SOME INTELLIGENT ENVIRONMENTALISM

Direct distillation of ethanol from sugar-cane juice (as in Brazil) is the only practical method of ethanol production. If America can import oil in tankers from Arab countries, why can it not import ethanol in tankers from Australia? Australia has huge areas of under-used tropical cropland

I cringe when the urban newspapers casually say that we can make "lots of our auto fuel" such as ethanol from cornstalks and wheat straw. It ain't so. If we turn the crop stalks into ethanol, we'll have the only problem that could be bigger than an energy shortage--a topsoil shortage. That would throw the First World's societies into the same sort of downward hunger and erosion spiral that bad farming has already forced upon Africa.

The good news is that American farms are fully sustainable for the first time in history--precisely because they're putting their crop residues back on the soil surface in no-till farming systems. The corn stalks and wheat straw form billions of tiny dams on the soil surface, which prevent howling winds and explosive raindrops from carrying soil particles away. The stalks left on the soil surface in no-till farming also guarantee a year-round supply of food for subsoil microbes and earthworms. Thus the subsoil critters proliferate, aerating the soil, and permitting rainfall to sink in, rather than running off. That protects the crop roots from drought, even as it protects the streams from silt and pollution.

In 1999, Hurricane Floyd lashed crop fields in Virginia with up to 19 inches of rain in 24 hours--and without any runoff or erosion on no-till fields. In the highly erodable Loess Hills of the upper Mississippi, soil erosion today is only 6 percent of what it was during the "black blizzards" of the 1930's Dust Bowl days, thanks largely to fertilizer, crop rotation, and low-till farming. If we turn the crop stalks into ethanol, however, it's back to serious erosion problems.

The current energy bill mandates the production of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol per year. That would force America to use 22 percent of its corn crop to supply 4 percent of its auto fuel--without bringing down the price of gasoline. The current subsidy is 51 cents per gallon of ethanol. However, since ethanol contains 15 percent less energy than gasoline, the real subsidy is 77 cents per gallon worth of gasoline.

More to the point, America's farmers sold record amounts of corn last year for corn flakes, tacos, and livestock feed. With both population and incomes rising, world demand for these items will more than double in the next 40 years. The world is already farming one-third of the Earth's land area, including almost all of the land worth planting to crops. If we burn the corn in our cars, what will we and the livestock eat?

In the long run, every gallon of ethanol produced in America is likely to mean more soil erosion if it's made from crop stalks, or more forest cleared if it's made from corn. We could cut the deforestation in half if we made the ethanol from sugarcane, which produces ethanol far more efficiently. But America can't grow sugarcane, except in the Florida Everglades.

Let's face the environmental truth. Humanity at the moment has only two ways to environmentally satisfy our need for cost-effective energy. We can either burn fossil fuels, or burn uranium in nuclear power plants. One produces CO2, the other doesn't. If you believe CO2 causes global warming, you'll want to buy nuclear power. If you doubt the safety of nuclear power plants, then you may want to buy coal-fired electricity. Please, please, however, don't use your vote or voice to support the production of ethanol from crops and crop biomass. That would simply cause more soil erosion and more deforestation across the broad expanse of the Earth--without easing your crunch at the gas pump.

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A CAR THAT MIGHT EVEN PLEASE A GREENIE

But it looks fun so don't bet on it pleasing the Greenies!



Silicon Valley's big brains think they can beat Detroit and Tokyo and save the planet - all while doing 0 to 60 faster than almost anything on the road.

Ian Wright has a car that blows away a Ferrari 360 Spider and a Porsche Carrera GT in drag races, and whose 0-to-60 acceleration time ranks it among the fastest production autos in the world. In fact, it's second only to the French-made Bugatti Veyron, a 1,000-horsepower, 16-cylinder beast that hits 60 mph half a second faster and goes for $1.25 million. The key difference? The Bugatti gets eight miles per gallon. Wright's car? It runs off an electric battery.

Wright, a 50-year-old entrepreneur from New Zealand, thinks his electric car, the X1, can soon be made into a small-production roadster that car fanatics and weekend warriors will happily take home for about $100,000 - a quarter ton of batteries included. He has even launched a startup, called Wrightspeed, to custom-make and sell the cars. But Wright isn't some quixotic loner. He's part of a growing cluster of engineers, startups, and investors, most of them based in Silicon Valley, that believe they can do what major automakers have failed at for decades: Think beyond the golf cart and deliver an electric vehicle (EV) to the mass market.

