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Don't pump gas on May 15th
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Originally Posted by christina>you 
Isn't there some kind of new alternative called Ethanol? It's supposed to be included in the Energy Policy Act of 1992 along with biodiesel, electricity, hydrogen, natural gas, and propane.
Ethanol and biodiesel are created from plant material, which means that large areas of land need to be set aside for growing those plants.
That means either reducing the agricultural land and turning it to growing plants for fuel (resulting in less food, thus famine) or turning pristine nature into farmland.
Both are currently happening (though the famine is at the moment prevented by increasing agricultural land by chopping down forests and increasing its output by more artificial fertiliser).
But that's only part of the problem. A study a few years ago discovered that it took more than a gallon of gasoline to produce and ship to the pump a gallon of ethanol or biodiesel. In other words, the system is at the moment counterproductive, nothing but a feelgood measure.
This is due to the vehicles and systems used to run the factories and farms (and the fueltrucks) all running on gas themselves, and those facilities usually being far from the places where the product is consumed due to the high cost of land near cities and the large amounts of land required for the production of "biofuels".
So instead of a 10 acre refinery on the outskirts of town you have a 500 acre production facility a hundred miles away that produces a tenth or so of the fuel.
As people are clearly allowed to attack me but I'm not allowed to defend myself, I no longer post to this site.
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Originally Posted by 'Stein
Again, this is a misconception. While ethanol can be used as a fuel additive instead of gasoline, ethanol is not energy efficient. It takes more energy put in through processing then it produces. In nearly every case, this energy put in comes from fossil fuels.
True alternative sources are an extract from sugarcane (which the U.S. isn't currently looking at because of the problems with Chávez in Brazil (where most sugarcane is grown)). Solar power and wind energy are also good alternatives.
What our country needs as a whole is a grassroots rebellion geared on energy change.
Edit: Hydrogen cells are also an excellent alternative.
Sugarcane doesn't come from Venezuela though (oil does), it comes from Cuba (another country not very popular and for good reasons).
Ethanol btw can be used to drive an engine, but it would need to be a different engine and would have to be far more massive to produce a similar power output than does a gasoline powered engine due to the lower energy content of the product.
I've already addressed the production problems of the stuff, and the reasons why wind, solar, tidal, and hydrogen aren't viable alternatives due to their environmental impact.
And that's not even taking into account the massive areas of land that'd need to be relegated to the wind and solar farms to cover energy needs.
It's been estimated that if we covered Europe with wind turbines at their most efficient spacing and covered the ground between them with solar cells we'd meet at most about 30% of our energy needs, and that would be on a good day with plenty of wind AND sun, days which are quite rare as usually there's either sun OR wind.
As people are clearly allowed to attack me but I'm not allowed to defend myself, I no longer post to this site.
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Originally Posted by christina>you
Yes, that was me that mentioned ethanol. If it's not energy efficient then why is it included in the Energy Policy Act of 1992?
It was also a political statement towards oil producing countries in the middle east that the US wasn't going to be strangled by them, that they were working on ways to reduce their dependency on foreign sources for energy.
And it was required to please the environmentalist lobby into supporting the bill, which bought some required votes in congress.
As people are clearly allowed to attack me but I'm not allowed to defend myself, I no longer post to this site.
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Originally Posted by jwenting
Chavez is in Venezuela, not Brazil.
Sugarcane doesn't come from Venezuela though (oil does), it comes from Cuba (another country not very popular and for good reasons).
Ethanol btw can be used to drive an engine, but it would need to be a different engine and would have to be far more massive to produce a similar power output than does a gasoline powered engine due to the lower energy content of the product.
I've already addressed the production problems of the stuff, and the reasons why wind, solar, tidal, and hydrogen aren't viable alternatives due to their environmental impact.
And that's not even taking into account the massive areas of land that'd need to be relegated to the wind and solar farms to cover energy needs.
It's been estimated that if we covered Europe with wind turbines at their most efficient spacing and covered the ground between them with solar cells we'd meet at most about 30% of our energy needs, and that would be on a good day with plenty of wind AND sun, days which are quite rare as usually there's either sun OR wind.
Now if ya like the help ya could always raise our reputation...
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