Ethanol hits a wall.

I didn't see much about this on the American news sites. I guess they consider it trivia, and not newsworthy. However, the EPA has reduced the mandated amount of Ethanol that must be used in our gasoline next year. Now, predictably the environmentalists are hopping up and down shouting that the Obama administration has sold out to big oil. While they seem to have sold out to big Corn, but that is irrelevant to them.

I have posted many times about my opposition to ethanol, a program that would not exist if the Iowa Caucus' were not the first damn thing we do in the primary series. You can't win in Iowa without ethanol support, that is a proven fact. And if you don't win Iowa, it puts you behind the curve in securing your parties nomination, and that my friends means you don't get to be President.

So what is this wall? Is it that the Ethanol damages the engines? There is probably some of that, but the biggest thing is this, competing requirements. As has been posted on many other sites, but is worth reposting, the BTU equivalent of Ethanol is not the same as Gasoline.

OK, I hate using terms that people don't understand, or that mean nothing to them. So we're going to have to explain something here. BTU is a British Thermal Unit. In other words, how much potential energy is contained in the gallon of gasoline and ethanol.

So the BTU rating of straight gasoline is roughly speaking 114,000. With ten percent ethanol it drops to below 112,000. So you see that there is less energy in the ethanol blend than there is in the straight gasoline right? So what does that mean to you? It means you have to burn MORE gasoline/ethanol mix to get the same energy. You have to burn 1.019 gallons of gasoline/ethanol mix to get the same energy as a gallon of gasoline. Now, I've never figured out how you lower carbon dioxide emissions by burning more of one thing, than another, but we'll get to that later.

Pure ethanol has just about 76,000 BTU's of energy in a gallon. So you would have to burn a gallon and a half to get the same energy as a gallon of gasoline. Again, burning more helps reduce the production of CO2? It seems sort of counter intuitive at the minimum.

So where is the real problem? We have mandated higher mileages for cars called the CAFE standards. These standards say that you must make an average of all the vehicles your company makes, and it must be over a certain number. So how do you hit that higher number when you are reducing the available energy in the gasoline? You obviously can't, not with existing technology.

That is another thing that always makes me laugh. The CAFE standards are raised arbitrarily, and then the car makers ask how, and the Government says invent the technology to make it happen, but also add in a lot of safety equipment that is very heavy. Airbags weight a few pounds, crumple zones mean you have to change the way the metal is set up, and it takes more metal to do it. Side impact resistance, also mandated, and tested, means even more metal. So you have to have a lot of metal, but you aren't allowed as much energy to make the metal move.

Then there is the obvious issue. A bigger car is just safer. It has more metal, which means more mass to absorb the impact of a crash.

 

It is such obvious common sense, I have to wonder how the hell the EPA stumbled onto it.



New Taxes to make Green reality

The UN is calling on a Billion dollars in new taxes to continue to fund the transition away from Carbon Fuels and towards Green technology. In other words, all the money we're pouring into it already, and it's still not commercially viable.

On another site, I explained the history of trans ocean shipping to explain how and why older less efficient systems are no longer in use. Not because they were dirty, or dangerous, but because it was cheaper, and more PROFITABLE to use the newer systems.

First Man used oars, and then a combination of oars and wind to move his boat across the waters. This gave way to tall sailing ships, the square rigged ships of lore and legend. The days of Wooden Ships and Iron Men. Man switched to this system because it was possible to go much farther with a smaller crew than the oarsmen allowed. Wooden ships continued to get larger, more heavily armed, more heavily armored, and faster. However, the limitation they faced was wind. Revolutions appeared from time to time, style of sail, style of rigging, changes in the type of sails. However, the basic truth of their limitations was obvious. When there was no wind, there was no movement. If the wind opposed the ship, they were relegated to tacking into the wind, days were spent trying to go a few miles upwind.

Then coal fired steam engines were adapted to ship designs, and the first powered ships were invented. These had huge advantages in speed, and maneuverability. No longer were they limited by the wind, but by how much coal they could carry, and how fast they could shovel it into the fire. The old sailing ships were still around, but growing fewer and fewer in number as ship owners cast them aside in favor of powered transportation. It was economic, you could complete a distance faster, with fewer delays, with coal than you could with the power of wind alone.

By World War I, Coal fired ships were giving way to the new technology. This was oil fired boilers. These boilers took an hour or so to light, but once lit, were easy to maintain, with fewer workers, and far more powerful and reliable than coal fired ships.

By the time World War II came about, the standard was these oil fired ships, but there was a new energy source on the horizon. Diesel. Submarines and smaller ships used Diesel engines to power them through the water. Diesel Submarines were essentially our only real offensive arm after Pearl Harbor in the Pacific. These Submarines powered by these engines were able to range from Hawaii to Japan, stay on station for a month or so, and then return clear across the Pacific again for more supplies.

