We’re always being told how bad Eeeevil Oil is for us, for the environment and of course for the pore likkel beasties in the fields.
First off, we have to stop using oil-powered vehicles and start using Duracell-powered cars and trucks (lol) instead. Except that it turns out that electric cars are worse for the environment than gasoline-powered ones (see here for the !SCIENCE!).
So if Teslas and Priuses are doubleplusungood after all, then we need to start using “sustainable” eco-fuels like corn-based ethanol because sustainable. (Even Formula 1 is moving towards using ethanol-only fuel in the next couple of years, the idiots.)
Sounds good, right? Errrr, nazzo fast, Guido. Add this little snippet to the “Solution Is Worse Than The Problem” category:
The US biofuel program is probably killing endangered species and harming the environment in a way that negates its benefits, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is largely ignoring those problems, a new federal lawsuit charges.
The suit alleges the EPA failed to consider impacts on endangered species, as is required by law, when it set new rules that will expand biofuel use nationwide during the next three years, said Brett Hartl, government affairs director with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), which brought the litigation.
Not that we need any further proof that the EPA is to the environment as cancer cells are to the human body, but I digress.
The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set minimum levels of biofuel usage for the transportation sector. The new rule approved by the agency calls for about 15bn gallons (57bn liters) of conventional corn ethanol for each of the next three years, plus an increase from 5.9bn gallons to 7.3bn gallons of advanced biofuels during the same time period.
About 40% of all corn grown in the US is used for ethanol production, and nearly half is used as animal feed.
While the fuels are designed to decarbonize the transportation sector, their production eliminates wetlands and prairie land that act as carbon sinks, Hartl noted. The EPA in 2018 estimated that up to 7m acres (2.8m hectares) of land had been converted to grow corn for ethanol fuel.
Ethanol production also pollutes water. Regulations around pesticides and fertilizers used in corn grown for ethanol fuel are much looser, which means much higher levels of dangerous chemicals run into surface and groundwaters. The pollution probably plays a significant role in dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico after pesticides flow down the Mississippi River, Hartl said.
Read the rest to see how the EPA is ducking and diving to avoid doing anything that might actually, you know, alleviate the problem.
One by one, every single alternative proposed by the Greens (and their lickspittles in academia and the media) is proving to be a complete fiasco: wind- and solar power generation instead of nuclear, electric vehicles (EV) instead of internal combustion engines, and now biofuels instead of gasoline.
But Oh No! we have to preserve the Gaia Cult — even if it kills us (and Gaia).
Fucking bastards.
30 years ago we were using pure ethanol in our race car. ( and IndyCar did for years before that ) Works fine, produces lots of HP. Just a few minor problems.
You need twice as much to produce similar levels of Power. and it was at least twice as expensive
It’s corrosive to your fuel system. Destroys Fuel injectors over short periods of time requiring regular replacement.
It evaporates when exposed to air, and sucks up heat so it becomes difficult to use in the cold weather.
It burns in the open with no visible flame. So the only clue your driver or crew member is on fire is they start violently dancing around and the bodywork starts to melt.
……. but other than those minor issues….
You left out that 99% ethanol (it’s REALLY hard to get it more concentrated than that) soaks up water vapor from ambient air, diluting it down until it reaches equilibrium, further increasing problems and causing corrosion as well.
Years ago when they first mandated the use of ethanol in gasoline, the subsidies they were giving for the production of corn had some immediate effects in my (former) state of MN. As noted in the post it led to the putting into production what had formerly been marginal farm fields that had been left as wildlife habitat, the draining of what would now be called “wetlands” (aka, seasonal swamps), and other things.
You could also see the proliferation of what we called “corn palaces”; the ethanol production facilities that sprouted like unkillable weeds all over southern MN. A drive on Highway 60 from Mankato to Worthington through the heart of farm country shows this. The endless trainloads of tanker cars cars carrying the flammable fluids. Not to mention the consumption of massive quantities of water used in the production of the ethanol.
Last but not least is that if ALL of the energy inputs required to produce ethanol are included in the calculation (often forgotten things like fertilizer and tractor fuel) the energy required to produce it exceeds the amount of energy you get out of it, resulting in a net negative. If the ethanol subsidies, now almost entirely paid to the huge government-dependent agri-businesses like ADM, were removed, ethanol production would instantaneously cease, exactly like “alternative energy” sources like bird-choppers and solar panels would cease to be profitable without their massive subsidies.
Much like the ozone hole scam and glue-ball wormening the whole thing is a giant criminal scheme intended to line the pockets of the would-be elitists with money from the middle-class paying the bills.
Nothing the Environmental movement has proposed since I’ve been paying attention (starting in the. Mid 1970’s) has made a damn bit of sense. Much of the deforestation around the planet is driven by a combination of Progressive obsessions and lack of Capitalistic clear land titles.
Aside; I wouldn’t give a damn, except that the drive for more palm-oil plantations is destroying the habitat of the Orangutans…and I like the orangutans. I like them a damn site better than I like enviroweenies.
Since the ‘70’s ‘sustainable energy’ (or ‘green energy’, alternative energy’, or half a dozen other synonyms) has meant “any source of electrical power that has no chance of being practical”
Want to reduce the amount of plastic trash in the ocean? Re-colonizing Africa and Asia would do one heck of a lot more good than banning plastic straws in the US.
It’s the inevitable next step. After getting gasoline banned (or petrol as the civilised world calls it) they obviously have to ban electric cars and “alternative fuels” as well.
After all, the real purpose isn’t “saving the planet” but ensuring that the unwashed masses stay where they’re put and don’t travel around in ways the government doesn’t monitor and control in minute detail.
The really smart kids call it Benzine.
And yes, the object is to get us all on battery cars with rationed and scheduled recharging, so we’re all in mass transit. Then someone recalculates the battery cars and amazingly concludes that they are the most harmful thing to the environment since fire.
Bye-bye battery cars.
We saw it with the grocery bags. “Save a tree, paper or plastic?” Then too many flimsy plastic bags were blowing around for the cranks, so we now pay ten cents per bag, and someone in the grocery business discovered they could hand out the fancy heavy duty bags for ten cents a pop and make a couple of cents on the deal.
The origins of each are in the same place. Some Enviroloony saw Europe and decided the mass transit was SOoooo nice, they want to play with trains over here, too, or they bought food in a grocery store there and were surprised when their purchases were unceremoniously left at the end of the conveyor belt by the cashier who SAT at her bar code-reading machine all day long.