Bush to probe gas gouging

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Aron Schatz

2014: Year of change. Joined: August 3, 2001 Status: Offline Posts: 10753 Rep:

Bush to probe gas gouging

Tue Apr 25, 2006 5:55:30 AM #17093 Perm Link

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/25/bush.ap/index.html

Hilarious. Let's put an investigation on something like gas prices. This way, we can get his buddies in for jobs and cost the people MORE money while doing nothing. Then they can say that they have been investigating and turning up nothing.

Read This: MANDATORY FUEL EFFICIENCY ABOVE 40MPG. Moving to ethanol ONLY fuel. Moving to Hydrogen based fuel cells. Moving infrastructure to nuclear or fusion (soon). The 1970s didn't teach us anything and we are now paying the price for our arrogance.

2014 is going to be a good year. More content, more streamlining. Be a part of history!

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SHCaseRtoZ

I don't quote Joined: September 2, 2005 Status: Offline Posts: 1189 Rep:

Re: Bush to probe gas gouging

Tue Apr 25, 2006 3:24:59 PM #17130 Perm Link

In response to Aron Schatz #17093

Yes, since the 70s, we haven't done anything to stop our thirst for gas. It will be interesting to see what happens in a few months.

-SHCase

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FroogleDoop

Is. Joined: December 29, 2005 Status: Offline Posts: 2180 Rep:

(No Title)

Tue Apr 25, 2006 5:32:20 PM #17136 Perm Link

I wish the gas companies would take all of the extra money we use to find the oil and put it into finding an alternative power source. But sadly, greed plagues the human race.

Said By blackwidow47
I know Im an ideot but I just proved that some of you are ediots too

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Tornado

Retro Grade Joined: August 16, 2003 Status: Offline Posts: 2958 Rep:

Re: Bush to probe gas gouging

Tue Apr 25, 2006 6:14:20 PM #17139 Perm Link

In response to Aron Schatz #17093

Said By Aron Schatz
Moving to ethanol ONLY fuel. Moving to Hydrogen based fuel cells. Moving infrastructure to nuclear or fusion (soon). The 1970s didn't teach us anything and we are now paying the price for our arrogance.

Impossible:

Quote
The real problem with ethanol from corn is that it requires fuel to make the corn. David Pimentel a professor from Cornell has done the analysis [i]. An acre of U.S. corn can be processed into about 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel. That is $1.05 per gallon of ethanol before the corn even moves off the farm.

The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps and other treatments are needed to separate the ethanol from the water. All these need energy.

Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol which has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU. "Put another way," Pimentel says, "about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTU."

Overall ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of petrol. "That helps explain why fossil fuels -- not ethanol -- are used to produce ethanol" Pimentel says. "The growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. Drivers couldn't afford it, either, if it weren't for government subsidies to artificially lower the price."

and:

Quote
For reference, there are an estimated 600 million cars on the planet. Want to work those numbers with me?
600 million cars
Average car requires 11 acres corn per year (three field rotation = 33 acres per car per year).
19.8 billion acres of corn required per year for all the cars now (increasing at 40 million cars a year, or (1.3 billion acres).
Earth's land surface area = 36.8 billion acres

And finally:

Said By Myself
High school chemistry tells you why hydrogen is a waste of resources: Transitive Loss of Energy dictates that converting one energy source to another results in energy lost. Somewhere around 90% of man-made hydrogen is produced with fossil fuels. Hydrogen is a more efficient fuel, but not enough of one to balance out the energy lost making it in the first place, aside from the obvious fossil fuel issues. In addition, it would be impossible to convert the hundreds of millions of non-hydrogen cars. Cars that run on natural gas such as propane is basically switching it from one non-renewable energy source to another.

Also, the 1970's didn't teach us anything because gas prices were completely raised due to greed. They are being raised now due to greed and threat of loss of resources.

Michael: Jodie, how's my schedule look for today?
Jodie: You've got a conference and dinner party at the Japanese Embassy regarding wildlife protection.
Michael: Oh, yeah...sorry, but I'll have to cancel that. I'm heading out to save America!

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Aron Schatz

2014: Year of change. Joined: August 3, 2001 Status: Offline Posts: 10753 Rep:

Re[2]: Bush to probe gas gouging

Tue Apr 25, 2006 6:26:55 PM #17140 Perm Link

In response to Tornado #17139

Points are valid but do not take into account the value of economics in large scale production. The figure you said about ethanol production is a net loss of energy is true in a sense of older tech: http://www.ethanol-gec.org/corn_eth.htm

The fact is, ethanol and hydrogen are energy storage containers just as gasoline is. The difference is that where the energy is stored and released can be contained when using hydrogen or ethanol. Using nuclear or fusion plants to produce hydrogen fuel is better than producing gasoline from crude oil and then burning that gas in spot places (cars). It is easier to be more efficient in a single place (a power plant) than multiple point sources such as cars.

2014 is going to be a good year. More content, more streamlining. Be a part of history!

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SHCaseRtoZ

I don't quote Joined: September 2, 2005 Status: Offline Posts: 1189 Rep:

(No Title)

Tue Apr 25, 2006 7:19:43 PM #17151 Perm Link

I agree that hydrogen is an energy storage container. What Aron suggests is correct, though. It is better to create energy in one place and distribute it around. It is easier to get efficiency from a large scale power plant.

Bush to probe gas gouging

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