After the War, Oil and Diesel were both used, as Diesel wasn't suitable yet for large oceangoing ships, like the Air Craft Carriers. We wanted bigger ships, but the Oil Fired Boilers just weren't capable of handling it. Then, we discovered Nuclear, and the size of our ships was no longer limited by how much oil we could carry. Submarines could sail underwater indefinitely, limited only by the crews and their need for food and eventual maintenance.

Today, most large ships are powered by either Diesel engines, or Jet Turbine type engines, as well as the standard Nuclear Power for military vessels. Today's modern ships use giant Diesel engines, that are more efficient and powerful than anything in our history for commercial shipping. It's amazing when you see how large these engines really are. One of the largest, the Emma Maersk is also one of the most efficient. They channel the exhaust through radiators, transferring the heat to steam turbines, which provide additional electrical power to the ship. They use silicon based paint to decrease drag.

In other words, that ship combines all we currently know about building large ocean crossing ships to operate with maximum efficiency. Notice there are no solar panels, or silly little wind turbines. This is a working ship, meant to move a heck of a lot of cargo as quickly as possible, while keeping costs as low as possible per trip.

Now, you want to replace Diesel, because it's dirty, and creates Carbon Dioxide. Here is your challenge. Make the new system as reliable as Diesel, and make it as efficient as Diesel. Now, make it MORE efficient and cheaper to run than Diesel is for ships, and you've licked the Green power problem.

Yet, the greenies can't manage to get to that part. They come up with complicated electric driven systems, that are quasi reliable, in the short term. They take up more space, and still require Diesel as a generator back up for when the sun isn't shining, or the wind isn't blowing.

So what are our options? Fuel Cells? Perhaps, but they're more expensive and Hydrogen is a little tricky to store, and oh yeah, it's just not available in large quantities that a ship would need at every port it's liable to arrive at. That it's extremely flammable is well known, as everyone knows the story of the Hindenburg. One little spark and the whole ship could well blow up much the same way.

So are the Greenies coming up with technology that is cheaper and more efficient? The answer is no, the systems they're coming up with are more expensive, far more expensive, and far less efficient. Ethanol for example, is actually not helping burn much less gasoline at all. You burn more as you get worse mileage from the Ethanol blend, so you have to buy more gasoline/ethanol. That means that we're burning a tiny bit less gasoline, but we're turning our food into fuel, which is asinine no matter how you try to explain it. I would like to be here in two hundred years when school kids are learning about that folly. I would really like some of these ethanol fanatics to explain to the future why we were starving people all over the world, so we could feel good about our gasoline.

Ethanol has to have subsidies, which means that the Federal Government pays the makers to get the Ethanol. In other words, if they weren't paid money from the Federal Government, your Gasoline would be about six bucks a gallon to include the mandated ethanol. Is it better yet?

Well at least we reduced those nasty greenhouse gases. We have to do this to save the planet the Greenies say. Yes, we reduced those greenhouse gases 1/19th of 1%. Yes, you read that right. We reduced Greenhouse gasses by .19% and it only cost us $7 billion in 2005.

So they can't make a more efficient system, and they can't make a more reliable system, and they can't make a cheaper system. So the answer is to make the current systems more expensive with those new taxes, thus driving the costs up artificially, to make the newer less efficient systems seem competitive. In other words, they have to LIE to make Green a reality with the current technology.

Why the world is doomed Part Three

Politically driven Science. No matter where you look in history, you can find politically, or superstision driven science. From tribes throwing virgins into Volcanos to prevent their eruption to slaughtering cats to get rid of the evil spirits that were causing the plague. It isn't just ancient history either. A hundred years ago, the theory of Eugenics was widely accepted by scientists in most every nation. Today, this theory is more or less discredited, but like all scientific theories, it isn't far from a comeback.

Today one of the politically driven science examples is Environmentalism. It really began with Silent Spring and the banning of DDT. That the science behind Silent Spring was questionable, and the impact is obvious with nearly a million deaths from Malaria every year. But the "science" of Environmentalism was off and running, and effecting our lives via the Political implications.

Global Cooling became Global Warming which in turn became Global Climate Change. The problem with this science is that the reality, the facts, never meet the projections. When there is a news story that says the facts are NOT meeting the estimates, it is very difficult to find. Yet even when more data keeps coming in saying that Global Warming is NOT happening at anything near the projections, the press continues to harp the Global Warming IS happening meme. A month after that report came out the Press, even on Fox News was talking about how bad Hurricane Irene was and why it proved Global Warming was happening.

