Ethanol is a terrible energy solution, but that won't stop our politicians from promoting it. As long as their corporate masters make money, they're happy. Who cares about the rest of the world, right?
George Bush can take all your money if you say bad things about him, and you can't do anything about it. Welcome to America, fucker!
Torture and rape make for good common ground with our new friend Libya.
6 comments:
first, let me point out that the word verification thing had me spell "crzwbot," which to me is pretty obviouslly "crazy robot."
second, just because you read about this in rolling stone doesn't mean it's true and that you're required to spit out some hate on ethanol. Can you believe that this article isn't entirely true? While much of it is true, the writer doesn't mention the massive debate over the actual energy balance and no one can decide on a number. The writer, strangely, also doesn't mention why ethanol is purported to be more green than gasoline, even though he does mention why it isn't. Everyone in the industry knows these aren't true. What they do know (or think they know) is that the carbon savings come from the fact that plants turn CO2 into O2 while alive and only when burned do they release the CO2. I think it's supposed to even out or something.
Personally, I don't think ethanol as it stands right now is very useful, but it does give us the option of exploring cellulosic ethanol, however farfetched the writer would like to believe it is. I also think ethanol's another excuse to doll out big farm subsidies even while Brazil makes ethanol out of sugarcane at a fraction of the price.
But if I had no prior knowledge of the subject and saw this blog post, do you think I'm going to give two shits what one Rolling Stone article says? Nope.
My primary objection to ethanol is that it is a giant corporate welfare program. Our corn subsidy policies are insane for a number of reasons, environmental and economic among them.
I hadn't ever considered the (at least partial) offset of plants capturing carbon dioxide while they're alive. That's interesting, and certainly undermines the credibility of the article.
And what about the "crazy robot" adspar? You didn't even bother to mention that in your response.
Of all the potential alternative energy generation techniques around, I think that ethanol is winning out so big for the reason you mention: farm subsidies. For politicians, it solves two problems at once. Of course, being a politician, they don't really have to think, so they don't bother about actually figuring out if the decisions they make are good ones.
actually, more like 4 problems:
energy dependence, environmental damage, domestic workforce, and farm industry
energy dependence - there's still huge fossil fuel input into growing corn, and we couldn't possibly produce enough ethanol for the amount of energy we consume
environmental damage - industrial corn production does a great deal of environmental damage. for example, there's a "dead zone" in the gulf of mexico the size of new jersey because of pesticide and fertilizer run-off that drains into the gulf.
domestic workforce - more sustainable farming practices and alternative energy schemes (wind, solar) could probably employ just as many people or more
farm industry - certainly helps fatten the already very fat cats
"Agree" x 4
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