Conservation of Energy

[Hobbit]

Not to be confused with energy conservation.

The question has arisen on how to replace oil many times, but think of all the hubris involved in these so-called 'harmless' or 'green' energy sources. It's yet another piece of arrogance where yet another set of humans beings thinks they can actually control the planet. Well, they didn't study physics, did they?

Namely, there's the law of conservation of energy, which states that energy may neither be created nor destroyed, only moved around and changed. When we burn, well, anything, energy is not being created, it is simply being changed from the chemical bonds in the material into light and heat. So, what happens when energy is moved through certain systems in the generation of power?

Well, in the case of fossil fuels or nuclear power, the system of the planet isn't compromised. The energy was always there and has been there since it was originally put there either by the forces that formed the planet or by the sun. It simply been stored, awaiting use. Use alters the chemical and/or atomic make-up of the material, though nothing subsists off of coal or uranium, so no loss there. The side effects of drawing the majority of our power from these systems comes from the particulate waste (ash), which we have become very good at controlling and the gaseous waste (CO and CO2, mostly), which have been getting released into the atmosphere by unchecked forest fires for at long as trees have been around.

What about hydro-electric power? Well, this is probably the easiest hippie-friendly power source to control...and also the least hippie-friendly hippie-friendly power source. A lake is formed upstream from the dam, flooding the area the lake forms in (making hippies mad) and the water downstream is slowed as the energy that was used to keep the lake level up is moved into the turbine as electrical energy.

Then there's wind power. So far, so good, right? Nothing but a few dead birds and bats. Well, what happens if this becomes a primary power source. Remember, if you use an electric lift to raise a 2-ton block of steel, you must remove enough energy from the wind system to raise that 2-ton block, plus the energy lost in imperfect systems. Now think about how many computers, air conditioners, and other electric devices we have on in this country. How much wind would we have to remove from the system to put a dent in that power? Don't tell me that's not going to adversely affect weather.

Now let's look at the green lobby's favorite toy, solar power. What's their problem with greenhouse gasses? Why, it's because greenhouse gasses absorb and store solar energy, adding more of that energy to our planet's system than would normally be collected, thereby heating up the planet and (eventually and presumably) killing us all. So, what do solar cells do? Why, their entire purpose is to, well, absorb and store solar energy, adding more of that energy to our planet's system than would normally be collected, of course. But there's some kind of difference...yeah.

Now, I'm not against any of these types of power consumption, really, but the green lobby really needs to rethink its argument before more people start taking it to its logical conclusion.

[The ClayTaurus]

Not to be confused with energy conservation.

Interesting thread; if I may engage...

The question has arisen on how to replace oil many times, but think of all the hubris involved in these so-called 'harmless' or 'green' energy sources. It's yet another piece of arrogance where yet another set of humans beings thinks they can actually control the planet. Well, they didn't study physics, did they?

I doubt that it's only arrogance, although I would agree arrogance probably does come into the equation at some point.

Namely, there's the law of conservation of energy, which states that energy may neither be created nor destroyed, only moved around and changed. When we burn, well, anything, energy is not being created, it is simply being changed from the chemical bonds in the material into light and heat. So, what happens when energy is moved through certain systems in the generation of power?

Law of Conversation of Energy absolutely, though it should be kept in mind that that law is absolute, and not confined to our planet. In theory, we very well could "lose" energy by radiating it off into space. Similarly, we could gain energy from the sun. So while you're right, energy can't be created or destroyed, the net amount of energy "on earth" certainly can (and does) fluctuate.

Well, in the case of fossil fuels or nuclear power, the system of the planet isn't compromised. The energy was always there and has been there since it was originally put there either by the forces that formed the planet or by the sun. It simply been stored, awaiting use. Use alters the chemical and/or atomic make-up of the material, though nothing subsists off of coal or uranium, so no loss there. The side effects of drawing the majority of our power from these systems comes from the particulate waste (ash), which we have become very good at controlling and the gaseous waste (CO and CO2, mostly), which have been getting released into the atmosphere by unchecked forest fires for at long as trees have been around.

The other concern about these traditional energy sources is that consumption drastically out distances creation. In other words, burning a lump of coal takes exponentially less time than the process that created it.

