Phentermine. Effects phentermine.

I've been reading the comments down here and there is one thing that people seem to keep getting confused about and not just here: that is the agricultural part of Robert Zubrin's proposal.  It is not primarily an american initiative (and by the way, agricultural exports are at record highs, not at lows, including ethanol, meaning there is plenty of food).  He wants to drop trade barriers on third world countries all around the world and use their land--corresponding adjacent lands that have a proximity to eachother--because our farmers would have more business than they could handle, making them no longer obsolete to the rest of the developing world while we can go ahead and use some of that ethanol Brazil makes from sugar that we tax to keep out of the country (other countries could get their alcohol of choice from the nearby country as well as their own)and keep the price of oil contained because it can go to infinity right now because of the vertical monopoly OPEC has on the world having no competition to compete with their oil.

    And they arbitrarily set the price.  President Bush just recently went over to Saudi Arabia to get them to lower the price of oil!  That shows right there that they have that power to affect the price--its like watching a dog throw up on the floor and stares at his mess in fear, grabs a sock on the floor to cover it up just as the moment it senses you come  up to it because you know a mess has been made.  President Bush is that dog that knows he did something wrong and is trying to cover it up in the corner staring at the problem in the face in horror while we the public are watching and then come over for reparations because we know what he did (in this case, he and people in his adminstration did NOT do except give us this "hydrogen hoax) and he covers it up with a sock which does nothing to clean up the mess.  Uncle Mahmoud is that sock that does nothing ....who gives Bush a bicycle in response.  

   And methanol could be used for the longer term solutions to the problem such as nuclear, solar, wind, it can be be made from such....its just a matter of economical feasibility there, and it could be used from any kind of biomass for the shorter term, like urban trash, drain clogging swamp matter, and yes grass trimmings, leaves that fall from trees and the vast amounts of such that farmers would throw away that could lower the price of OPEC oil itself.  Agriculture is not the only way, or our only way even though we have record highs of production and exports using only about a 1/3 of our farmable land only about 1/9 of which is our corn for ethanol.  

Gas was .99 cents (ninety-nine cents) a gallon when I was a 17 year old pizza delivery driver back in 1999.  When it jumped up to 1.30 practically in  a week or so, I could sense something was wrong back then!  It jumped up to 2.00 a gallon and 9/11 and the Iraq war happened and the nation's psychological wounds seemed to be opening up again and the infinite debates are still happening about why we are there in the first place--Oil, people said;to get their oil.  Well, we don't have the oil.  

    Finally, I knew why gas prices were going up after watching Robert Zubrin on Booktv (C-SPAN)discussing his book about breaking free of oil to win the war on terror.  I also actually started to understand the war in Iraq and terrorism-

    -Oh, and 9/11 and consequently the reaffirmation that the "war on terror" is NOT a military solution even though we seem to keep saying the surge is working however many non-terrorist become terrorists worldwide or terrorist sympathizers or terrorist hostages etc.

    ---when before it seemed the Iraq war was our way of taking over the world while the rest of the world wagged their finger at us and perhaps prepared for war in some cases.  Well, who needs an energy policy if we are taking over the world, right?  The only policy we need is to not start any war we can't win (like Russia or some East Asian country)---for a good start, let's grab all the oil we can and kick some cave dwelling butt.  Well.....

    Now, George W. Bush goes to Saudi Arabia asking for the oil prices to be lowered and they give him a bicycle.  Just "support the troops" I guess....right...because if not then that means we hate them, and if we hate them....then....no, yes, support full on...but wait, our oil...no--support...but gas prices, cant we shoot our way out of this one?

    Thanks to Energy Victory we have a strong argument that both sides can agree on without having a loaded gun in the room,

May 14 – GMA MISSION TO CRIPPLE CORN INDUSTRY EXPOSED:  It was bound to happen and today the whistle got blown on one of the key parties behind the well organized and well funded smear campaign against corn and biofuels, namely the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). The exposure ended up being very public too, with the story breaking on the front page of Roll Call, the most widely read publication by Washington, DC decision makers.

The story delineates GMA’s rather tasteless, and dare I say immoral, role in blaming corn for higher food prices, world hunger and I think even athlete’s feet.  

Reporter Anna Palmer of Roll Call notes rising food and fuel prices have led the biofuel industry to take a beating on Capitol Hill the past few weeks. But the pummeling hasn’t been by chance — it is part of a concerted effort spearheaded by the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Glover Park Group.

