Republicans have cynically attached a provision to the defense spending bill that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling… and Sen. Maria Cantwell is threatening to filibuster.
Sen. Maria Cantwell vowed Monday to keep the Senate in session until the brink of Christmas to defeat legislation that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
“If this language is allowed to stand, one of our nation’s most pristine wildlife areas will be lost,” Cantwell, a Democrat said as she outlined plans by her party and its allies to defeat language offered by Alaska Republican Ted Stevens to open ANWR.
“This is nothing more than a sweetheart deal for Alaska and the oil companies,” Cantwell said. “That’s why I am prepared to use every procedural option available to me as a senator to prevent this language from moving forward.”
Hmm. Alaska’s nutcase Senator Ted Stevens may end up ruing the day he turned Sen. Cantwell into an enemy, for in so doing he not only gave her a visible issue popular with WA voters, he also gave her a real life villain to oppose. I know people who worked with Sen. Cantwell at Real Networks, and whatever she lacks in terms of retail politics, she more than makes up for in tenaciousness.
Cantwell said she’s willing to challenge Stevens, who is widely regarded as one of the fiercest fighters in the chamber.
“Senator Stevens says he’s not holding up the process, but he is,” Cantwell said. “He knows very well that we could all go home today. We could pass these outstanding pieces of legislation regarding defense and other things and be gone. But he wants to stay here. If he wants to stay here, then we’ll stay here to fight.”
I think it’s gonna be one helluva fight. And my money’s on Cantwell.
Ted Stevens is a bastard. I hope Cantwell really shreds him.
Senator Windfalls antics will appeal to the kook fringe in The McDermott Zone who will vote for her anyway, so it’s largely a waste from a political standpoint.
She has already illustrated her profound lack of understanding of even the basics of the oil industry. To me, she seems like kind of a Bart Simpson senator… one who proudly displays ignorance, as if that gives her some kind of “out of the box” thinking or something. It’s weird…
Why is it dems want to do the exact opposite of what’s necessary in almost every situation? She supports biodiesel which has been proven to consume more energy than it produces. But here, she opposes one of the few options to change the fundamentals of the market that could work in our favor. The only answer…again… is a profound lack of understanding of the behavior of commodities in a free market.
So the other kooks on the left will line up with her, and the worthless RINOs will check the polls and decide what to do. So it’ll be close. Fortunately, the only tool at her disposal is to become a bombthrower, and that’s always risky. Hopefully, she’ll burn herself and go back and sit down and just do what Reid tells her to do.
Wow, Redneck. You made a total of one factual assertion in your post (# 2), and—surprise, surprise—you are full of shit. You note that Senator Cantwell supports biodiesel (including some industry-leading companies here in Washington state), but claim, falsely, that biodiesel “has been proven to consume more energy than it produces.” I noticed you didn’t cite that claim . . . so I checked your “facts”.
Hmm. That looks to me like a number greater than one. Let me double-check that with my calculator. Yep. 3.2 is definitely more than three times larger than one. (How did that happen? Oh, right, solar energy and photosynthesis are free.)
Darn those “alternative” fuels, and their likely destiny (in a free market) as the fuels of the future. Or, put another way, woe to any Redneck “who proudly displays ignorance” and demonstrates a “profound lack of understanding” of anything outside “the basics of the oil industry.” Here’s to progress. And progressives.
I would support drilling ANWR using the best available environmental practices, but the issue has already been decided in Congress, and holding the defense budget hostage to this agenda is just plain wrong. Stevens is selling out our troops to get these oil royalties for his state. Shame on him!
If ANWR produces 6 billion barrels of oil, that’s a third of a trillion dollars or more that won’t leave our country and go to our enemies’ bank accounts. ANWR is one of the world’s most important wildlife areas, but I believe the oil can be taken out without destroying the wildlife, and the wildlife will have the area to themselves again in a few decades after the oil has been removed.