What about hydro-electric power? Well, this is probably the easiest hippie-friendly power source to control...and also the least hippie-friendly hippie-friendly power source. A lake is formed upstream from the dam, flooding the area the lake forms in (making hippies mad) and the water downstream is slowed as the energy that was used to keep the lake level up is moved into the turbine as electrical energy.

I'm curious as to your point... hydro power is bad because hippies don't want to flood river beds and because it slows the river downstream?

Then there's wind power. So far, so good, right? Nothing but a few dead birds and bats. Well, what happens if this becomes a primary power source. Remember, if you use an electric lift to raise a 2-ton block of steel, you must remove enough energy from the wind system to raise that 2-ton block, plus the energy lost in imperfect systems. Now think about how many computers, air conditioners, and other electric devices we have on in this country. How much wind would we have to remove from the system to put a dent in that power? Don't tell me that's not going to adversely affect weather.

If you're going to assume (and possibly correctly assume) that the weather would be adversely affected, then you'd probably have to consider all the emissions we're putting into the air having an effect as well. I haven't heard much serious talk as to wind power being the be-all end-all for our energy problems though... merely a supplement. Have you heard different?

Now let's look at the green lobby's favorite toy, solar power. What's their problem with greenhouse gasses? Why, it's because greenhouse gasses absorb and store solar energy, adding more of that energy to our planet's system than would normally be collected, thereby heating up the planet and (eventually and presumably) killing us all. So, what do solar cells do? Why, their entire purpose is to, well, absorb and store solar energy, adding more of that energy to our planet's system than would normally be collected, of course. But there's some kind of difference...yeah.

Of course there's a difference. Let's begin by the assumption that greenhouse gases store solar energy at the same rate as solar panels. Just because both, in principal, accomplish the same task does not mean their magnitude is the same. To be clear: I'm not making a claim one way or another on this, but merely pointing out you're taking a bit of liberty in that line of logic. Furthermore, greenhouse gases trap solar energy in the form of heat. Some types of solar panels absorb heat energy from the sun, but others absorb energy in the form of light. So for those types of panels, your logic doesn't hold at all. Getting back to heat-absorbing solar panels, it's really a simple equation to see the benefit:

Scenario 1:
Man needs to heat house. Man burns oil/wood/spare tire. Burning releases energy in form of heat and light. Bi-products of man burning enter into air, contribute to green house gases. Green house gases trap solar energy in form of heat, adversely affect earth.
Equation 1:
Net = Heat energy from man burning + heat energy trapped from bi-products of burning (Scale appropriately by number of men burning things)

Scenario 2:
Man needs to heat house. Man uses solar panels to absorb heat energy from sun to then heat house. No energy released from burning. No bi-products released into atmosphere.
Equation 2:
Net = Heat energy absorbed from sun (scale appropriately by number of men not burning things)

Now, there is the process of creating the solar panels, and I have no idea as to the process and bi-products associated with their production, so that adds some margin of error. The overarching point, however, is that equation 1 is much less efficient. By using energy from coal and wood, we're creating (according to the theory) conditions in which lots of solar energy enters our atmosphere but does not leave. Equation 2, however, does not have this problem. So the benefits become much more noticeable. Man still uses the same amount of energy, but in the first scenario he's wasting energy from the sun, and in fact trapping even more through burning. Not the most eloquent explanation, but I hope my point is somewhat clear.

Now, I'm not against any of these types of power consumption, really, but the green lobby really needs to rethink its argument before more people start taking it to its logical conclusion.

Is there a link or two to some of this logic that inspired this thread? I'd love to see it.

[DragonStryk72]

The honest fact is, we need more than one solution, because we are not in place to go completely green (save in smaller towns and such, where the energy usage is obviously much lower), but we need to find cleaner, more efficient ways of using fossil fuels in the meantime.

Now, one interesting way of doing it, that will have a profound effect later on, was NYC's decision to begin converting their government cars, along with the taxi fleet, over to hybrid cars, which has been saving quite a bit actually, both for the government, as well as for the cabbies, who are not having to spend anywhere near as much on gasoline. This also provides the benefit of increasing mass production of hybrids, thus lowering their cost to produce.

If we truly want to encourage the growth of alternative energy sources, then we need to encourage businesses to want to produce more of them, not beat them about the head and shoulders for not doing it.