According to Roll Call GMA has been leading an “aggressive” public relations campaign for the past two months in an effort to roll back ethanol mandates that passed in last year’s energy bill. Taking primary responsibility for the campaign is a Washington DC-New York Public Relations and Public Affairs company, known as the Glover Park Group.

The six month campaign is based on the assumption that the timing was right to go after biofuels and deliver a blow that could permanently cripple the industry by cementing public opinion against ethanol. Needless to say the world rice and wheat crop failures, a weak U.S. dollar, and an investment community seeking shelter in Ag commodities make their strategy look pretty sound, albeit slimy and based on misinformation.

GMA, which believes the current ethanol policy has caused a major rise in food prices, sent out its request for Proposal in early March looking for a public relations shop to “build a groundswell in support of freezing or reversing some provisions of the 2007 Energy Bill and for the elimination/reform of ethanol subsidies and import restrictions,” according to Roll Call.

The energy bill, which passed in December, includes a renewable fuel standard that mandates 36 billion gallons of ethanol be produced yearly by 2022, up from about 7 billion gallons last year.

Ethanol is reducing gasoline prices up to 40 cents a gallon right now. So you think an industry that ships its products on average of 1,500 miles to consumers would see the benefits, but apparently the idea of returning to their golden days of $2 corn was too enticing.

Regardless, it is one thing to frame a debate and argue your points aggressively but it is something entirely different to frame a whole industry based on emotion, not fact. To use a hockey analogy it is ok to legally check someone and put your shoulder into them, but it is another matter to high stick someone in the face with malice, forethought and the intent of doing damage.

Generally, high sticking results in a trip to the penalty box and getting taken from play. What GMA has done here constitutes high sticking of the worst kind. They have given farmers, one of the most respected people in our society, a black eye that will be hard to repair. A trip to the penalty box seems in order. I will leave the nature of that penalty up to you to ponder.

By CHARLOTTE SECTOR

May 26, 2006  

When drivers career around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, they'll push the pedal to the metal and reach speeds of more than 200 mph.

It will be race day as usual -- except for one key aspect: For the first time in four decades, the single-seat cockpit cars will be powered by a new fuel.

Gasoline has long since come and gone at this raceway, but now the Indy Racing League -- the sanctioning body of the racing series -- has added ethanol to the mix.

This year, the cars will run on a blend of 90 percent methanol, which is distilled from wood, and 10 percent ethanol, the alcohol fuel made from the sugars found in corn.

"We have not lost any speed," said Jeff Horton, the league's director of engineering. "Cars don't smell differently, and in reality, there's no detectable difference."

The league's transition toward greener fuel has thrilled renewable energy advocates who hope that this coming-out party will raise awareness of the benefits of bio-fuels. Critics, however, say it is a mistake to expect that corn could be the answer to America's future fuel needs.

The racing league is moving ahead with the homegrown fuel, though. In 2007, the cars will run on 100 percent ethanol power.

Burning Rubber and Corn

"It's one part publicity and one part showing our efforts at being responsible in using alternative fuels," said John Griffin, the league's vice president of press relations. The U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy says that ethanol is clean-burning and that using it instead of gasoline cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent to 29 percent a gallon.

Griffin also stressed that embracing ethanol -- the product as a fuel source and the industry as a sponsor -- highlighted the league's ongoing role as an innovator.

"We see ourselves as leaders in safety and technology in motor sports," he said, citing the example of the new safety barrier around speedways, which was first used in the Indy series.

The league's interest in a cleaner fuel option came long before President Bush's request to have the nation quit its addiction to oil.

Four years ago, Indy series driver Paul Dana, who was killed in a crash earlier this year, touted using ethanol as an alternative fuel, and testified in Congress last March.

Dana's efforts have paid off, and Tom Slunecka couldn't be happier.

Slunecka, the executive director of the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, believes 100 percent of the Indy 500 cars running with 100 percent ethanol legitimizes the pumped up grain alcohol as a fuel for America's cars.

"To have the IRL [Indy Racing League] come forward saying this is high performance fuel says volumes," Slunecka said.

New Energy Source or Pipe Dream?

The higher octane content in ethanol allows cars to reach even greater speeds. IRL cars race at more than 220 mph, which is the equivalent of crossing a football field in one second, he said.

Slunecka also hopes that the Indy 500 publicity will raise consumer awareness and inspire people to turn to ethanol-enriched fuel. The ethanol council argues that ethanol is not only right for the environment, but that it will be a boon to the U.S. economy.

Because ethanol is made from corn, American farmers and producers would reap the financial rewards of the nation no longer relying on foreign countries for fuel.

