Tomorrow, at 7:00 PM in Room 220 of the Guggenheim building. In the talk, which is sponsored by Aeronautics & Astronuatics department, he'll be promoting his new book, Energy Victory, and arguing that a switch to alcohol fuels can break OPEC and help us win the war on terror.
I'll be attending the talk, and I hope that some of you will, too. And, if you have a technical background and go to the talk, I would be interested in hearing your reactions, especially if you disagree with any of his arguments.
As I said in this post, I have long been skeptical of most claims for biofuels, but I don't see any obvious flaws in Zubrin's plan. But others with more technical background in these subjects may, which is why I would like to hear from those who know more than I do about the feasibility and the economics of a large scale switch to alcohol fuels.
For those who want to know more, here's a recent article on his ideas, a FrontPage interview, and a Wikipedia biography.
Posted by Jim Miller at December 05, 2007 10:19 AM | Email ThisIn this state, as well as others, the cost of fuel to our animals have skyrocketed due to the conversion of our wheat and feed crops to corn for the purpose of converting to ethanol.
My brother who has a small farm has complained about the high cost to feed his sheep, horses, etc. for this winter. This is Spokane.
This story is retold and retold throughout our country.
And why wouldn't you convert to corn since it is so subsidized? And forget that corn for ethanol isn't that energy efficient as it is being portrayed.
But, I also have been told there are other biofuels that are more efficient. I need to defer to our more distinguished posters for that info.
Posted by: swatter on December 5, 2007 10:29 AMWithout oil many modern economies that rely on oil (Russia, Venezuela, UAE, Saudi Arabia, etc) could collapse and then everyone would be a whole lot poorer, when Governments collapse from lack of oil revenue it makes terror much more likley. It's just the nature of the game.
He is for Methanol based fuel mixed with 15% gasoline.
Posted by: daveo on December 5, 2007 11:23 AMThe hydrogen companies are likely not paying him as much as the Ethanol companies are? You can't grow Hydrogen in the farmlands of America. =P
Methanol = Good
Ethanol = Bad
Rationale: Engines designed for methanol can run on either methanol or ethanol. Methanol can be made from either biomass (e.g. corn) or other sources (e.g. coal). Locking into ethanol locks us into biomass, drives up food prices, and leaves us with fewer options.
But those corn states sure have a lot of votes, so it's kinda hard to get that message out.
Posted by: TB on December 5, 2007 11:28 AMStart drilling and quit playing this foolish game with other nations who hate us.
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on December 5, 2007 11:57 AM"It's getting a big push now because there's tight supply, but I think we have the cart before horse," said Terry McInturff, director of the Center for Energy Commerce at Texas Tech University's Rawls College of Business.
"[Ethanol] has some good features. It's less of a pollutant than gas, but the mileage is not as good and we have serious problems to work out," he said. "Ethanol is not pipeline-friendly, as it can be easily contaminated with water, and if we want to replace gasoline with it, we'd need to use 87 percent of our farmland, so it has practical limits. In the end I'd say ethanol has its niche, but it has lots of problems that politicians tend to gloss over."
I'm sure it pained MSNBC to recite that.
And I'll let later commenters figure out why I repeated that bit of advice.
Posted by: Jim Miller on December 5, 2007 12:12 PMAnyways, I'm interested in hearing about the economic and engineering hurdles in his idea. In the meantime I'll have to do some googling to see if methanol is as hard to transport as ethanol is (don't think so, but I'll check).
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on December 5, 2007 12:48 PMIf I got the ball rolling wrong at #1, I apologize but I don't see where. My comment was very apropos for any of the alternative energy sources- they all have environmental effects.
Posted by: swatter on December 5, 2007 12:54 PMIt's a truly vicious cycle. Maybe we should consider bringing back cold fusion.
I for one don't believe in skipping over nukes. There's a problem with them, however, and that is that it takes a decade or better to get one online. We have such a regulatory-choked system to design and build nuke plants here that it's a miracle any of them were ever built in the first place. Nobody wants another Three Mile Island, do they?
Anyhow - there's one central concept that folks can grasp when it comes to alternative energy and its future here:
There's no silver bullet.
In other words, there's no single technology that's going to fix all our problems. It's going to take a combo of a bunch of different solutions (including oil shale, oil sands, and just drilling in the Gulf and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere) to sort it out.
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on December 5, 2007 01:45 PMAbsolutely! Unlike most problems this is a fixable thing. It'll just take some backbone and foresight from Washington, D.C. Then again maybe it isn't fixable.
France is IIRC ~80% nuclear power, so there's no reason why we can't be as well.
On the terrorist thing, I'm with Bryan. It's not like you can just take over a nuke plant. For one, they're heavily guarded, for two, crashing a jet into the cooling towers likely wouldn't work.
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on December 5, 2007 02:29 PMLet me get this straight, you want America to be more like France? =P
Hey, if those hygeine-challenged cheap wine swilling
Hey, if those hygeine-challenged cheap wine swilling
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on December 5, 2007 03:21 PMZubrin has much of this right, but the reality is that alcohol is still not a viable fuel. But what deperately needs to happen, is to get the government out of the way, and instead of regulation, do the exact opposite of incentivizing new fuel development.
