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POPSLife after oil: time to get ready James Kunstler's trademark pessimism, which, sadly, is probably right on the money. According to the Dept. of Energy, world energy demand now exceeds supply; get ready for a rough ride down the other side of the peak.
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POPSBombing the Moon Gives A New Meaning to Lunatics So how much does a metaphor weigh? A lot more than NASA thinks. The first man on the moon wasn't an American or a Russian, it was The Man in the Moon we all saw when we were kids, and somebody older showed him to us. That's the first man on the moon, her permanent resident, and now he's got a NASA rocket at his backside... They used to call the mentally ill lunatics. But now I wonder who the real lunatics are. And if there is water on the moon, what are we going to do with it? Grow moon-corn for ethanol until we kill the Earth? Such a great article it touched something, it really touched something more beautiful than finding water on the moon.
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POPSSome of Earth's climate troubles should face burial at sea
Strand has devised a formula to measure the carbon-sequestration efficiency of this process and others using crop residues, something no one has done before. Carefully tallying how much carbon would be released during the harvest, transportation and sinking of 30 percent of U.S. crop residues and comparing that to how much carbon could be sequestered, Strand says the process would be 92 percent efficient. That's more efficient than any other use of crop residue he considered, including simply leaving crop residue in the field, which is 14 percent efficient at sequestering carbon, or using crop residue to produce ethanol, which avoids the use fossil fuels, but is only 32 percent efficient. Worldwide, farming is mankind's largest-scale activity. Thirty percent of the world's crop residue represents 600 megatons of carbon that, if sequestered in the deep ocean with 92 percent efficiency, would mean the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be reduced from 4,000 megatons o
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POPSEthanol isn't such a green fuel after all At least not the way we make it here in the U.S., from corn. I know some countries in South America make it from sugar cane and that may be more efficient, but making it from corn isn't green.
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POPSAlcohol Cloud in Deep Space Sorry folks, can't bottle this stuff. Incredible what you find in outer space. Inspired by conversation on my clip about Virgin Galactic .
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POPSWhy bees are important to your wallet The article does not mention the droughts and floods which are increasingly disrupting food production. It could become a question of survival to grow as much as possible yourself and become a vegetarian.
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POPSScum of the earth may save planet The demands of algae are simple: sunlight, warmth, water, nutrients and, most significantly, carbon dioxide, the much maligned gas that is a major contributor to global warming.
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POPSWhat can the budget for the Iraq War buy? Doesn't clip as well as I hoped so visit the website: Remarkable, that it is admitted these days (by generals, former administration appointees, and neocon architects of the war) that the war in Iraq is about controlling oil resources, and look what you could do with the money that we've spent on that fiasco. With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over. TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion. Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over. TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.
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POPSTurning Bacteria into Plastic Factories Cost will be the ultimate factor in whether this someday becomes a widely used plastic-making process; Genomatica says it's not sure how much its E. coli–produced BDO will cost, noting that results thus far have been confined to the lab.
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POPSEthanol: The Fuel To Nowhere Farm belt support for reducing or eliminating the corn ethanol mandate was higher once respondents were informed that two studies, one from Princeton University and another from the University of Minnesota, found that ethanol contributes more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere than does conventional gasoline. It does so, in part, because it encourages the clearing of so-called carbon sinks, such as rain forests, which absorb carbon dioxide, to produce crops for ethanol production. "We shouldn't sacrifice food for fuel, nor should we sacrifice carbon sinks for fuel," said Ridenour. "Ethanol is costing us as taxpayers, it is costing us as consumers, and it is costing us important environmental resources while providing little-to-no benefit for most of us in return. Ethanol is the fuel to nowhere. Like the infamous 'bridge to nowhere' earmark, ethanol mandates mean we all pay enormous costs so a few can benefit."
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POPSGrains Gone Wild With food prices rising quickly and a grain crisis looming, the end of cheap food may indeed be here. From a personal point of view, I know several people near the poverty line who are really feeling the pinch now between oil prices (gas, heating oil, etc) and rising food prices.
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POPSOdds Favor Drunk Trauma Victims A study in the journal American Surgeon finds that trauma victims who were inebriated at the time of their injury have higher survival rates than their sober counterparts.
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POPS'End Of The Ethanol Dream' Astounding TV Commentary Frankly, I'd doubt any American broadcaster would have the nerve to say the following with cameras rolling and microphones switched on Absolutely must-see video available here, transcript follows The ethanol craze grew out of alarmism and the deep desire of governments, especially here in North America and Europe, to be seen as green. Now, it's clear that growing corn to make ethanol not only takes more energy to produce than it saves on the other end, but the subsidies, particularly in the States and Europe, for such production is one of the factors driving an international food crisis that, as always, is hardest on the poorest people of the world. (enthusiastic h/t to NBer Par for the Course) http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/05/02/astounding-tv-commentary-end-ethanol-dream
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POPSBest Use of Grain: Food or Fuel?
"In some U.S. Corn Belt states, ethanol distilleries are taking over the corn supply. In Iowa, a staggering 55 ethanol plants are operating or have been proposed. Iowa State University economist Bob Wisner observes that if all these plants are built, they would use virtually all the corn grown in Iowa. In South Dakota, a top-ten corn-growing state, ethanol distilleries are already claiming over half of the corn harvest." "With so many distilleries being built, livestock and poultry producers fear there may not be enough corn to produce meat, milk, and eggs. " "As the price of oil climbs, it becomes increasingly profitable to convert farm commodities into automotive fuel, either ethanol or biodiesel. In effect, the price of oil becomes the support price for food commodities. Whenever the food value of a commodity drops below its fuel value, the market will convert it into fuel." Geez, the more I learn about ethanol & biodiesel the more I see what a mistake it is for the world.
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POPSGot Corn? This is when other countries realize just how dependant THEY are on the U.S. Europe simply doesn't have the room to plant 90 million acres of corn. Other countries are eagerly placing orders for the bumper crop of U.S. corn. How funny it is that the U.S. is called the scum of the Earth...that is until we have something they want and need. This is also good for alternative plastics like PLA which are made entirely of corn and are environmentally friendly. ; )
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POPSFlower turns animal waste into fuel continues: Duckweed, they discovered, has an appetite for animal waste, quickly converting it to leafy starch that can then be converted into ethanol. The current source for most U.S. ethanol is industrial-scale corn farming, which requires large amounts of toxic pesticides and dead zone-feeding, fuel-intensive fertilizers. When the costs are added up, corn-based ethanol may prove little cleaner than gasoline. Duckweed could help solve both problems at once. "We did small-scale tests in the laboratory to convert duckweed starch to ethanol using the same technologies as the fuel industry currently uses in corn," said Cheng. "With the same technology, we can easily convert it."
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