Comments

• joemama said:
  

  Swade - don’t worry, we are all hypocrites because we all consume energy in one form or another.

  Solutions, I’m sorry to say I don’t have any, except solar and that’s not going to happen any time soon.

  Water engines? Sure, we’ve all heard of them, or at least the rumors.

  BioFuel is not the answer, imho. Sure, it’s cleaner, but if it prevents people from eating basic meals, then we’ve created a whole new problem. And that doesn’t even factor in the mileage hit…

  -April 15th, 2008 at 2:49 am
• Gio said:
  

  Well, My MY08 9-3 runs on BioEthanol, and i have to say that here, in Switzerland, each drop of E85 consumed is produced in the country, and comes from wood-waste. So here, there is no choice to make between Food or Fuel!!!! and it seems that this way of producing E85 is more efficient.

  

  -April 15th, 2008 at 3:09 am
• Michael said:
  

  …just learned that Ze Germans before their last big war mixed patrol and “schnaps” too. So, old thing. They had at least two reasons: supporting their farming industry and being less dependent on expensive foreign oil.
  The whole think was and is a political issue.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 3:10 am
• Gunnar said:
  

  We need to be careful about assuming “guilt” over perceived indulgences.

  For many in the world, driving one’s car whether it operates on gas, diesel, biodiesel, ethanol or happy thoughts is a life necessity that cannot be replaced by public transportation.

  Further, it’s also important to remember that scientific data changes with time and new observation so the true cause and effect isn’t always so clear cut.

  Personally, I’m tired of reading news reports that vaguely refer to “scientists” agreeing on this or that where it pertains to global warming.

  What scientists? Where? And in what context?

  So, bottom line is - we really don’t know for sure about climate change and our role in it. So let’s replace the guilt with pleasure in our trips.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 4:16 am
• fred said:
  

  Here in the US, the insane support of corn ethanol has caused corn to supplant soybean and other oilseed crops, with corresponding spikes in oilseed and even waste oil prices. Biodiesel that could be had for $3.50/gal a few months ago is now over $5.50. Even petrodiesel is now over $4/gal at the pump, wreaking havoc on everything shipped by truck or rail.
  The moral of the story has to be not supporting one “alternative” fuel at the expense/demolition of many others. And nobody in the biodiesel industry with the exception of some SE Asians, supports clearing tropical rain forests for palm oil plantations. There is plenty of marginal land that should be under consideration.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 4:19 am
• 1985 Gripen said:
  

  Food is costing more for various reasons and I think ethanol production, in the U.S., is only one factor. In the foreign countries with rising food prices oftentimes they don’t produce ethanol at all.

  The talk of the “tortilla crisis” in Mexico was all hyperbole. As I’ve mentioned at length here at TS before (if interested search for “tortilla”) the extreme rise in the price of corn in Mexico has no link whatsoever to the production of ethanol in either Mexico or the U.S.

  I think the more important thing here is the PERCEPTION that biofuels are hurting more than helping due to media reports and Time magazine covers with headlines like “The Clean Energy Myth” with a picture of a corn cob with 100 dollar-bill corn shucks. This has got to be very bad for GM and especially Saab, who seems to have put all its eggs in the ethanol basket.

  Also keep in mind rising petroleum prices drive up the cost of everything, as Fred alludes to above. It costs more to transport everything and those combines and other farm machinery run on petroleum-derived fuels as well. Airlines in the U.S. are going bankrupt each week here due to the fuel costs spiraling out of control. I think the cost of food and EVERYTHING else is going up more due to the rise in petroleum prices than the price of corn. Look at that graph above. Out of the four commodities listed corn has risen the least.

  You think the value of corn rising due to biofuels production is affecting world food prices? Imagine what widespread drought due to global climate change will do!

  -April 15th, 2008 at 4:38 am
• Kenu said:
  

  I think the discussion on ethanol being a major reason to food price increases is pure nonsense. If you read what gen2 and 3 ethanolplants will make the ethanol from, is not foodcrops, but mainly biowaste in different forms. Unfortunately this discussion is polluted with unknowledge and lobbiests for the petroluem industry and anti-car groups.