Global Warming believers have taken the science, and turned it into a Religion. Religions promise a better future, often while you are dead, for behaving a certain way. For Global Warming, that promise is "sustainability". This is where we are in balance with the earth and do not take from it more than we absolutely must.

The problem is that the believers legislate fixes to the environment. If you challenge the fixes, instead of heretic, you are called a Denier. Ethanol. That is the process of turning food into a less efficient less powerful gasoline substitute. No politician with dreams of national office can oppose Ethanol. The first primary is held in Iowa, and no one who has opposed Ethanol need apply, they won't win. If you have a history of voting against Ethanol, don't bother showing up. When you lose the first one, you are behind the curve, and an underdog. Your chances are very slim that you will be able to pull a win out of the primaries. All because of Ethanol and the junk science that says it works fine as a way to extend gasoline. We dare not challenge it, because we will pay in the primary.

The political left creates lists of those who deny that Global Warming is happening, and campaign to get those people fired from their jobs for the crime of being a heretic. We shall not discuss the data, we shall not discuss the facts. We shall punish those who deny the rightness of the science. We shall punish those who question the wisdom of the science.

If the actual results don't match the promised doom and gloom, don't worry it will come, just a little later than we estimated, and it will be way worse than we promised before.

Mankind likes to think they have all the answers. In reality, we barely understand the question. But that's not about to stop Politically driven science. Think about it. Oat Bran was good for your heart, and then a few years later another study said it didn't do squat. Wine good for you, bad for you, good for you. Every other year, it's good for you. In between, bad again. I've lost track of all the scientific theories that have been promoted, and then discredited quietly.

Politically driven science will be the death of many more over the next generations. I only hope the future is wiser than the present, or the past. Because right now, I'd say we were doomed.

Feeling pretty good about starving people around the world

I admit it, hell I'm proud of it. I'm feeling damn good about starving people around the world. So they starve, that's just tough folks. I'm with the rest of the civilized world, the so called first world, in saying to you folks starving, to hell with you. We've got to have Ethanol in our fuel, and if that means you don't have anything to eat, that the estimated 852 Million people that are now hungry, may even double in the next couple years, and in fact the only chink in my armor to make me feel less good is that it may not work.

The researchers said that farmers under economic pressure to produce biofuels will increasingly "plow up more forest or grasslands," releasing much of the carbon formerly stored in plants and soils through decomposition or fires. Globally, more grasslands and forests will be converted to growing the crops to replace the loss of grains when U.S. farmers convert land to biofuels, the study said.

Now, this is obviously contrary to our stated goal of stopping global warming. I'm here to propose a ban on new farm land production. In other words, I want the UN to prohibit the production of new farm land. We must prevent the plowing up of our sacred forest and jungles to make more land to farm corn and grains to save our planet. Damn it, we environmentalists just don't give a damn if someone somewhere is starving because food isn't able to be produced. We've never cared, and we're not about to care now.

When we were warned about this problem, a year ago, and we didn't care then. Damn it, we're trying to save the earth from a non existent global warming issue. Look we've got the coldest winter on record in some areas. More snow than the biggest year of records, 1966. In fact, now we're looking at a new problem, a new ice age where tens of thousands of people might be cold if we don't change to ethanol.

For you, the nearly billion or so people who are starving, we the rest of the world say to you, tough. We've got to do something to change the planet. We can't keep being part of the problem, like you all, hopelessly consuming food and producing carbon dioxide. Why do you have any idea of your carbon foot print when you consider the ships, trucks, and workers who bring the food to you?

This is part of our new environmentalist message. Tough Love. We love to act like we care, and if our polices once enacted harm someone, tough.

Corporate Taxes, or Truth about High Taxes

First, it must be understood that the Tax Code isn't written to collect Taxes, it's written to control the population.

Now, what do I mean about that. There are literally more pages in the Tax Code than the Bible.

Now all those pages are loopholes that someone put in to help a friend, or contributor. Now, when you consider that the Democratic Party has had control of Congress a vast majority of the time, you are left with the obvious problem, that this Tax code was designed by Democrats the same way the Unions were, to keep Democrats in power.

Now, what got me started on this was a post at Democratic Underground, where there is only one approved subject matter, supporting Democrats, regarding Bernie Sanders, Senator, (Socialist).

This post referenced a list that Bernie had put out, on Ten Corporations that had paid no taxes.

Now what is interesting, is that the facts are not even brushed over. Just the blast that Exxon got $19 Billion in Profits, and a Rebate from the IRS for $156 Million.

