try and educate themselves in the principles of Chemistry,Geology and Physics without a political solution in mind. The laws of the universe are not bound by a political agenda. Let me share an anecdote which is true and reflects the ignorance of current day policy makers with no scientific education. They were meeting at FERC and "brainstorming". One lawyer said, "Well why don't we just put all the coal/nuke fired power plants in uninhabited places and bring the electricity in by transmission wires?" One of the few scientists at the meeting said, "..the line losses would prohibit such a scheme". The lawyer countered with, "Well get rid of the line losses surely if we put a man on the moon we can do that". The engineer replied,"That would mean repealing Ohms Law". The lawyer thought for a minute and asked."When did Congress pass that one?"