E85 is stupid

And you can't even drink it either.

 

[shameless plug]
http://www.butanol.com/
[/shameless plug]

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ShellyT @ Sep 1 2006, 02:48 PM) [snapback]312849[/snapback]</div>

Hi ShellyT,

Do you know of anyone who has tried Butanol in a Prius? Did the mileage go up by 13 percent, as indicated by 10000 mile 92 Buick drive?

 

Blame the lavish and I mean LAVISH subsidies to offer to oil companies. To make bio fuels work we have to reduce/remove those subsidies and apply some to biofuel technology and production. Either way we should be paying a crap load more to burn any fossil fuel. Maybe then people would stop wasting it so.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Sep 3 2006, 02:12 AM) [snapback]313402[/snapback]</div>

You'd also put millions of lower middle class and poor families under. Those of us for whom gas is a convienience forget that for many families in America gas is one of their biggest and most vital expenses.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SW03ES @ Sep 4 2006, 11:20 AM) [snapback]313982[/snapback]</div>

I agree raising prices just creates more problems and solves nothing.

We could easily fix our gasoliine habit by banning all high powered vehicles.
Really simple to do. We don't allow unlimited weight vehicles now on most streets.
The weight limits need adjustment.

Also power and speed limits should be set in vehicles. So people that want high speed high perfomance can't get it in a big vehicle. Those can be made slower and still do the job they are made for just like trailer trucks do now. We used to have 45 mph speed limits for trucks and cars with any kind of trailer in tow.

Then commuting costs can be fixed simply by providing affordable housing near where people work. The reason so many rich people commute 100 miles to work is because they want a particular neighborhoood.

But the poor usually have long commutes because they have a choice of living on the streets or else driving because there is no affordable housing where the jobs are.

The whole energy problem is simple to fix but it won't be as long as people like those in Vermont want to ban windmills from their mountain views. I vote the next refinery should be built there!

 

You have to look at it differently. We put heavy subsidies into the oil industry so that these guys can make crazy profits. Dump some of those subsidies into a better fueling option and make some other nessecary life needs cheaper to offset the pricing and you are not putting poor and middle class families under. It would also force city planners to stop with the urban sprawl crap and build more efficient cities. We are in dire need of an economy shift because the one we foster is not sustainable. Period.

Something has to change and unless you force it on the people by including their evironmental degradation into their daily costs they wont change. People in Europe (or Argentina) generally have a much different opinion on what kind of cars are cool because of their MPG capability.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tomdeimos @ Sep 4 2006, 11:40 AM) [snapback]313992[/snapback]</div>

Thats a lot of pie in the sky hoopla, but there's not much there thats feasible. The American public isn't going to sit by while the government speed limits cars and dictates what people can and can't drive. Its a free economy.

How do you figure?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SW03ES @ Sep 4 2006, 01:09 PM) [snapback]314128[/snapback]</div>

Are you seriously questioning the sustainability of our economic practices? Our economy is built on natural resources. Resources that are either non-renewable or ones that are but we consume the natural interest as well as the capital. You can NEVER be sustainable when you consume too much capital all the while increasing your consumption.

A lot of talk is going on about True Cost Pricing and how that could positively effect the sustainability idea if it could be incorporated worldwide. Unfortunately too many backwards (uneducated in natural resources), selfish, greedy people would never agree to it. lol

Here is a short article on True Cost Pricing.

http://www.conservationeconomy.net/true_cost_pricing.html

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Sep 4 2006, 04:29 PM) [snapback]314134[/snapback]</div>

Well you're the one questioning the sustainability of our economy, not me.

Your statement was that our style of economy is not sustainable, and I asked you to back that up with economic facts. There is more to our economy than oil. Tell me why its not sustainable, and why the next 50 years will be different than the last 50. Why don't you make it reasons that don't have anything to do with oil, and remember I'm talking about the health of the ECONOMY, so leave the environment out too. Why is our economy not sustainable?

You're not going to win over many people by calling them backwards, selfish, and greedy because they don't agree with you.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SW03ES @ Sep 4 2006, 04:23 PM) [snapback]314211[/snapback]</div>

I'm not calling anyone in particular those thing. Least not in this forum and not you especially. Spare me the psychology of it, I understand that full and well. Sometimes one should be allowed to just whine about people they care nothing for lol

When I say resources I mean ALL resources. I'm not talking about just oil. Take wood products, minerals, water and soil qualities, air quality, fisheries etc etc. It all is considered resources and by buying products that have a negative impact on these resources we will eventually degrade them to a point where we will no longer be able to use them. Thus our economy takes a hit. By putting a higher price tag on items that degrade these resoucres more people will not use them and will shift to more sustainable alternatives or learn to do without. There is so much we buy and use that we do not need and this not only has an environmental effect but a psychological and social effects as well, all of which are negative. This is how our economy is not sustainable. It is based on a high consumption level of finite resources.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SW03ES @ Sep 4 2006, 04:09 PM) [snapback]314128[/snapback]</div>

Wake up. The government already controls what you can and can't buy. They just have the wrong list.
Raising prices won't solve anything and will be just as opposed by the american public. And our economy has never been free, another myth perpetrated by the right. Example in this thread is the oil subsidies.

It's time for people to start fixing things instead of destroying this country. If you don't like my soliutions come up with some of your own. But making pretty speeches and doing nothing other than creating more subsidies for big business isn't solving anything and is digging us into a deeper hole.

