Monday, September 25, 2006
E85
In this month's issue of IEEE's Spectrum magazine (I'm a nerd) in an article entitled "Stricter U.S. Gas Standards Stalled," I read this: "E85 is more expensive than gasoline, it provides inferior fuel efficiency, and it yields little if any reduction in greenhouse gas emissions." The article goes on to quote Reg Modlin, director of environmental and energy planning for DaimlerChryselr Corp., saying, "'there is currently little customer demand' for E85 vehicles." No kidding? People aren't demanding cars that run worse on more expensive fuel that is just as bad for the environment and can't be found at most gas stations? I wholeheartedly agree that we need to find an alternative to gasoline and petroleum products, especially in automobiles. However, it does not appear that E85 is a good solution, and I cannot believe that it has so many proponents. The article quotes people blaming Congress for not passing incentives and forcing infrastructure for the general lack of interest in E85. Usually I agree with anyone saying Congress isn't doing their job. In this case, however, I'm thankful that Congress hasn't stupidly signed away tax dollars to something that doesn't sound like its going to help us much anyway. My solution to the oil issue? Nuclear power, especially fusion. If we spent as much money on that as we do researching other alternative fuels we could probably come up with some pretty good ways to keep it safe. And with nuclear energy the power is so cheap that an electric car becomes economically feasible. That's environmentally and economically friendly.
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5 comments:
Here is a serious question: Why do we need an alternative? Why can't we just drastically reduce our use - individually and corporately?
I would agree with the first commenter that conservation should be the #1 energy priority.
One of the difficulties in looking to our energy future is that we really don't understand our energypresent. You might find http://RadDecision.blogspot.com interesting if you'd like to understand what goes on in a nuclear power plant. I've worked in one over twenty years.
J Morgan, we need an alternative because fossil fuels
1.) Will not last forever
2.) Are bad for the environment and people in how they are obtained, how they are refined, and how they are consumed.
Conservation is certainly not a bad thing, but it isn't a long term solution. More and more technology is becoming more and more involved in our lives, and although those technologies are increasingly energy efficient, there is still a net increase in the energy demand. Gasoline, although the center of the E85 debate, is hardly the most essential fuel we need to abandon. We need a cheap, clean alternative to power consumption in general. Coal burning power plants are more of a problem, and have the potential to continue being so longer, than gasoline guzzling automobiles. Conservation may be practical when it comes to driving, and it may be idealistic when it comes to power consumption in general, although not very realistic (sorry I didn't blog last night, I used my daily power allotment to cook dinner). But, unless we forsake man-made electricity altogether we are going to need an alternative sooner or later simply because the fossil fuels will disappear. That may be a long time from now, it may not. But there are plenty of economic, social, political, and environmental reasons to abandon fossil fuels as soon as possible. So why wait?
"More and more technology is becoming more and more involved in our lives, and although those technologies are increasingly energy efficient, there is still a net increase in the energy demand."
I think where you and I disagree is that you seem to indicate that this is inevitable. I think no such thing.
To clarify, I am all for finding an alternative to fossil fuel, but I am not for doing so in order to keep us on an ever-increasing consumption trajectory. I agree that fossil fuels are bad, but the idea that the problem is just in our source and not in our use is absurd.
The real motivation for getting rid of fossil fuels is to allow for unchecked consumption, which is unacceptable to me. The primary problem is that we view consumption as a right and are unwilling to consume less. The secondary problem is that the sources of energy that power what we need are pretty terrible sources.
We just need to get our priorities straight.
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