E85's Greatest Enemy

All around, some of E85's enemies are making significant advances. Ion lithium batteries are attracting a lot of R&D attention as well as practical application. Hydrogen refuses to fall off the horizon. But more importantly, people are genuinely concerned about the repercussions of food produce resources being applied to car fuel energy. Some have vehemently spoken out against Ethanol and per some reports corn prices have already been influenced while crude oil kept up its creepy crawl to $100/bbl.

However, just recently President Bush and congress signed into law what are being touted as ground breaking rules that will usher in a new era and galvanize us on the path to energy independence and environmental health. One would think this is a great victory for E85 and should keep its fledgling wings fluttering for now. Think again. Firstly, I would not want to look down this President or congress's track record for any validation on sowing the seeds of great ideas or successful execution. But even that is not relevant. No matter the virtuoso of its aptitude, some aspects of life and living are just beyond the domain of government and many a great thinkers like Milton Friedman warned us and vigorously fought to keep our markets and lives free of government intervention. There are places where government should get involved and places where it should not. This is not one of them. This is incongruous. Not congress. Only the free market is conducive to human invention and innovation. Political and bureaucratic entities would do best by staying away. And why would we need the government here? So much is already being done by the free market. After all, there was no government action to prompt manufacturers to start producing fuel efficient cars. For green charters by corporations and companies. For investments into solar technology. And the billions being poured into Ion lithium, hydrogen technology and other bio fuels. What warrant does the government have to start promulgating laws into a domain that is a paragon of the free market system. Not only that, but the rising demand and price for crude oil itself is enough to dictate the course of action.

Government needs to mind its own business for several reasons. Firstly, this is our way of life. Our foundation and principals are based on tapping strength by creating conditions that are conducive for free enterprise to flourish. Not to stifle it by intervention unless this is absolutely necessary. This appears to be a severe, though silent, violation of those principals. Secondly, government is political. It's motives are not based around maximization of profits and the most efficient allocation of capital. Therefore, by sheer force of nature it cannot evaluate the best or even good courses of action. Cronyism tends to be a loathsome by-product when government meddles in business. Even if it was able to make a good judgement and execute it well enough there is the impending risk of interference by rival political succession who may even reverse the course of action and plant it's own ideology.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not anti-government or establishment. But I am all for good perspective. Government can do much to encourage and fund efforts around innovation. And it needs to protect an enduring and founding ideology. If there is any silver lining to this dark cloud then its that in its attempt to regulate innovation government might end up subverting an option that perhaps is not a correct one on the basis of crossing over food resources into fuel.

To Live and To Learn

Its now been 4 months since I started blogging on the subject. A subject that I had researched little into and one with many technical scores. Yet an exciting debate raged and I found myself mindful of the discussion and for ways to improve the efficiency of my own energy consumption. So I picked up on some know-how and with a little bit of common sense went on to start blogging. I also did it to learn about the subject and network with others on it in the hope of picking up some knowledge for myself. And in some ways it has. Well, I was stupid and ignorant enough to sense that shifting into a non-fossil fuel source somehow causes an improvement of resource efficiency. As I saw electric hybrid cars breaking out into the market it gave me the impression that the electric-hybrid version of a car is actually doing more out of the same energy input than its non HEV version. I bought into it. Others did too. Some went out and bought HEVs thinking that. The naked truth is that while there will always be invention and innovation some truths will never change. And one of those truth is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be converted or shifted. If your HEV has a nickel hydrite battery then process and resources were expended to put that equipment into your HEV. Hence, unless all the processes and resources can be quantifyed and put into the equation, only then can you size it up and see if your HEV's car battery is producing any real return in terms of efficiency. Given the law of physics I just mentioned it probably is not. Still, such vehicles will gain popularity. Because they suggest efficiency. They support it. And they bring cause and struggle to the domain. Do they have any real value? I believe they do. They will certainly have value in convenience. Less trips to the gas station. Reduced dependence on gasoline. And perhaps even enhanced performance at the lower $ market levels. And the advent of new ways and technologies that breaks out of the mundane. Still, it is important to keep some sight of the fundamentals and principals and not get totally duped by marketing campaigns.

