Bio Fuel

[motorbyclist]

and why would the sea levels rise? go put an ice cube in a glass of water, then sit and watch it melt, you may notice something, the glass wont suddenly over flow, water just fills the gap left by the ice

antarctica is larger than australia

antarctica's land mass is 98% covered in ice

the average ice thickness over antarctica is over 1.6 KILOMETRES thick

that is all ice sitting above the water

do the maths and once that melts you get a sea level rise of 61 metres, then you can add all the ice on mountains and glaciers in the rest of the world, including greenland and you score a few metres again

the fact that the arctic ice had made record melting during it's last summer doesn't bode well either

[Patch]

Read this ya bunch of tree huggin greenies



Biofuels - things you weren't told

Ethanol - Better or worse?

The first step in training a mule, so it is written, is to bash it between the eyes with a 4x2. This is to get its attention. The world has been so conned by exaggerations, half-truths, and the gross deceptions in Al Gore's movie (a woman wrote in to one local paper bemoaning the fact that the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice will raise the Pacific Ocean 20 feet within her daughter's lifetime), that it is necessary to produce strong counterpropaganda to try to get into people's minds that there is another viewpoint. It isn't finesse, yet at times the sledgehammer approach is required. Whatever it takes, politicians and populace alike need a wake-up call to prevent being conned by international hysteria merchants. Bio-fuels are supposed to be the latest answer to all our problems. When oil runs out we can grow our fuel, and clean corn does not put dirty exhausts into the air. Do we really believe that?
The arable land around our metropolitan areas is fully utilised now for our food. Where is the extra land going to come from to grow fuel, and whence would come manpower to harvest it? But the logic is out the window - why take perfectly edible food which could feed millions of starving people, and instead make something burnable to be utilized in an internal combustion engine? It defies reason when the end products of both of these fuels are identical – CO2 & H2O. In order to get from point A to point B the amount of energy that is required is a constant. One must burn an identical amount of hydrocarbons in order to do so which results in an identical release of CO2 and H2O. Other than raping the consumer with the exorbitant costs associated with the production of these biofuels, there is no difference in the output of the so-called greenhouse gases. "Saving the planet" from the hypothetical, theoretical, and fictional effects of human-induced greenhouse gases could be nothing but a subterfuge. There are quite want-to-be billionaires out there with friends in high places who may be causing the brouhaha in order to facilitate their lame-brain get-rich schemes.
The biofuel industry will create more problems, will require intensive agriculture and intensive farming with high-chemical input, and the large amounts of land needed will burden soil and groundwater and decrease biodiversity. Even regarding climate change, the benefits are uncertain and reduction costs high. Growing crops for fuel is like boiling water to get rain for dams. Biofuels get their actual energy gain from the sun, as do any other fossil fuel like wood, coal, gas or oil. They are all just bottled sunshine. They all let off gases when they burn. The only relative differences are the processing costs. Take away subsidies and tax incentives and the processing bills will double.
Increased demand raises prices, which is the reason we are continually told oil reserves are running out. And as bio-energy comes of age, the prices of oilseeds, including soybeans, rapeseeds, and sunflower seeds, are projected to rise, e.g. in the US by 26 percent by 2010 and 76 percent by 2020, and wheat prices by 11 percent by 2010 and 30 percent by 2020. As usual the poor will be affected most. For example, cassava, a tropical potato-like tuber also known as manioc, provides one-third of the caloric needs of those in sub-Saharan Africa making it the primary staple for Africa’s poorest. It is the food turned to when they cannot afford anything else. When other crops fail it serves as an important reserve because it can grow in poor soils and dry conditions and can be left in the ground to be harvested as needed. Thanks to its high-starch content, cassava is also an excellent source of ethanol. As the technology for converting it to fuel improves, many countries - including China, Nigeria, and Thailand - are considering processing it. If peasant farmers become suppliers, they would benefit from the increased income. But the history of demand suggests that large producers will be the main beneficiaries, and a boom in cassava-based ethanol production will mean more poor people struggling more to feed themselves. Even now where cassava is a staple in the poorest parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America, its price is expected to increase by 33 percent by 2010 and 135 percent by 2020. The production of cassava-based ethanol may pose a grave threat to the food security of already poverty-stricken societies.



to be continued . . . .

