haha ok

page 2

6/29/2007 3:12:43 AM

Quote :

"Ethanol is a dream....a dumb one "

6/29/2007 3:19:49 AM

^^

^ Yes.

6/29/2007 3:48:36 AM

I paid over $4/gal for milk, and it was Wal-Mart's brand

7/2/2007 11:27:18 PM

Quote :

"Oh for chrissakes. I'll eat whatever damn meat I please. Who the hell are you to dictate to me what is "so much meat"? Hippie."

Hey, I actually didn't dictate anything. I'm saying that humans aren't evolutionarily equipped to eat as much meat as middle to upper class westerners eat, which is around twice per day and probably averages out to more like 2.5 times per day. Then, we couple that with the fact that the meat is unnaturally high in fat (the "bad kinds" of fat rather than the omega-3 fats that they would be full of if the animals were grass-fed). Then, you couple THAT with the fact that we eat too much meat AND not enough vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.

Who am I to tell you what is too much? Nobody, but all the food scientists, nutritionists, biologists, and anthropologists in the entire world agree with me. Well, technically, I agree with them

And anyway, I'm saying what we SHOULD do. I don't even follow my own advice enough. I rarely eat meat every day - usually once every other day - but even that is more than it should be. I do usually eat organic chicken rather than beef, and when I do eat beef, it's grass fed if possible. I like the taste better anyway, but I like a good veggie dish way better than any meat dish nowadays.

7/2/2007 11:54:49 PM

^ So, by your logic, when we eat meat we should gorge ourselves on it. Maybe 3 20oz steaks for dinner...

7/3/2007 1:46:35 AM

ethanol vehicles are WAY less fuel efficient than they would be on gasoline, and the ethanol is nowhere near cheap enough to offset it and be economically viable...not to mention the somewhat more insidious costs in food prices, etc.

in addition, there are a very small number of E85 pumps in America (which is both a cause and effect of the other economic, technical, and logistical problems).

what ethanol DOES have in its favor is that it is a very high octane fuel. For example, my old college roommate, who now lives in Wichita and happens to be located about a mile from an E85 pump (they're not really even commonplace even in Wichita) has a 1969 Chevelle with a heavily warmed-over big block that would otherwise only run on race gasoline, which is ~$6/gallon. He didn't wanna have to pay that (especially at the rate THAT car guzzles fuel!), so he converted it to run on E85. Now it only gets 6 mpg (i'm guessing it probably got about 8 before), but at least the fuel is only ~$2.70ish/gallon. He isn't gonna drive it any furt,her than the local area, so the availability issue isn't that big of a deal.

anyway, i read a good idea for a practical use of the stuff in Car & Driver. Basically, the idea was to build a stronger than normal production passenger vehicle engine, then turbocharge the bejeezus out of it...but with direct injection of E85 from a seperate tank into the combustion chambers to cool the charge and prevent detonation under heavy load. this would allow for far smaller engines to be used, and the majority of the time when you weren't on the gas hard, the turbo wouldn't be spooling up and providing boost (and you wouldn't be injecting alcohol, either), and you'd realize the fuel efficiency of smaller engine. you could even keep compression ratios pretty high and still run lots of boost, although who knows what the best combination of those two variables would be...it would probably be decided by metallurgy and turbocharger technology.

7/3/2007 2:41:07 AM

^
Yes but how does it handle as use for a suicide bombing? Good explosive potential?

The folks over at Jihad Consumer Reports want to know.

7/3/2007 1:14:34 PM

Beer and tequila drinkers may pay the price for ethanol's popularity

Quote :

"This just might call for a new Jimmy Buffett song. The price of drinking could climb as farmers who grow blue agave, the cactuslike plant used for tequila in Mexico, and barley for beer in Germany, switch to corn and other biofuel crops to meet growing demand for ethanol. Prices have already gone up for beer in Germany, and American beer could follow if barley production keeps declining here. 'If the beer companies and malt companies need it to make their products, they're going to have to pay more,' said Kelly Olson, administrator of the Idaho Barley Commission."

http://blog.cleveland.com/earlyedition/2007/06/beer_and_tequila_drinkers_may.html

That tears it--ethanol must die!