Now, while we are increasing the usage of alternatives, we as a country need to start exercising much better personal responsibility when it comes to energy. We have "small" apartments in this country that are double to triple the size of those in other industrialized nations, and it expands even more when you convert over to houses. We routinely use the "speed limit" as more of a floor than a ceiling. Here in VA, if you're driving 70 mph on I-64, you are getting your doors blown off by just about every car on the road. Now, if you are going the same distance faster, then you burn more fuel, right? So basic sense would indicate travelling a bit slower would allow you to save more gas.

All in all, we have a lot of work to do, but if you think that either the government, or the free market is just going to hand us the solution, you're mad. It must, as it always does, come from the people.

[Hobbit]

First off, your equation on solar power isn't quite on the money. Yes, plants that are burned absorb solar energy, which is then released when the plant is burned and not before, so when you're adding together the solar energy absorbed by the plant to the energy released when it is burned, you're double dipping.

Second, as I stated at the end, I'm not trying to call any of these things particularly harmful, just point out that you can't just produce energy from nothing and that people need to think about where this energy comes from before they go messing with it, the same way they didn't when we decided that pulling energy out of our food supply was a good idea.

As far as hydro goes, you're not seeing the point of mentioning the hippies. The point of the post was to point out that the methods of generating power that hippies bang their drums about aren't as flawless as they're portrayed. The downsides of hydro power are flooded valleys and weaker flow downstream.

Lastly, when will people understand that the free market IS the people. There's no separating the two. If the people don't control the market, it's not free. As long as the market really is free, then its decisions are all the ultimate democracy. The market consumes all the resources people are willing to sell at the rate that people are willing to sell them and sells all of the goods and services people are willing to buy at the rate people are willing to buy them. Whenever the market produces something, then it is either something people want or something that isn't sold a year later. If the people want something enough to pay for it, the market will produce it. Think about it. Soon after VCRs were invented for the purpose of recording, it became apparent that the people wanted pre-recorded tapes of their favorite movies with no recording errors and no commercials. Now, few can remember a time when there were VCRs, but no tapes. Soon after, somebody noticed that many people might want to watch these tapes, but that they might not like the movie enough to shell out the cash to own the tape, or perhaps they had never seen it and wanted to watch it once before deciding to buy. Now, movie rental places are as common as pizza places. Now, if you honestly think that a car company that could wouldn't create a car that can run 1000 miles on a single human fart, you're crazy. There's no amount of money an oil company could come up with that would offset the profit a car company could make by truly freeing the car from the gas station.

[The ClayTaurus]

First off, your equation on solar power isn't quite on the money. Yes, plants that are burned absorb solar energy, which is then released when the plant is burned and not before, so when you're adding together the solar energy absorbed by the plant to the energy released when it is burned, you're double dipping.

Fair enough, although we can debate about quantities of each. Regardless, even if energy absorbed by plant = energy released by burning, the rub lies that burning traps more energy in the atmosphere than not burning.

Second, as I stated at the end, I'm not trying to call any of these things particularly harmful, just point out that you can't just produce energy from nothing and that people need to think about where this energy comes from before they go messing with it, the same way they didn't when we decided that pulling energy out of our food supply was a good idea.

You're kind of all over the place right here... which is why I was hoping you could point to a link or two that expresses either the foolish idea that we can create energy from nothing or that, well, whatever your point about energy from food is. What is your source of friction?

As far as hydro goes, you're not seeing the point of mentioning the hippies. The point of the post was to point out that the methods of generating power that hippies bang their drums about aren't as flawless as they're portrayed. The downsides of hydro power are flooded valleys and weaker flow downstream.

But are you saying that makes Hydro fundamentally bad, or fundamentally bad to hippies? I'm not really too concerned about most of what hippies have to say.

