Discussion Board

The foolish environmental movement allowed itself to be used in this ethanol folly. Showing who little they investigate some of the ideas they espouse.

On the heels of the MTBE disaster they gave us ethanol.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... llwell.DTL

How ignorant do you have to be, to not see the obvious consequences of widespread use of such food for fuel ideas.

The only way I'd feel like supporting this is if Coca-Cola stopped making soda and became an ethanol company...

It'd be a slightly better use for all of that corn.

Why the name-calling, Purdy? The "foolish environmental movement"? Smear tactics are impolite and are not persuasive to reasonable people. And they're misleading.

For example, the Environmental Defense Fund issued a report warning that expansion of biofuels production could accelerate depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer. http://www.edf.org/documents/7011_Poten ... ansion.pdf

Honestly, many environmental activists think that corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel don't make sense, but Archer Daniels Midland, the largest US producer of ethanol, is presumably for it. Most of the enthusiasm for the currently available biofuels was stoked by PR flacks, like those hired by the National Corn Growers Association and the Renewable Fuels Association. http://www.prwatch.org/node/6667

I do see a bright future for biofuels, mainly from agricultural wastes and microalgae. There's even a method called pyrolysis that yields not only a liquid fuel but a charcoal residue that can be used as a soil amendment that improves soil productivity and sequesters carbon indefinitely.

http://dels.nas.edu/banr/gates1/docs/mt ... oalgae.pdf
http://www.energybulletin.net/29250.html

Yes, yes, I know, on this topic, I a grouchy old curmudgeon, but it think its healthy for a "health" board to have one realist.....to combat all the media "green" brainwashing we see. Endless autos running on restaurant drippings.......etc. Someone running their I-Pod on solar......
Some of those reporters need a good swat on the side of their heads.



Most of the leadership of the environmental groups are religious types leading religious movement. They are like the Catholic Church where despite the science, they are wed to their religious beliefs...

Examples........ Here in California they dragged their heels for decades, insisting on pure 100% electric cars be part of the laws........They refused to support or allow hybred vehicles to become part of the equation to meet California clean air guidelines.......
Finally after 20 years they relented when they saw that their 100% electric vehicles were not practical and that the public wanted hybreds.

You may not live in California but the environmental religious types were ALL for the requirement that MTBE be put into the gas, despite the warnings from many who knew better. Turned out to be the most massive infusion of pollution into the ground water in the history of the state. It will be decades before it is cured at huge expense.
And the truth was that the leaking gasoline tanks in OLD gas stations were NOT a problem since the leakage was biodegraded in the soil. But the environmental dupes were fooled an mislead by their own religious zeal to not allow a drop of gasoline to hit the pure soils....
Not they take a similar stance against intelligent tree thinning, instead favoring God's plan of fire.

In our forests, their religious zeal fights battle after battle, through the courts for decades against any real thinning of our overgrown forests. They instead allow, do nothing, little projects on limited acres to be thinned in expensive manners......
So what happens every summer, hundreds of thousands of acres burn because they havent' been allowed for the excess trees to be thinned.
The religious environmental crowd has commandment that says "thinning bad"....."fire good"....... Rather than allow substantial thinning, supported by regulated profitable companies, they instead allow for "clear cutting" via massive hot fires, which take all the tiny trees as well as all the old growth trees.

Then, even worse, and one can visit the proof in our forests, the religious environmentalist, like the once proud Sierra Club, don't even allow for the removal of the dead, still standing, lumber. Instead they allow it to rot, greatly increasing the destructive beetle infestations in the adjacent forests.
Its there religious insistence that their dogma be followed regardless of what it does to the forests or to the publics access to the forests.

Another example here in California. They fought long and hard to close off hundreds of thousands of acres of forests under the "wilderness act".
In that law, the Sierra Club purists, insisted on NO mechanical vehicles be allowed... Healthy young people on foot with backpacks...OK....wealthy people on horses....OK.........But if a guy like me wants to take a bicycle 10 miles into the very secluded forest, they declare I am ruining nature with my "mechanical" vehicle. They say it will crow the trails and endanger others. Despite that you can often ride for 8 hours only meeting other hikers once or twice in that 8 hour time.
But NO, these religious nuts would rather no humans other than their very fit types be allowed in their forests...
That I have a foot problem that doesn't allow for long hikes, makes no difference to these elitists.

