Earlier today I found out that Starbucks has raised their prices for the 2nd time this year, this time by 9 cents a cup. Though it may not seem like a big increase at first glance, it is. The reason for this price increase: the increased production of ethanol. Interesting how ethanol, a corn based biofuel, would raise the cost of a cup of coffee....Please tell me again why we are feeding our livestock corn in stead of alfalfa? That in itself is another discussion that I'll leave for another time.
Learning that Starby's raised their prices, probed me to do more research on ethanol. I have seen commercials stating that ethanol is the answer to global warming and that it will help cut prices in oil, since we won't be so dependent on the Middle East for our gas. Hearing that the Bush Administration is behind this, I knew that there was a catch... so this is what I found:
Currently, in the US, ethanol represents 3% of the total fuel. In the next five years, they plan on doubling that amount and spending $5.7 billion in tax credits to subsidize large farming corporations. Ethanol does have lower amounts of "atmosphere warming carbons" but it is more expensive to produce ethanol then it is regular gasoline. Using coal fired power plants to power the facilities produces more greenhouse gases then the use of gasoline. Ethanol Plants could be powered using natural gases, but is more expensive. Ethanol also gets lower mpg, so we'll be frequenting the pumps more often.
So if ethanol is not the solution to our problem...what is? We can start with hybrid vehicles, since they help to ween us off of gasoline, but even still that is not enough. I think that we should make use of the distributed power grid, by using renewable energy that we can get from solar power.
Learning that Starby's raised their prices, probed me to do more research on ethanol. I have seen commercials stating that ethanol is the answer to global warming and that it will help cut prices in oil, since we won't be so dependent on the Middle East for our gas. Hearing that the Bush Administration is behind this, I knew that there was a catch... so this is what I found:
Currently, in the US, ethanol represents 3% of the total fuel. In the next five years, they plan on doubling that amount and spending $5.7 billion in tax credits to subsidize large farming corporations. Ethanol does have lower amounts of "atmosphere warming carbons" but it is more expensive to produce ethanol then it is regular gasoline. Using coal fired power plants to power the facilities produces more greenhouse gases then the use of gasoline. Ethanol Plants could be powered using natural gases, but is more expensive. Ethanol also gets lower mpg, so we'll be frequenting the pumps more often.
So if ethanol is not the solution to our problem...what is? We can start with hybrid vehicles, since they help to ween us off of gasoline, but even still that is not enough. I think that we should make use of the distributed power grid, by using renewable energy that we can get from solar power.
The Cool Kids on the Block:
1 comments:
A while back I read something about a study done, at Berkley I believe, that ethanol itself actually causes more smog. And just today on the NPR I heard a scientist from south america saying that industrial farms have already been clearing rainforests to produce bio-fuel, and we know the reprocutions of that. This scientist's concerns were also that instead of producing food for people the food will go to cars instead. Not helpful in countries already suffering from malnutrition & starvation. To add to that more people suffer from starvation now than 20 years ago, so things are not improving for the world's impoverished people. (and sadly our country promotes reality shows with obese people competing to lose weight) Basically bio-fuel is bullshit and the governments piss poor way of trying to pretend that they are doing something about global warming. Back in 1918 I believe they invented cars that actually produced water as a by-product. (I forget the name of these now) Basically everything comes down to the dollar, and big business must continue to stay big, so now we have bio-fuel.
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