Lastly, when will people understand that the free market IS the people. There's no separating the two. If the people don't control the market, it's not free. As long as the market really is free, then its decisions are all the ultimate democracy. The market consumes all the resources people are willing to sell at the rate that people are willing to sell them and sells all of the goods and services people are willing to buy at the rate people are willing to buy them. Whenever the market produces something, then it is either something people want or something that isn't sold a year later. If the people want something enough to pay for it, the market will produce it. Think about it. Soon after VCRs were invented for the purpose of recording, it became apparent that the people wanted pre-recorded tapes of their favorite movies with no recording errors and no commercials. Now, few can remember a time when there were VCRs, but no tapes. Soon after, somebody noticed that many people might want to watch these tapes, but that they might not like the movie enough to shell out the cash to own the tape, or perhaps they had never seen it and wanted to watch it once before deciding to buy. Now, movie rental places are as common as pizza places. Now, if you honestly think that a car company that could wouldn't create a car that can run 1000 miles on a single human fart, you're crazy. There's no amount of money an oil company could come up with that would offset the profit a car company could make by truly freeing the car from the gas station.

I think you'd be impressed sometimes by how "short-term thinking" many business decisions end up being, no matter what lip service accompanies them.

[April15]

Not to be confused with energy conservation.

The question has arisen on how to replace oil many times, but think of all the hubris involved in these so-called 'harmless' or 'green' energy sources. It's yet another piece of arrogance where yet another set of humans beings thinks they can actually control the planet. Well, they didn't study physics, did they?

Namely, there's the law of conservation of energy, which states that energy may neither be created nor destroyed, only moved around and changed. When we burn, well, anything, energy is not being created, it is simply being changed from the chemical bonds in the material into light and heat. So, what happens when energy is moved through certain systems in the generation of power?

Well, in the case of fossil fuels or nuclear power, the system of the planet isn't compromised. The energy was always there and has been there since it was originally put there either by the forces that formed the planet or by the sun. It simply been stored, awaiting use. Use alters the chemical and/or atomic make-up of the material, though nothing subsists off of coal or uranium, so no loss there. The side effects of drawing the majority of our power from these systems comes from the particulate waste (ash), which we have become very good at controlling and the gaseous waste (CO and CO2, mostly), which have been getting released into the atmosphere by unchecked forest fires for at long as trees have been around.

What about hydro-electric power? Well, this is probably the easiest hippie-friendly power source to control...and also the least hippie-friendly hippie-friendly power source. A lake is formed upstream from the dam, flooding the area the lake forms in (making hippies mad) and the water downstream is slowed as the energy that was used to keep the lake level up is moved into the turbine as electrical energy.

Then there's wind power. So far, so good, right? Nothing but a few dead birds and bats. Well, what happens if this becomes a primary power source. Remember, if you use an electric lift to raise a 2-ton block of steel, you must remove enough energy from the wind system to raise that 2-ton block, plus the energy lost in imperfect systems. Now think about how many computers, air conditioners, and other electric devices we have on in this country. How much wind would we have to remove from the system to put a dent in that power? Don't tell me that's not going to adversely affect weather.

Now let's look at the green lobby's favorite toy, solar power. What's their problem with greenhouse gasses? Why, it's because greenhouse gasses absorb and store solar energy, adding more of that energy to our planet's system than would normally be collected, thereby heating up the planet and (eventually and presumably) killing us all. So, what do solar cells do? Why, their entire purpose is to, well, absorb and store solar energy, adding more of that energy to our planet's system than would normally be collected, of course. But there's some kind of difference...yeah.

Now, I'm not against any of these types of power consumption, really, but the green lobby really needs to rethink its argument before more people start taking it to its logical conclusion.

The wind that drives turbines is not removed, at most it is slowed a minute amount.

The area in red is not true to laws of physics.

[Hobbit]

The wind that drives turbines is not removed, at most it is slowed a minute amount.

At LEAST it is slowed by a minute amount. Law of conservation of energy. Any energy used to spin the turbine is no longer being used to move the air.

The area in red is not true to laws of physics.

In what way. Profess to me, oh guru of physics, how that is, in any way, wrong.

Back to Clay Taurus, I really don't know why you keep fixating on the hippie comment I put in on the hydroelectrics. They protest dams because it floods places...places where animals and plant live. I don't know what you're searching for me to say, but just pretend I never mentioned hippies. The disadvantages of hydro power are the amount of land that's submerged and the loss of current downstream.

Fair enough, although we can debate about quantities of each. Regardless, even if energy absorbed by plant = energy released by burning, the rub lies that burning traps more energy in the atmosphere than not burning.