The want purity in everything..... Pure electric........pure forests........pure logging, via fire, with no roads.....
And they want pure solutions to our energy problems.
So they come up with their absurd ideas that wind and solar are gonna ever ever do the job......24/7 x 365......even when the sun don't shine and the wind don't blow....... Pure absurdity......all the while the entire planet is building coal powered electric plants at the rate of 100+ per year.

Foolish religious nuts. Even their biofuel ideas are all tied up in purity.
You speak about theoretical ideas that have never been tried on a commercial scale outside a pointy headed lab.
"I do see a bright future for biofuels, mainly from agricultural wastes and microalgae and switchgrass"...........sheesh........ Show me one field of switchgrass that has ever been converted to power.
Show me even on town of 1,000 people that has proven these ideas will do anything.

NO......what most of the environmental movement have done is to "force" the world to burn more and more and more coal because their religious zeal won't accept any half way measures any more than they would accept hybrid vehicles in California.

The first rule of their organizations is the survival of their organizations and the way they do that is to appeal to their dues paying members who are every bit as deluded as the leaders.

So yes........... thats why I knock a organization like the Sierra Club which used to be great, but which has been taken over by extreme religious nuts ignoring key factors that are ruining the environment.

Reality is reality. The production of greenhouse gases is not just growing, it is accelerating rapidly. That religious environmental nuts keep deluding the public with chatter of real "reductions" is the height of absurdity, given that they won't even consider so many of the true viable alternatives because they don't comply with their purist religious outlook on the environment.

So thats why I've become sick and tired of the so-called environmental organizations, especially those in Ground Zero of the movement here in Northern California. So many misguided policies that are backfiring on their purported goals.
They are blinded by their own dogma.

If we were allowed to gain oil from our own lands, such as the citizens of Alaska support, we might not be paying $4.00 per gallon for gas today.
But despite the feelings of Alaska natives, the environmental types insist on NO drilling in places where 99.99 percent of American will never walk.
And just east of the San Francisco Bay Area,,, no more windmills because birds are getting killed by the blades.......and no offshore windmills from the Kennedy compound because environmental nuts like Joseph Kennedy can see the structures from their 20 million dollar family compound.

"So don't drill here, don't build there, get your biodiesel from the pooh of Smokey the Bear"

The real problem with most environmental types is "SCALE"
They simply do NOT understand "SCALE".
Any crazy idea will work in a lab or in a subsidized program that supplies 100 homes, but when you "scale" it up to 5 million or 25 million homes it falls on its face.
OK........thats all for now...

I'd love to see any of your great ideas being done on even a scale that can power a town of 10,000 folks... Why don't they do one example and then come back and show us the living example of how it works rather than how its might work.
Meanwhile gasoline will climb to $6 or $8 per gallon while the Kennedy compound enjoys a great unobstructed view.

A person can be a realist and even a grouchy curmudgeon without indulging in name-calling, ad hominem attacks, and straw-man arguments. You undermine your credibility, and degrade the value of the forum, by indulging in these tactics.

Well, I actually think its refreshing to get at least one person questioning the media induced trance that passes for logic in the environmental set, and commonly found in vegan/vegetarian circles when it comes to alternative energy and global warming.
To a GREAT extent these groups have been drinking the Kool-Aid far too long without asking hard questions.

So look at my posts as a refreshing balance to a otherwise fully biased opinion set.

What I find refreshing is short, clear, civil, well-reasoned expository prose, with reference citations as necessary, telling me something that I didn't already know or making me rethink something I thought I knew.

Most of the environmentalists I know personally have degrees in science (many of them master's or PhD degrees) and are very logical, as well as very polite. I also know some people whose concern for the environment is motivated by their spiritual beliefs, but I would never criticize them for that. I find that such persons are often hungry for scientific information, when it is presented clearly and not in a patronizing way.

If you want to criticize the media hype, you should be criticizing the PR industry and the owners of the media (who set the editorial policies), not the environmental movement. Some useful resources in that regard are Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (www.fair.org), PR Watch (www.PRWatch.org) and CounterPunch (www.counterpunch.org).

