Ethanol Revisited

[rh77]

What ever happened to crop rotation?

This goes back to the Great Depression and lessons learned with the topsoil we lost in the "Dustbowl" era.

...or we should have learned.

Agri-business is very guilty of poor farming practices. You can't keep planting corn over-and-over. For example (not sure if this is the correct practice or not)... if you want fuel, alternate corn with soybeans and make some Bio-D -- let nature put the nutrients back, in other words.

The lobbying power is too strong. The small, independent farmer continues to get screwed in the whole mess, and Washington is fine with it. More brainwashery...

RH77

[GasSavers_Erik]

How about running E85 in a carburated car (my 1987 Honda civic)? Someone mentioned that it is corrosive? What might it do to my fuel system? There is a guy who burns it in a 1985 Honda Goldwing (stock) with no problems but I'm not ready to try it without some reassurance.

We have an E85 gas station here in town (we also have an ethanol plant in town as well). I would like to give it a try but don't want to have to rebuild by carb if it eats the seals. I have been burning gas with 10% ethanol for the past year without issue.

[ZugyNA]

Originally Posted by theclencher

it'll take a "correction" of epidemic proportion to get through to breeders

then they'll think they need to breed their way through it

Remember the movie line about...."you can't handle the truth"?

Try this one on for size. Not sure I'd want to be entering grade school about now....

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PDF file:


http://www.paulchefurka.ca/WEAP/WEAP.pdf


Conclusion

All the research and thought I have put into this paper has convinced me that the human race is now out of time.
We are staring at hard limits on our activities and numbers, imposed by energy constraints and ecological damage.
There is no time left to mitigate the situation, and no way
to bargain or engineer our wayout of it.

It is what it is, and neither Mother Nature nor the Laws of Physics are open to negotiation.

We have come to this point so suddenly that most of us have not yet realized it. While it may take another
twenty years for the full effects to sink in, the first impacts from oil depletion will be felt within five.

Given the size of our civilization and the extent to which we rely on energy in all its myriad forms, five years is far too short a time to accomplish any of the unraveling or re-engineering it would take to back away from the precipice. At this point we are committed to going over the edge.

However, this does not mean that we should adopt a fatalistic stance and assume there is nothing to be done. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. The need for action is more urgent now than ever. Humanity is not going to go extinct. There are going to be massive and ever-growing numbers of people in dire need for the foreseeable future. We need to start now to put systems, structures and attitudes in place that will help them cope with the difficulties, find happiness where it exists and thrive as best they can. We need to develop new ways of seeing the world, new ways of seeing each other, new values and ethics. We need to do this with the aim of minimizing the misery and ensuring that as many healthy, happy people as possible emerge from this long trauma with the skills and knowledge needed to build the next cycle of civilization.