I'm mad. The Oil Drum linked to two articles about how Senator Obama is helping push fuel alternatives such as ethanol and is in fact forming a Senate Coal-to-Liquids Caucus. This is the worst thing we could possibly do to fight global warming and wean ourselves off of oil.
The Fischer-Tropsch process used for converting coal to liquid fuel by some estimates emits as much as twice the amount of carbon as the equivalent amount of petroleum fuels. This is stupid, especially for someone who is supposed to be progressive and a friend to the environment.
I still have hope for Obama, but he is clearly uninformed about energy and the environment. Biofuels are not the answer -- we can't come anywhere close to meeting our energy "needs" and we are rapidly reducing our ability to produce food due to its competition for farmland. Coal-to-Liquids is not the answer -- if we switch to coal, we will have far, far less than a "250-year supply" and we condemn our planet to rapid climate destruction. Energy ignorance is clearly not party-specific...
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amen...
pretty amazing, isn't it? It's a difficult thing to see...
CTL scares the be-freaking-Jeebus out of me.
PG
With all the Global Warming
news and mainstream acceptance last year, I'm shocked that the Democrats' apparent solution is a technology that is twice as bad for CO2 as the one we're replacing!
I've learned a lot about the reality behind CTL and other supposed miracle energy solutions from your site. I just wish more in congress read The Oil Drum.
Face it...
We are surrounded by idiots. Corn-based ethanol is a stupid idea. I mean, it belongs in the all-time stupid ideas hall of fame. Corn is an ecological nightmare, requiring the consumption of massive amounts of fuel, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides...Runoff of these chemicals into waterways causes devastating alterations in the ecosystem. Corn has a shallow root-system that doesn't hold soil. This speeds erosion of topsoil. It's a nutrient sucker so it depletes soil and requires chemical assistance...
Jesus chocolate-covered Christ - I don't need to make this rant here - everyone here is relatively sane, and that isn't what I intended to say anyway - I am stopping by all the science blogs and reminding the hosts and readers to contact the House Energy Committee and encourage them to allow the Energy Dept. to shift $500 Million to cover the funding shortfalls for NASA and research in the physical sciences that are a result of the feckless 109th congress funding the government on continuing resolutions instead of doing their damned jobs and passing a freakin' budget.
And your site isn't recognizing my blogspot URL, so here is a link to my site. I have a link list of all house and senate committees on the left hand side, to make contacting your congress-critters easy.
Now watch - I linked by hand and the site will recognize my URL since I went to the trouble...What'll you bet?
We're Not Facing an Energy Crisis
fossil fuels = easy life
We're facing a quality of life crisis. Until Europe and most of North American learns to live with less, far less, they’ll be dependant on cheep, abundant energy regardless of its impact on the environment.
The masses are not addicted to oil, they’re addicted to coziness. Many people who rule others are addicted to money and power. Addictions usually lead to undesirable and sometimes unconscionable behavior.
Oil, Smoke and Mirrors
The last fundamental stage in human evolution is for all of us to acquire the ability to address our primal urges in a rational manner. Care to lay odds on which will happen first? Completing the last fundamental stage of human evolution or sucking dry every last ounce of fossil fuel from the ground.
Hence, websites like these.
How About a Briefing?
Seriously, can we get in front of the Senator (he's from my state after all) and give him a briefing on why this is not a good idea. He will ask, as anyone would, what are the alternatives. There aren't many so far as I can tell from the reading I am doing, and those that exist require a radical rethinking of our fundamental economic paradigm of growth, growth, and more growth.
Others in Congress
are aware -- so it's not totally unreasonable to think Obama and his crew wouldn't be responsive. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (a Republican) formed a Peak Oil Caucus in the House a couple years ago, but I wish he would be a little more active in spreading the word.
It's the Rate of Growth, not Growth Itself
20 years ago it took McDonald’s months to build a new restaurant and today it takes only weeks. Hats off to oil.
I believe there is a viable solution to peak oil, but you can't think in terms of the anti-alternative energy argument you hear most. Opponents to sustainable energy solutions almost always make it an all-or-nothing argument which is we don't have the technology to get 'completely' off of oil. That argument is probably true.
The problem with that argument is that it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. We have enough technology today to dramatically reduce our use of oil thus extending its life. 60 to 80 percent of electricity on the grid could come from wind and solar in 10 years time. Electric car technology has already proven itself. Implementing these two things in the West alone in the next 10 years would add decades of life to existing oil reserves, and potentially postpone peak oil. In doing so we buy ourselves time to develop more technologies to get us even further off oil.
This approach may be something you could take to your Senator.
Sweden believes so strongly in their study that shows getting off oil will not impact their economy that they've set a bold deadline to be completely off oil by 2020 (that's only *13* years away). Sweden Raises The Renewable Energy Bar.
Check out the documentary Oil, Smoke and Mirrors to see how the U.S. is dealing with oil depletion.
Composting Energy
It is probably a case of collective consciousness, but I was just thinking the same thing as Jeff this past weekend. People aren't going to give up their "lifestyles" any day soon. I'm one of those people who is trying to make the switch over to a life with a smaller ecological footprint (mine is already slightly under half of the average American's), but it will take a lot of energy to make the change-over. We really need to start now.
I don't know if we could do it on a large enough scale to be practical, but there are people who are harvesting energy from compost piles. What if some day we lived in houses that were insulated (and heated to some degree) by microorganisms feasting upon our wastes? Imagine stuffing leaves under your gutters and fighting with your neighbors over who has legal right to a tree's leaves as they fall in the autumn. Just an odd and ironic thought.
Microbial Fuel Cells
After making my above comment, I saw a segment on PBS about microbial fuel cells.
Here's some information:
http://www.scq.ubc.ca/?p=241