[Patch]

continued . . . .




Less people to consume fossil fuels means less emissions affecting the environment, and an agenda of the Greens appears to be to reduce the world's population. Preventing development in third world countries and increasing poverty seems part of the plan. It might as well be because that will be the result. As ethanol production diverts corn from the nation's dinner table to its gas tank, the average Joe must be happy Al Gore has brought all this to the forefront of the attention of the power-elte. Gore’s alarmism has been causing food and energy prices to rise. Bio-fuel mania is adding to it. According to the Wall St Journal, high corn prices, bad weather and steep energy costs have combined to make food a bigger contributor to inflation this year than it has been at least since 2004, when a cutback in dairy production boosted dairy prices and beef prices rose as mad-cow disease disrupted trade. The US Agriculture Department projects that retail food prices may climb by 2.5% to 4.5% in 2007, fueled by strong demand for corn-derived ethanol. The best customers for U.S. corn farmers have traditionally been livestock producers, who buy half the corn produced as feed for cattle, pigs and poultry. Doubling corn prices over the last six months because of demand for ethanol has seen U.S. beef and pork producers at odds with their friends in the corn industry. To prevent agricultural products going through the roof, they are opposing tax and trade policies that offer incentives for corn-based ethanol production. Some farmers in Nebraska now can’t even purchase corn to feed their pigs this spring because corn producers have contracted their production at today’s high prices to go to ethanol plants.
Ethanol will not lead to energy independence. If all the corn produced in America was dedicated to ethanol production (in 2006 only 14% of it was), gasoline consumption would drop by only 12%. For corn ethanol to displace gasoline, all cropland would need to be appropriated and turned over to corn-ethanol production, and then 20% more land found on top of that for cultivation. The U.S. Energy Information Administration believes that the practical limit for domestic ethanol production is about 700,000 barrels a day - a figure they don’t think is realistic until 2030! Nor is ethanol economically competitive or capable of reducing greenhouse emissions, which was the much-touted reason for its introduction. According to a 2005 report by the U.S. Agriculture Department, corn ethanol costs several times more what it costs to produce a gallon of gasoline. At the moment exactly a litre of other energy and fuel is required to produce a litre of corn fuel. Without the subsidies, costs would be far higher. If, in the US you lived in urban areas that used reformulated gasoline last summer - that’s the environmentally “clean” gasoline required for areas with air pollution problems - you would have paid 60 cents a gallon more for gasoline than you would have otherwise because the federal government required oil refineries to use 4 billion gallons of ethanol in 2006 regardless of price. A similar requirement is in the latest budget for NZ.
Ethanol is not a renewable fuel. According to Science magazine, only 5 - 26 % of the energy content of ethanol is renewable. The balance of ethanol’s energy actually comes from the staggering amount of coal, natural gas and nuclear power necessary to produce corn and process it into ethanol. Then what about pollution? When evaporative emissions are taken into account, E10 (10% ethanol and 90% gasoline, the standard mix that constitutes the bulk of the ethanol available today) increases emissions of total hydrocarbons, non-methane organic compounds and air toxins compared to conventional gasoline. And the pollution is actually worse for E85. Oil is available now without research and development costs, it is cheap and cleaner. No one seems to have a problem with it except the green lobbyists. Alternatives simply won't work. Bicycles are fine for commuters in Christchurch and Ashburton, but not in the hilly suburbs of Wellington and Dunedin. Batteries in electric cars would run flat two hours into Auckland’s morning rush hour. The solar-powered car is ideal in the middle of Australia but would be useless in Southland. Trains? There aren't any on Auckland's North Shore, Waiheke, and most rural towns after the Lange government let tracks be ripped out in favour of trucks. Someone forgot that trains can also carry people but trucks can't. Besides, many of today’s car manufacturers already produce cars with reduced emissions, especially Japan and the US where the law requires it.
So why are oil companies spending so much time and energy on bio-fuel production? The short answer is that they qualify for tax-breaks. To court the green vote, western governments, including our own, feel they must appear to support research into fuel alternatives. The tax incentives for biofuel research are now so important that for some oil companies operating on wafer-thin profit margins, their annual profit is from government assistance. Fear of governments’ collapse if the greens pull their votes away means there is a readiness and a willingness to legislate to fund energy research. Perhaps the real looming world problem later down the track will be for the welfare of poor nations that depend on our excess food production to keep from starving. What about the forests and jungles that of necessity would have to be cut down to make way for the huge corn crops that would be needed? What happens to all the creatures that live in those forests and jungles? Don't they have a right to live, too? And how much more energy would be needed to actually create the ethanol from the corn?
My tax dollar goes to the government. They give it to some offshore oilman to enable the latter to play around with other fuels. The oil industry profits from the preferential treatment in tax laws and government support. While in the US the non-oil industries are taxed at a rate of 18 percent, the oil industry is taxed at a mere 11 percent. This reduced rate equates to $2 billion in federal corporate income tax benefits per year. They also benefit from low state and local sales tax rates on gasoline, an indirect subsidy exceeding $4 billion a year. Direct government funding of oil and motor vehicle infrastructure and services tops off at $45 billion a year. And taxpayers, not the oil industry, are left to pay the cleanup bill for oil-related health and environmental damage, which could be as high at an annual $232 billion. All oil industries have to do is claim they are researching the problem and investigating possible alternatives and the green bloc remains contented. The oilman’s research can be as basic as tipping a jar of marmite into an oil vat to see what happens. There is no transparency, and no expected outcome. There is no watchdog consumer agency to see that the tax dollar is wisely spent. The government has promised to "tackle climate change" and energy PR people have pledged to find "renewable resources" but both expressions are empty of meaning.
Somewhere in a varnished mahogany boardroom beneath a company logo, ethanol executives and politicians use first names and greet over drinks. Like the arms industry supplying both sides in the Middle East conflict, the energy supply industry has positioned itself so it cannot lose, peddling both oil and carbon-credit brokerage, enjoying tax concessions both ways. The consumer pays because governments are unwise not to comply. The potential to cream fuel-taxes on old and existing, as well as more and newer fuels, keeps treasury coffers full.
Climate has got nothing to do with it.

