Topic: Did I just witness the future happening?

Anonymous A started this discussion 13 years ago #25,041

Cool.

It's too soon to tell. But that will be funny though, won't it? When the I-have-money-so-listen-to-my-crazy-fundamentalist-shit stops right? Right?

(Edited 3 minutes later.)

squeegee !first/o5zA joined in and replied with this 13 years ago, 1 hour later[^] [v] #383,725

> I was listening to NPR on the way home today and the article mentioned that if we took all the biomass from all of the farmland both producing and fallow and were able to convert it all directly to ethanol that it would STILL only account for 14% of the US energy budget. So if we all stopped eating, and stopped exporting food, we'd still only scratch the surface of the energy we use.

Anonymous A (OP) replied with this 13 years ago, 1 hour later, 2 hours after the original post[^] [v] #383,728

@previous (squeegee !first/o5zA)
> I was listening to NPR on the way home and they said if we believe Texas doesn't exists hard enough...

> The resulting substance burns as well as petroleum-based fuel and contains more energy per gallon than ethanol, according to the study. It can be produced using a variety of renewable starches and sugars that can be grown in crops.

> "You can take a wide variety of sugar sources - from corn, sugar cane, molasses to woody biomass or plant biomass - and turn it into a diesel product using this fermentation process," said Blanch, adding that about 90 percent of the raw material remains in the finished product, reducing the loss of carbon. "Grasses are also a possible source. Eucalyptus could also be used. Anything that's fast-growing."

squeegee !first/o5zA replied with this 13 years ago, 17 hours later, 20 hours after the original post[^] [v] #384,051

@previous (A)
yeah, actually, this is exactly what they were talking about. They mentioned how european countries were already scaling back their investments in bio-fuels because to reach levels that would have an impact the food supply would be limited. in fact the US is the only country that is still seriously investing in bio-fuel research despite the fact that it can never be sustainable, nor a suitable replacement for oil.

why then do we continue to require ethanol in fuel and put money into bio-fuels research?
because it is a dead end. it would not benefit big oil (which means the world economy) to have real, sustainable, renewable energy.
so we'll make it look like we're being proactive, when in reality we're stalling future development of other technologies and letting the oil industry rape us that much longer.

Minichan