Oh not I completely disagree and I think you do not understand what I am saying.

When I refer to the religious NUTs in the environmental movement I am not talking about those who are "spirtual" about it. Rather I am talking about those who are "religous" in their zeal about what they is gonna turn around the problem.
IN fact, many of the people I call "religious" nuts are in fact the very environmentalists you cite "have degrees in science (many of them master's or PhD degrees) and are very logical,"
They are the very ones I am talking about rather than the spiritual types.
The spiritual types don't disturb me at all. I rather admire them.
No, its the logical pseudo scientific types who cause all the problems.
They sit with each other and tell each other how their "lab" solutions wills solve the world's energy problems "if only" someone will just build a massive scale of their tiny lab solution.
The go around telling everyone they could power the earth if they could just have a section of land about 5% the size of New Mexico........
Or if they could just place 450,000 windmills in South Dakota...
Or if they could just "sequester" the CO2 from coal plants down some dark hole or on the bottom of the ocean.......
Or if they could just put wave machines off the coasts.
Or if they could just use "switch grass" to make ethanol
Or if they could just.........Well you know, the list is endless

Yes a endless list of how they could make more energy then we would ever need, and all clean and non-earth warming.........if ONLY the powers that be would just put their plan in place...

To which I always ask your logical PhD types.........Uh, could you show me one place on earth where your great idea is producing significant power year round such that a modern society can live on it....
Just one place...... Just one large scale operation........

And when you reduce it to that......all the ultra scientific type environmentalists.....suddenly are at a loss to show a practical implementation of their planet saving idea.

I'm not saying some day one of these ideas won't bear fruit, but the "religious" nuts I speak of think its only a matter of implementation and that we already have a viable alternative to carbon and nuclear based power production.
We don't.........unless you want to triple the cost of energy.......and have it be unreliable.

Thats the "religious" nuts I refer to.
They populate most environmental organizations and they promote foolish PR in most of the media leading to distortions in the public's mind about energy alternatives.
Thats why we find so many foolish people thinking solar is the answer for more than a few percent of our power needs.
Environmental organizations lead the public to think solar could supply 30 , 40 or 50% of our needs.... A totally foolish idea over the next 25 years.
And equally foolish politicians piggy back on the distortions hoping to gain votes in the short term.

Meanwhile, gasoline goes to $4.25 here and the mantra of environmental crowd is NO NUKES..... Remember Chernobyl

Just yesterday I had a 36 year old man supporting a candidate for re-election to our state legislature. He assured me the incumbant was against nuclear power and was he, because he's read about the dangers.
I asked him where there has been a problem in the USA......
OH well, he wasn't sure about that but cited the horrors of Chernobyl

I asked him if there was anything unusual about the Chernobyl plant.
No, nothing he could think of....but it was scary and and dangerous and he didn't want anything like that.
I asked him further if he knew of any feature of the Chernobyl plant that was different than our plants.
Not that he was aware of...
I asked him if he knew what a "containment" building was.....
No, he was not aware of that term nor that Chernobyl did not have one.
But he assured me nuclear power was dangerous.

This 36 year old environmentalist was so very typical.. Knowing nothing at all about the issue but very zealous about his position.

Hopefully a few more environmentalist will inform the public about the difference between Chernobyl and the dozens of plants in France..
Sadly that 36 year old man wasn't even curious........his mind was already made up.....
He was in the clouds......flying softly over his windmills........
Not realizing his own refrigerator was running on nuclear power 5.5 hours every day for the past 30 years.

Interesting article on alternative energy, especially regarding build-out and operation costs.

Now I am thought by most of the resident "enviro" types to be Mr. Negative, but its because I usually think in terms like this article addresses.

I think this article is pointing directly at the major flaws in what normally passes for logic in most of the energy discussions among enviromental organizations and their zealous members..

Namely ....

Because of the very long lead times required to transform our liquid-fuel based infrastructure, for example, into one that runs on electricity, undertaking such a conversion while oil or other fossil fuel supplies are declining could be very challenging indeed. The alternatives may not expand quickly enough to make up for the energy being lost.

Things like switching an entire power network from one fuel to another are massive. Even ethanol, stupid to begin with, has a enormous problem in how it gets transported.

