Mike Rapoport wrote:

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:g7i2f.468745$xm3.183303@attbi_s21...

Another unfortunate conclusion is it's going to take fuel prices in
that range to make alternative energy sources widely competitive.

You make many good points, Roger, except this one. I keep reading (and
hearing) this statement over and over, from TV, radio and newspaper
commentators -- and everyone just blithely accepts it as "Truth" with a
capital "T".

Unfortunately, Europe -- supposedly home to some of the best minds in the
world -- has been subjected to gas prices two and three times what we are
currently paying, thanks to a generation of outrageous taxation. If your
statement were true, by now Europe should have developed many alternate
energy sources, rather than suffer gasoline priced at over $6.00 per
gallon.

Where are they? What are they?

The frightening answer is: There aren't any -- even at $6.00 per gallon.
The only other alternative is that Europe simply doesn't possess the
scientific and industrial wherewithal to develop them -- which seems
highly unlikely.
--



In Europe they are about twice as efficient using petroleum for
transportation as in the US. Instead of developing alternative fuels, they
have become more efficient at using existing fuels. In contrast, Brazil has
replaced about half of gasoline with ethanol (made from sugar cane), so it
can be done, it just doesn't make sense everywhere. You need a lot of land
and the right climate to produce enough bio fuels to run a modern economy.

And do biofuels really make sense, unless you are using waste products
alone. It has been a number of years since I saw a thorough analysis,
but my recollection is that grown biofuels make about as much sense as
hydrogen, given today's technology. The energy required to grow the
biofuel (corn was the topic of the analysis I read years ago), including
fuel for the farm equipment, the fertilizer, transportation to a
processing plant, and the processing energy itself made the biofuel at
best energy neutral compared to directly buring the oil used to make the
biofuel, and typically it actually used more oil to burn biofuel than to
burn the oil directly in the form of gasoline.

Maybe this equation has changed with better technology, but I really wonder.

As a subsidy to farmers, biofuel probably makes more sense than paying
them to not plant a field, but I'm not even sure about that!

Matt