Ethanol Education

First off, we can not replace oil with ethanol. (Unless Algae magically solves itself)
We just don't have enough land or water to accomplish it.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol.pnghttp://greyfalcon.net/ethanol6

Second off, Ethanol is not compatible with any existing infrastructure or vehicles.
Politicians demand we build vast new infrastructure to support it. (Which is weird since Butanol doesn't need any of that)
Makes one wonder if they are ignorant of this, or what their motivations are.
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Butanol
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/butanol/index.html

Third off, the only reason car companies even built FlexFuel vehicles in the first place is to LOWER their Fuel Economy requirements.
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/09/cafe-loophole.html

Fourth off, globalized biofuel production causes more global warming overall than Oil.

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Solar panels are 100x more effecient than Sugarcane.And the maximum theoretical limit of photosynthesis is 11% solar efficiency. (Which is pathetic)
http://greyfalcon.net/sugarsolar

The only reason why Switchgrass looks good is that they cook the books.
They make the titantic assumption that the entire production infrastructure uses renewable energy.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol4.png

The only reason corn looks at all good is because they inflate the dubious value of animal feed additive as a coproduct.
http://greyfalcon.net/corn

Incidentally cattle have a huge impact on global warming.
(Half of it comes from land use practices. Like deforrestation to create pasture.)
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/12/un_report_globa.html
http://www.greyfalcon.net/soy

Cattle Ranchers have been revolting over the price hike of corn, since ethanol coproduct can only supply a small portion of an animals diet.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17706399/

Brazil is not "independant from oil". Merely foreign oil. Most of their fuel comes from domestically drilled Oil.
http://greyfalcon.net/brazil.png

Ethanol does not help farmers. It runs them out of business.
http://greyfalcon.net/farmers
http://greyfalcon.net/farmers2

Meanwhile MegaAgrobusiness takes the porkbarrel.
http://greyfalcon.net/farmers3

High blend Ethanol actually increase Ozone and Smog.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol2
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol3

Ozone is perhaps responsible for as much as 50% of the Artic melting effect.Which is a huge issue since it's removing gigantic reflective surfaces from the earth.And replacing it with heat absorbing land and ocean. (In an area which gets 24/7 sunlight half the year)
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/troposphere_ozone.html

Ethanol production plants emit 2.5x the ammount of air polution as a chemical plant.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol5

Fertilizers and Pesticides nearly all comes from Natural Gas.
http://energy.seekingalpha.com/article/33925

The Natural Gas market volitility makes Oil look tame.
http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh80041_2007-05-11_19-44-08_n11452609_newsml

Natural gas is also needed to provide the electricity to refine ethanol, or something cleaner.Ethanol created using Coal electricity, which is common, yields no reduction in CO2 emmisions. Infact it's worse than gasoline.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol4

BioDiesel planted in the tropics causes rainforrest deforrestation, which is 10x worse than petroleum in CO2 emmisions.
http://greyfalcon.net/palmoilhttp://greyfalcon.net/soy

Gigantic plantings of ethanol crops in the US has reduced our soybean crop.This has causes Brazil to be the largest exporter of soy bean. (Where by more deforrestation happens, canceling out any benefit from the ethanol)
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0516-ethanol_amazon.html

Rainforrests in particular are an issue since they also REFLECT the sunlight equator with evaporated water.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/planting_trees.php

There is the blind hope that Algae might be able to solve ALL of these vast problems associated with Ethanol production. But according to NREL experts, we're better off waiting for successful cold fusion. (i.e. Don't hold your breathe)
http://greyfalcon.net/algaehttp://greyfalcon.net/algae2

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More or less, Ethanol, BioFuels, and Hydrogen are all there to provide a false sense of accomplishment.
They are dragged out to show you "evidence" that politicians, car companies, and oil companies are socialy responsible. (When they aren't)
And they are pushed as a way to distract the public away from real solutions.

Those real solutions being,
PARTIALLY: Compressed Natural Gas, Ultra Clean Diesels
PRIMARILY: Hybrids, Plugin Hybrids, and Fully Electric Vehicles.

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And on that front.Toyota has backed down on upgrading their Prius.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/30/toyota-to-delay-introduction-of-lithium-ion-batteries-in-the-pri/

And GM won't have a realistic Plugin Hybrid on the market until 4 years from now.
(i.e. Too long, and easy to delay it even further.)
http://www.greyfalcon.net/volt

Don't trust oil companies, and car companies to self incriminate their current business model.
They will continue to overpromise and underdeliver.

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It's up to new companies to break the mold, and give us revolutionary electric cars.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/electriccars.pnghttp://www.greyfalcon.net/phoenixsuv.png

Ones which even if driven on the dirtiest coal electricity availible would be like a Prius in emmisions.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/plugins3

We have MORE than enough existing electrical capacity to support electric cars for the next decade without even building 1 new power plant.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/plugins4

And driving on electric "fuel" is dirt cheap. 50-70 cents to the the gallon (equivalent).
http://www.greyfalcon.net/pluginshttp://www.greyfalcon.net/volt

Hell, virtually every major car manufacturer already uses quickcharge electric forklifts to build our cars.
http://www.posicharge.com/ford.html
http://www.posicharge.com/5-0.html
http://www.towerautomotive.com/02.htm

And we can already charge electric cars up for hours of driving in 1 minute.
(Assuming new "gas station" style infrastructure)
In the long term, 100% electric should be absolutely no problem.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/30/aerovironment-successfully-quick-charges-altair-nanotechnologie/1
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/11/altair_nanotech.html
http://www.altfuels.org/events/otherafv/quikchrg.html

Electric is the future. Anything else is just a distraction brought on by deciet or naivety.