The generation of power almost always comes from heat. The heat must come from somewhere. I'm just pointing out that whether you release the heat from something already here or just absorb more energy from the sun than would otherwise be absorbed, it is still added to the system, while those who advocate solar power like it's a perfect solution don't seem to understand what happens to an area when you cover it in big, black panels.

You're kind of all over the place right here... which is why I was hoping you could point to a link or two that expresses either the foolish idea that we can create energy from nothing or that, well, whatever your point about energy from food is. What is your source of friction?

There's no link that will do you any good if you haven't already noticed it. Nobody comes out and says 'we'll make energy from nothing,' but they act like they are. We started making gas from food, and those who promoted the idea didn't seem to understand that pesky old law of conservation meant that we would have less food. They don't see the harm in throwing up hundreds of thousands of windmills in the middle of the country, where every weather system that rains on the east coast must pass. They don't think of the larger implications.

I think you'd be impressed sometimes by how "short-term thinking" many business decisions end up being, no matter what lip service accompanies them.

Not successful business decisions. The companies that have survived, time and again, without government bailouts are the ones that have a long term strategy. Wal-Mart stops buying product while times are still good, knowing they won't stay that way forever. Their entire business plan for buying product is based on a calculus principle known as the 'point of inflection.' Farmers thinking long-term rotate their crops, knowing the same crop can't be grown on the same land forever. I could go on, but it's like Jim Kramer says, "Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered," meaning you can make money on an up market or a down market, but if you get too greedy, you get nailed.

In fact, look at what's already happening in the car industry. Car manufacturers who realized that low gas prices wouldn't be eternal kept up development of fuel efficient cars. Saturn is a good example of this. Those guys are currently making a mint while car manufacturers who shifted their company fully towards bigger cars are now finding themselves spending billions to develop more fuel efficient cars.

[The ClayTaurus]

Back to Clay Taurus, I really don't know why you keep fixating on the hippie comment I put in on the hydroelectrics. They protest dams because it floods places...places where animals and plant live. I don't know what you're searching for me to say, but just pretend I never mentioned hippies. The disadvantages of hydro power are the amount of land that's submerged and the loss of current downstream.

I want to know what YOUR stance on hydro power is. Do the disadvantages outweigh the benefits? I am more than ok with leaving hippies out of it.

The generation of power almost always comes from heat. The heat must come from somewhere. I'm just pointing out that whether you release the heat from something already here or just absorb more energy from the sun than would otherwise be absorbed, it is still added to the system, while those who advocate solar power like it's a perfect solution don't seem to understand what happens to an area when you cover it in big, black panels.

But it's not the addition of energy to the system, it's the addition of heat. Sure, energy from the sun is going to come to the earth no matter what, but the energy in coal and plants is not heat. In fact, plants don't consume heat energy... they consume light energy. Burning wood could be construed as transforming light energy to heat energy. Thus, burning undoubtedly increases the amount of heat energy on earth.

Regardless of all of this, though, is that even if somehow traditional methods of harvesting energy and a purely solar solution "consumed" the exact same amount of heat energy, the bi-products from traditional methods tip the scales by accumulating and preventing energy from escaping our atmosphere. There is no similar effect from solar. I've yet to see you acknowledge this, let alone dispute it.

There's no link that will do you any good if you haven't already noticed it. Nobody comes out and says 'we'll make energy from nothing,' but they act like they are. We started making gas from food, and those who promoted the idea didn't seem to understand that pesky old law of conservation meant that we would have less food. They don't see the harm in throwing up hundreds of thousands of windmills in the middle of the country, where every weather system that rains on the east coast must pass. They don't think of the larger implications.

Fair enough. If you just conjured this up out of your own thoughts, fine. Could you explain exactly how the law of conservation proves that we would have less food? FWIW, I don't think energy from food is a realistic solution, but it's not because of the law of conservation. I'm curious to your logic.

Not successful business decisions. The companies that have survived, time and again, without government bailouts are the ones that have a long term strategy. Wal-Mart stops buying product while times are still good, knowing they won't stay that way forever. Their entire business plan for buying product is based on a calculus principle known as the 'point of inflection.' Farmers thinking long-term rotate their crops, knowing the same crop can't be grown on the same land forever. I could go on, but it's like Jim Kramer says, "Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered," meaning you can make money on an up market or a down market, but if you get too greedy, you get nailed.

