Not good news...
...for Goracles and Gaia worshippers, this study shows the cost of going green in renewable energy, as measured in the land area necessary to put up the alternative-energy farms.
The next jab comes when the researcher comes to the conclusion that nuclear power MUST have a place at the table if the carbon footprint of our society is to be lowered.
When you combine this with the obvious engineering numbers from Ethanol, which simply doesn't pencil out due to it's relative inefficiency when compared to gasoline and diesel as a motor fuel, there isn't much news about greening up that is positive for the economy or the common man who contributes to it.
Sure, some will make billions off the Ethanol craze, but I predict that John Q Public won't continue to support this alternative fuel initiative in it's present form, because it offers only a higher-cost alternative to gasoline. The insiders know that the craze is just a new corporate welfare device for agribusiness, but as I mentioned here, it can have unintended consequences besides raising the cost of everything related to food.
The Ethanol boys are directly responsible for a coming disaster in meat pricing, especially beef, because the price of corn has doubled this year.
We're seeing a temporary depression in the price of beef products, but you'd better fill your freezer now, because that price sag is caused by the large ranchers dumping onto the market cattle which they can't afford to feed, to lower the size of their herds. When that lowering is complete, I expect that beef prices will spike at least 20% and maybe 30% above the normal levels, not the current depressed levels, so there will appear to be a 50% price rise by Christmas. Prime Rib will NOT be on many tables this coming holiday season, and next year's BBQ season will be a disaster.
This food pricing issue may even make it near the top as a political issue in next year's races. Both parties have some shame to hide, the (D)onks because they have crammed this global warming hysteria down enough throats to give momentum to questionable strategies such as Ethanol, and the GOP has to take the heat because Bush stampeded the Ethanol giveaway through Congress. If it weren't for this package of tax breaks, protective tariffs and price supports, Ethanol would have had to stand in line for venture capital, but it's legal and financial position is so subsidized now that it is the King Fuel.
One more ha-ha on the Greenies and I'm done.
Ethanol lowers the miles-per-gallon fuel efficiency rating of any vehicle which it powers. That reduction is by 8-15%, in some cases, almost 20%. That's an engineering issue that words cannot gloss over. Just recently, Bush caved to the Greenies and ordered the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) renewed and raised, as a mandatory standard forced on anyone selling vehicles here. With Ethanol, there is virtually no way except "hybridizing" to meet those goals, so what Bush and the Greenies just did was cram another economic disaster down the auto industry's throat. We had one of these in the 70's, when Detroit couldn't produce enough small cars and had to do stupid things to try to meet the CAFE (a Carter invention, wasn't it?), such as cramming lousy diesel engines in big cars, killing off all the muscle cars and giving us worthless shoeboxes like the Chevy Vega and Ford Pinto.
We're gonna go through that all again now, with low-power "hybrid" engines being stuffed into everything with four wheels. Muscle cars will again take the hit, as the Almighty CAFE has to be satisfied, so we will see the tragedy of four and six cylinder Mustangs again.
All of this fiscal and cultural agony is caused by the Greenies and their Gaia-worship. Some method has to be found to end their hegemony over the culture. Thoughts like tree, rope, Greenie come to mind, but until the economy is totally in the dumper, as in the Second Great Depression, such efficient means of ending our misery will probably NOT get put into practice.
The only Green that is beautiful is having some in my wallet at the end of the month. Thanks to the Goracles and the Gaia-worshippers, that is becoming more difficult.
They should know that I take their predation on my income seriously and personally.
The referenced analysis from Mr. Ausubel was a fine academic exercise but it ignores a lot of hard facts on the ground, from public opposition to nuclear power to the difficulty in building a gazillion plants. And I say this as someone who works in the nuclear industry.
If you'd like an entertaining look at the real world of nuclear power on its good days and bad days, see my thriller novel "Rad Decision", available at no cost to readers at http://RadDecision.blogspot.com and in paperback. Endorsed by Stewart Brand, founder of "The Whole Earth Catalog", who's called for a second look at this power source. Reader comments at the homepage have been quite favorable. The intent of Rad Decision - beyond entertainment - is to provide a real world basis for discussing nuclear energy - which has its good and bad points like anything else. Current public discussion on the issue is very isolated from the on-the-ground truth, but there’s also few sources out there to illuminate what the actual conditions are.
Posted by: James Aach | July 26, 2007 at 12:52
I keep getting the nagging feeling that the Greenies' real agenda isn't pollution control, it's about mobility control. They know they'll never be able to make cars illegal per se (such a frontal assault is too obvious), but if they regulate all the practical prime movers out of existence what are you left with? Public transportation, so the lemmings/sheeple can be controlled. For some reason, the thought of people having the individual ability to decide when and where to travel (beyond their ability to self-propel, i.e., walking or biking) scares the crap out of them, nearly as much as the RKBA.
Posted by: Grumpy Old Ham | July 26, 2007 at 14:51
Mr. Aach, the europeans are way ahead of us in dealing with the question of nuclear power. They faced environmental disaster in the late 50's and 60's from acid rain caused by coal-fired generating stations. The scrubber equipment we have now wasn't conceived in those days, and natural gas wasn't an option as the North Sea gas fields hadn't even been found, let alone developed.
Most of the gas used for cooking was either butane or producer gas made from coal.
Europe, led by France, took the bull by the horns and built nuke plants. France built 70 of them in a hurry, then set about developing a system to deal with the high-level waste (the glass-ball system).
Nuke power was NOT politically popular, and since the environment wasn't yet king, there was considerable opposition to the construction of the plants. France dealt with that issue forcefully, arresting and jailing protesters by the hundreds. The average Frenchman wanted the perks of civilization that went with having adequate power in their grid, and they refused to support the anti-nuke demonstrations or demonstrators, dispite the fact that there was a large Socialist party there and a sizeable Communist party, both of which opposed the nuke plants. Most of those leftists COULD see past the end of their noses (unlike ours, which can't), and so the system was built and running quickly, and even to this day provides adequate power, and even some to export to Germany, which lagged in building their nuke plants.
If we followed the French plan, resolved to spend the dollars and politically support nuclear development ACROSS THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM, we could have our civilization and cut warming emissions at the same time.
If we fail to act, as I suspect we will, in the horrible cultural split which dogs our economy AND culture, we will increasingly become irrelevant as a world power, unable to meet the needs of our own people for reliable electric power.
Engineering must ALWAYS transcend politics, for if it fails to do so, we have become nothing but shallow worshippers in the cult of the moment (now Global Warming obeissance).
Posted by: Rivrdog | July 31, 2007 at 18:34