I certainly don’t agree with Bush’s energy policy, which consists of giving taxpayer subsidies to rich oil companies, developing domestic oil without regard for environmental or other values, and fighting wars to secure U.S. access to foreign oil. At current consumption rates (which are expected to increase), the world’s known oil reserves will be exhausted in less than 30 years. Bush’s policy contains no planning for a post-oil world, which is just plain crazy.
As for biodiesel, it’s one thing to run a few hobbyists’ cars on waste vegetable oil, but quite another thing to replace 7 billion barrels a year of U.S. petroleum consumption. Using conventional crops, the U.S. doesn’t have enough arable land to produce that quantity of biodiesel feedstock. Algae, which theoretically produces much higher yields per acre, is unproven on a commercial scale. However, even on a limited production scale, every gallon of biodiesel we produce at home reduces the amount of conventional petroleum we have to find or buy from overseas.
Rabbit,
Vagina Lips M-t-R also asserted that drilling in AWR “would change the fundamentals of the market”. This either a lie, or betrays a profound ignorance of the petroleum market. There does not seem to be a big hurry to exploit Alaska’s puny reserves. The market has been sending us a definite price signal for many years. We’ve managed to ignore this information so far. What’s a few more decades?
An intelligent foreign and environmental policy would seem to key in on the fact that we need to find ways to cut down on our oil addiction. Viewed in this conttext, drilling in ANWR is like an alchoholic opening another bottle.
Regards,
Biodiesel is setting up that lefty dilemna where the means conflicts with other priorities.
http://www.newscientist.com/ar.....news_rss20
Good on Maria, slap that reprobate troll and pig fucker for pork, Ted Stevens.
Maybe after bitch slapping this Nazi Stevens Maria will win by 30 points instead of the 15 she leads by today? Thanks Teddie! You’ve just effectively locked in the Dems’ Washington Senate seat you cowardly, lying, greedy, asshole! Oh yeah-FUCK Alaska!
Comment by Voter Advocate— 12/20/05 @ 6:20 am
“Good on Maria, slap that reprobate troll and pig fucker for pork, Ted Stevens.”
Comment by LeftTurn— 12/20/05 @ 6:34 am
“Maybe after bitch slapping this Nazi Stevens Maria will win by 30 points instead of the 15 she leads by today?”
What 15% segment of voters would a filibuster of drilling in ANWAR appeal to, that isn’t already voting for Cantwell? She’s got the liberals wrapped up unless she takes a severe right turn in the next 10 months.
I’d say her visit to Iraq to witness the Iraqi elections will do more to get/maintain her support among moderate and conservative voters she needs to win the election. Cantwell doesn’t live in a bubble like McDermott, she actually has to watch what she says and does.
This one could blow up in Cantwell’s face.
Wouldn’t that be sad.
Jaybo @ 10:
Blow up in Cantwell’s face? I’d bet it doesn’t. And I’d suggest we stop bothering to respond to MTR’s silly comments. The guy simply has no recredibility.
No drilling!!! No Nukes!! No new refineries!! No war for oil!! No SUVs, unless Babs, the Kerrys, or the Kennedys are driving them!! No private aircraft, unless Babs, the Kerrys, or the Kennedys are flying in Gulfstream G-5s!!! No oil tankers!! Oh yeah…………It’s Bush’s fault gas prices are too higH!!!! [hehe………Democrats: economic dumb shits!]
No evil oil companies in WASH state. Stop them from doing business!! No gas!! No heating oil!! No natural gas!! SAVE THE PLANET!!!!! [hehe]
David – uh no…. I’m right as usual. Two professors from Cornell and UC Berkley studied it in detail. Read about it at sciencedaily. Some of their findings includ:
In terms of energy output compared with energy input for ethanol production, the study found that:
* corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced;
* switch grass requires 45 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and
* wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
In terms of energy output compared with the energy input for biodiesel production, the study found that:
* soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced, and
* sunflower plants requires 118 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
So Senator Windfall will send is in the WRONG direction. As usual.
goldy noted her bitchiness, ” I know people who worked with Sen. Cantwell at Real Networks, and whatever she lacks in terms of retail politics, she more than makes up for in tenaciousness.”