"If you look at where we've come since the last energy crisis, we've made huge advances," said Arthur Ragauskas, a chemistry professor at Georgia Tech. "If we use the same science we use to produce food and focus on waste biomass, we can rapidly improve production capability and cost."

Ragauskas hopes that additional ethanol production plants will be built, and that "friendly" fuel and flex-fuel cars become the norm. Flex-fuel cars run with up to 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent unleaded gas. Only 700 gas stations in the United States currently offer "E85," although most cars today can handle "E10" -- 10 percent ethanol, 90 percent unleaded gas.

Technical challenges aside, all agree that the United States can't replace the gasoline fix overnight, but that high oil prices and protecting the environment are perfect incentives to diversify America's fuel energy sources.

As for the Indy 500 drivers, they've got 200 laps in front of them and gallons of fuel to consume with plenty of rubber to burn.

Liquid fuel from coal is also compatible with the process of using green algae to convert CO2 entirely to oxygen (O2). The CO2 that comes from the coal to liquid fuel conversion is then piped through the algae and only oxygen comes out - greenhouse gases gone. The excess green algae that's created can be used to make biodiesel, ethanol, fertilizer, cattle feed or plastics.

An executive of the South African corporation, Sasol, has stated in a TV interview that his company can set up facilities to convert coal to liquid fuel by the Fischer-Tropisch process for any state or region in the USA that has coal deposits that they would like to exploit. Governor Brian Schweitzer, did you hear that?

Corn-based biofuel can provide about 15 gallons of oil per acre.  Celluloise-based biofuel can produce anywhere from 20 to 150 gallons per acre, depending on the celluloise base.

Algae-based biodiesel can produce AT LEAST 20,000 gallons of oil per acre using vertical integration (instead of ponds they use walls of plastic bags; the algae is lifted up and drains down through them, soaking up solar energy as it descends).  There's a facility out by El Paso that's already demonstrating how to do it.  If Congress mandated flex-fuel and threw some money at it then within 5 years we could be virtually energy-independent.

"Zubrin has very conveniently twisted the facts.  There is a finite amount of arable land within the US. "

True, but no one, including Zubrin, is arguing that crops that grow on arable land can break the oil carte.

It's unfortunate that this article omits any discussion of cellulosic ethanol derived from switchgrass, because that is what can break OPEC and make us energy-independent.  Switchgrass does not need arable land, as it can grow just about anywhere, and it is much more cost-efficient too.

Zubrin has very conveniently twisted the facts.  There is a finite amount of arable land within the US.  Last year because of ethanol, farmers planted more corn and less soybeans, thereby causing soybeans and soybean product prices to skyrocket.  This year, largely due to the high soybean prices combined with higher fertilizer  costs (corn requires more fertilizer and it more expensive to grow) farmers have cut back on corn and are growing more soybeans.   This seesaw will continue with prices going higher and higher as long as more corn is diverted to ethanol production each year.

Zubrin also trots out the old standard about the impact on cereal prices.  What about the impact to milk and other dairy products, eggs, chickens, pork, beef and vegetable oils?  Certainly those are far higher than a few percent impact.  Just ask Pilgrims Pride how much the increased prices of corn and soybean meal have impacted the cost of growing chickens.  It is no secret the company will lose money this year.  And don't forget the breeding herds have been reduced over the past several months; consumers have yet to feel the impact of the higher meat prices.

When I looked at the latest supply and demand report USDA issued for corn less than a week ago I shook my head.  As a former grains analyst I am horrified how much domestic feed and exports corn based ethanol will be displacing.  I don't even know if their numbers are even realistic.  They are forecasting less than three weeks of corn stocks in this country at the end of the growing season.   Pipeline supplies were always considered to be more.

And you think you are out of the woods with wheat?  Bad weather this summer will put wheat back into the feed rations around the world - and a shortage will then ensue in that crop.

Yes, energy prices and world consumption growth are partly responsible for the price hikes.  However, I believe the primary culprit is ethanol.  The unnatural growth of the legislated mandate is much faster than technology can offset.   This policy is placing an enormous burden on those who can least afford it and is the worst type of regressive tax imaginable.

I  do agree with Zubrin something needs to be done with our energy policy, but corn based ethanol is certainly not the answer.  I am (almost) hoping for a drought this summer.  Perhaps that will stop the lunacy of diverting food for fuel.

    How many of you have flown over North America, or Western Europe at night, or seen the night photos from space, then compared those views with the night views of the rest of the planet?

    I'm no statistician, but I'm willing to guess that half of our dependency on foreign oil can be blame on leaving the lights on when nobody's home (at work).

