AmericanFarmer’s Recent Comments

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  Hiya Bart

  We will have to agree to disagree on this one.

  I am not an advocate of the way the ethanol business is presently run. We need way more people involved, and way less emphasis on corn.

  There are just so many ways to brew hooch. I have bought into Dave Blume's plan hook, line, and sinker because we need to give people new jobs as the layoffs build up and hyper-inflation begins.

  I have built a hyper-local commerce and community system for any city that wants to deploy it as a "Peak Oil" crash system, but we need physical labor to offset oil and natural gas depletion.

  Not that we shouldn't walk and bike more : )

  Thank you for all the work you do at Energy Bulletin.On When in doubt, propagandize posted 1 year ago 12 Responses

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  Good question, BUT...

  Why can't we just switch over to better mileage vehicles, you ask?

  Here is one reason...

  Day care costs average between $3,380 to $10,787 a year for just one preschooler, according to the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.

  Even before this year's economic perils, the cost had climbed 5.2 percent between 2006 and 2007.

  About 2,650,000 0preschoolers attend day care.

  These parents are now having to pull their kids out because they can't make ends meet, and you expect them to go buy a NEW CAR?

  Get real.

  We need a new infrastructure for making alcohol fuel, and that means new jobs in still manufacturing, mushroom farming, talapia farming, and all the wonderful side-businessesthat spring up from the WIDE VARIETY of feedstocks you can use to make fuel, not just corn.

  We can make fuel from the 70 million acres of mesquite in the US, from Kelp grown off the ocean's shores, and many, many more things than corn.

  So stop trying to peddle crap about ethanol being a bad choice. Seriously - I am making my own fuel on a small scale, and it is our way forward from oil.

  Anyone who wants the truth needs to pick up a copy of "Alcohol Can Be A Gas" by David Blume. Gristmill needs to get on this.

  Randy White
  Lawns To GardensOn When in doubt, propagandize posted 1 year ago 12 Responses

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  Ethanol can be made from hundreds of plants

  Hey, David Roberts - it's YOU who are the propaganda thrower pal. Any idiot who writes an article about ethanol needs to admit that alcohol is made from sugar and yeast.

  Duh.

  We don't need gasoline.
  We never needed it.

  Facts: Scientific and historical about gasoline and alcohol

  1. The original automobiles ran on alcohol because when they were invented gasoline was not available.

  2. John D. Rockefeller spent $4 million in early 1900 dollars (that we know of) to promote Prohibition, a ban on alcohol manufacturing in the US that started in 1919 just as the car industry was taking off.

  3. When Prohibition was lifted in 1933, gasoline stations were ubiquitous and most engines ran on gasoline only.

  4. Alcohol can be manufactured locally and on a community level from renewable plant material for $1 - $2 per gallon.

  5. The growing of plant material for alcohol would have no effect on the price of food.

  6. The growing of plants for fuel would more than neutralize the carbon created by burning alcohol for fuel.

  7. In Brazil, over 50% of new cars sold can already run on 100% alcohol.

  8. Producing alcohol from plant material is energy efficient and has a positive energy return (You get more energy out of alcohol than it takes to make it).

  9. The oil companies aggressively promote garbage science to deceive the public into believing that alcohol fuels:
     
  a) will cause starvation
  b) are uneconomical
  c) are net polluters.
  10. Gasoline is a high toxic material.

  11. It is entirely unneeded to fuel our cars.

  12. Oil companies like Chevron have pressured PBS, commercial TV networks and other news media to keep this basic information from the public for decades - and the censorship continues to this day.

  Remember this information when the gas shortages start, and pick up a copy of America's playbook for digging out of this mess.

  Our biggest challenge in the world right now is not our 401k's... it is that there are nuclear armed countries whose people are starving, and they are descending into chaos. All the leaders of the world need to do is feed people and they can maintain order.

  The highly armed nations of the world need to be fed, folks - because it sucks to die and countries that are armed with weapons of mass destruction will take others out with them as they go.

  And to add to our own domestic national security problem here in the United States, Matt Simmons, one of the world's foremost energy experts, says gasoline stocks are the lowest here since 1967 and refinery production is down following recent hurricanes. He warns that if there were a run on the "energy bank" by everyone topping off their gasoline tanks, the U.S. would be out of fuel in three days, and grocery shelves largely emptied in a week.

  We do not have a very large alcohol fuel energy infrastructure in place yet, and there are bound to be emergency shortages of energy. You can live without electricity and gas, you would just have to get used to digging in the dirt. They survived collapse in Cuba, and we can do it here.

  So let's become less selfish REAL FAST. We can survive without money. But it will be easier as long as we have communities with local leadership, farming and people-organizing skills, electricity, the Internet, and barter systems. I think it would suck if the Internet went away.On When in doubt, propagandize posted 1 year ago 12 Responses