I think many of us have Maria stories from ex-Real people. Not one of them pleasant.
MTR, regading biodiesel etc.
I didn’t read study, does that then also mean that you piss away 29 gallons of gasoline, to create 100 gallons of biodiesel? (might not be that bad a deal?). If that’s how the math works, then it might be a good deal?
I’m conservative enough not to enjoy sending petrodollars to insane mid east muslims…
Righton – Take a few minutes and read the study. I’m also no fan of making mid east muslims rich, but you gotta deal with reality. And the reality is we don’t have enough and gotta import it from where it is. And biofuel ain’t the answer.
@3
Free market for biodiesel, I think I read a statement from Gregoire that said she wanted a biodiesel mix mandatory in Washington State. How is that free market? It’s another state mandated special blend that drives up prices further.
I hate pork in budgets, but is Stevens really all that? Cantwell and Murray busted butts, kissed up, and did every thing they could do to bring home the big bucks from the Federal Government for Washington State.
Steven is elected in Alaska, they love him, they want drilling in their state and he is trying to give his state what they demand.
Alaska Airlines, which is paid to carry 30 million pounds of Alaskan seafood cargo each year, directed queries from ABC News to the Alaskan Fisheries Marketing Board.
When asked if taxpayer money should be used for a flying billboard, the board’s executive director, Bill Hines, said, “It’s very appropriate. It’s a great way to get our message out.”
ABC also asked to speak to the marketing group’s chairman of the board but was told he was not available.
Who is the chairman? He’s the president of Alaska’s state senate, Ben Stevens, who also happens to be the son of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.
“Lo and behold, the person running the marketing board for Alaska is Ted Stevens’ son,” Ashdown said. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Ted Stevens is the king of pork.”
A spokesperson for Stevens called the flying king salmon “a good thing.”
Ted Stevens, not only a the King of Pork, but a nepotist, too.
the problem with mtrs’ study: It makes several deceptive assumptions… (If its the one I’m thinking of, anyways… the numbers match)
It includes energy costs of things like manufacturing fertilizer, flying the crop duster, etc, etc…
And more importantly, MTR is assuming that EVERY SINGLE ONE of those energy costs is coming out of fossil fuels. The only costs that are insoluble right now (as far as fuel consumption) are flyin’ the plane and drivin’ the tractor. The rest of the costs require electricity, which does not automatically require fossil fuels.
Windie – Geez windie, it isn’t my study. I’m just trying to make the case that the jury is out on whether it’s a net gain, and whether it’s good policy.
Why does it matter if it’s fossil or not? Isn’t the whole idea whether it’s a net gain?
So are you for coal and nuke for electric power?
17.
A Bridge to Nowhere, painting a 737 to look like a salmon? And that’s just in the last session.
Please fill me in on similar feats by Murray and Cantwell.
mtr, more on my question;
I’m mostly questioning the math (too lazy to read it)…that is, does Biodiesel cost us 29 gallons of gas to create an addional 100 of biodesil? If that’s the math, isn’t that good….? I suspect I’m being too charitable and the math is more like 129 gallons of gasoline to create 100 gallons of biodiesel?
yes, it’s 129 units of energy to create 100 units of biofuel.
Sen. Stevens is now using Sen. Cantwell for a football. He has also invoked the memory of Scoop Jackson to throw in Cantwell’s face.
I’m kinda surprised moonbats like biofuel. Don’t they realize that the crops that go into it come from red states and to them rednecks that the pseudo sophisticates in The McDermott Zone hate so much?
I’m sure most of them would rather send their money to a mid east muslim than red state redneck.
windie, et al
a) electricity ain’t free; you either go nuclear, coal, or gasp, kill some more salmon….
b) if I (USA) can buy 100 gallons of gasoline, and use it, or buy 129 gallons of gasoline, to create only 100 gallons of biodiesel….why the heck would I self impose a 29% excess oil consumption tax….