Some fallacies are beautifully crafted. You almost cannot blame anyone for falling into them. The jolly old joker would even argue that you would want to fall into it. One such farcical drollery that I picked up a long time ago is when car salesmen tell you that you can give up the 'cash back' option on a car's purchase price for the 0% financing. But its not 0%. The cash back that you just gave up is the interest. Its added upfront. But its sooooo good that flocks will fall to it till the end of time. Perhaps the one that bothers me the most is the one that accountants perhpas unwittingly sell all the time. In a pre-dinner discussion at a friend's house in north LA last year I watched in horror as one of the guests pounded on the merits of interest only mortgage loans and their whopping benefit in tax deductions. That as a result he was paying far less taxes and just laughing to the bank. Which bank is that? You couldn't convince him otherwise. Especially now that he had bought the loan. The truth is that the only way you get a tax deduction outside of statutes is through expenditure. For this particularly wise man-of-the-world he was only getting a deduction for what he paid out in interest. Just because you got a bigger refund check means nothing. You paid for that refund. Well over.

Anyways, you get the gist. You wanna be green. Stop the car. And walk..........

Link............

The Ethanol Proposition

The Ethanol proposition comes off as quite a debate. I have spent time reading several websites & pages looking at both, the pros and cons, of this much touted source of alternative energy being advertised as our promise to independence from middle eastern oil and along with it a plethora of dirty politics.

All we really need to know about Ethanol is that its an extract of corn, can be produced right here on arable land and its current fuel product is known gasohol due to the mixture with gasoline. The production process, I gather, is quite elaborate. I have read over information stating that its production consumes rather large amounts of energy that is partly based on the very fossil fuels its promising to beat out. Yet there is room for improvement and evolution. Apparently, its eco-effects are far better that those of gasoline: most studies published on the energy source agree on this. I had a conversation at work the other day where my colleague shot down Ethanol as a gasoline replacement because of the unthinkable size of arable land required to replace current gasoline levels is just not plausible. True? Don't know but certainly a brain tickler on the subject. Even if its not producable as vastly as gas, it can take a corner with hard core greeners.

Ethanol is not just a hobby fuel or experiment. It appears to have a substantial lobby as indicated by the website www.e85.com that propagates an ethanol based fuel that carrying 85% of the substance. Though not nearly enough, a few hundred fueling stations carry the source across the US. Not peanuts. And there is quite a list of ethanol compatible vehicles at: http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/flexfuelvehicles.php

The one thing that puts a dampener on this energy source is that it doesn't pack the same punch as gas. A gallon of gas packs as much as 1.5 gallons of Ethanol. That's quite a psychological blow. Competition in alternative energy is not scarce. Plug-in electrics, electric batteries, hydrogen and fuel cells. Its not comforting to be disadvantaged like that against big bad gasoline. Infrastructure is another thorn. Despite some areas of the country looking well covered, access obviously does not compare to electric power. One would hope that pricing would provide an incentive boost. Not quite. According to the following page, the gasohol process would cost $1.74 per gallon in today's terms not including profit margin. Its better but hardly exciting.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question707.htm

Another Ethanol element that doesn't sit well is its advertisement of gasoline independence. Although a valid objective, its unsettling as a claim to fame. The power and efficiency of the source should define its existence. While we do want diversification in our energy sources we do want to advance as well.

To car manufacturers the charm in Ethanol may be that unlike Electric-Gasoline hybrids and pure electrics, it does not seem to require major mechanical modification or re-engineering.

To what level Ethanol advances will be interesting to see. Is it to stay a debated project or will it take its place amongst tommorrow's fuels. Meanwhile, a video! ...........................