"The jury is still out on whether alcohol is any greener than gasoline."

See my post here. I list seven different FACTUAL, quantitatively verifiable reasons that ethanol crushes gasoline when it comes to the environment.

http://tinyurl.com/b2xo52

"There is no question at all that conservation through low consumption engines is greener."

Completely false. Conservation is an extremely weak strategy that at the very best can only slow down, not even halt, the galloping growth in world oil demand.

Instead of eking out a few more miles from a tankful of filthy, OPEC-overpriced, extremism-funding gasoline, a far wiser strategy is to SWITCH fuels to one that is clean-burning, price-stable, and with no ties to terrorism.

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We have had enough of glittery eyed certainty. Come up with "clean-burning, price-stable, and with no ties to terrorism." and you will have followers. Unfortunately it does not exist despite people who like to pretend it does. Immediate and serious revision of CAFE standards alone would get us out of the middle east quickly, allowing us time to work on converting the rest of of our energy systems to something more sustainable and to look for something better than the corrupt, ethanol boondoggle for transportation.

There is not going to be a holy grail here. Solutions are going to be multifaceted and complex. To call conservation weak when it is powerful enough to disconnect us from pipelines in Afghanistan and trillions of dollars and countless lives lost in subsidies to the oil companies is not very smart. To weigh in against conservation on a thread about a 600 HP automobile is even less so. Are you in agribusiness or just duped by it?

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Alcohol isn't a holy grail of perfection.

There are trade-offs. Key among which is the inconvenience of fewer miles per gallon, and the necessity of more frequent fill ups (unless the vehicle has bigger fuel tanks).

Also, methanol produced from coal, or from natural gas that is pursued and captured for its own sake (rather than flared off as an unwanted byproduct of remote oil exploration) is NOT carbon neutral.

Finally, alcohol fuel is only price competitive with oil at about the $50 / barrel level, whereas the Saudis' all-inclusive cost (according to their own oil minister in a public 1999 speech) is $1.50 a barrel, creating a danger of OPEC being able to drown alcohol in its crib by flooding the market and collapsing the price of oil for long enough to regain its monopoly power.

Nothing's perfect, but alcohol is by far the most inexpensive, easy to implement, ready NOW not in the sweet by-and-by, alternative fuel available that is also "backward compatible" to ease the transition.

It doesn't take "glittery eyed certainty", implying terrorist style fanaticism, to become frustrated at the huge clouds of ignorance, inertia, quackery, and confusion, not to mention occasional mendacity and malice, that has gotten in between public and policymakers' ability to tell an effective solution from distracting time-wasters.

The solution has been staring us in the face for 20 years, since the late 1980s, but as George Orwell wrote, to see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle.

Did you read the link I provided?

The problem with conservation is that while imposing real and significant costs (R&D, safety, performance, expense) on consumers, it does not reduce oil consumption or even freeze it. At best, if that, it only slows the GROWTH of oil consumption.

That's not a recipe for victory, just defeat on somewhat less crushing terms.

Even assuming that we can reduce consumption, OPEC can just cut production accordingly to bring prices right back up, retain its disgusting looting of the world (which is a viciously regressive tax on the world's poorest - it's one thing to pay $100 a barrel when you make $40,00 a year, what about those who make $4000 a year?) and continue funding world chaos.

Furthermore, under your already-tried, already-failed scheme we remain stuck with cars that are UNNECESSARILY locked in to one kind of liquid fuel only.

In whose interest is it that cars NOT be flex fueled? Why should we NOT mandate that all cars that can burn gasoline have a $100 modification enabling them to burn alternative fuels as well?

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It is obvious from your comments elsewhere here that your first priority is to preserve automobiles with 500 + horsepower engines in a country with 70 mph speed limits for the entertainment valuw. In order to do that you are willing to ignore all the good analysis showing that alcohol is a bad deal in the net energy balance, cost, and the impossibility (not enough land and water) to make a significant impact on the energy question. Thus the glittery eyed reference to "true believers".

Alcohol is not a solution now and is not a long term solution. It looked like it might for a while until people actually started analyzing it. There are inadequate supplies now and they will continue to be inadequate and that is not even factoring in the cost of wearing out agricultural resources, a green issue that is constantly ignored. Incidentally, one study said there was not enough agricultural land in the US to produce alcohol just to replace the middle eastern part of our oil imports.

Your assertion about conservation is so astoundingly illogical that one would expect an explanation, but actually I am thankful not to deal with it. You might want to look deep down inside and decide whether your need to have hot cars like you have always known is compromising your ability to see clearly the crisis and crossroad in front of us. Which will you choose, the lady or the tiger?

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win39 wrote: "It is obvious from your comments elsewhere here that your first priority is to preserve automobiles with 500 + horsepower engines in a country with 70 mph speed limits for the entertainment valuw."

It's true I dislike judgmental eco Puritanism. I urge such people to find a pleasure in life other than self-punishment and the desire to punish others.

I might tolerate it if it were necessary, although I'd still dislike those types who get their kicks from it.

However it is NOT necessary given the alcohol alternative. It's incredible how this 800 pound gorilla can sit smack in the middle of the same small room with any given person but so many will crane their necks around, turn around to face the corner, shut their eyes, do anything to not see, so great is their addiction to the emotional satisfaction of judgmental eco-Puritanism and bossing others around and denying them pleasure.

A glance at my other posts on this blog (just click my handle) will show that I have strong environmental, national security, and prosperity motivations for my alcohol advocacy, and no my job has nothing to do with it.

"In order to do that you are willing to ignore all the good analysis showing that alcohol is a bad deal in the net energy balance, cost, and the impossibility (not enough land and water) to make a significant impact on the energy question."

