onpoint
Active member
There is light at the end of the tunnel? When gas hits $8.00 a gallon. Ethanol will become viable? Awesome....
Food vs. Fuel, the rocky road ahead
- Thread starter oldandnew
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There is light at the end of the tunnel? When gas hits $8.00 a gallon. Ethanol will become viable? Awesome....
I agree, one part of the solution would be to generate power closer to where the power would be used.
The process of moving electricity through copper wires produces heat via resistance. Heat is a sign of energy being lost. Energy being lost via transportation is waste.
Generate the power closer to where it is used and reduce the waste. I am not saying that all power could be generated close to where it is used, but reducing the transmission waste is a step in the right direction.
There is light at the end of the tunnel? When gas hits $8.00 a gallon. Ethanol will become viable? Awesome....
I'd guess 8.00 a gallon would make a lot of things economically viable! It's where we are headed, because we refuse to make any changes to lifestyle, either in consumption or alternative commitment, to head off the inevitable. We even have housewives hoarding incadesent light bulbs preparing for the ban, so they can continue to waste power. Today, in Missouri, gas went up .18 cents a gallon based on speculation and turmoil in the middle east.
There is light at the end of the tunnel? When gas hits $8.00 a gallon. Ethanol will become viable? Awesome....
I never said gas would need to be $8.00 a gallon for new technologies to be viable.
It appears having a logical discussion about this subject is not going happen.
mnmthunting
Banned
Have you guys seen the power plants in the NE WY coal fields? And in Coal Strip MT, or the coal fields in ND.
New ones under construction. If you follow those huge transmission lines, they end up near the population centers in the Mid West, CO and beyond.
The power plant near Elk River MN uses 1 coal train per day. 110 cars.
How many wind turbines would it take to replace one coal plant?
Wind power is terribly inconsistent. Wind turbines shut down during the strong winds, don't work at all on calm days. Must be a real pain to keep a steady power flow with the Wind turbines hooked up to the grid.
onpoint
Active member
I agree, there needs to be new things in the works. Lets just get the powerful corn Ind out of the picture.
onpoint
Active member
I meant no ill towards you. I was just showing my discontent for the ever rising prices of everything, not just fuel. Mean while the wealthy just keep reporting record profits. Well many suffer because of their greed.
I apologize if I offended you, there was no intent.
The price of things are going to go up. It has happened all my life. I remember 5 cent hershey bars and ten cent bottle of pop. I believe we will always have inflation. Especially with the Federal Reserve printing money. If energy prices go up then the price of everything has to go up because of the transportation involved. If we don't have continued inflation it will probbaly mean we just had an economic wreck and I don't think anybody is going to like that either. There have always been bad guys and there alway will. what we need is a congess that has the back bone to back off on the spending a little every year until we get to a balanced budget. That would fix more things than anything I can think of. This is not a Democrat or Republican thing, we need statesmen that are not worried about the next election.
OP thank you. It is water under the bridge.
I fully agree with you about corn (or any grain) being used for ethanol production should not be pursued.
My only point about ethanol is. It can be produced from a variety of things. Grains, just happens to be the easiest to use since that technology is old and proven. But very inefficient.
This link will show the oil content break down of various grains.
http://oakhavenpc.org/cultivating_algae.htm
In addition the link breaks down some of the whole economics behind making (in this case algae ethanol) economically viable.
My personal view is that ethanol is NOT the answer to this countries energy needs, and grain ethanol is not even close. But in order to get to a point that this county has a stable energy source, their-bye creating a more stable economy. US citizens need to have a much better understanding of why the US is and will be oil dependent for a very long time.
I agree the wealthy profit off of the crude oil business. I am a capitalist myself. I have no issues with anyone making money, and my guess is most people on this forum also have no issues with that. What I do have an issue with (and I suspect many other here do as well) is when the information about things are not fully disclosed.
If one becomes aware of what drives the markets, it becomes much easier to make profits.
Bringing this back on point. As long as we as Americans continue to find ways to disagree on things as basic as how to produce more domestic energy. We will continue to pump money into the hands of the wealthy.
What this country truly needs is multiple streams of energy. Not more government assistance for possible ways to do things. With government assistance comes direct government control. It is NOT in the best interests of the US government to stop using crude oil.
Let us Americans pursue Natural gas. Lets pursue coal, it can be done in a way that pollutes less. Lets pursue Nuclear. Of the 104 plants currently in the US. All of them began construction in 1974 or prior...does anyone honestly believe technology has not improved over that period of time? (before I get hammered for that, please read up on modern nuclear technologies)
Lets pursue wind power, where feasible. Perfect. No not at all. But it does have a place in the scheme of things.
Lets build more dams (had a great one purposed in my state just a couple of years back. Their is no threatened animals that would be displaced. The dam would be build about 50 miles before our states second largest river dumps into the Missouri....would have assisted in recharging ground water...it isn't going to happen)
Lets promote solar where feasible. It has been show to work and use molten salt as a way to store the energy until needed. (not interested in some government's ideal company)
My point is and will continue to be. Grain ethanol is dumb. Not as dumb as pouring money into oil companies but still dumb. It is a feel good thing that congressmen do to "help the American farmer"..which is bs.
Until we, as Americans, get our representatives to follow our directions instead of the lobbyist. We will have very few energy options available. We will have volatile prices in everything we need to buy.
We are all on this forum because we can agree on at least one thing. :thumbsup::cheers:
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What becomes abundantly apparent is the fact we have not run out of fuel. What we have run out of is "cheap" fuel. Our societal model was built on cheap fuel, cheap and abundant water, cheap land, cheap lumber, cheap and available minerals, and last but not least cheap food. We were so good at this for so long, we convinced the rest of the world to aspire to the same level. The world could afford to support one America with 200 million souls living in comparative luxury. Now we have literally a billion people world wide, with the same goals, and growing. We are reaching the point of finite domestic resources and the world is recognizing the value of these resources and charging accordingly. We have steadily decreased our emphasis on science education, devalued research and engineering, become a basic "service economy", because the big paying jobs are Bankers, Stockbrokers, Internet entrepeneurs, and politicians. We still assemble some things here, but we use parts from somewhere else. Nobody, besides farmers make anything anymore. I'll call a spade a spade. I'm a banker, Ocassionally, I save a farmer some money, here or there, and get something bought or built, but I produce nothing, live on the margins, and good graces of an agriculture system, designed to complicate, siphon off income from, and exist in a parasitic self interested manner off the back of the only guy in the chain who actually produces anything, the farmer or rancher. I'm sure not alone, and neither is the agricultural industry, it's endemic throughout our system. Those of us raised in this system are reluctant to change, maybe we are unwilling, maybe we can't accept the inevitable because we have never known otherwise. The problem is a clear viision of what is coming, what is possible, what we can aspire to, the national resolve to do remake ourselves, and last but not least, the voice and leadership to lead the way. Energy crisis is merely the symptom of the disease.
onpoint
Active member
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