Text 1924, 88 rader
Skriven 2006-06-07 13:43:00 av Robert E Starr JR (2370.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Atheists: America's m
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Josh Hill wrote:

> On Mon, 5 Jun 2006 23:38:11 +0000 (UTC), Charlie Edmondson
> <edmondson@ieee.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Josh,
>>Brazil uses sugar cane (or did, anyway... 8-) ) because they figured 
>>they could make it work.  Didn't work so well, so they mainly use gas 
>>just like the rest of us.  It costs a lot of money and energy to turn a 
>>biological feedstock into alcohol, really!  If you are a govenment, you 
>>can shuffle the money around so you don't notice right away, but not 
>>forever.
> 
> 
> That's out of date. Brazil did have problems with its ethanol problem
> way back when -- shortages, I think, and then the price of oil dropped
> to $20 a gallon -- but that's all changed, and new cars can run on
> either, so neither is a risk for the Brazilian driver. And --
> 
> As Brazil Fills Up on Ethanol, It Weans Off Energy Imports
> 
> David Luhnow
> Geraldo Samor
> The Wall Street Journal, 16 January 2006
> 
> RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- After nearly three decades of work, Brazil
> has succeeded where much of the industrialized world has failed: It
> has developed a cost-effective alternative to gasoline. Along with new
> offshore oil discoveries, that's a big reason Brazil expects to become
> energy independent this year. 
> 
> To see how, take a look at Gildo Ferreira, a 39-year-old real-estate
> executive, who pulled his VW Fox into a filling station one recent
> afternoon. Instead of reaching for the gasoline, he spent $29 to fill
> up his car on ethanol made from sugar cane, an option that's available
> at 29,000 gas stations from Rio to the Amazon. A comparable tank of
> gasoline would have cost him $36. "It's cheaper and it's made here in
> Brazil," Mr. Ferreira says of ethanol. If the price of oil stays at
> current levels, he can expect to save about $350 a year. 
> 
> At current prices, Brazil can make ethanol for about $1 a gallon,
> according to the World Bank. That compares with the international
> price of gasoline of about $1.50 a gallon. Even though ethanol gets
> less mileage than gasoline, in Brazil it's still cheaper per mile
> driven. As a result, ethanol now accounts for as much as 20% of
> Brazil's transport fuel market. The country's use of gasoline has
> actually declined since the late 1970s. The use of alternative fuels
> in the rest of the world is a scant 1%. 
> 
> http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6817
> 
> So it's just plain cheaper than gas. We could use Brazilian feedstock
> too if there weren't an import tax on it (Why not? I mean, unlike oil,
> it's not made in countries that want to kill us and so deserve a tax
> break). But ultimately it will make more sense for us to use
> cellulosic ethanol, which can currently be made for about $1.30 a
> gallon with the price expected to drop to 60 cents per gallon.
> 

Interesting, since it goes against the two or three engineering analysis 
I have seen on this.  My basic worry when using the Wall St. Jrnl for 
things like this, is that sometimes they don't get the real story, just 
the 'official' story, like how much of the $1 a gallon price relies on 
direct government subsidies.  You see, the real tale will be told with 
ADM opens up a chain of fuel stations due to the great profits to be 
made.  Right now, ethanol is used as a fuel additive largely because it 
costs too much, even with the subsidies the government has here.

You see, I am not really all that worried about 'peak oil' and other 
scare tactics.  When crude gets too expensive, then the alternatives 
become profitable.  When they become profitable, people will use them, 
and the government will TAX them, not help subsidize them.  Why do you 
think they support oil so much?  They get a lot more money from them 
than they give to them...

Charlie
                                                                               
                              
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