But this environmentalism movement really is (generously) about 10 years in the making. Not to mention many feared (some still fear) it to be a passing fad (which it may still be). Just because no one has introduced a gas-free car (or whatever) at this point doesn't necessarily reflect market forces. Not in such a short-term time period. Your point about long-term success is valid; we just haven't had a long enough sampling period on this topic. IMO.

In fact, look at what's already happening in the car industry. Car manufacturers who realized that low gas prices wouldn't be eternal kept up development of fuel efficient cars. Saturn is a good example of this. Those guys are currently making a mint while car manufacturers who shifted their company fully towards bigger cars are now finding themselves spending billions to develop more fuel efficient cars.

You can believe that if you'd like, but Saturn also helped GM meet CAFE standards. It ended up working out for them, but I think your viewpoint on the success of Saturn being entirely market driven might be a little bit naive.

[Hobbit]

I'm all for hydro, as long as nothing vital is flooded and the river downstream isn't inhibited too much. The main problem with hydro is that not everybody has a raging river nearby.

Yes, solar DOES trap more energy than would normally be trapped. The energy that solar collects is energy that would normally be reflected back into space, and that energy is eventually turned into heat. To generate electricity, you MUST have heat somewhere. Whether you gather heat through solar panels or burning something, you MUST have heat. Now, I'm not trying to vindicate any type of power generation. I'm just pointing out that solar isn't as perfect as its proponents seem to think it is by pointing out that energy ALWAYS has to come from SOMEWHERE.

As far as the law of conservation of energy leading to less food, it's sort of a loose adaptation of the law. When somebody came up with the bright idea to fill up our cars with food, it just seems as though it never occurred to them that this would raise food prices. Well, duh. You can't use corn for food AND fuel. You can only tap its energy once.

As far as free market solutions, the green movement may be new, but that's ok, because things like hybrid cars and E-85 engines don't do a damn thing to help the environment and are only made because it makes people think they're doing something. Measures that ACTUALLY conserve energy save both gas and money and have been on the market for years. And whatever Saturn was originally made for, it's quite a division now, and it sells well. My Saturn gets 45 mpg, and my family owns 3, including that one.

[The ClayTaurus]

I'm all for hydro, as long as nothing vital is flooded and the river downstream isn't inhibited too much. The main problem with hydro is that not everybody has a raging river nearby.

Understood.

Yes, solar DOES trap more energy than would normally be trapped. The energy that solar collects is energy that would normally be reflected back into space, and that energy is eventually turned into heat. To generate electricity, you MUST have heat somewhere. Whether you gather heat through solar panels or burning something, you MUST have heat. Now, I'm not trying to vindicate any type of power generation. I'm just pointing out that solar isn't as perfect as its proponents seem to think it is by pointing out that energy ALWAYS has to come from SOMEWHERE.

Maybe it's not perfect, but, it's certainly advantageous to burning things, at least from an environmental impact stance.

As far as the law of conservation of energy leading to less food, it's sort of a loose adaptation of the law. When somebody came up with the bright idea to fill up our cars with food, it just seems as though it never occurred to them that this would raise food prices. Well, duh. You can't use corn for food AND fuel. You can only tap its energy once.

But the rise in food prices has nothing to do with a shortage of energy. Food prices go up because there just isn't enough food being grown because there isn't the infrastructure in place to support the sudden spike in demand. The reason fuel from food is unrealistic is because the amount of acreage needed to grow that much corn would just be too burdensome. But you could grow it all, assuming you found a place to plant all of it.

As far as free market solutions, the green movement may be new, but that's ok, because things like hybrid cars and E-85 engines don't do a damn thing to help the environment and are only made because it makes people think they're doing something. Measures that ACTUALLY conserve energy save both gas and money and have been on the market for years. And whatever Saturn was originally made for, it's quite a division now, and it sells well. My Saturn gets 45 mpg, and my family owns 3, including that one.

Hybrid cars do nothing for the environment?

Measures like what? Small cars and small engines?

I was never arguing whether Saturn was rockin' right now or not (although GM is rumored to be shopping them around). Just that their success was not necessarily the result of genius long-term business strategy.