Quite, quite wrong. Alcohol has been decisively and permanently proven to have massive favorable energy balance in production. Even your fellow alcohol-opponent, "snark", has conceded this point.

As for availability of farmland and such, see here:


http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/in-defense-of-biofuels

'Thus the glittery eyed reference to "true believers". '

That's what you're reminding me of. Evidence-proof; none so blind as he who WILL not see.

"Incidentally, one study said there was not enough agricultural land in the US to produce alcohol just to replace the middle eastern part of our oil imports."

There's plenty of land (see link above), but the tons of extra crops we'd have to grow would probably be too great, yes. But that's a good thing; it means we'd have all the business our farmers could handle, plus more left over to give the desperately poor in the Third World a piece of the action of global economic development. Furthermore methanol is a key and usually carefully ignored part of the mix - it can be made from plentiful and cheap coal and natural gas, as well as ANY biomass without exception - including crop residues (thus multiplying alcohol yields of ethanol farmers), weeds such as kudzu and water hyacinths, sawdust, otherwise environmental problematic "black liquor" from paper mills, rice bran, grass clippings, raked leaves, trash, even sewage.

"Your assertion about conservation is so astoundingly illogical that one would expect an explanation, but actually I am thankful not to deal with it."

I realize that the idea that conservation doesn't reduce energy usage is counter-intuitive, but it's true.

Between 1979 and 1990 CAFÉ standards increased fuel efficiency from 13MPG to 20MPG, a big achievement. But in that time US gasoline usage went up from 89 billion gallons per year to 103 billion gallons. And the CAFE achievements til 1990 were the low hanging fruit; no matter how politicians and enviros threaten and scream, physics and reality get in the way. To achieve more we'd have to have small, weak, slow, frail and dangerous cars.

Not that that would help either. Auto sales have doubled in China between 2001 and 2003 and doubled again by 2007. They are going to keep doubling. In the US 800 of every thousand people own cars. In China it's only 8 cars per thousand. There are a LOT more cars coming.

And again, even if we DID somehow defy reality and reduce overall consumption rather than make it grow VERY fast rather than LUDICROUSLY fast, OPEC could just very simply reduce production to match, keep up prices and income, and we accomplish nothing for our pains.

That's why SWITCHING FUELS to something clean, renewable, price-stable, and non-enemy-funding is so important.

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What a sour, pursed-lipped killjoy attitude.

Maybe some people who have the means enjoy the exhilaration and thrill of a powerful engine.

Let go of judgmental eco-Puritanism. If you're burning a clean renewable fuel and can afford the car, what's the harm?

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Given what's at stake (our future on the planet), I think some eco-Puritanism is appropriate. Why is VW/Bentley wasting time and effort on this puerile toy?

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Again, if you're burning a clean renewable fuel and can afford the car, what's the harm?

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Because it is a huge waste of time and resources that should be spent on high mpg/ev vehicles! Geez, we're in a huge crisis, economically and ecologically. Do you read even one newspaper?

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Again, you're trapped in a gasoline only mentality, where MPGs matter. With a renewable and clean fuel, MPGs are far less relevant, if at all. Try to grasp this: I know it's like someone who's been locked in a tiny constricting cage not realizing that he can swing his limbs freely.

As for electrics, they are just not ready for prime time yet. Either they are laughable little weenie eco-toys, or they are priced far above normal incomes (and still small and impractical even then). I welcome their progress, but we shouldn't wait for them to become ready in order to free ourselves from oil.

The short to mid term solution is alcohol fuels.

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Even if all you say is true, which I would argue (e.g., what effect would massive ethanol product have on food prices?), wasting time, energy, and $$ on this monster is idiotic at best.

There's a whole lot more that the 1st world is going to have to give up over the next 50 years than penis problem toys like this. Get used to down-sizing, not Biggie Fries.

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I mis-posted my most recent reply.

It can be found at:

http://tinyurl.com/ac778w

(give it a second to load; it'll seem at first like it goes to the top of the article page)

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Actually ethanol is quite green.

Flex fuel cars were invented by a dedicated environmentalist, Roberta Nichols, who was seeking to solve the smog problem over Los Angeles as part of her work for the California Energy Commission, and were championed by the environmental movement in the 80s and 90s.

I'm not sure why people soured on alcohol fuel, perhaps when the corn ethanol lobby seized the alcohol spotlight away from methanol. I know that Midwestern white corn farmers are terminally uncool, not like hip Silicon Valley solar and battery tech geeks, but let go of prejudice. Plants cool the planet, and flex fuel vehicles are the affordable, practical, ready-now alternative to move us away from oil and toward a clean-burning, biodegradable, safe for the air and water fuel.

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This has nothing to do with partisan politics, and Bentley is a British company anyway; nothing to do with US Republicans. Try not to display knee-jerk reactions.

Furthermore ethanol is far better for global warming reasons than gasoline.

All ethanol is derived from plants; therefore the CO2 burning it emits is already in the biosphere, already part of the carbon cycle; it would have ended up in the atmosphere anyway. Thus no net increase in CO2 - the very definition of carbon neutrality.

Which is an ENORMOUS improvement over gasoline and other petroleum products, which take CO2 that had been sequestered underground far below the biosphere forever (in practical terms), suck it up to the surface, process it and burn it into the atmosphere. This is CO2 that had NOT been part of the biosphere since prehistoric times (when of course the Earth was MUCH warmer). Thus throwing it into the atmosphere is adding new, extra CO2 that would not otherwise have been there, adding more net CO2 and thus more greenhouse gas.

Therefore, switching from gasoline to ethanol involves moving from a world in which we are relentlessly dumping more CO2 every year into the atmosphere much closer to one in which CO2 levels (at least those affected by humans) are stable.

Understand now?

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