Friday, August 05, 2005
Oil
Every facet of our lives are controlled and driven by oil. Energy has become the single most important factor for international politics. In this background, it was quite interesting to read in NYtimes about the brazil and sugarcane. One third of the all the energy requirements is met by locally grown sugarcane. Half the vehicles in brazil can run in a combination of oil and ethanol. Why dont we think about this? Do we have some implementation problems or is it the age old red tapism?
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Yeah, I don't understand this.!
Hope they come up with alternate fuels so that the dependency on these oil rich countries goes down.
I think it is the Lobby.! I read somewhere how the Detroit big-3 lobby worked with the Govt in the 90's and tore down a lot of railway tracks.! Now I feel it is the oil lobby. Who knows.
I know this for sure - City of Berkeley California, runs its vehicles on used Vegetable oil from restaurants , homes etc. There are people out there who can convert your car engine to run on Veggie oils.! Isn't that good and green.
Not sure why these aren't picking up...Atleast I am glad that the Hybrid models in Cars / SUV are doing well.!!
Hope they come up with alternate fuels so that the dependency on these oil rich countries goes down.
I think it is the Lobby.! I read somewhere how the Detroit big-3 lobby worked with the Govt in the 90's and tore down a lot of railway tracks.! Now I feel it is the oil lobby. Who knows.
I know this for sure - City of Berkeley California, runs its vehicles on used Vegetable oil from restaurants , homes etc. There are people out there who can convert your car engine to run on Veggie oils.! Isn't that good and green.
Not sure why these aren't picking up...Atleast I am glad that the Hybrid models in Cars / SUV are doing well.!!
global economy runs on energy, with oil being the most important source, schumacher and club of rome spoke about energy being a limiting factor to growth. but no 1 listened to em, they have more faith in the market being able to solve such issues!seldon do they realise that the market can also fail at times!
Aravind,
Alternate fuels which has been found till now cannot exactly fit into the automobiles that have been using the oil derivatives.You have to compromise somewhere to use them on the existing automobiles, speed?? modification to the existing components and even if you use them they might be making more noise giving lot of wear and tear etc.That's why oil is ruling.
This is what i found regarding ethanol
"However, pure ethanol attacks certain rubber and plastic materials and cannot be used in unmodified car engines. Additionally, ethanol has a much higher octane rating than ordinary gasoline, requiring changes to the spark timing in engines."
"Some studies have found that the total energy needed to produce ethanol from grain—including fermentation, fertilizing, fuel for farm tractors, harvesting and transporting the grain, building and operating an ethanol plant, and the natural gas used to distill corn sugars into alcohol—exceeds the energy content of ethanol."
I think most of the govt want to switch to alternate fuels.They just didn't get a perfect one to replace the oil.
Alternate fuels which has been found till now cannot exactly fit into the automobiles that have been using the oil derivatives.You have to compromise somewhere to use them on the existing automobiles, speed?? modification to the existing components and even if you use them they might be making more noise giving lot of wear and tear etc.That's why oil is ruling.
This is what i found regarding ethanol
"However, pure ethanol attacks certain rubber and plastic materials and cannot be used in unmodified car engines. Additionally, ethanol has a much higher octane rating than ordinary gasoline, requiring changes to the spark timing in engines."
"Some studies have found that the total energy needed to produce ethanol from grain—including fermentation, fertilizing, fuel for farm tractors, harvesting and transporting the grain, building and operating an ethanol plant, and the natural gas used to distill corn sugars into alcohol—exceeds the energy content of ethanol."
I think most of the govt want to switch to alternate fuels.They just didn't get a perfect one to replace the oil.
alternate fuels and energy can definitely be one way of looking at this, but finding "the alternate fuel" that would substitute oil is not going to happen overnight-look at Golden State California and the rate at which gas prices were going up last month,its just scary to even think about it.
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