Excellent. Some of his conclusions are a little surprising (regarding cellulosic ethanol, for example), but the arguments are well-supported and should spark needed debate. Well worth a careful read. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Elan.
Joel At 11:17 PM 1/18/09 -0500, you wrote: >See http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2009/january7/power-010709.html >for the whole article that the excerpt below is pulled from, and also >links on the right side of the page to a video discussion and the entire >50-page journal article. > > > >"The best ways to improve energy security, mitigate global warming and >reduce the number of deaths caused by air pollution are blowing in the >wind and rippling in the water, not growing on prairies or glowing inside >nuclear power plants, says Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and >environmental engineering at Stanford. > >"And "clean coal," which involves capturing carbon emissions and >sequestering them in the earth, is not clean at all, he asserts. > >"Jacobson has conducted the first quantitative, scientific evaluation of >the proposed, major, energy-related solutions by assessing not only their >potential for delivering energy for electricity and vehicles, but also >their impacts on global warming, human health, energy security, water >supply, space requirements, wildlife, water pollution, reliability and >sustainability. His findings indicate that the options that are getting >the most attention are between 25 to 1,000 times more polluting than the >best available options. The paper with his findings will be published in >the next issue of Energy and Environmental Science but is available online >now. Jacobson is also director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at >Stanford. > >" 'The energy alternatives that are good are not the ones that people have >been talking about the most. And some options that have been proposed are >just downright awful," Jacobson said. "Ethanol-based biofuels will >actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land >use than current fossil fuels." He added that ethanol may also emit more >global-warming pollutants than fossil fuels, according to the latest >scientific studies. > >"The raw energy sources that Jacobson found to be the most promising are, >in order, wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), >geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and >hydroelectric. He recommends against nuclear, coal with carbon capture and >sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, which is made of >prairie grass. In fact, he found cellulosic ethanol was worse than corn >ethanol because it results in more air pollution, requires more land to >produce and causes more damage to wildlife... > > >--- >The village-residents list is a discussion list for Ecovillage residents. >See http://intertoad.ev.ithaca.ny.us:88/whichlist.html >-- >Elan Shapiro >Sustainable Tompkins Community Partnership Coordinator >Sustainable Living Associates, Principal >Frog's Way B&B >211 Rachel Carson Way >Ithaca, NY 14850 >607-275-0249 607-592-8402 Cell > >"We must be the change we want to see in the world" > Mohandas Gandhi >_______________________________________________ >For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, >please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ > >RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: >[email protected] >http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins >Questions about the list? ask [email protected] >free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
