You know what I'm getting kiiiind of sick of? Presidential candidates that (rightly) make the environment one of the biggest campaign issues, but choose policies that sound familiar (i.e. from the last 8 State of the Union addresses) rather than ones that are, you know, well-thought-out. Or even rely on knowledge that any freshman environmental studies major would be able to tell you. I'm referring to biofuels.
Biofuels require more oil to produce than they save. So when you put 10 gallons of 10% ethanol gas in your tank, you're not consuming 9 gallons of oil rather that 10...you're actually consuming more than 10 gallons, more than your would if you had gone to a non-"flexfuel" station. (I nevertheless commend your effort, but seriously, stop doing it now).
Oh, that and making biofuels out of corn (which is less efficient than using sugar cane or switch grass) is causing the poorest of the poor in the world to starve due to rising grain prices while industrial agriculture gets rich off of ethanol demand, speculation on corn prices in the commodities market, and farm subsidies that come from our taxes. (For that matter, lets get rid of farm subsidies. If they actually went to small (often organic) farmers, who often don't qualify for subsidies, I wouldn't have this issue).
This is why I like Barack's energy policy the best--he calls for the use of non-food crops to make biofuels, though he doesn't take it far enough. ALL of the crops that we use for biofuels should be non-food crops, like switch grass. But before that, let's go back to doing research in biofuel production so that making biofuel actually cuts down on our oil use, rather than increasing it.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
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4 comments:
This only supports my growing fear that corn is evil. I mean, I fully respect and support Senator Grassley, but let's talk about how the price of eggs has like, tripled since everyone went batshit over ethanol.
The problem? Environmentalists and NIMBYists freak out over nuclear power. Solar power isn't there yet. Traditional hydropower is just as bad for the environment as burning coal. Hybrid cars cost more than the money you save in gas. Electric car batteries explode randomly. There is no fuel source around that's entirely clean.
No... the real problem is that any time we make use of energy, we're increasing the universe's entropy and hastening the entropic heat death of the universe.
corn is not inherently evil, but the industrial corn industry IS VERY EVIL. its so ridiculously energy-intensive to grow commodity corn that it can't possibly be worth it to turn it into inefficient ethanol.
"conventional" farming (though I hate that word for industrial farming because honestly "organic" is the real conventional. nobody used synthetic pesticides and fertilizers back in the day!) requires such insane amounts of external inputs like pesticides and fertilizers and combines (which all use....fossil fuels) that farmers can't turn a profit without government subsidies. If there were no subsidies, it would make a lot more sense to not use those poisonous inputs (and create jobs for farmers).
besides the fact that commodity corn (which makes up literally 99% of all corn produced in america--yes, we actually only eat 1% of the 10 billion bushels that we produce every year) is inedible! only cows and SUVs can eat it! (well i guess we can technically eat high-fructose corn syrup) I mean I just can't fathom why there is a global food crisis....
and come on, the bush administration supports the use of corn-based ethanol. you decide what that means.
I don't even remember what point I was trying to make, but I could go on all day about corn.
Corn is evil, it's in almost everything that is edible in this country, and less than half the corn that is grown is actually edible to humans before being processed (i.e. HFCS). Corn also leaves the land barren and needs to be in rotation with a bushy bean crop like soy beans (another thing this country is addicted to). Good movie to check out is King Corn. Pirate it or look up when it's playing next on PBS.
Switchgrass, though very great in concept has little room for expansion. The efficiency isn't there. Algae based fuels are the real way to go. http://youtube.com/watch?v=_ToojK_MJd0 this is a good company to invest in. MIT is also doing projects that make Hydrogen from algae. Good things to look into and try to support.
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