Oh, Well nevermind then

It depends on the type of work that would be required to produce the ehanol. If it takes that much more energy production in terms of physical labor and machinery but does not pollute the environment then so what, If it did then thats not practical.

Eventually cars will run on small nuclear plants and run for 20 years or so without needing a new plutonium rod, similar to modern aircraft carriers. We will have small portable plants at home that can be charged with nuclear cells every so often and nuclear powered robotic pets that never die.

Nuclear power is the future. Many scientific advances will eliminate the need to use oil alltogether and rely more on Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Gravity, Electromagnetic and, Trilateral Chemical influx of heavy elements to power most everything.

Well, you talk about what you have read, heard and never heard and I'm pointing at a successful example. They produce it with sugar plants (which I don't know how to spell in english) and many others. They recycle this stuff. You're talking about net gains with a corporate view. But corporations are known not to care about what they dump. Recycling is a more wide solution and the whole ethanol stuff is at least less dirty than oil and renewable. We can't just figure out or develop a solution that will be valid for everyone.

There must be a shift in consciousness to migrate to another kind of machines to move our bodies, at least to the places that we need to. In cities, there would be less pollution and traffic - a waste of energy and time, as well as damaging to our health and environment. But it'd be hard: we'd have to invent another model of status quo that everyone would try to reach. It's not that our times or any time in history is better: it's all psychological. We miss too much of the human spectrum that past cultures did enjoy. Certainly, we are exploring new things but we have been doing this for a long time but in the past it was even more dangerous and far so much thrill than today.

if i might point out one more small(large) thing.
earlier someone posted exerps from a book by one Lindsey Williams as pertinent the discussion.

Lindsey Williams is a baptist minister trained in and spending his life working in the art of persuading people to "believe in" irrational things.

i on the other hand presented some of the work of Kenneth S. Deffeys.
Mr Deffeys began work in the oil industry for Shell research lab in Houston
in 1958 where he worked along side of Hubbert himself. His father was a first generation oil man and when he was 10 years old had already decided to become a petro geologist. He was already studying geology in high school from two famous petro goelogists and went to undergraduate school at Colorado school of mines. Recieved his graduate degree at princton with a focus specifically on oil exploration and production. He worked summer jobs as a rank and file oil well worker. After he left shell he taught petro geolory at Minnesota and Oregon State then joined the faculty at princeton and continued to consult part time in hands on oil and mining.

who you gonna consult about oil geology Baptist minister or oil goelogist ?

producing sugar cane for ethenol is not in any way Recycling. The cane is produced and used directly for ethenol production. They are not using a by-product from sugar production and turning it into ethanol. Energy is used directly in the production of the Sugar from fertilizers produced with natural gass or oil and tractors and harvesting equipment that use oil products directly. Then the sugar cane needs to be processed into ethanol using even more energy.
Some of that energy in Brazil is from by-products and that is good. All this resulting in a net loss of energy. I am not talking about monetary gain and loss i am talking about energy gain and loss. If it takes 6 or even in Brazil something closer to 2 gallons of petroleum to produce 1 gallon of ethanol then that one gallon of ethanol wasted 5 or 1 gallons of oil and ethanol is like pretending to move forward by going backwards. Its simple math.

as i said earlier ethanol is a sly way for governments to take taxpayer money and subsidise large agro buisnesses and nothing more.
(not going to go into the history of sugar exploitation in south america by large agro buisness)

the success story you speak of **and it is a success story** i agree is the use of sugar cane waste to produce electricity. However there is still an element of it contrived to benifit large agro producers. The best thing about anual growth biomass electricity (like from sugar cane trash) is the fact of zero sum carbon dioxide emmissions ! very cool indeed and worth thinking about and celebrating.
Brazil also does a good job at hydroelectric production also very clean.

I am even willing to conceed that sugar biomass and sugar ethanol production go really really well together. something also to consider. BUT sugar production requires petro energy expended in nitrogen and sulfate fertizer production and lots of it. even if you run the equipment on ethanol. This fertilizer production cannot be just conveniently left out of either the energy of the polution equation. even if it is made outside the country. When you leave it out of the equation you are just faking the numbers and the "sucess" might well be a total fake.

I agree, nuclear energy is the solution - and every skeptic should be informed:

The US wants to switch over to a hydrogen economy and have automobiles run on hydrogen. Unfortunately, the switch will be difficult because it requires a lot of energy (electricity) to make hydrogen and right now that means we need more oil. Nuclear power is so promising because nuclear generators can be used to make vast quantities of hydrogen and thus fuel the hydrogen economy. This will free us from foreign oil.

End of subject, bye bye

Nuclear power plants generate large amounts of waste, so much that they can't get rid of enough of it fast enough. Within 100 years we will have so much of it we won't know what to do with it. You're right. We'll be free from foreign oil. We'll be prisoners to massive amounds of sludge that we can't eliminate instead.

yes even though hydrogen and ethanol are net losers of energy rather than producers they do seem to solve the "how do we power our cars" question.

But the real question is -- is this question just a product of our pathological love of cars that got us to this point in the first place.
its not a question of energy when we are talking net loss.

Cars and suburbs and roads were an invention of the oil industry to create artificial market for oil.

do we really need a net loss substitute for make car go juice ?
can't we do better than driving around all over the place individually in our fuel using but admitidly highly stylish and expensive cars and suvs ?
why do we need to perpetuate that at all ?

Don't worry, there's not even enough uranium for 100 years.

People demanding scientific proof:
read the thirty theses at http://anthropik.com

Why not just shoot the waste into the sun on rockets?

That's actually a damn good idea.

What happens when something goes wrong and the rocket explodes on the launch pad? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to trust something like that to NASA or the government given their recent "issues". No doubt private investors could *eventually* do it faster, cheaper, and safer, but right now the government is the only entity that could handle the sheer volume that would need to be transported. I don't know much of anything about the ramifications of sending nuclear waste into the Sun, but it does seem like a great idea in principle, just that the execution is another thing entirely. Of course those are only my

Hummm...Let's see. Would I rather bury the stuff in a salt mine or lob it into the air where one in a thousand shots WILL explode and spread radiological and carcinogenic waste over a vast area? Hummm.... tough choice.

It actually is a very good idea, but far too dangerous and impractical. The most hazardous nuclear waste is, by definition, a heavy metal. The number of launch vehicles required to dispose of any appreciable fraction of it would be numbered in the thousands. With at least a couple of those exploding on the pad or during ascent.

The launches could take place in extremely remote areas.
It can work and I believe in the future thats what will happen.

How about nuclear reactors in space that transmit the energy in subspace down to the planet to reciever stations from there, the energy is sent out to where it needs to go and when the radioactive rods are ready for disposal they are automatically shot into the sun.

Oil will be pumped into extiction soon and that will force humans to use more environmentally friendly energy sources, But it will die out slowly and hopefully during that time we shift to alternative energy sources rather than starting wars to secure oil. I doubt it though, Capitalists are blinded by greed and profit, its amazing how such a good system has mutated into what it is now.