[Hobbit]

But the rise in food prices has nothing to do with a shortage of energy. Food prices go up because there just isn't enough food being grown because there isn't the infrastructure in place to support the sudden spike in demand. The reason fuel from food is unrealistic is because the amount of acreage needed to grow that much corn would just be too burdensome. But you could grow it all, assuming you found a place to plant all of it.

All of the arable land in the country converted to ethanol would only fuel 20% of our cars, and it is a lack of energy. There's only so much arable land gathering energy from the sun. It can be used to make food or it can be used to make substandard fuel that actually does more harm to the environment than good. There's only so much of that land to go around, and when huge swaths of it are consumed by some hair-brained fuel scheme, there's trouble.

Hybrid cars do nothing for the environment?

When you calculate the cost of manufacturing and the environmental impact of the batteries, you have to drive the damn thing for about 3-5 years before the gas you saved puts you on the same environmental level as a Hummer.

Measures like what? Small cars and small engines?

Lighter materials, for one. The Saturn cars my family has owe a lot of their fuel efficiency to the fact that the body panels are plastic. Right now, they're phasing that out, because they're hard to make, but they're still looking for lightweight materials. The engineering on the engines is also improving, with the way fuel is mixed and such, a better engine can give you all kinds of mileage boost.

I was never arguing whether Saturn was rockin' right now or not (although GM is rumored to be shopping them around). Just that their success was not necessarily the result of genius long-term business strategy.

It was a gamble GM took that paid off. That's what business is all about. Maybe they didn't see this huge, long-term thing that we can look back on in retrospect, but what they did see was a potential market for safe, inexpensive, fuel-efficient cars. The company doesn't have to be in the business for the purpose of decreasing emissions to succeed at just that. That's the beauty of the market.

[The ClayTaurus]

All of the arable land in the country converted to ethanol would only fuel 20% of our cars, and it is a lack of energy. There's only so much arable land gathering energy from the sun. It can be used to make food or it can be used to make substandard fuel that actually does more harm to the environment than good. There's only so much of that land to go around, and when huge swaths of it are consumed by some hair-brained fuel scheme, there's trouble.

Aerable land doesn't require energy at all. The plants growing in it do. As long as the sun shines, crops can grow. It's a geography issue - not energy. The sun provides an abundant energy source.

When you calculate the cost of manufacturing and the environmental impact of the batteries, you have to drive the damn thing for about 3-5 years before the gas you saved puts you on the same environmental level as a Hummer.

Source? Please tell me it's not that CNW study.

Lighter materials, for one. The Saturn cars my family has owe a lot of their fuel efficiency to the fact that the body panels are plastic. Right now, they're phasing that out, because they're hard to make, but they're still looking for lightweight materials. The engineering on the engines is also improving, with the way fuel is mixed and such, a better engine can give you all kinds of mileage boost.

What you've just said is what ever major car company is invested in. Lighter materials. More efficient engines. It's not like the other companies are avoiding similar investments. Anyhow, non-issue really.

It was a gamble GM took that paid off. That's what business is all about. Maybe they didn't see this huge, long-term thing that we can look back on in retrospect, but what they did see was a potential market for safe, inexpensive, fuel-efficient cars. The company doesn't have to be in the business for the purpose of decreasing emissions to succeed at just that. That's the beauty of the market.

Or they wanted to sell TONS of SUV's and pickup trucks, but in order to meet CAFE standards they needed to push more small cars. Small cars have only been popular for at most 5 years. Prior to that, it was big, heavy, gas-guzzlers. I can sell more gas guzzlers if I have more models, but I need to offset them with some smaller vehicles to satisfy CAFE.

[MtnBiker]

Aerable land doesn't require energy at all. The plants growing in it do. As long as the sun shines, crops can grow. It's a geography issue - not energy. The sun provides an abundant energy source.

Water is also a requirement. Would there be water available for the crops? Would the water be strictly from rain or rain and irragation? Of that water, how much would be used in the growth of fuel crops and diverted from food crops? What about runoff and erosion?

What if there is a drought?

What about herbicides? What about pesticides?

[The ClayTaurus]

Water is also a requirement. Would there be water available for the crops? Would the water be strictly from rain or rain and irragation? Of that water, how much would be used in the growth of fuel crops and diverted from food crops? What about runoff and erosion?

What if there is a drought?

What about herbicides? What about pesticides?

All valid points, all irrespective of the law of conservation of energy.