Now, I do question certain parts of the article. Yes I do think oil production cannot grow to meet the currently growing demand in the developing worlds......new giants......China, India, Brazil.......while continuing to send prior amounts to the USA etc...

And missed by most is how the pricing structure works... Supply and demand in a limited output market can be vicious. If you have 100 gallons of supply and only 97 gallons of demand....a price may be $1.00
but if you have 101 gallons of demand and that same 100 gallons of supply those extra 4 gallons of demand can push the price from $1.00 to $5.00.
Just think how much people would be willing to pay for air if it was in limited in supply.
Yes, the supply demand pricing curves are very critical when supply and demand get even a bit out of balance.

Now, I don't quite agree on several other points, except in the short term. Regarding oil. IF the price were to remain at $130 or more per barrel, then "given time" the tar sands of Canada and the like will be greatly exploited, BUT not without considerable environmental consequences......since it takes a huge amount of energy to get those barrels of oil out. Probably would make that oil, put out 50% to 100% extra CO2 per gallon of fuel derived and burned. Very dirty but the proven reserves are huge. Certainly with oil at $200 per barrel and a decade of development, those sources would be very large.

I also do not agree that coal would run short by "peaking" in 2025, however it is the worst possible fuel from many points of view. Carbon, radiation, mercury etc etc....... A terrible route and I don't believe for one minute they are ever gonna sequester the filth underground "clean coal"...... A pipe dream.

One major flaw in the article I believe is the amount of carbon based energy needed to produce nuclear power.... They talk on and on about all the mining and the fuel required for uranium.
Its as though they have overlooked reprocessing of the fuel. That feature multiplies supplies many times over and is being done in France more and more... BTW, this greatly limits the waste.
There is even newer nuclear technology that suggests it is possible to create reactors which will make their own fuel.. a nearly endless supply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

Still I do agree getting that electric power to run all the autos is no easy fix even over 25 or more years.


Now, here is a very important part of the article...
The short term transition problems. What is so terrible now is that we are wasting natural gas in the production of electricity. Natural gas is so ideally suited for transportation use. It requires almost no change at all in our autos and delivery systems and burns cleaner.
I have heard more than one wise person suggest if we could just stop using our natural gas for electric production and substitute nuclear power, then we could add all that natural gas to autos and trucks.
That portion is a easy fix. Any car or truck, not even new ones, can be converted at low cost and everyone has natural gas in their own homes.

But like here in California, we are building all new natural gas powered electric plants. Using a mobile fuel in a fixed location. A waste of mobility.

So that is one potential solution in----during the transition phase...

OK........I'm not going to go on and on... Suffice to say, so many of the reality issues this guy raises in the article, are nowhere to be found in the heads of the environmental "easy solutions" talking points.
They have brainwashed the public into thinking solar will solve everything and they hate anyone who ruins their Polly Anna outlook.

Wave machines.......switchgrass.........and endless foolishness.

Power is expensive. It may double in real terms over the next 10 years.
The sooner we address realistic solutions the better.

Very few environmental groups are willing to be realistic. They have a problem with almost every solution, from dams, to nuclear, to windmills.
They want miracle solar.......
Well, perhaps a few McDougallers can do that since they don't need to keep ice cream solid over night when the sun isn't out.

Too bad at the very moment of transition we had 8 years of the dumbest president in history. Then again, it took a bipartisan congress to pass the idiotic ethanol bill (energy bill).

What do I expect in the next 20 years. More coal........lots more coal to be burned all over the world. India and China are ramping up coal powered plants at a unprecedented rate that seems to totally be missed by the Polly Anna environmental crowd. They point to their CFL bulbs and proclaim "solution".......
They point to nuclear and proclaim "radiation">............foolishly ignoring that thousands and thousands of tones of radiation being released by all the coal powered electric plants........tons and tons and tons.....
So many times the radiation ever ever released by all the nuclear plants in history.......going up the smokestacks of the coal plants every year...

In short, they are totally ignorant of that fact.

Hands up for solar.........99 of 100 people in the room raise their hand...
Little realizing they'll have about 10% of their power needs met.

OK.......fun........

I like most people did not know that coal fired power releases radiation until I found Purdy's posts. Purdy, your not a gnarly old curmudgeon. Your just a guy who's fed up.