  In the Nordics every ethanolplant built or being built is non foodbased, so there for sure pockets of sustainable ethanol production. I remeber that Bob lutz also spoke about these plants for the US.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 5:38 am
• aeronaut said:
  

  food production (in the western world) itself is not viable - more energy goes into making and transporting the food than it contains in energy. this is due to the industrialization of food production. taking this product which is already energy negative and reprocessing ( adding more energy) to use as fuel is beyond belief.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 6:00 am
• chaaalie said:
  

  A big part of the problem here is that many people had no idea that corn prices affected many other food staple prices.
  Chicken - use corn as feed
  Beef - use corn in feed
  Sweeteners - corn syrup was cheap alternative to sugar.
  Packing products - many biodegradable “peanuts” and other plastics are made largely of corn starch so they will degrade.
  Pet Foods - many - especially cheap foods - use corn as the primary ingredient or filler. (You should avoid these, but that’s another rant.)

  Corn was so cheap for so long, that it found its way into thousands of products you might never imagine (plastics, paper, de-icers, cleaners etc.) And now that it is rising in price, a lot of the cheap things we use, ain’t so cheap anymore.

  Politics is what is pushing us to ethanol before there is even infrastructure for it … why should we expect for them to wait for it to be a more responsibly-produced product?

  -April 15th, 2008 at 6:21 am
• Richo said:
  

  Kenu you couldn’t be more right.

  Has anyone noticed where the loudest voices against bio-fuels are coming from?? Could it be places like Nigeria who a stock full of oil? This is a scare campaign by the oil producers and probably backed by the oil companies to demonise the bio-fuel push.

  Surely we saw this coming and it shoudn’t be any surprise they would want to protect their business.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 6:59 am
• Troll96 said:
  

  Here are some random observations in response to the posts so far….

  1) It just may be that bio-ethanol is one instance where Saab’s Swedishness is not an asset. In Sweden, where ethanol is partly produced from contraband alcohol seized by the government, the ill-effects of agro-based ethanol production may seem like a non-issue. However, neither Sweden nor any other part of Europe (except France) plays much of a role in world ethanol production, 90% of which is based in the USA and Brazil.

  2) Arguing that marginal producers are, or in future will be, making ethanol from waste products is not really relevant to the current global ethanol market and its alleged impact on food prices, riots etc.

  3) One theme that links all countries that have experienced rising prices (whether for gasoline, rice, corn, wheat or what-have-you) is that they are dependent on importing a lot of those things. If they produced more of their own, this problem would diminish. IMHO, this is the strongest argument for bio-ethanol.

  4) Ethanol powered cars are most efficient when they are not required to also run on gasoline. However, Saab is not going to build or sell many of THOSE cars unless buyers can easily buy E-85 or E-100 in all the places they drive. For the foreseeable future, E-85 remains extremely hard to find and difficult to transport, so Saab will not be able to market cars that maximize bio-fuel technology.

  5) The one energy source which is capable of supporting clean transportation in all its forms w/o dislocating world food production or global warming is electricity produced from nuclear power plants that utilize fuel rod recycling. Until the FUD surrounding nuclear power abates, plug-in hybrid technology can never be green because it relies for the most part on fossil-fuel power plants.

  For Saab, there is no right answer re: whether to push diesel or bio-fuels or plug-in hybrids. That’s because the energy infrastructure of its target markets is what will dictate practicality and consumer acceptance. Since Saab cannot control what that infrastructure will be, it should sell a variety of power options and let each local market dictate what is best.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 7:29 am
• MarkS said:
  

  Scientists at Michigan State University have borrowed some ideas from the cow’s digestive system to come up with this! Corn is now being produced which contains a particular enzyme in its stalk and leaves-the same enzyme found in the second stomach of the cow. This enzyme enables the production of cellulosic ethanol from the waste portion of the plant-the stalk and leaves. Dr. Mariam Sticklen from the university was talking about this last week on PBS (here in the US), and this is not just a mere concept! The researchers have successfully produced generations of this corn, and have suggested the use of other plants as well. A summary of the research is below:
  *******************************************************
  An enzyme from a microbe that lives inside a cow’s stomach is the key to turning corn plants into fuel, according to Michigan State University scientists.

  The enzyme that allows a cow to digest grasses and other plant fibers can be used to turn other plant fibers into simple sugars. These simple sugars can be used to produce ethanol to power cars and trucks.

  MSU scientists have discovered a way to grow corn plants that contain this enzyme. They have inserted a gene from a bacterium that lives in a cow’s stomach into a corn plant. Now, the sugars locked up in the plant’s leaves and stalk can be converted into usable sugar without expensive synthetic chemicals.