    Ever bothered to calculate the amount of time you spend using your car to take drives within easy walking distance, and then calculated the fuel consumption and cost?

    How about what you buy to eat, and how you buy it? The prettier the package, the greater the cost. The less time required for preparation, the more it'll cost you.

    Think organic is expensive because it's specially grown? Wrong. If you have a back yard, don't use pesticides, and are willing to commit about 40 hours over an entire summer, you have organic.

    Think canning fruits and vegetables is too much of a hassle, and too complicated? Well, grandma, or great grandma probably did it, and with a helluva lot less technology than we have today.

    Taste buds got used to the fancy brand coffees that really don't cost a nickle more to produce than the regular stuff? They can get un-used to it too.

    Ever looked out the window and wondered who in the heck you're trying to impress with the gas guzzler in the driveway?

    When I got married several years ago to my Chinese wife I was making $50,000 a year in high-tax-rate Canada, and not saving a plug nickle worth talking about. That rate of pay didn't change for the first couple of years, but when she took over handling the money, suddenly, I found myself living even better than I was before, and there was money in the bank. Just a few common sense adjustments.

    I got rid of my Crown Victoria and bought a little geo metro that runs almost on the smell of an oil rag, and you know what? It gets me everywhere that Crown Vic did.

    She has a 4 door Toyota Corolla, and you know what? It gets us everywhere we want to go.

    She talked me into dumping the 20' Class C RV I had and we bought a propane powered GMC van I converted into a little weekender campervan because we love to camp. You know what? I've seen places I've never seen before. Why? Because the van will go places the RV wouldn't go, and is every bit as comfortable.

    Now I make close to $100,000 per year, am as healthy as a horse at 54, because of how I eat from the little garden, and avoidance of the fast food, convenient stuff. She's 56, and you wouldn't know it. We also have enough money in the bank to last over a year if my job dies off, and haven't a thing to seriously worry about.

    The common sense attitude she brought into our home taught me that two can live for even less than one can, you can slash your bills with very little effort, while at the same time be learning things you never thought possible, and enjoy the lifestyle everyone deserves to enjoy after putting in hard work.

    Our dependency is our own fault. If we learn to shake just half of that, and believe me it's a lot easier than you think, and healthier, the prices will come down, and fast.

    For so long as the market will bear it, the provider will charge all he can get away with. Only when the market says, No More, will they pay attention.

The truth.  The ethanol industry will never be able to wean itself off gov't subsidies.  The switch to cellulosic processes will make it even more expensive due to the high cost of enzymes.  Same problem with coal gasification.  Let me put it to you another way.  With oil prices above $126, you would expect ethanol to approach a profitable level unaided by subsidies; however, Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) is nearing insolvency and VeraSun (VSE), the top producer, has seen its shares dwindle 60% since last Oct.  Can you see a rather obvious strategic flaw here?

The truth II.  Corn requires a substantial amount of water and fertilizer, and recent data suggests that nitrogen runoff assoc. with excess corn production is causing large dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico.  The ethanol process, esp. cellulosic, requires massive amounts of water which are typically drawn from non-renewable aquifers, and the greenhouse gases that produced as a by-product of fermentation are sizeable.

A proposal.  Fund the construction of 125 sq miles of solar thermal powerplants spread throughout the US and update the existing transmission infrastructure.  Set a target date of 2028.  This will provide 100% of our projected pwr req'ts and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels by 90%, but will cost $2T that could be funded by a tax on fossil fuels (with provisions for truckers, etc.).  If this is established as part of a national strategic energy framework, the marketplace will adapt and you will see America transformed.  For those who balk at the price, consider how many billions of our dollars are transferred overseas each quarter -or the true cost of the Iraq debacle -or- how many jobs would be created.

Very good point about how the need of eliminating the transfer of oil wealth to despots in the Middle East superseeds greenhouse concerns. If Iran starts a nuclear war in the Middle East that would damage the environment way over anything the greenhouse effect could, apart  of the millions of people dead or radiation sick. But in order to be consequent he would have to talk about the  need of eliminating tariff to the import of sugarcane ethanol from the Caribean Islands, Brazil and CentroAmerica. Corn ethanol never would be enough to substitute oil from the Middle East

he also ignores that ethanol efficiency is negative: you need more energy to produce 1lt of ethanol tat the energy that 1lt of ethanol produces when burned... And that's an aerospacial engineer?

