Climate Change and the Missing Carbon…

I've read this article three times and I haven't the faintest idea of what you are proposing.

I think he's trying to say that there is a general misconception that Ethanol is good for the environment, which it isn't. It's just a renewable resource. It adds just about the same amount of CO2 into the atmosphere while producing less energy than gasoline.

It's no secret that I think that Ethanol is a disaster. I've posted it many times. It uses up land used to grow food, It's worse for the environment than gasoline (when you count fertilizers, which you definitely should), and it's only cheaper right now because there is no demand. The second an ethanol car becomes popular, ethanol prices will go through the roof. There is nothing green about ethanol, yet thats how its being marketed. The scariest part seems to be that everyone is on board with it, simply due to some clever marketing.

Anyway, his conclusion is that Ethanol only will serve to make oil reserves last a little longer and I agree.

The following link presents a good and balanced overview of corn-based ethanol: The Energetics of Ethanol: An Introduction and Links to Studies: http://www.newrules.org/agri/netenergy.html Making ethanol from cellulosic biomass, rather than corn, is the technology to watch.

I took a look at your link. The first problem is the organization providing the information is an organization for farmers. This is like going to the Exxon website to find out how bad the Valdez oil spill was. There is a serious conflict of interest. Here is a link that talks about the downside to Ethanol.

http://www.springerlink.comwv4uxwf2seuqyr45cbzcejz v/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto =issue,1,8;journal,51,61;linkingpublicationresults ,1:102919,1

Oops, the link didn't work, here is a new link:

http://www.springerlink.com/(05w1efrq2ac1ti55t0mfa sbg)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&bac kto=issue,1,8;journal,51,61;linkingpublicationresu lts,1:102919,1

Your link is to *surprise* a paper by David Pimental. My link references a wide variety of studies by other sources. You can click on the links to individual papers. My favorite quote on the site is, "To my knowledge, Pimental has not responded to his critics nor done a detailed critique of studies that come to different conclusions." I have seen Pimental speak personally and have come to my own conclusion.

I agree that my link was biased, that was the point.

It's funny, I can't win on this Ethanol issue. I'm traditionally on the left and am a strong advocate for the acceptance of Global Warming. I push hard for further research for Fusion and Solar Energy. Yet I'm hit on all sides by this Ethanol thing. The Right loves it because it's a cash cow for the heartland, traditional red states. The left loves it because of the misconception that it benefits the environment.

My original comment tried to make three points.

1. when you count fertilizers, which you have to, along with CO2 emissions, ethanol is much worse for the environment than oil.
2. All cost benefit analysis is based upon current levels, as if an increase in demand won't change the price. When demand goes up, the price will to.
3. In order to get ethanol, you have to sacrifice land used for food. You really do. Yes, it's true we have a surplus of food right now in this country. But what about overseas? Sorry ethiopia, we would sell you low priced grain but we want SUVs, so good luck with starvation and Somalia's holy war.

You gave me a link that showed that Ethanol produces more Energy than it takes to grow it. That doesn't address anything Shawn or I was talking about. What is your feeling on the three points I'm making above?

1. Ethanol is bad for people (except in moderation). It's essentially harm neutral for the environment in terms of toxicity from spills. But as a carbon based fuel to be burned in an internal combustion motor you still produce toxic byproducts. 2. The cost benefit vis-a-vis oil is negative. Given current methods of production the production cost per gallon requires just slightly less energy from fossil fuels than it holds in potential. The current (today) NY harbor price landed for ethanol is $3.00 a gallon, gasoline is $2.88. We produce roughly 4 Billion gallons of ethanol a year, with expansion to 7.5 gallons a year expected by 2009. We use 151 Billion gallons of gasoline annually. We cannot by law import more cheaply produced ethanol. 3. If we built cities more up than out we could plow under some of the hideous McHouses, McTownhouses and McMansions that occupy tremendous amounts of arable land, and at the same time reduce the need for unrealistic commute distances and times. My gut feeling is that if we devoted every arable and semiarable acre in this country to the production of corn for fuel we still would be many billions of BTU's short of what we would need to sustain our current level of auto-mobility. But the problem isn't ethanol. It's finding a store or sink for CO2. Huge off shore shellfish farms with unharvested bivalves of all types would utilize CO2 as CaCO3 to form shells, when they die they would sink to the bottom of the sea to make limestone layers many millions of years from now. Left unharvested they would proliferate in enormous quantities. In the meantime the CO2 would be trapped away from the atmosphere. Liquified H2 or Hydrogen stored as metal hydrides to be used for small motors (less than 1000hp) via fuel cell technology is the only way I see to avoid converting Carbon stores to free CO2.