Indeed, the race for the new consumer EV has already begun: Just a year ago, Wright was working for his Woodside neighbor Martin Eberhard, co-founder of Tesla Motors, a startup that has 70 employees and a major investment from PayPal founder Elon Musk, which is building a mass-market rival to the X1. Wright left, believing he had an even better idea. Beyond that, startups are forming to equip new "plug-in" hybrids that run almost entirely on their electric motors. And around the country, a handful of other exotic EVs are showing up on the road -- including George Clooney's new ride, a $108,000 commuter coupe that's just 3 feet wide.

The more that cars become technology platforms, the more the future plays into the hands of people like Wright and Eberhard. "Automakers can't do this," Eberhard says. "If you drill into the complexity of an electric car, it's not the motor, it's the electronics and battery system, which car companies aren't good at." Adds Musk, "The time is right for a new American car company, and the time is right for electric vehicles, because of advances in batteries and electronics. Where's the skill set for that? In the Valley, not Detroit."

Wright's garage-born heroics are, in many respects, long overdue. After all, electric cars predated the gasoline combustion engine. But they soon headed for museums, replaced by gas engines. A mid-1990s wave of all-electric cars was short-lived -- GM spent more than $1 billion to introduce a short-lived electric vehicle -- and were soon replaced by Toyota's hot-selling hybrid gas-electric Prius.

So how do you build the EV of the future on a six-figure budget when GM couldn't do it with more than $1 billion? For starters, you get all the basic parts off the shelf, starting with a chassis. Wright found one he liked in the Ariel Atom, a blazing-fast custom British roadster. By itself, all the hardware in the X1 is nothing new. The X1's real secret is how Wright engineers it all to keep the car in optimum race mode whenever you hit the accelerator.

Last November, Wright towed the X1 to a racetrack near Sacramento to see how his prototype would do against a Ferrari and a Porsche. On paper, a win seemed guaranteed. But he hadn't yet run the car full out. In the first matchup, the X1 crushed the Ferrari in an eighth-mile sprint and then in the quarter-mile, winning by two car lengths. In the second race, against the $440,000 Porsche, the two cars were even after an eighth of a mile. But as the Porsche driver let out the clutch in a final upshift, his tires briefly lost traction. The X1, blazing along in its software-controlled performance mode, beat the Porsche by half a car length. It never occurred to me that I would lose," says Kim Stuart, the Porsche's driver. "It was like a light switch. He hit the pedal and was gone."

So what now? Wright isn't sure himself. Only 50 or so people have driven the car, and Wright has just begun to hold his hat out for potential investors. With $8 million in funding, he says, he is convinced he can put a consumer version of the X1 into production that meets federal safety standards, has a 100-mile range, and recharges in 4.5 hours. To bring any EV to the masses, of course, will require much improved battery technology. But a handful of startups backed by Valley VCs are claiming that big advances are just around the corner. Menlo Park-based Li-on Cells claims that its technology will double the performance of lithium-ion batteries for about half the cost. Thus, the X1 and the Tesla could be just the things to throw the EV race into high gear. As battery prices drop and performance improves, the cars could come within reach of a wider audience. And if oil prices keep climbing, more and more consumers will demand alternatives that are punchier than a Prius.

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IS THE EU GLACIER BEGINNING TO SLIDE?

True, it needs close reading; and true, it comes from an obscure and mostly powerless institution. But it's possible to detect subtle shifts in the EU's position on the Kyoto Protocol.

In an 'Opinion' of 28 April 2006, on the effects of international agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on the industrial change processes in Europe, the European Economic and Social Committee timidly opens the door for an overhaul of Europe's climate policy, especially its CO2 emission trading system.

The opening sentence is still funny: "Climate change is a unique problem that humanity has never before encountered in modern times." I always figured that climate change is of all times. It is the norm, not the exception. And mankind has coped with it pretty successfully so far. But then the 'Opinion' becomes more serious:

"Further policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must take into account all the economic parameters. If not, those states which have ratified the Kyoto protocol run the risk of having some of their manufacturing move to developed economies which are still hesitating to sign the protocol or to developing countries which are not yet subject to any quota obligations under it. This could result in economic losses and weakened competitiveness, without producing the desired global reduction in emissions."

So true. One can only wonder why nobody thought of it before. And then another pinch of realism:

"There also needs to be a realistic assessment of the will of the Member States of the EU itself to achieve far more ambitious goals of obligatory emissions reductions after 2012 with a view to the Lisbon Strategy and the results so far of measures adopted and implemented."