7/6/2007 4:03:49 PM

I was very young in my "Ethanol is t3h winz" bandwagon career when I read an article in the Economist about the potential effect its popularity would have on the entire market, not limiting the view to the energy market as I'd done previously. Needless to say, the bandwagon went on without this passenger after that.

I've already felt the price of this in my grocery budget. (Trust me. When you're out there working in the world, this pisses you off really quickly.) I can only imagine how much worse it'd be if it were a widely used fuel. If LoneSnark is correct about our mercantilist policy on ethanol, that would clearly need to change if we didn't want to starve ourselves along with the rest of the world.

That he leaves the blame on Bush's doorstep made me do a double-take.

Ultimately though, food-based and petroleum-based fuels are both ultimately failed ideas.

7/6/2007 9:19:21 PM

what drives me nuts is those fucking Slim Jims are $16-$18 / POUND

i mean you can get FILET MIGNON for less than the unit price of Slim Jims.

i'm like, WTF??

7/9/2007 5:44:56 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/16/AR2007071601845.html

Ethanol push polluting the Chesapeake Bay. Thanks, Ethanol!

In truth, we need more environmental regulations on farming runoff i.e. stream buffers, etc. but increased corn production is exacerbating the problem.

7/17/2007 9:31:22 AM

Might as well join the hate

Higher icecream prices:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/united_states/article2080599.ece

More starving children:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/7345310a-32fb-11dc-a9e8-0000779fd2ac.html

7/17/2007 10:47:32 AM

Renewable energy could 'rape' nature

Quote :

"Ramping up the use of renewable energy would lead to the "rape of nature", meaning nuclear power should be developed instead. So argues noted conservation biologist and climate change researcher Jesse Ausubel in an opinion piece based on his and others' research. Ausubel says the key renewable energy sources, including sun, wind, and biomass, would all require vast amounts of land if developed up to large scale production – unlike nuclear power. That land would be far better left alone, he says. Renewables are 'boutique fuels' says Ausubel, of Rockefeller University in New York, US. 'They look attractive when they are quite small. But if we start producing renewable energy on a large scale, the fallout is going to be horrible.' Instead, Ausubel argues for renewed development of nuclear. 'If we want to minimise the rape of nature, the best energy solution is increased efficiency, natural gas with carbon capture, and nuclear power.'"

Quote :

"Using biofuels to obtain the same amount of energy as a 1000 megawatt nuclear power plant would require 2500 square kilometres of prime Midwestern farm land, Ausubel says. 'We should be sparing land for nature, not using it as pasture for cars and trucks,' he adds. Solar power is much more efficient than biofuel in terms of the area of land used, but it would still require 150 square kilometres of photovoltaic cells to match the energy production of the 1000 MW nuclear plant. In another example, he says meeting the 2005 US electricity demand via wind power alone would need 780,000 square kilometres, an area the size of Texas. Part of the land used in Ausubel's calculations is for storage and transportation: 'Any renewable energy supply needs a massive infrastructure, including steel, metal, pipes, cables, concrete, and access roads.'"

Quote :

"And not everyone disagrees entirely with Ausubel. The land argument is valid, says David Keith, of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. 'I think the argument is crucial and correct and something the environmental community hasn’t wrapped its head around,' Keith says. 'I don’t see any scenario where we won’t have an environmental holocaust from biomass if we rely on it for more than a third of global energy production. But this doesn’t apply to all renewables.' Keith notes that solar power has 10 times the energy density of biomass and its cost is likely to drop as the technology advances. Ausubel thinks he represents a silent majority of scientists concerned about renewables. 'I think I’m saying what many of my colleagues know, but have felt its taboo to say,' he says."

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn12346-renewable-energy-could-rape-nature.html

7/27/2007 10:16:08 PM

Quote :

"This is why while corn as a bulk item has doubled in price, the price of canned corn has only gone up 10%,"

Canned corn is completely different than the type of corn used to feed livestock and make ethanol.

7/27/2007 11:53:21 PM