References
http://www.environmental-expert.com/...1293&codi=6668
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117667991954270669.html
http://factsaboutethanol.org/?p=156
http://factsaboutethanol.org/?p=151

[JimBob]

Economics 101
"why take perfectly edible food which could feed millions of starving people, and instead make something burnable to be utilized in an internal combustion engine?"
Because I will pay more for fuel for my leisure pursuits, bike, aeroplane, jetski, fishing boat etc etc etc than a starving person can pay for a bowl of maize.
Not my problem. I have a job. Why dont they get a job? Sit around waiting for handouts. Want everything for free.
And so it is with 99% of people in "developed" countries.

Do the farmers give a flying f**** about the starving millions?
Does the western public give a toss?
Do the oil companies give a toss about global warming?
We complain about crap goods coming in from China but we still buy them
It all comes down to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
People do what is economically advantageous to them.
If it goes tits up blame the government
Global warming and global terrorism, both full of overhyped BS sold to a gullible public (read western public) who are now so fat and lazy they dont want, cant be bothered, to think for themselves and will believe anything their governments tell them no matter how stupid it actually is because it is the easy thing to do.
As long as the starving millions stay on TV, as long as we have gas and money to buy it, there isnt a problem.
What a joke
I'm not really a cynic but I will be pissed off if we run out of gas.

[motorbyclist]

Patch, (and jimbob) very good post. global warming (whatever you think of it) really does have little to do with biofuel bar the incentives awarded

Batteries in electric cars would run flat two hours into Auckland’s morning rush hour.

well seeing as the electric motor in a car need not be running when stationary, plus regenerative braking is very handy in stop/start situations,even with a/c and the stereo going that isn't the case...

but if you want to go on a roadtrip without stopping for 20 minutes every 2 hours, electric is yet to meet the challenge



bit OT here, but here goes...
i read that the states has quite large oil reserves, and isn't making any major work to increasing production, and hasn't been for some time now.... meanwhile they're un-stabilising the middle east and causing conflicts rather than encouraging unification. seems to me that while they drive oil prices up for the rest of the world including themselves, they're ensuring that they won't have their oil supply cut and can continue importing from the middle east. why? well what happens when the oil finally does become genuinely scarce? the rest of the world pays $200 a barrel while the states starts using their own little stash, gaining a huge economic advantage.