  “The fact that we can take a gene that makes an enzyme in the stomach of a cow and put it into a plant cell means that we can convert what was junk before into biofuel,” said Mariam Sticklen, MSU professor of crop and soil science. She is presenting at the 235th national American Chemical Society meeting in New Orleans today. The work also is presented in the “Plant Genetic Engineering for Biofuel Production: Towards Affordable Cellulosic Ethanol” in the June edition of Nature Review Genetics.

  Cows, with help from bacteria, convert plant fibers, called cellulose, into energy, but this is a big step for biofuel production. Traditionally in the commercial biofuel industry, only the kernels of corn plants could be used to make ethanol, but this new discovery will allow the entire corn plant to be used – so more fuel can be produced with less cost.
  Turning plant fibers into sugar requires three enzymes. The new variety of corn created for biofuel production, called Spartan Corn III, builds on Sticklen’s earlier corn versions by containing all three necessary enzymes.

  The first version, released in 2007, cuts the cellulose into large pieces with an enzyme that came from a microbe that lives in hot spring water.

  Spartan Corn II, with a gene from a naturally occurring fungus, takes the large cellulose pieces created by the first enzyme and breaks them into sugar pairs.

  Spartan Corn III, with the gene from a microbe in a cow, produces an enzyme that separates pairs of sugar molecules into simple sugars. These single sugars are readily fermentable into ethanol, meaning that when the cellulose is in simple sugars, it can be fermented to make ethanol.

  “It will save money in ethanol production,” Sticklen said. “Without it they can’t convert the waste into ethanol without buying enzymes – which is expensive.”

  The Spartan Corn line was created by inserting an animal stomach microbe gene into a plant cell. The DNA assembly of the animal stomach microbe required heavy modification in the lab to make it work well in the corn cells. Sticklen compared the process to adding a single Christmas tree light to a tree covered in lights.
  “You have a lot of wiring, switches and even zoning,” Sticklen said. “There are a lot of changes. We have to increase production levels and even put it in the right place in the cell.”

  If the cell produced the enzyme in the wrong place, then the plant cell would not be able to function, and, instead, it would digest itself. That is why Sticklen found a specific place to insert the enzyme.

  One of the targets for the enzyme produced in Spartan Corn III is a special part of the plant cell, called the vacuole. The vacuole is a safe place to store the enzyme until the plant is harvested. The enzyme will collect in the vacuole with other cellular waste products

  Because it is only in the vacuole of the green tissues of plant cells, the enzyme is only produced in the leaves and stalks of the plant, not in the seeds, roots or the pollen. It is only active when it is being used for biofuels because of being stored in the vacuole

  “Spartan Corn III is one step ahead for science, technology, and it is even a step politically,” Sticklen said. “It is one step closer to producing fuel in our own country.”

  -April 15th, 2008 at 7:37 am
• sam said:
  

  A few thoughts:

  1) Most of the food riots that I have read about are sparked by a rise in the cost of rice (Haiti and Egypt). Is anyone using rice to make biofuels? Are farmers substituting corn for rice? I don’t know.

  2) The leftovers from making ethanol from corn are used to make animal feed, ie “distiller’s grains”. From Wikipedia - Distillers grains is a cereal byproduct of the distillation process. There are two main sources of these grains. The traditional sources were from brewers. More recently, ethanol plants are a growing source. It is created in distilleries by drying mash, and is subsequently sold for a variety of purposes, usually as fodder for livestock (especially ruminants).

  3) The real problem with the corn ethanol industry in the US, IMO, is that the Federal Government subsidizes its production and also discourages importing from other countries. That leads to market distortions, unintended consequences, and some of the other problems being discussed here.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 7:46 am
• Dan said:
  

  Interesting read about biofuels… I tend to agree with the Author. I don’t think many are taking into consideration of the “total cost” of biofuels on the environment. I hope GM/Saab looks into another sustainable fuel.

  Time Magazine: “The Clean Energy Scam”
  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html

  -April 15th, 2008 at 7:51 am
• Troll96 said:
  

  As bioengineering expands into the world of bio-fuels, “anti-GM” will take on a new meaning in the auto world.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 7:57 am
• WooDz said:
  

  I’m with Chaaalie on this one.

