Tommy Turd lived in a big steel drum. Hit sat on the floor shitting all day long. As the shit piled higher and higher his friend, concerned for him, spoke to him one day.
Friend: "Turd. (he always called him by his last name) Turd, I'm worried your gonna be buried in shit before too long. I've got a portable sump pump I can give you that will pump out much of this shit."
Turd: " 'much' of this shit, you say? You mean it won't pump it all out?"
Friend: "Well, no. But it will pump out about 30% of what you are shitting and it will keep the shit from piling up past your chin. You can at least breath until we can find some way to get all that shit out of your can."
Turd: "Well, screw that! I want something that'll get rid of it all. No partial solutions for me! Go away and don't come back till you find the perfect solution." Tommy Turd wasn't worried about getting buried in his shit. He was confident someday somebody would come up with a solar-Fusion-anti-matter powered "SHit Discombobulator" that would turn his shit into wine. HE wasn't worried. He knew the perfect solution was on its way.
His friend threw up his hands and ran off in pursuit of a better super-sump pump. But while the friend was searching, Tommy the Turd kept shitting away in earnest. The shit piled up eventually reaching his chin, and then his eyes and then the top of his forehead. And still Tommy Turd wouldn't turn on the portable sump pump that his friend had left him.
Well, in the fullness of time the friend found that super pump and got back to Tommy's drum. But alas, he could see nothing of Tommy the Turd. Tommy had disappeared under redolent mounds of shit. Nothing was left of Tommy but his baseball cap sitting sadly on the accumulated masses of poop.
Soooo, when you think of Tommy the Turd remember that being able to breath is at least, better than eating your own shit. And it gives you time to come up with more complete solutions.
Now, when you hear people say "Well, if ethanol can't replace ALL the Fossil fuel what good is it? It ain't worth bothering with!" Just remember Tommy Turd, who for want of a perfect solution, buried himself in his own shit. Now, given current technology, ethanol is estimated to be able to meet 30% of our total gasoline demand
Oak Ridge National Laboratory study. And the
Earth Policy Institute estimates "Energy crops" can produce "two to three times more thanol per acre than corn"
"Energy crops,” such as hardy grasses and fast-growing trees, have higher ethanol yields and better energy balances than conventional starch crops. One likely candidate is switchgrass, a tall perennial grass used by farmers to protect land from erosion. It requires minimal irrigation, fertilizer, or herbicides but yields 2-3 times more ethanol per acre than corn does. Such crops could potentially be harvested on marginal land, avoiding the conversion of healthy cropland or forests to energy-crop production.
So ethanol, whether it turns out to be 30% or maybe a greater proportion, may NOT replace ALL the gasoline. But of course, no thinking person would choose to not exploit this technology because it won't remove ALL THE SHIT IN THE CAN. We need to advance any promising technology that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuel, or we will be buried in our own waste. Develop hybrid technology (hopefully, the environmental costs of manufacturing and disposal of those batteries have been fully thought through) and definitely work on improved efficiency of all combustion engines, gas or ethanol or hydrogen. But, let's not ignore something as practical and valuable as renewables such as ethanol and bio-diesel.
Eventually, the probable final solution to fossil fuel usage will be fuel cell cars. But they are likely to be 20 to 30 years in the future. We cannot wait for that technology to be made practical before we act. Between Global Warming and the economic and strategic vulnerability resulting from our dependence on fossil fuel, we need to act without delay. Anything that works now, and without huge investments in R&D efforts to be made practical should be pursued.
We don't want to end up like Tommy the Turd buried by our own apathy and inability, or unwillingness, to act.
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