One of the many problems with ethanol is that, depending on how you do the math, is that you end up using even more energy to create the fuel than you get from burning it. And even worse, it's less efficient that regular gasoline, so while it costs more to produce, you only get something like 80% as much energy as you do from regular gas.
So it's a lose-lose proposition, but it sells to large portions of the population, so politicians are running with it. The hydrogen economy is almost as big of a potential snafu, because moving, storing and managing hydrogen is freaking hard and wishful thinking doesn't make it any easier.
Ultimately, I think the folks who say that there isn't one solution to this problem are the ones that have it right. There's no magic bullet that's going to replace fossil fuels in the short term, and maybe not even in the long term.
From what I've read, there's only one power source that we have today that could make a significant impact on fossil fuel consumption and emissions, and that's nuclear power.
Fri, 08/03/2007 - 3:58pm
One of the many problems with ethanol is that, depending on how you do the math, is that you end up using even more energy to create the fuel than you get from burning it. And even worse, it's less efficient that regular gasoline, so while it costs more to produce, you only get something like 80% as much energy as you do from regular gas.
So it's a lose-lose proposition, but it sells to large portions of the population, so politicians are running with it. The hydrogen economy is almost as big of a potential snafu, because moving, storing and managing hydrogen is freaking hard and wishful thinking doesn't make it any easier.
Ultimately, I think the folks who say that there isn't one solution to this problem are the ones that have it right. There's no magic bullet that's going to replace fossil fuels in the short term, and maybe not even in the long term.
From what I've read, there's only one power source that we have today that could make a significant impact on fossil fuel consumption and emissions, and that's nuclear power.
But no one wants to talk about that.
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