On Jul 15, 2007, at 5:16 PM, Michael Foster wrote:
A while back I posed the question if burning corn, or any other
food crop is immoral.
It is utterly immoral and stupid besides, if the following article is
correct:
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/Biofuels/NRRethanol.2005.pdf
It is immoral also because other superior options are available which
don't deplete croplands, don't require petrochemical fertilizers, and
which do consume CO2. An obvious example is biodiesel from algae:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
A hydrogen economy of course only makes sense when abundant renewable
energy supplies are available to make hydrogen and when reliable
cheap means exist to store and transmit it. Hydrogen is no more a
source of energy than is an electric outlet. Somebody has to be on
the other end of the system burning more energy than consumers get
from the system in order to make it work. There are no hydrogen
mines or hydrogen wells. Hydrogen provides no solution to our
present energy problem. A serious national program, on the order of
the WWII arms build up, for conservation, biodiesel, solar and wind
energy development could eliminate US dependence on foreign oil in a
few years.
I don't know if it is true or not that hydrogen and grain based
ethanol were ruses promulgated by big energy companies etc. because
they could not be timely and effective and thus resources thrown at
them must necessarily thwart true progress. It doesn't matter
though if that thwarting
was the intent or not, because that is the effect.
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