…that’s worse than being dependent on the mid east….we’d be 29% more dependent..
mtr: you know about thermodynamics, right?
EVERY process is a net energy loss.
The question we should be asking re:biodiesel is “Are we reducing our dependancy on foreign energy sources, and is it a cost-effective way to do it”
Of course, if you know of a ‘free energy’ fuel source, theres probably a nobel in it for you!
righton: What it means (to my understanding) is it takes 129 units of energy (in any form) to make 100 units of energy in the form of biodiesel. As I said above, it doesn’t have to come from gasoline… And I feel that including the cost of manufacturing fertilizer and such in the equations is a bit… deceptive. Its a valuable resource if we can apply other sources of energy to the problem (solar, hydro, nuke)
MtR simply doesn’t want biodiesel to be useful, because he considers politicians for it ‘on the other side’…
righton@28
a) yes energy has to come from somewhere. I’m personally for the dams, for instance (and for nuclear for that matter). They’re better than the current alternatives… and wind/solar are often not practical.
b) you’re fixated on it coming from gasoline… it doesn’t have to. just energy. Where does most of the electricity in the WA state come from?
oh mtr@27 Cute regionalist crap. I (at least) don’t hate all rednecks, just lying misogynist stupid rednecks like you. That clear enough?
yeaWrong @ 6
Nice try but the recent Washington initiatives by Gregoire are designed to promote a homegrown biodiesel industry. Imagine that! Economic growth in WA state? Importing less oil? What a leftist concept!
That being said I don’t support any biodiesel production policy that would in way harm the biosphere. In general, the faster transport moves to being electrified the better. If biodiesel blended with petroleum diesel in plug-in hybrid vehicles gets us there faster, fine.
The world probably isn’t all that close to peaking in petroleum production as the peak oilers would have us believe but I’d rather as much fossil fuel stay in the ground as possible.
Windie – why does it matter where the energy comes from? isn’t the whole picture the question?
Also, thanks for clearing up parameters of your hate. Useful info…
Sen. Stevens is now using Sen. Cantwell for a football. He has also invoked the memory of Scoop Jackson to throw in Cantwell’s face.
The Cantwell haters are out in force this morning. Yield the floor Sen. Stevens. Game over for your pork-addicted ass.
but you gotta deal with reality.
600 billion barrels of oil in the ME. At fifty bucks a crack? That’s a lot of money to be sending over there.
@32 of COURSE it matters!
The point of biodiesel isn’t that its some magic superfuel that will solve all our energy problems for all time… Its rather a way to get us less dependant on foreign sources of energy! People on the left and the right misunderstand this… And its either dishonest or ignorant to pretend its supposed to be its something its not, than refute the ‘pretend purpose’.
as to what I hate, I’d put it as ‘what every reasonable person hates’.
so mark, do you have a BJ Shay style “All women are filthy lying whores” poster?
oops
BJ Shea
I can’t spell!
36 – That’s why I will NEVER do a Murkan woman again.
yeah… I know you like those arab women… Well the properly trained ones, anyways. They never go out in public where others can see them, and you can beat them whenever you want!
Mark the Villiage Idiot Redneck is full of shit, and has no idea what he is talking about?
Now that is a no brainer! Perhaps the long kept secret is that MTVIR has a vagina, and given his stupidity, he made a logical fallacy implicating all people with vaginas.
Donna you’re back. Great. Have you figured out what goes on in your office yet? How many passwords have you reset today?
Donna is all hat; no cowboy.
Along the line of promoting biofuel, you should look into the unfolding technology surrounding corn stoves. Heating oil is a significant element of our trade deficit. Hugo Chavez is acutely aware of that and using his oil weapon against the chimpster even as we speak with Citgo deliveries to lower income folks in the Bronx.