  The population as a whole is eating more meat, and beef consumption has risen dramatically in the last 20 years. For example, the Chinese consume 4 times the amount of meat they did 20 years ago and although I haven’t researched the ratio, it’s not difficult to realise that a cow will need to eat a far greater amount of corn to sustain itself. Whether the cost to feed the cow out weighs the 200g steaks that can be consumed, vs. people eating the corn directly could be an interesting calculation. Especially when only something like 568lbs of a cow can be used for steak. that’s 568lbs of a 1150lbs cow by the way, and usually anything that yields less than 50% is normally deemed as being inefficient. When broadening the spectrum to include hens, pigs and sheep. You can pretty much guess you’re onto a loser.
  Therefore, our live stock consumption is exponentially increasing which theoretically is not an economical way of converting corn into energy that we can burn. This requires a far greater amount of food stocks, maybe as much as 10 - 12 times the amount we consumed 20 years ago. However, it’s easier to blame bio-fuel products instead of the fact that the human race is rapidly consuming everything on the planet.

  A certain person by the name of Dr. David Suzuki was giving a speech to some Australian university students about the current rapid expansion of human life. This seminar was given back in 1990 and at 1 point, Dr. Suzuki mentioned that 60% of everything on this planet is consumed by humans, effectively all the light from the sun, food stocks and water. He also mentioned that 2000 years ago we only represented a quarter of that. How he had calculated these figures is way beyond me but how he got the figures are irrelevant. What is important is that he said this about 20 years ago and the main point of his seminar was to plant the seed into the minds of those students who were listening. That we are running out of room; that we will eventually consume the planet and ourselves along with it if we did not take action back then. When combining Dr. Suzuki’s message with the above news article of hiked food prices, I am hit with the scary thought of, could it all be too late?

  18 years on and the only changes I’ve seen, is that we are still consuming more food stocks, more electricity, and continuously increasing our global carbon footprint. With plug-in hybid vehicles just around the corner our energy usage is about to explode and it’s no use burying our heads in the sand and think that we can carry on using fossil fuels to sustain our global needs. Alternative energy sources are going to be key to human survival. I would hate to think what our global energy expenditure is, but I bet there’s a group of scientists out there that has calculated it and know at what rate it is exponentially growing. But you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that one energy source alone is not going to do the job. We’re going to need the lot, solar, wind, wave, along with our already established energy infrastructure. For transport we need alternatives too whether it’s conventional or alternative one type will just not do.

  But the majority of us are now finally waking up to the idea that global warming is a reality. Ask anyone born before 1950 and you will probably get a load of warm air blown at you and some retort to it being a load of crock. However, for the rest of us we do want change and the quicker it can happen, the better. However, that will mean sacrifice and unfortunately, for the majority of the Gen Y and Gen X population, we’ve forgotten what that means. We get, what we want , when we want it and should that not happen, we usually go somewhere else or ask to see the manager.

  I’ve recently been looking for a cheaper electric company to supply the power to my house. I’m sure there are millions of people doing the same thing and also looking for a cheaper gas supplier and water supplier. We even shop around now for the cheapest gasoline station to fill our cars and SUV’s. Then it finally dawned on me. It’s not completely the suppliers fault here, it’s the consumer, It’s you and me. As a collective we are demanding so many different forms of energy in such large quantities that the producers can’t keep up. Therefore, prices increase, but hey it’s only another 10c a gallon or litre and we can still carry on with our lives. Then it’s another 10c, then another, next thing we know we’re at over $100 a barrel and we’re knocking on the door or $4 a gallon. If you’re wondering where I’m going with this? Then let me ask you…

  At what point do we stop pointing the finger and blaming everyone around us, and start looking at our own lives and find ways to cut our own expenditure?

  How many lights are on in your house right now, which could be turned off?
  How many items do you have on standby when they could be unplugged?
  How many of us leave the tap running whilst we clean our teeth?
  How many of us leave the car running when stuck in traffic or waiting at a railway crossing.
  How many of us jump in the car when a 10-minute walk would achieve the same result?

  Instead of us all trying to find cheaper ways to consume more maybe we should be trying to find ways to cut costs by using less?

  -April 15th, 2008 at 9:24 am
• zippy said:
  

  Millions of people going hungry and we make fuel out of corn (amongst other foodstuffs) which IMO is a crime. Make biofuels out of waste - not food!

  -April 15th, 2008 at 9:26 am
• zippy said:
  

  WooDZ dont listen to David Suzuki, he talks out of his behind and drives a big SUV. He said that airtravel will be responsible for 70pc of the worlds polution by 2010. Its at 2.6pc as we speak. Did you know that the production of cement contributes 5pc of CO2 emissions? Global warming - a myth IMHO!

