The new trendy thing these days is biofuels. You know, all those wonderful ways of making your car run on french fry grease or corn oil or soybeans or whatever. It's a favorite cause of "green" types and it's deeply deeply flawed.
Do we really think we can combust our way out of the environmental problems we face? It's like Chief Wiggum ordering his fellows stuck in the bottom of a deep whole with no ladder to "dig up, stupid!"
Electric cars are the answer - not hydrogen (maintains Big Oil's power), not biofeuls but electric cars. We have the technology to do it today but Big Oil and Big Auto companies won't go forward unless they are forced. Big Oil will never go along with it because it would end their retail oligopoly. California almost did it but then backed off under right wing pressure. With even California's feckless governor signing environmental legislation now, perhaps now is the time to try again.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Just Say No To Biofuels
Posted by Raised By Republicans at 5:20 AM
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7 comments:
Isn't it true that biofuels harm the environment less than fossil fuels? Also reduce dependence on oil, including foreign oil. I thought that was the point.
Electric cars, if widely adopted, will require significant investment in new power plants. Some of the advantage of the electric cars is reduced if the power plants burn oil and coal.
// posted by LTG
The problem with biofuels is while they are less toxic to the air, they are still toxic. So at best the slow the rate at which we ruin the atmosphere - but we still ruin it.
They also preserve our dependence on Big Oil which is the real problem not the national origin of the fuel.
Finally, it's debatable whether they are efficient or not - that is do we really get more out of them than we put in? And there simply isn't enough farm land in the country to provide enough for our needs anyway.
Electric cars can be run on coal generated power, true. But they also can run on nuclear or solar power. Importantly, electric car technology can adapt easily to improvements in power plant technology (mass solar power, safer forms of fision or even fusion power etc). Biofuels cannot adapt. They are merely a less obnoxious form of combustion engine.
Biofuels - the betamax of environmental causes!
// posted by RBR
Yes, but there is a major current problem with the electric car: energy storage. Battery technology mostly sucks, and as far as I can tell they tend to use a lot of heavy metals and other things you don't want in your waste stream. Plus, their lifetime isn't very long.
Fuel cells seem nice, but the technology is not mature enough to just start dropping them into vehicles. And fueling them with hydrogen is rather inefficient from a system viewpoint because hydrogen has such a very low energy density.
While I agree we should be studying electric technologies, I don't see any clear path here. Lots and lots more research, faster!
// posted by Chris
I keep waiting for the "Mr. Fusion" from the "Back to the Future" series...
Biofuels will never really catch on anyway. they're just too inefficient in terms of total cultivated acreage per car.
Hybrid engines are a great start, don't you think?
// posted by LTG
I agree that they won't catch on. But the problem is that the Republicans are pushing them as the center piece of their environmental agenda - mainly because they amount to a massive cash payoff to rural voters. And the sizable numbers of greens give them warm fuzzies for it.
As for electric cars...We really have no idea how long they last because the first major production line of electric cars was mysteriously recalled and destroyed shortly after they were produced. A few people have managed to keep theirs and they still run. And these are electric cars with 15 year old technology.
What if we took all the money we're wasting on ethanol plants and put it into improving electric cars!?
All I'm saying is we are really close to a long term solution so we should invest what little resources we seem to allow for this sort of thing into the long term solution rather than stop gap solution.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
"As for electric cars...We really have no idea how long they last because the first major production line of electric cars was mysteriously recalled and destroyed shortly after they were produced. A few people have managed to keep theirs and they still run. And these are electric cars with 15 year old technology. "
This is really interesting! Can you provide a link/source? I want to know more.
// posted by Anonymous
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