He misses the boat on the absolute abysmal fuel mileage corn based ethynol produces.  He also ignores the growth of our population and the worlds population which would require increased planting all by itself not to mention the demand for fuel.  The real way to  gain independence is to tap the oil reserves we have in this country,  change our policy on nuclear,  change from corn to switchgrass for ethynol and continue to encourage wind power.  Bottom line, corn ethynol and our absolute focus is not really part of the solution,  it is a major masking of the problem.

A group of researchers from Iowa State, Princeton and Colujmbia published a report in Science a couple months ago showing how the use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change.  You can google that subject or the lead author Timothy Searchinger.  They show with simple logic and real world calculations the high price we pay when we convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels.  It is a world wide agricultural market in which this conversion nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%.  Further since it takes a barrel of oil to make the equivalent energy in ethanol the only thing these mandates, subsidies, and tariffs do is transfer tax revenues and wealth from populated states to the midwest in exchange for votes. The middle east and Venezuela still get our money, we just add on Iowa.  We could do better things with our money like invest in solar, wind, and open up some of our own oil reserves.

We have already planted corn in this country from ditch to ditch and hardly made a dent in gasoline use.  Maybe Mr. Zubrin knows where we can find the additional arable land to grow the rest of the biomass required to meet his objective.  As to the great switchgrass myth, it may grow perennially in the wild, but when it is harvested every year it too will requires agricultural attention in the form of fertilizers.  It is no magic bullet.

Additionally, I question the sanity of any energy expert who wants to trade our reliance on potentially unreliable oil from the Middle East for reliance on the only thing which is potentially more unreliable, the weather.  In case Mr. Zubrin hadn't noticed, North America and particularly our grain belt is subject to regular and sometimes severe droughts.  And sometimes, like this year, we have so much rain that crops cannot be planted.  The corn harvest will be down this year for that reason.  Will reduce the grain we use for food or the grain that goes for food?

As to the cavalier representations that we can simply take any piece of land and make it arable, city  folks don't seem to understand that much of the water which is used to produce grain in this country is non-renewable.  It comes from massive aquifers like the Ogalalla in the western great plains.  In many places, it has already been depleted. In our lifetime, much more will be used up.  To the extent that biofuels accelerate, either directly or by displacement, the withdrawals from these acquifers we are not merely putting food in our fuel tanks, we are putting precious water in our fuel tanks.

As to our common desire to no longer be slaves to the big oil companies, I find no solace in trading that servitude for slavery to companies like Archer Daniels Midland, whose behavior with regard to anti-competitive practices makes the big oil companies look like the Sisters of Charity.

Perhaps some can enlighten all of us as to whose pocket Mr. Zubrin is in.

Ms. Begley, the facts Mr. Zubrin recites are of importance.  They get scarce coverage in most of the press today.  Thanks for this, but I wish it could appear in the magazines.  Only Business Week has expressed public skepticism of the role of biofuels as demon.  Everyone else has jumped on the band wagon that appears to be driven by the American Petroleum Institute's mighty war machine.  Yes, eco nuts have gotten in on the act but they are mostly well-meaning engineers and neophytes who do not understand that biofuels, specifically ethanol as biodiesel plants are causing all the real harm in the East Indies, are our best hope at carbon negative energy production.  The culprit for preventing this from happening is corporate agriculture and our entrenched system that favors polluters and money-making tinkerers with our food supply such as Monsanto.  As I said, I'm sure the oil companies are delighted at all the attention going to poor little biofuels and the huge damage they are causing because it takes focus off them.  This is what PR is all about.  And the pressure of advertising on magazines such as yours.  

For a more enlightened look at what ethanol can do for our country and even the world, visit

http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com?bid=2&aid=CD8&opt=

and read the book that details the history of Rockefeller's campaign to destroy ethanol and how such a campaign exists even today.  This extensive look at ethanol from desert crops, cattails, algae and others is an eye opener.  We can run our cars and planes on ethanol with a few minor adjustments.  And given the amount of unused arid land, we can restore soils and produce more than enough fuel if we wanted to.  This is a vision Vinod Khosla can only begin to grasp.  But it will require hard work and people who no longer want oil companies to tell us how to run our engines and heat our homes.  We will have to get off our passive rear ends and begin taking action, forming energy cooperatives along the lines of CSAs and decentralize the power of energy production.  The book shows how.

<a href="http://www.eredux.com/states/">Check">http://www.eredux.com/states/">Check out this US Carbon Footprint Map</a>, an interactive United States Carbon Footprint Map, illustrating Greenest States.  This site has all sorts of stats on individual State energy consumptions, demographics and State energy offices.

http://www.eredux.com/states/