Seems Illinois is heating one of their largest prisons with two large corn burners. The smaller domestic size burners are zero-distance installations similar gas dryers. With small battery packs and thermoelectric generation units they are immune to power outages of several days. Imagine home central heating unaffected by power interruptions.
Plus,if you have a supply truck in a wreck, what do you have. . .a corn spill. In the mid-west we are already seeing a guerrilla
movement to replace petrochemicals with smaller scale operations utilizing alcohol,bio-diesel, and solid corn fuels. Very little of the money in these operations leaves the region, let alone the country. Aside from spurring local economic growth, this is a direct blow at transglobal corporatism as it is now manifested.
This speaks directly to lessening our dependence on foreign oil, and could give us a more balanced foreign trade, greater national security and a more rational foreign policy.
With all due respect
I don’t think any of us have a clue on the biodiesel thing.
Logic i’m trying to grind through is, ok, my car can drive on a variety of resources (looking at this on the margin, only way i can make sense of it)
Do I sue
Electricity (so if we are near capacity, that means ulitmately (and so not really my marginal view) that we have to build nuke plants, dams, whatever..
…but lets say we have capacity…. is 200 miles of electricity for my electric car, only costing pennies? Then if we all do it, doesn’t it force building a dam? Thus not being pennies..
Natural gas; i think that’s easier, just buying and importing more gas (and domestic). I think per mile its about 1/2 price of gasoline..
Gas; we know that one (just to make math easy, lets say that’s 5 gallons for some small car)
Biodiesel. To go 200 miles….ok, I burn 5 gallons of Wallngford garbage that got converted to biodiesel. But I think the relevant math is you ned 5 gallons x 1.29 energy units. And that energy goes back to either free electricity (so then i guess a good idea), or not free electricity, or natural gas or other)…..
So Econ 101; if i buy an electric car, is my energy at near zero cost to all of us?
oops, do i use..
hehe I was gonna say, “Sue”?
Yer right tho, the Biodiesel thing is confusing. My uncle is a chief engineer for WSF, and as wingnutty as all get out… But he’s very pro-biodiesel. (‘course he’s all for drilling ANWR too, but my point is its not really a left-right issue)
To my understanding, and I’m not an expert, there are some major problems that are going to keep pure electrics basicly in the hands of hobbyists for a while. On the other hand, B5 (5% biodiesel/95% normal diesel) can run in unmodified diesel engines.
The real issue (from my readings) with the energy cost issue is, of course, cost. The higher energy cost of making it makes it more expensive (they have to buy electricity), which means people are less likely to buy it. If nothing else, as the price of oil rises (once supplies start drying out) biodiesel will become more popular… once its less expensive than normal oil.
Interestingly, a large market for the stuff is with the very rich.. They use it in their motor yachts, because normal diesel stinks… and biodiesel doesn’t. Just a funny note
mtr@41
to anyone that actually reads your massive trolling effort on the below thread, you’re the one that comes off looking bad. “Gotcha” only works if you actually ‘get them’.
Windie
Imagine a world where all electricity comes from gas/oil burning (true for much of the world)….
Aren’t they then burn 1.29 gallons of oil to create only 1 gallon of Biodiesel? That makes no sense….
Hell, MTR, I am no hat, and no cowboy.
But if you ever need a job resetting passwords, let me know. We may be hiring some low skilled workers soon.
if their only source of power is oil, then yes biodiesel makes no sense for them.
But they don’t have to use it. Its a good idea for the USA tho’…
(http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/e.....ig4b_t.gif)<---power generation in the us, as of 1998. According to the DOE the US gets only 4% of its electricity from Petroleum. I'd say that makes Biofuel a good way to get rid of our petrolium dependency.
dang thing didn’t hperlink:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/e.....ig4b_t.gif
and damn, ate part of my post.
the US gets 4% of its power from petroleum sources. That means to me that, if our goal is to reduce dependency on petroleum, then biodiesel is a good way to do it.
the whole article: A good read on power questions:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/e.....pter3.html
Look here for a list of high-mileage, high-performance diesel cars that for the most part you CAN’T buy in the U.S.