  -April 15th, 2008 at 9:29 am
• Bernard said:
  

  The simple reason why the price of food is going up is that the price of oil has gone up.
  This goes double for countries where labour is cheap and oil is imported, since oil makes-up a bigger part of the final price of their food.
  Biofuel production is just a drop in the bucket so far, and it’s just as likely to be part of the solution as it is to be part of the problem. Think about it; if farmers can produce some of their own fuel, less money leaves the country, and that means that food becomes more affordable (cost goes down and income goes up).

  -April 15th, 2008 at 10:12 am
• Troll96 said:
  

  The US already has over 5 million E85-capable vehicles on the road, but they generally run on 100% gasoline because E-85 is sold in fewer than 0.5 % of all filling stations. By contrast, almost 50% of all filling stations sell diesel, yet many car reviewers still complain about the alleged difficulty in finding a diesel station. With this in mind, what can one expect when marketing a bio-fuel car?

  Selling typical E-85 cars (even bio-hybrids) accomplishes little because they are optimized to run on gasoline. Typical E-85 cars cost more to run per mile driven and require more frequent fill-ups. That is a deal-breaker in the US. A hybrid helps soften the blow, but why bother if regular gas would do even better when mated to a hybrid?

  Saab’s edge (and it’s an exciting one) lies in exploiting the full benefits of E-85 by optimizing the engine to run on E-85. I can see great marketing tie-ins with NASCAR on the E-85 theme. However, for the time being that is not a viable strategy since there aren’t enough stations that sell the fuel.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 11:16 am
• saabill said:
  

  I have a rather diferent perspective on this, given that I am currently with my family in the Philippines. On the subject of palm oil, these plantations are certainly competing to some extent here for land previously used for food production. And this in a country that relies on imports of food.

  We in the west should not trivialise the effect upon the third world of rising food prices, regardless of how large or small a part biofuels play as the villian.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
• Ubermich said:
  

  I, just today, have decided to simplify my view on this matter. I have previously thought about the food-for-fuel argument and attempted to break down all of the complexities of the argument.
  Today I found my answer.

  If we find a way to make fuel from a resource we have readily available in our own country, we’re a bunch of demonic capitalists trying to starve the rest of the world. But if ExxonMobil wants to raise prices of oil/gas to levels which cannot be explained by standard laws of economics, and make historic profits doing so, they’re just running a business.

  When did it become my fault that other nations are dependent upon wheat and corn from the US? When did someone sit down and decide that I needed to budget every mile I drive, AND I shouldn’t be allowed a good alternative technology?

  Is ethanol the final answer, no. But we have to start somewhere. Was burning coal to supply electricity the final answer? No. But we had to start somewhere. Each step should be one in the right direction, not one to keep us in the stone-age.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
• Troll96 said:
  

  The EU’s 10% biofuels target by 2020 came under fire today from the UN, the European Environment Agency and others. They argue that this is having an adverse effect on food prices and that harnessing “second generation” biofuel will take 10-20 years. Here is the link:
  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080414/sc_afp/euunfarmpovertyenergypoliticsbiofuel_080414143918

  -April 15th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
• Chris H. said:
  

  On this website some time back, there was mention of a partnership between GM and Coskata - an energy company exploring cellulosic ethanol production using gasification. What was particularly interesting was the potential to use municipal waste as a feedstock (see link).

  http://www.coskata.com/EthanolFeedstockPotential.asp

  This is a very exciting proposition if they can get it off the ground. Ethanol production using “waste” material fits well within the three R philosophy - reduce, reuse, recycle. It reduces the amount of material going to landfill, which means landfills remain open for longer before new landfills are required. It may also mean fuel production can be decentralized, producing locally for local consumption, thereby reducing distribution costs and the reliance on large centralized oil refining capacity.

  There are one or two groups that are likely to oppose a move in this direction: oil companies for obviously reasons and possibly the waste management companies, if they don’t see money in it for themselves. As usual, it is more likely the political hurdles will be more difficult to jump than the technical ones, but hopefully the food cost pressure will aid the ethanol from waste cause.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
• Simon S said:
  

  Swade, The Age can get the blood pressure up…they’ve been on an anti-bioethanol vendetta for the past 12 months now; basically “if we use it we’ll starve the world.”

  Some of the ’science’ they have quoted is bizarre - for eg. extolling the virtues of bybrids such as the Prius and writing silly stories about the latter having 2 engines - one a petrol, one powered by a fuel cell.

  Bio fuels, hydrogen etc are old news, first tried in the 19th century. It’s a case of ‘back to the future’ and the answer lies in several alternatives. And anyhow, what ever happened to the solar power craze..?

  Or anyone for a nuclear powered car?!

