The Ethanol Farce

Monday, November 26th, 2007

I’ve always been skeptical of the true value of running a vehicle on ethanol. I feel that the next great propulsive fuel must have a net energy content greater than gasoline. Scientifically, this means that the energy content of a given amount of future fuel must be greater than gasoline. Currently, I believe the prime candidate for this is hydrogen.

But I digress. Back to the ethanol farce.

I came across a Consumer Reports revelation from 2006 presenting the results of their gasoline vs. ethanol tests. They ran a battery of tests on a new (2007) flex-fuel …

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Posted in Alternative Energy, Economics, Energy, Oil & Gas, Politics | 9 Comments »

Where, oh where is the outrage?

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Another example of economic short-term memory.

Crude prices are continuing upward, as today Nymex Crude closed just shy of $90 per barrel. But in contrast to previous spikes, we’re not hearing the political sounding board in Washington cry for windfall profits taxes, and the talking heads are not aghast with news of gasoline shortages…

Oil is up 8% just in the few weeks since the Fed cut interest rates to bail us out of the credit crisis, and in the process fueled one of the strongest commodities (pardon the pun) we’ve seen in a long time as the thought of a higher …

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Posted in Oil & Gas | 2 Comments »