Surprise, surprise! Is this the beginning of the recognition that there is a gap between the greenhouse gas reduction rhetoric of EU member countries and actual results? It also seems that the EU has finally woken up to the outcome of the G-8 Gleneagles Summit and the Montreal Climate Conference. There it became clear that the major economic powers in the world were not willing to follow the EU's climate policy of cap-and-trade. Nevertheless, the 'Opinion' still makes an obligatory reference to "future negotiations":

"These negotiations must lead in the future to an acceptable way of continuing the process of reducing greenhouse gas emissions after 2012 - one that involves all the economically developed countries and the prime producers of emissions in the developing countries as a whole and especially those where development is rapid."

But subsequently reality sets in:

"Failing this, it will have to be accepted that in 2012 the Kyoto Protocol in its present form will only cover a quarter of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. As it stands now, the Protocol cannot be an effective instrument for addressing the question of global climate in the future and an approach will have to be sought which can seamlessly follow on from it. This must, however, include a rethink [!] of instruments for reducing greenhouse gases, including the EU ETS, both in terms of their real impact on the global volume of greenhouse gas emissions and their cost effectiveness and administrative burden. Steps should be taken immediately to compare the proposals and plans of various groups of countries for long-term reductions in greenhouse gases so that the right decisions can be taken in time. The global community must be involved in solving global problems by political means. It has to be openly admitted, however, that such involvement is not necessarily in the interest of all the big polluters and that, because of their size and geographical location (USA, China), they prefer a unilateral approach. If there is political failure, the EU's continued leading role in climate change issues could weaken the ability to adapt without having any tangible effect on climate change itself."

Again, so true! Again, why did nobody think of it before? And finally another surprise. How often have we heard "the science is settled" and "all scientists agree"? Apparently the EESC is not so sure any more, because it concludes:

"These problems cannot be solved without a far better understanding of both the causes of the phenomenon and the possibilities of reducing the man-made influences involved. Only adequate investment in science and research, monitoring and systematic observation will enable the necessary acceleration in scientific understanding of the real causes of climate change."

The "real causes of climate change"? And we have always been told that .....? Oh my gosh! Is this the beginning of the end?

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A SIGNIFICANT STEP TOWARDS ENERGY RATIONALITY

Facing rising energy prices and political pressure to act, the House Appropriations Committee voted Wednesday to end a 23-year-old ban on natural gas exploration in federal coastal waters, the first step in what would represent a major change in how the nation treats its coast. By a vote of 37 to 25, with all four Floridians voting no, the committee passed an amendment to exempt natural gas drilling from a congressional ban on offshore energy exploration first inserted into the Interior Department appropriations bill by Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, in 1983. If the amendment, which faces a tough fight in the full House and the Senate, were to pass, it would allow natural gas drilling as close as 10 miles from Florida's west coast and 3 miles from its east coast. Most other coastal states where drilling is now prohibited also would have a 3-mile buffer.

The amendment would not affect a presidential moratorium, in place since 1990, that covers many of the same waters as the congressional ban, including much of the eastern Gulf of Mexico near the Panhandle. In an interview Wednesday in Florida, President Bush said he would not support drilling closer than 100 miles from the state's coast. But advocates and opponents of expanding offshore drilling both said Wednesday's committee vote marked a significant step. "It's a long way from happening, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight it every step of the way, which we intend to do,'' Young said. "Every time the price of gasoline increases, we lose more support."

The Independent Petroleum Producers Association praised the committee's action as a start toward reducing energy costs that it says are hurting many American industries. The amendment's sponsor, Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., echoed those thoughts. "I don't believe it's an overstatement to suggest the future of the American economy may be riding on" its passage, he said.

Offshore drilling is now permitted off four Gulf Coast states - Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama - as well as Alaska and a small section of California. But for a quarter century, thanks to a rider in the Interior Department's funding bill, a congressional moratorium has protected the rest of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Peterson's amendment, which failed in a vote last year, changed the language so drilling for oil still would be banned, while natural gas exploration would be allowed. Drilling for colorless, odorless natural gas is seen as more politically palatable, but both can cause offshore pollution, and energy producers say it's hard to drill for just one or the other. Reps. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, who is running for governor, and Mark Foley, R-Jupiter, said they would introduce an amendment next week to restore the moratorium when the full House debates the Interior bill.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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