  -April 15th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
• aeronaut said:
  

  nuclear powered cars are the answer - a plug-in rechargeable vehicle drawing from a nuclear powered utility grid. no emissions, no harm to the climate.

  -April 15th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
• Troll96 said:
  

  The food dispute may diminish governmental enthusiasm for first- generation ethanol credits, which would be disastrous for the makers of ethanol-optimized cars. Coskata’s approach to second-generation ethanol production seems to be nothing short of miraculous. However, when will they acquire enough partners to build the production facilities on a scale big enough to make a difference? Since no one seems to know, how can Saab fashion a stable near-term ethanol strategy that relies on a yet-to-be-built infrastructure?

  This uncertainty makes it easier for car manufacturers to build ethanol-capable but gas-optimized cars like they always have. The added components are cheap, the marketing looks “green” and so what if most everyone actually uses gasoline. Unfortunately, this type of market does not offer an advantage to companies like Saab who really want to maximize the efficiency of ethanol by utilizing high compression small displacement engines.

  -April 16th, 2008 at 12:44 am
• 1985 Gripen said:
  

  aeronaut: that’s the way I lean as well for the long-term (pure EV), but in the short-term they just don’t work (limitations of battery technology). There is not a single EV on the road which has the performance and range to match an ICE-powered car. The Tesla Roadster is coming, but it’s a very expensive “exotic”. The Tesla WhiteStar will follow and be a 4-door slightly-less-expensive-but-still-expensive sedan, followed by the Tesla BlueStar, which is to be a relatively affordable full-EV family sedan. We’ll see if Tesla can live up to its plans. I have my doubts, but I hope they prove me wrong.

  But just as we’re looking to cellulosic to justify ethanol right now we’re looking to the future for full EV.

  In 2008 going to your local car dealer there really isn’t a viable pure-EV car to replace your family car. Also, first-gen ethanol has its problems as everyone seemingly loves to point-out.

  The U.S. hasn’t built a new nuclear power plant in something like 30 years. Once a permit is requested from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency it takes something like 9 years to get through the permit process (all these numbers could be wrong as I’m taking them off the top of my head. Eggsngrits probably has more accurate numbers for us). I believe there’s only ONE permit request currently being processed to build a new nuclear plant, and due to bureaucratic red-tape it could be a decade before construction even BEGINS on that plant.

  Also though public opinion on nuclear power seems to be becoming more favorable in this country there are various problems still existing, among them “NIMBY” rationale and “where do we store the nuclear waste?” questions. Further, we need to change the law to allow reprocessing (recycling) like just about every other country in the world does. This would reduce the amount of nuclear waste to be disposed-of, which currently resides at each power plants’ premises (what a great solution that is…).

  Okay, sorry for my rant again. As you can see I’m pretty passionate about this sort of thing. Thanks for reading if you got to this point.

  -April 16th, 2008 at 3:55 am
• aeronaut said:
  

  for sure new technology on the battery front will be needed to make this ‘nuclear powered car’ work. new nuke plants will be built and the older ones upgraded (our local nuke has just started its upgrade) as nuclear energy is the most viable alternative to oil. we do have a little time left before the oil runs out about 70 yrs or so. i hope it all works out for the best! now if there only was enough uranium ….

  -April 16th, 2008 at 9:05 am
• Simon S said:
  

  Ah not in Australia. No nukes, even though we have 20 million people in a country about the size of the US, nearly all of it uninhabitable while we have the most urbanised population on earth. 5 or so ‘big’ cities and Perth is 5 hours flying time to Sydney.

  What gets me is while I’ll happily admit I don’t fully understand the science the debate here is stymied. We have one small experimental reactor and if we build another the whole country - yes that nimby syndrome, will apparently be faced with Chernobyl Version 2.0.

  Yet we Aussies hold around 35-40% of the world’s uranium and are happy to export it to some countries with a far lesser safety culture.

  Now I’m ranting so forgive me for that - but I love the irony of the happy hordes visiting US nuclear powered aircraft carriers in Sydney for eg! Aren’t these people scared the carrier might have a melt-down?

  Or better still all our little ‘green’ friends who scream NO NUKES but seem quite happy to enter our hospitals whose basements are stacked with cancer attacking isotopes…

  Yes my Kiwi friends - that’s you too - where do you get your chemo treatments from?

  I’m afraid we’re a generation behind on this issue as the word ‘nuclear’ is worst than the most vulgar swear word to some people…

  -April 16th, 2008 at 11:02 pm

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