 

Although we will still be dependent upon "the man" since its a resource that we are dependent upon someone growing it, processing it, storing it, transporting it etc, the main benifit will be a shift of dependencies.

Rather than releying upon getting something out of the ground and maybe even accessing it from other countries who have no interest in anything but manipulation, we will be shifting the profits from the present oil giants to some of the other middlemen guys.

Unless of course the oil giants buy all the sources for ethanol!

We will never be free till we can access free energy like the sun, wind, and water from streams etc.

I can see the benifit of instead of the goverment "paying" our farmers not to grow crops, they could have them grow crops for ethanol...
and who knows?... those farmers may actually have to buy some farm equipment!

E85 would work fine, if they didnt' overprice it and the cars were tuned and built for it, but presently I am not aware of any care that runs efficient on both regular gas and E85 at the same time.. its give and take.

If it runs good on one, the other suffers.
If you tune for the middle of the road, mileage suffers with both.

They are too busy choking the goose that lays the golden eggs to get more eggs than to just sell ethanol at an "honest" price so we could make the transition.

But they are hoping everyone will be so in love with the "idea" of saving mother earth that they will actually pay more for less mileage.

I'm not into buying "ideas".... I want a product.

I do still think I still have a stash of beans from the very bean stalk Jack grew... if anyone is into buying an Idea!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tomdeimos @ Sep 4 2006, 08:40 AM) [snapback]313992[/snapback]</div>

"Affordable housing" mandated by government simply doesn't work. The government can only build future slums and people move, if they can, to protect their children.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Sep 4 2006, 08:25 PM) [snapback]314347[/snapback]</div>

Aye, thats why Im more for intelligent city design. Not just susidized housing.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Sep 4 2006, 07:38 PM) [snapback]314218[/snapback]</div>

Apparently not.

So you're telling me to "wake up" and then agreeing with me. So you need to wake up too?

I'm not saying the government doesn't already control what I can and can't buy, I'm just saying since I'm opposed to that with every fiber of my being I refuse to submit to losing more control over my own choices.

Careful now, you're about to make me re-register as a republican with that logic.

Okay, so where are we going to build these "intelligent cities"? How are we going to make people want to move to them and do business in them as opposed to established cities? You see, cities aren't just built and then populated like office buildings, they grow and evolve over time. You are "for intelligent city design" so what are your plans? Should we mow over the cities we have and rebuild? Should we bog cities down in so many regulations and codes for layout, design, and materials that nobody can ever build anything?

Certainly you don't advocate such a squandering of resources.

Maybe we can get some of these cities bastardized into theme parks like Disney's Epcot Center? That'd be cool.

Personally, instead of coming up with useless pie in the sky ideals like "intelligent city design" or "conservation economy", and "lets teach people what they do and do not need" like its anyone's decision to make but their own that never have any hope of doing anything.

I'm a pragmatist, lets make what we have now work for us. Is ethanol the answer? Certainly not, but the answer is out there and unless we stay grounded in realism we're never going to find it. Lets fix the public transportation systems we have in our cities, make them more efficient, and invent new ones that work in the established cities we already have and that already house billions. Lets look for new technologies that work in a free market economy. In a free market economy the pressure will be on the energy companies of today to re-invent themselves or die. You think people don't want alternative fuels? They do, they just need an alternative. Instead of taxing the hell out of the people, lets put some minds to work and give them what they already want.

People aren't stupid, if you give them a better alternative they'll take it.

 

Maybe you should do a bit more reading and study what professionals in these areas of research are thinking. I do and it runs contrary to your ideas.

As for mowing over cities. Not generally the best idea but lets just start with one that has already fallen victum to stupid planning. New Orleans Sacramento will probably be next though lol

*edit* you edited your post before mine was finished.

Some of those ideas like more efficient transportation and free market economy would be great if correctly implimented. The problem we have is the corporations already have such a stranglehold on our economy and government systems that it makes it hard to impliment some of these changes. Im serious when I advocate the readin of the State of the World 2006 and 2005 books. They are a nice medium between me and you

 

I agree. The E85 push just doesn't seem to pencil out right now.
Tax horsepower in addition to gasoline! ICE horsepower that is

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Sep 5 2006, 12:50 AM) [snapback]314396[/snapback]</div>

Again with the holier than thou attitude, since I disagree with you I must be ignorant. Why don't you try and convince me. I'm college educated, I've started three successful businesses, I'm well versed in politics and research. I'd say I'm a pretty intelligent and accomplished fellow, worthy of recieving some of your learn-ed wisdom. Convince me instead of calling me stupid, I dare you.

Your entire argument with me has been nothing but an attempt to knock me down and show that you know more about these topics than me and that I should just be quiet. I've got news for you bucko, thats not me. If you know more than me great, then convince me that you're right. Typically when people try to win arguments by beating people over the head with their "knowledge" they know they don't have a lot of ammunition to prove their point.

Just so you know, I don't put a lot of weight in what "professionals" say, because whatever your point of view you can always find a "professional" to agree with you. I trust my instincts, and I make my own decisions about what I believe I don't let others make them for me. You can use that knowledge in your attempt to convince me that you are right, and I am wrong.

Okay, then how should we rebuild it? What changes should be made? Why don't you start by describing to me what about the city's planning was stupid and why.