Showing posts with label coal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coal. Show all posts

15 December 2008

Environmental Evo

Everything began with the industrial revolution in 1750, which gave birth to the capitalist system. In two and a half centuries, the so called “developed” countries have consumed a large part of the fossil fuels created over five million centuries.

Yup, it's all Britain's fault....

12 July 2007

Why Biofuels Are Bonkers, Part 3875

I knew biofuels were environmentally bad news, but it seems that they are even worse than I imagined:

Glub, glub. The plant consumes over a million kilos of corn per day. That’s good news for area farmers especially as the price has almost doubled due to high demand. The bad news is that our current agricultural system is petroleum-soaked. Chemical pesticides and fertilizers, machinery, irrigation pumps, and grain transport all depend on the stuff. Sustainable Table reports that each acre of corn, just in chemical pesticides and fertilizers, requires 5.5 gallons of petroleum .

Glub, glub. The plant uses 275 tons of coal a day, trucked down from Wyoming. Five rail cars, powered by diesel engines, head east with the finished ethanol each day.

Shluurrp. The plant uses 600,000 gallons of water every day to produce 150,000 gallons of ethanol. This water figure doesn’t account for pumped irrigation water (requiring petroleum) during corn cultivation.

So, nominally bio-friendly biofuels actually require lots of concretely polluting petrol and coal in order to be manufactured. So, wouldn't it just be easier to spend a little more time working on electric cars, renewable energy, you know, all that boring old stuff that might actually mitigate things, instead of creating this Escheresque staircase of pointless energy transmutation?

14 November 2006

King Coal Rides Again

The greed and cynicism of some is simply beyond words:

Whatever the cost to the ecosystem, it could be an immensely profitable bet. Company executives say the plants will provide cheap electricity for Texas, make lots of money for shareholders, conserve more valuable natural gas and reduce the pollutants that make smog.

"Whatever the cost to the ecosystem": that's us, people.