of course this would just be a backup plan incase technology doesn't come up with a viable alternative...which it has, just the car manufacturers are rather good at squashing the alternatives, pretending to be supporting the alternatives (basically preparing for oil shortages), and continuing the internal combustion engine - remember most the car major manufacturers are owned atleast in part by oil companies

[Ixion]

On this subject

BRONZ has contacted Mr David Crawford and Mr Tony Frost (No, not *that* Tony Frost) of the MoT and requested that motorcycles be included in the test program. Mr Frost has agreed to include the matter with the testing dudes.

[JimBob]

Osama bin Laden is using the internet to spread global warming

[idleidolidyll]

antarctica is larger than australia

antarctica's land mass is 98% covered in ice

the average ice thickness over antarctica is over 1.6 KILOMETRES thick

that is all ice sitting above the water

do the maths and once that melts you get a sea level rise of 61 metres, then you can add all the ice on mountains and glaciers in the rest of the world, including greenland and you score a few metres again

the fact that the arctic ice had made record melting during it's last summer doesn't bode well either

good post motobycyclististi: so many people are so goddam ignorant when it comes to sensible science.

i'd rep you but it seems i don't have any bling left at present

scientific reality trumps propaganda once again

[idleidolidyll]

Osama bin Laden is using the internet to spread global warming

and George Bush is using the rich to spread death and misery while making global destructors wealthier: being effectively powerless in the face of arrogant wankers like mad king george the 2nd is fucking frustrating

[bobbydazzler]

not all the ice will melt anyway, alot of it could possibly melt maybe, but not all of it, read some more

[motorbyclist]

honestly i couldn't care less anymore

the carbon trading scheme that auntie helen wants is downright offensive

our measly fraction of a percentage of emmissions does NOT justify this sort of legislation

coinciding with a huge economic downturn doesn't help either

shafting the citizens THEN the business is a top notch way to ruin the economy

and get this - they aren't even too sure as to how much it will cost

[TimeOut]

honestly i couldn't care less anymore

the carbon trading scheme that auntie helen wants is downright offensive

our measly fraction of a percentage of emmissions does NOT justify this sort of legislation

coinciding with a huge economic downturn doesn't help either

shafting the citizens THEN the business is a top notch way to ruin the economy

and get this - they aren't even too sure as to how much it will cost

You're onto it, you've seen through the gubments bullshit.
Bling sent

[bobbydazzler]

thats the problem, saving the planet and saving us little peoples lively hoods dosnt go together at th moment.. people just have to face that making money, is more important to most people than trying to stop the enevitable demise of the earth, we are just as likely to get destroyed by a comet as hurting ourselves by speeding up the naturall global warming cycle.

[Pixie]

fuggin hippies.....

[wharfy]

NZ'ers (like most people) are greedy selfish bastards.

BUT we live in a paradise (if you don't think so visit Europe, and if you still don't think so stay there) - and we need to take a leading role in protecting it, the same way we took a leading role in many things in the past (8 hour day, womens sufferage, education, public health, ANTI - nuclear ship visits, removing the loop hole that allowed people to BEAT THE CRAP out of their children and claim some RIGHT to discipline as a defence )

Global warming is a FACT whether you choose to believe the evidence or not, you may be able to argue that humans are not responsible - but not convincingly.
Pollution is a FACT and humans ARE responsible for all of it

It takes more oil to manufacture a modern car than it will ever use in its entire life, private transport is fucked - Motor sport may have a future as long as the crowds take a bus or train to get there.

More than half of the population on the planet do not even have clean drinking water but Kiwi's, (led by Nationals Nick Smith) went APE SHIT about a RECOMMENDATION that we install shower heads that restrict the flow of water !!!

It is almost as embarrassing as our attitude to domestic violence.

No one likes being told what to do - but if you don't act like a arsehole no one will have to tell you how to behave.

IF YOU ARE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.