Better yet, someone like Bill Gates, with a huge amount of wealth, ought to fund a private multi-million dollar prize for anyone who can come up with a better fuel technology. Sort like the Ansari-X prize for private manned space flight.
As long as we have corn subsidies and other irrational market manipulation and regulation, we won't get any closer to providing for our future energy needs. And the man-hating left wants it that way, so they are more than happy to sign on to all of the ludicrous efforts to provide energy in tiny quantities from wind, solar, etc. and to get on board with all of the corn subsidy addicts.
This is a great example of where both the environmentalist left, and the corn subsidy loving right are both part of the problem. Government does nothing but make the problem worse by granting power to these lobbies, instead of keeping the playing field level for the entrepreneurs and scientists who will be the true solvers of our energy problems.
Posted by: Jeff B. on December 5, 2007 03:22 PM"Hey, if those hygeine-challenged cheap wine swilling,
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on December 5, 2007 03:23 PMPlus. What about the pesticides? Not that I really care about that issue.
The back story on France is that their african colonies had some of the World's richest uranium mines.
The U.S. is blessed with many fine uranium deposits as well, but we can't mine them because of our collective nuclearphobia.
Posted by: Bart Cannon on December 5, 2007 03:36 PMPlant a field, get out over 100 percent of the overall energy you put in, out of that field each year. Then, within a few years, we will have to shut down all the oil wells and pump excess bio energy fuels back into the old oil wells just to get rid of it.
Fantastic, go full bio and save the world. Within a few years, we use all we want and eat all we want of bio fuels. The poor won't starve, they can get drunk instead and eat tree twigs and leaves fried in bio fuel to live. And, we will still have to pump it into the ground to get rid of all that excess that came from something for nothing.
Same thing with wind. Put up a windmill and get something for nothing. Hot spots downwind do not mean anything and slowed air movement will still carry mositure where it used to, won't it? The law of a reaction to every action does not work with the greens energy stealing windmills. Fastastic, something for nothing again.
When will the global warming people, Gore for one, begin to chart the changes downwind of energy windmills and tell the truth. Earth not cooled by moving air downwind of those windmills warms up. Slowed air will not transport as much moisture to where it used to to. A energy windmill is a basically a leaking dam which will tend to force air to flow around it. Changing weather patterns around and downwind. Funny, isn't that what everyone is complaining about.
Love you greens and all this something for nothing replacement that will save the world without cost. Expecially if you are a green and stop all activity in your back yard and put it in someone else's back yard.
Posted by: Sam Cole on December 5, 2007 04:21 PMNuclear plants are a very viable option. Technology has improved and even waste has virtually been eliminated through the creation of inert materials. France has 85 nuclear plants today and they don't seem to be having any problems. They obviously don't suffer from environmental groups wishing to return mankind to the pre-industrial age, or they ignore them if they exist.
Biofuel may be a future to move towards, but as long as the price of a gallon of gas costs less than the cost to produce an alternative, Petroleum is going to be number one. It's all about the cost and everything else is still far more expensive than $3.50 for a gallon of gas.
As for Zubrin's desire to get the Middle East off of our backs, just tell the leftists in America to shut up and start drilling and refining here. The only reason we crawl to OPEC is because the left has forced us to do it by preventing America from producing the fuel it needs. It's not the Middle East in the way of our energy independence, it's the liberals in the country that want us dependent, want us out of our cars, and would like everyone living in peace with Gaia, avoiding meat, turning over our guns, supporting Big Brother and the nanny state.
Posted by: Reality on December 5, 2007 04:32 PMEven if we pumped all the oil from Alaska, Florida, Texas, etc. we still would need to refine it. Since there are zero refineries being built at this moment and the old ones are falling apart your comment makes no sense.
How about this fact:
The Middle East is fueling the economy, how many planes has Dubai and Quatar bought from Boeing? How about the Saudis? Each one of those planes represents an investment of several billions of dollars for the American economy. You really willing to let America loose billions of dollars each year because we no longer buy oil from the Middle East?
Even if we stopped buying from OPEC and were self-sufficient China would be more than happy to take over. Do you really want China to be the next generations world leader?
Obviously you haven't thought through the global implications of your narrow minded statement. The Pat Buchanan's wing of the GOP is dead, the world is flat and isolation doesn't work in the era of a global economy.
Biofuel is complete hogwash -- it's a way to keep corn subsidies flowing. Alcohol is real and sustainable.
Amazing items:
1. Brazil once fueled 80% of its cars will alcohol from sugar beets (when gas was cheap).
2. Any car can run on alcohol with a $30 change to the electronic ignition.
3. Alcohol will not erode gaskets.
4. At one point alcohol was the primary fuel for the auto. This was because almost all farms had stills that would ferment waste vegetation....so people made their own fuel.
5. Flex fuel ignition will become a standard option in CA by 2008.
Posted by: John Bailo on December 5, 2007 06:06 PMCato, the Pat Buchanan wing is now taken up by Kucinich and Paul.
Posted by: swatter on December 6, 2007 06:47 AMFunny isn't it. So many people forget 3 simple letters (BTU).
Gas/oil has some of the highest BTU's which makes more power and makes the world go round.
Alcohol is good for drinks and cleaning.
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on December 6, 2007 11:40 AM