On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 01:25:07AM -0800, Bill Stewart wrote: > > Remember the Synfuel boondoggles under Jimmy Carter? > Cracking otherwise-uneconomical oil shale might have been > a useful technology if the price of oil were $50-100/barrel. > (Meanwhile, we can feel nice and liberal about leaving all this > wonderful supply of irreplaceable industrial hydrocarbons for future > generations.)
Actually, VW has a plant making synfuel out of biomass. And we won't have to wait long before oil is $50-100 a barrel, it's at $35 right now and world oil production will peak this decade. > > >The subsidies for corn ethanol are indicative of the problem with > >interfering in markets: > >-- someone decided "corn good, oil bad!" That's a pretty easy decision to make, eh? Ethanol is renewable, oil isn't. Ethanol doesn't pollute, oil does. Ethanol doesn't require troops in the Middle East, wars, and resultant terror attacks, oil does. Quite simple. > >-- those with a lot of corn, like Archer Daniels, > > sent in their lobbyists to push for this point of view > > Bob Dole, Senator from ADM, Republican protector of free markets. > One reason for corn ethanol instead of sugar ethanol is that that > the US prices for sugar are artificially kept high with import tariffs > (and of course with the Cuba embargo), which is also why soda is > mostly made from corn syrup instead of sugar. > Yes, but importing sugar isn't the answer either. Sugar beets and sorghum grow fine in the US. The best crop, however, is cattails. However, diesels are still a better solution, running on a biodiesel/ethanol mix, perhaps. The main problem is corporate welfare. Farm subsidies and oil subsidies. Until that problem is solved, I don't think we'll see any real solutions, and, unfortunately, the way the world is going, I don't think that will happen in any of our lifetimes. (snip) -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