The petroleum diesel fuel produced in the U.S. is ironically the dirtiest in the world. The diesel you buy in a third world country is better refined. So biodiesel blends will at least help clean up the regular diesel while the refiners work to meet the standards of the rest of the world.
Diesel engines get almost twice the mileage of spark-ignition engines. Combine that with the battery of a plug-in hybrid vehicle and I’ve heard you can get up to 180 mpg.
That’s the future I want to live in.
More electricity will be needed. We have a tsunami wave of wind and solar coming on line. While I don’t for the moment think it will be enough, I’m optimistic. We’re seeing advances in the efficiency of photovoltaics approaching 50 percent and 60 percent is not far behind. Right now a 5 MW wind turbine is being tested in Germany and I believe a 10 MW turbine is on the drawing board.
She couldn’t even threaten a field mouse. Hope she gets it back up her twat where it belongs. Keep whining about high gas prices you hypocrits.
windie
a), to be clear, electrical power in US< 4% from petroleum sources.... b) not sure what that tell us... c) I used say Bermuda as example of place where its all oil fired. Extend that logic. That is, if its a waste of money for people in Bermuda to distil their garbage, its also a waste for us. Crux question is "how efficient is it to produce same amount of energy to make electricity" (to then either power my car directly, or to boil up some garbage and make biodiesel ps, clueless....we'd have gobs of windpower if the lefties would stop opposing them (latest is they kill birds). Remember St. Teddy opposed in Mass.
ouch, ate my post
That’s ok, if biodiesel.org is correct (and i have to be suspicious, they are a trade group) at http://www.biodiesel.org/pdf_f.....ty0604.pdf
then, they claim DOE says is “for every unit of fossil energy needed to make biodiesel, 3.2 units of energy are gained. In contrast, it takes 1.2 units of fossil resources to produce 1 unit of petroleum diesel.”
its poorly written, but i think it claims bio is incredibly efficient…. HUH? my only beef is if its just pork for ADM and goofball stuff by the Fremont crowd.
gotta keep digging
Maria Cuntsmell seems to think she has more power and authority than she does. Typical twat.
My, My, it seems all the Mark’s on this board have self confidence issues with women!
25
“yes, it’s 129 units of energy to create 100 units of biofuel.”
Source? That’s not what I’m getting from the sources I looked up.
29
“MtR simply doesn’t want biodiesel to be useful, because he considers politicians for it ‘on the other side’… ”
MTR doesn’t like it because he can’t make money by pushing barrels of oil in circles and taking a few pennies off the top every time he does. He’s a bloodsucker like those assholes who shut down power plants to rob Aunt Millie.
5
“Vagina Lips M-t-R also asserted that drilling in AWR ‘would change the fundamentals of the market’. This either a lie, or betrays a profound ignorance of the petroleum market. There does not seem to be a big hurry to exploit Alaska’s puny reserves.”
Vagina Lips is full of shit. ANWR will do little more than replace declining production from Prudhoe. Whether Alaskan reserves are “puny” depends on subjective interpretation. ANWR is one of North America’s five largest oilfields. There are very few places you can go, and none in the U.S., to find 5 to 10 billion barrels of oil in one place. On the other hand, that quantity of oil would satisfy U.S. consumption for only a year or so, or world consumption for about 3 months. It’s not a replacement for the Middle East. It won’t keep the world economy going for another generation. From that perspective, ANWR is a piss in the bucket.
No, Redneck. You are citing junk. The article you are quoting—it’s a whopping 12 pages long—has been thoroughly discredited, roundly dismissed in the scientific community.
Redneck, the article you alluded to (you probably only saw the press release) is not scientifically rigorous. The authors are David Pimentel, a professor emeritus of entomology (insect specialist) at Cornell, and Tad Patzek, an associate professor of chemical engineering at UC Berkeley—he is also a former employee of Shell Oil, a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the founder and director of the University of California Oil Consortium. Neither is an expert in agriculture or biodiesel production (and it shows).
