-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 02/26/07 15:21, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: > On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 02:08:24PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: >> On 02/26/07 13:55, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: >>> On Sun, Feb 25, 2007 at 09:36:51PM -0800, Freddy Freeloader wrote: >>>> Paul Johnson wrote: >>>>> Michael Pobega wrote: >>>>> >> [snip] >>> I wonder what burning a gallon of gas really costs? (I don't know, I >>> found a couple websites that suggest the true costs is somethinglike >>> $5-6/galloon, but they were out of date and from likely biased >>> sources). >> Whatever the cost, it's irrelevant. >> >> It's an *excellent* source of transportable energy, and most of it's >> secondary costs will either exist with other forms of burning liquid >> fuel, or be transferred to different sources. > > Agreed, somewhat, but I think its relevant to a discussion fo the costs of > gasoline. Gasoline's costs are artificially low when you look at the > deferred or external costs. Some other technologies *may* not > necesarily have as high deferred or external costs making their > initial higher costs not so bad. Its a matter of perception. Some > recent reading I'm doing (Our Angry Earth -- Asimov and Pournelle?) > talks about using renewable bio-fuels instead of fossil fuels. Part of > the argument is that renewable bio-fuels pull carbon, for example, out > of the air in their production and put it back cyclically. This means > that some of the external costs you see with fossil fuels aren't there > with the renewable bio-fuels. So their logic is that even though these > renewable bio-fuels are (were, written 1991 or so) more expensive at > the pump, their total cost, including external factors, is lower. How > valid all of that is, I don't know.
Bio-fuels *are* a great idea. Until you realize *how much* gasoline & diesel this country uses (then add 3x more to that for the rest of the world), and the fact that stuff like corn ethanol needs lots of (*petrolem* based) fertilizer. (However, sugar cane ethanol in Brazil is a *great* idea, because of cane's higher sugar density, Brazil's proximity to the equator and lower population). -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFF412OS9HxQb37XmcRAkAJAKC3gm4fbaWh8XKj7YteSAVg3AqTAwCgrA1D b4bKEoZn7QjNMTWVf4X9A3k= =tUs5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
