21
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.
3
POPSOrganic Waste Ethanol Cellulosic ethanol is an exciting technology which promises to convert the abundant sources of organic waste worldwide (kitchen waste, yard waste, paper industry waste, etc.) into green alternative fuel. Unlike traditional ethanol, it won't use food crops or raise food prices. In addition, environmental impact studies have indicated that while traditional ethanol releases more greenhouse gases than burning fossil fuels, cellulosic ethanol could reduce emissions
10
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.
3
POPSUnderstanding Government Subsidies There are many people who will rally behind "socialized" oil, but read on: Hidden Oil Subsidies The real price of gasoline is what people actually pay for it, not just what they pay for it at the pump. That might seem subtle, but there's a big difference. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think-thank, did a study on the subject. What they found is simply mind-boggling. They calculated that the US spent between $30 to $60 billion (with a 'b') a year safeguarding oil supplies in the Middle East during the 1990s, even though its imports from that region totaled only about $10 billion a year during that period. A more comprehensive study that includes the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and other oil protection services (the coast guard is clearing shipping lanes and doing navigational support to oil tankers, etc) shows that actual subsidies to Big Oil are between $78 to $158 billion (again, with a 'b') per year.
3
POPSCapping Our Economy & Trading Our Jobs To China&Co. 219-212 HOUSE PASSES 'GLOBAL WARMING' LEGISLATION... 'BILL OF THE CENTURY' VOTED ON UNREAD... Boehner Tried 'Filibuster'... 300 PAGE DUMP AT 3AM-- REPUBLICANS CRY FOUL... One of the biggest compromises involved the near total elimination of an administration plan to sell pollution permits and raise more than $600 billion over a decade " money to finance continuation of a middle class tax cut. About 85 percent of the permits are to be given away rather than sold in a ceoncession to energy companies and their allies in the House " and even that is uncertain to survive in the Senate. The final bill also contained concessions to satisfy farm-state lawmakers, ethanol producers, hydroelectric advocates, the nuclear industry and others, some of them so late that they were not made public until 3 a.m. on Friday. Supporters and opponents agreed the result would be higher energy costs but disagreed vigorously on the impact on consumers.
1
POPSSo when will the famine happen? The nation's second largest ethanol maker took corn from farmers, went bankrupt without paying many of them, and a whole lot of family farms are going to be foreclosed upon in short order if something isn't done.
4
POPS The Ethanol Bubble Bursts In Iowa
To meet this political demand, VeraSun, Pacific Ethanol, Aventine Renewable Energy and others rushed to build ethanol mills. The industry produced just four billion gallons of ethanol in 2005, so it had to add a lot of capacity in a short period of time. Three years ago, ethanol producers made $2.30 per gallon. But with the global economic slowdown, along with a glut of ethanol on the market, by the end of 2008 ethanol producers were making a mere 25 cents per gallon. That drop forced Dyersville and other facilities to be shuttered. The industry cut more than 20% of its capacity in a few months last year. What's more, as ethanol producers sucked in a vast amount of corn, prices of milk, eggs and other foods soared. The price of corn shot up, as did the price of products from animals -- chickens and cows -- that eat feed corn. Texas Gov. Rick Perry reacted by standing with the cattlemen in his state to ask the Environmental Protection Agency last year to suspend part of
6
POPSEthanol's Thirst Is Growing "This is one more nail in the coffin for ethanol," says David Pimentel of Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY, whose own studies have shown that ethanol requires more energy to produce than it releases when burned, and that the fertilizer used to grow corn for ethanol has contributed significantly to dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico (areas of the ocean with low oxygen content due to increases in chemicals in the water).
3
POPSObama gives biofuels the big thumbs up
On the surface this may seem like a good idea, but the mandate to, by 2022, have up to 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol counted toward the 36 billion gallon biofuel production level will only worsen its effect on food production. We’re at 6-9 billion gallons of corn ethanol now and with all the havoc that has wreaked on agriculture worldwide, the concept of almost tripling that amount over the next 20-odd years is terrifying. What may yet save us is the fact that it will likely prove a simply impossible standard to meet. And the fact that the administration’s rationale for expanding the use of biofuels continues to be the misplaced desire “to reduce our dependence on foreign oil” is just ludicrous. Addressing climate change WILL reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But simply reducing dependence on foreign oil won’t save the planet—only zeroing out our carbon emissions will do that. So energy policy in this country must be seen through that one, single lens.
3
POPSCorn Ethanol Will Not Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions How many of us knew this? What a waste of time and money when they both could have been put to a much better avenue for energy independence. How about the increase in beef, chicken and egg prices at the grocery stores? DUD!
9
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."
3
POPSCongress, Laws, and Unintended Consequences First - good for the paper companies. Congress writes the law and give away our tax money - they found a way to use it. Even though the thrust of this article is some ecoWeenie whining about it. But doesn't this give you complete confidence that the crap these Congrescritters have already whooped through without even reading it? Trillions in our money being thrown away to who knows what kind of activities.
2
POPSObama's Energy Policy Will Increase Dependence On Foreign Oil Why isn’t there outrage, if not rioting in the street, over this oil and biofuel policy of the Obama administration? Is it because the domestic oil industry -- what little is left after Jimmy Carter -- is cowering in the corner in fear, waiting for the coup de grace? The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the only national organization representing the domestic oil industry. Jack Gerard, the President and CEO, has never worked in the oil industry. He came to the API from the American Chemistry Council last year. He has been in Washington since 1981. The API runs expensive television advertisements telling the public that everything will be fine in the future. Everything is not going to be fine in the future under President Obama’s biofuel and oil policy. President Obama’s biofuel and oil policy is on a collision course to a national catastrophe. Among a great many other critical problems, it will cause an increase in our dependence on foreign oil.
1
Pops
Newest Clips
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Print
Save
Turn on live update