The Pimentel/Patzek article has too little detail (i.e., data sources and assumptions) to even show how they reached their conclusions. Their entire discussion on making biodiesel from soybean oil takes up just one and a half pages.
In contrast, a 1998 study conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy called the Life Cycle Inventory of Biodiesel and Petroleum Diesel for Use in an Urban Bus contains 286 pages of charts, tables, detailed data descriptions, and an in-depth discussion of the assumptions that were used to determine that the net energy balance of biodiesel was 3.2 to one. Just like I said up above.
Meanwhile, the biodiesel industry has pointed out that:
It’s not just that their article is poorly documented. It’s flat-out wrong. Pimentel and Patzek don’t define their terms well, and they pick and choose whatever they can find to make biodiesel look bad. Their sins include:
· Use of data 15 and 25 years out of date
· Misrepresenting existing research
· Unsusbstantiated, unrealistic, false assumptions about soybean production practices
· Grossly inflated estimates of the energy costs of raising crops
In fact, Pimentel and Patzek stretch the truth so far to support their case that it borders on the absurd. For example,
The study even counts calories consumed by farmers as energy inputs for biodiesel (as if the farmers wouldn’t be eating, except to produce biodiesel, and as if one unit of food energy equals one unit of fossil fuels). It’s a complete crock.
SO WHAT’S THE TRUE STORY?
Every other legitimate, peer-reviewed study shows a strongly positive energy balance for biodiesel. Indeed, of 12 studies published in the last 10 years, no one but Pimentel and Petzel has claimed a negative energy balance for ethanol or biodiesel.
[Don’t get confused! Some of the total energy used to make ethanol or biodiesel is free solar energy used to grow the corn, soybeans, etc. in the first place. If you include the solar energy inputs, it is true that you “spend” more energy than you end up with (we don’t have a perpetual motion machine here). But since the solar energy is free, renewable and non-polluting, we don’t count it—the total energy needed to produce a unit of ethanol or biodiesel is irrelevant. Look at the amount of fossil or petroleum energy needed to produce a unit of gasoline, ethanol or biodiesel, and then ethanol and biodiesel come out way ahead. See http://www.mda.state.mn.us/ethanol/balance.html for a comparison table.]
Here’s the truth:
So 1 unit of fossil fuel produces 3.2 units of biodiesel. Cantwell is doing right by supporting an industry that shows promise for boosting our local economy and reducing our national reliance on foreign oil. And Redneck, you are (still) wrong—as usual.
And Redneck fears vaginas to boot!
Comment by Mark1— 12/20/05 @ 1:58 pm
You are obnoxious.
Comment by windie— 12/20/05 @ 11:16 am
“Yer right tho, the Biodiesel thing is confusing.”
I think a big issue with biodiesel cost is economies of scale. The cost will likely come down if it is widely produced. Seeing Martin Tobias join Seattle Biodiesel to drive strategic direction, is certainly is a sign to me that biodiesel production has a future as a viable business proposition.
I do think the government should resist directly subsidizing biodiesel production. The direct subsidy for ethanol production is corporate welfare for Archer Daniels Midland.
Some potential down sides I see to biodiesel is increased irrigation needs and crowding out of food crops. Possibly solvable problems, but certainly something to be aware of. I also see the risk of some on the left (not you in particular) of making biodeisel a panacea for our dependence on foreign oil and pollution from internal combustion sources.
@53
For the Clueless,
Isn’t Sen Murray on the Transportation committee, maybe someone should ask her why those cars arn’t being sold in the US.
man I’d always taken the “129%” study at face value…. Boy, do I feel dumb!
@64 breaking windie:
Good! Thank you. It’s always a good day for me when I can irritate people like you. Cheers!
mark@67
more… confused. Why did you think I was talking to you about anything?
Ohhh wait! Reading comprehension is good. That was someone quoting me… on a different issue. Mine is