Ethanol: The Fuel to Nowhere

Not only is the concept of using food to power machines horribly STUPID on every level, but the government pushing it and subsidizing is brings new levels to IDIOCY. First off - it's terrible as a fuel. The energy output vs energy input is abysmal and it does absolutely nothing to reduce "greenhouse" emissions. It's all about buying votes and convincing the STUPID that the government cares and is doing something about "the problem."

Advocates of the ethanol program claim that rising corn costs have only contributed modestly to overall food prices. They're not being entirely honest, as they're only counting the direct costs of ethanol. They don't count, for example, increases in soybean prices resulting from farmers switching to the more lucrative corn crop. Soybean crops dropped by 11 million acres last year - much of it used to produce corn.4

The corn growers and Big Ag, flush with new-found cash, have generously increased their campaign contributions, making everyone happy - everyone, that is, but consumers and taxpayers.

Taxpayers are shelling out billions of dollars while getting nothing in return, making ethanol truly a fuel to nowhere.

Worse, the ethanol program is not reducing greenhouse gas emissions as promised, but increasing them. That's according to two new, independent, scientific studies published in the journal Science.

One study, by the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy, concluded that further converting the rainforests, grasslands and savannahs of Southeast Asia and South America to crops for bio-fuels will increase greenhouse gas emissions, perhaps for centuries, while destroying important habitat.

A second study, by researchers at Princeton University, came to a similar conclusion, finding that corn-based ethanol would produce twice the greenhouse gas emissions as conventional gasoline over the next 30 years.

The recently-passed energy bill is expected to create even greater demand for ethanol, since it requires the U.S. to ramp up biofuel production to 36 billion gallons by 2022 from 7.5 billion gallons today.

Scientists Discover Renewable Energy Bug!

Welp, it seems we do not have to clutter the landscape with windmills and solar panels to get renewable energy. We can get it from the backside of a bug!

“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”

He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs – very, very small ones – so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.

Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls “renewable petroleum”. After that, he grins, “it’s a brave new world”.

Of course, the environmental elitist will ignore and downplay this breakthrough - after all their goal is not to have us use renewable energy, but rather to CONTROL what energy we use and how much we consume. They like cap and trade - and ADORE "conservation" because through these policies they can further expand the control they have over our economy - and more importantly - over us. Remember: with the left, it's always about control.

Mass Extinction?

More than 56,000 species of animals and plants have been scrubbed from the rollcall of marine life after it was realised that they had been counted twice — or more.

Almost a third of all the named species in the seas turn out on renewed inspection to have been “discovered” at least twice by naturalists.

One species, the breadcrumb sponge, Halichondria panicea (left), has been named 56 times since it was first described 242 years ago in 1766.

Other lifeforms identified several times include the spiny dogfish, Squalus acanthias, with 21 Latin names, a type of sea squirt, Cnemidocarpa verrucosa, with 19 names and the basking shark, Cetorhinus maximus, which was named 40 times.

Rest assured that the left will spin this and count these duplicates as extinctions due to global warming in the future and will most likely blame Bush for it as well!