Now, how did Exxon do this? Unlike you and me and other "Regular" people. Exxon hires a bunch of Attorneys to go over each line of the Tax Code with the singular desire to save the company money. They shift money to qualify for this break, or that loophole. Now, these are the same pages of the law, almost all of it written by Democrats, that the Democratic Supporters are now screaming is unfair. As an example, if you put Solar Panels on your roof, you qualify for a Green Energy tax credit. If you change the insulation, or if you build a headquarters with Green Energy policies, you get another credit. If you use all these silly little do nothing but make you feel good things to combat Global Warming, you get credits.

Wait, there's more. By brewing Ethanol, that is to say, turning our food into gasoline, in accordance with Federal Law on the matter, you are then qualifying for subsidies to make sure that the Average Consumer doesn't know that Ethanol is more expensive to make and less useful than Gasoline.

So by wisely choosing to take advantage of all these tax breaks, and all these credits. Exxon invested in green energy, and approved programs. They instituted a Diversity Awareness program, EEOC, and every other mandated, and encouraged program out there. They put up information about carpool opportunities, and qualify for another tax break.

Now, each and every one of those dollars is taxed. When Exxon makes a profit, they pay that profit to stockholders. The stockholders are people like you, and me, who are trying to invest in our future and set money aside for our retirement. We make dividends on those earnings, and we report them to the Government, and we pay taxes on those dividends. It's called Capital Gains taxes.

So all the histrionics from the Libs is both predictable, and deplorable. First they write the laws to benefit their campaign cronies, and then they denounce those same cronies in an effort to stir up the base to cough up even more dough for the re-election campaign. Then they promise more favorable laws to the cronies, to get more campaign contributions from them.

The cronies know they have to be denounced from time to time to make the dumb voters turn out and vote Democratic. They accept this as a price of doing business. The only ones who are really being played are you Democrat supporters who think that anyone in Washington cares about what you're shouting about. They are the ones who wrote those laws. Most you approved of to help save the planet and green energy this and that. Now, you're angry because rich people are using those same laws that you wanted to save the planet to pay less in taxes.

The laws are on the books, the companies are merely serving you, and me, in finding as many opportunities to save money, as possible. If the Government put as much effort in saving money, then we wouldn't have a trillion dollar a year deficit. Instead, the Government puts that much effort into finding new ways to SPEND money they don't have, instead of saving the money they do have.

I believe the phrase here is, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Incandescent Lightbulb Ban

Rush Limbaugh likes to say that Liberals are only ever judged by their intentions, never by the results of their actions. On the other side of that coin, Conservatives are always judged by the offense someone else takes at them, their success, their words taken out of context or whatever. Liberals, listen up, I love the ban on Incandescent Light bulbs. I honestly do love it.

Now, for the Liberals who might read this, they are wondering why I love it. Is it because like all Conservatives I want to poison the air and water? Is it because the Compact Florescent Bulbs they mandated do in fact contain Mercury, enough that should one break in my house it is by Federal Law technically an Hazardous Material Accident requiring a very expensive clean up? Is it because of this Mercury that is in my bulb, even if it doesn't break will be thrown away in a landfill, and eventually contaminate the water? Or perhaps it will be incinerated and then the Mercury Vapor will poison the air? Perhaps it is the joy that we tricked the Liberals into helping us poison the air and water with the notional goal of saving a few cents worth of electricity?

I got to thinking about this when I read the Hot Air piece on the Incandescent Bulb Ban. I wonder how long before Hollywood starts a movie, where Conservatives sneak undercover operatives into Environmental groups to trick them into supporting the Compact Florescent Bulb all so we could poison the air and water.

Perhaps that is the answer. Perhaps we have slipped undercover operatives into these groups to poison the air and water and to kill as many people as possible. I mean, we turn our food into gasoline via Ethanol. This leads to hundreds of thousands of deaths from starvation every year. We banned DDT which we know has led to millions of deaths from Malaria. We mandated a light bulb that poisons our ground water and air which will result in millions of deaths. Oh, I just realized, New York City dumps their garbage off shore on big barges. That means that the CFL's are dumping Toxic amounts of mercury into the fragile sea.

So why do I love the ban on normal incandescent light bulbs and the mandated use of a toxic bulb? Since I'm conservative, I'll let you all decide. The Liberals will decide it is whatever reason I mentioned, or didn't, that offends them. That's fine, they wouldn't read or consider anything I actually wrote anyway.

As for the rest of you in the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy. Remember, the plan is to force the Liberals into mandating the Chevrolet Suburban to protect the children. Remember to keep quoting the statistics of children surviving accidents in the Suburban. For the Women's rights gang, the statistics of a woman surviving with minimal injuries in a larger vehicle are much better. Make up whatever statistics you want, Liberals aren't smart enough to figure it out. I know, that's insulting. But hey, they mandated a product that poisons the air and water. Which is what we've been trying to do for centuries.