Here's a picture that needs no explaining

The really scary thing is... Any scientist who knows renewable energy well enough will tell you that ethanol is really only a band-aid solution. All it can do is slightly offset the high price of gas by causing the price of food to go up. And we don't even have enough land area in the USA (despite how big we are, and even if we chopped down all the trees) to produce enough ethanol to run the whole country on it. Really the best options we have right now are: better urban design, less sprawl, continue to work on more efficient cars, and most of all individual effort to life our lives less energy wasteful.

Do you know how much excess corn the United States has every year? We could easily donate it to poor countries, or make it into ethanol. We have TONS left over, but the US is soooo stubborn that we keep it to ourselves(governments fault) and turn it into high fructose corn syrup. The United States is one of the only countries that uses High Fructose Corn syrup in its Coke, and other sodas. Go to Europe and order one of their soda's, it will be missing high fructose corn syrup. Even our 100% "all natural" fruit Juices have this ingredient in it, parents have been outraged, because this is causing much obesity in America, I've seen countless reports on the news about it. Stop making high fructose corn syrup, and start making ethanol.

floridian-will said:

Do you know how much excess corn the United States has every year? We could easily donate it to poor countries, or make it into ethanol. We have TONS left over, but the US is soooo stubborn that we keep it to ourselves(governments fault) and turn it into high fructose corn syrup. The United States is one of the only countries that uses High Fructose Corn syrup in its Coke, and other sodas. Go to Europe and order one of their soda's, it will be missing high fructose corn syrup. Even our 100% "all natural" fruit Juices have this ingredient in it, parents have been outraged, because this is causing much obesity in America, I've seen countless reports on the news about it. Stop making high fructose corn syrup, and start making ethanol.

Click to expand...

Ethanol is no answer to our problems. It may lower our dependence on foriegn oil but its not environmentally friendly. It takes fantastic amounts of energy to produce..usually from coal which is not a clean source of energy. Also it uses far too much water to produce. My wife works on project in MN that may have to close due to the fact they cant get the water they need to produce the stuff. No ethanol will not solve our problems. Oh about corn, most is fed to livestock so if everyone ate less meat there would be more corn for whatever use you want it for.

I don't think pollution will necessarily be worse with Ethanol but it's not the final solution either. The "final solution" is to change our world so that things are done more efficiently.

We need to design our urban areas to be more walkable so that we can consume less energy. We need to use compact florescent bulbs instead of incandescent ones in our lights at home. We need to build more efficient hybrid cars and take SUV's off our suburban roads (since you KNOW their never going to be used off road). We need to use more solar panels and windmills in the home for generating at least part of our electricity. And the most of all the government needs to spearhead this effort by giving more tax breaks for those that help and especially tax penalties for those that don't. It's really quite amazing all the small things that we could be doing today but are not.

Just my two cents.

floridian-will said:

There is plenty of corn left over, it is a highly discussed issue, and the way we are using it is contributing to obesity.

Click to expand...

I'm a Bal/Wash person just skimming the forums, so I'm not going to get into this in detail. All I'll say is if you read up on ethanol production and consumption, you'll see it's one of the biggest scams foisted on the American people in a long time. It solves NOTHING.

If we were producing it from sugar cane, or something similar, it might be a positive development. But corn-based ethanol is terribly inefficient from top to bottom. And it's costing all of us (except the farmers and agri-business $$$) a lot of money. We should be spending our time on real solutions to our problems and not feel-good BS like ethanol. Clean-diesel in combination with hybrids is a start.

Let me add one more thing. As far as there being "plenty of corn left over", that's a myth. Many farmers are converting to corn production from soy-beans and other crops as the prices for corn increase as demand increases. This is driving an increase in corn-based and soy-based product prices. Even the cost of pizza is going up because of ethanol. Please research it for yourself if you'd like. It's actually quite interesting. It's important that people understand what's really going on. (Let's not forget the environmental degredation from farming corn, corn, and more corn. That's a major problem as well.)

HAudidoody said:

If we were producing it from sugar cane, or something similar, it might be a positive development. But corn-based ethanol is terribly inefficient from top to bottom.

Click to expand...

I'm afraid even with sugarcane we Americans drive just too damn much. We need to redesign our cities for more walk ability or else our demand for whatever fuel we choose will be higher than the world can possibly produce cheaply. We have become accustom to living too wastefully. Heck the city of Miami is one of the worst offenders. If you live in Kendall, Weston or some other suburbia, how able are you to get to the store without having to take a car? Probably not very.

We gotta stop zoning residential/commercial/industrial separately and start doing like the European cities do. I'm fortunate to live close to the urban core of Miami and I wouldn't give up my "quality of life" for anything. Except of course to go live in Manhattan, Berlin, London or some other very walkable vibrant place.

Kind of interesting where Los Angeles falls on that chart considering the shere number of automobiles in the region.

I'll be helping Miami's numbers beginning next week - I'm selling my car and going sans auto for the first time since buying my first car at age 18. The worst part...I don't even live in downtown or the beach. Wish me luck....hno:

we need to develop public transportation and i mean Bus and Rail because it will help traffic congetsion and will make the cities more walker able also we need to develop high speed rail systems and also redevlop our national Rail systems and also to built more communter rail systems as well

for the huge big cities we need Metros (Rail Rapid Transits) with Light Rail and Commuter Rail with national and high speed Rail for mid size city to small cities we need Light Rail as well

and we need to make places walkable as well man our dependence of automoblies has got to slow down i mean its killing this planet we need to solve ways to do this we got to take care of this planet

also we need to electrfy alot of amtrak rail corrdors and well also the high speed rail electrified lines can be powered by solar or nuclear energy as well also hydro power as well

problem with rail in America is that the country is just too damn big... its not like europe where all the cities are really only a few hundred miles away... the only place trains would work is between dc and boston, and guess what, there actually are trains there

imagine taking a train from boston to miami, or chicago to new york or seattle... doesnt really make sense

now, we do need to make the trains on the east coast better, as well as develop them in florida where places are close enough to justify train service and it would be a real asset, especially to the economy in terms of tourists... how many people come to florida and visit both orlando and miami? not to many, a high speed train between the two cities would definetly help that and make the state overall more attractive

nimbyhater said:

problem with rail in America is that the country is just too damn big... its not like europe where all the cities are really only a few hundred miles away... the only place trains would work is between dc and boston, and guess what, there actually are trains there

imagine taking a train from boston to miami, or chicago to new york or seattle... doesnt really make sense

now, we do need to make the trains on the east coast better, as well as develop them in florida where places are close enough to justify train service and it would be a real asset, especially to the economy in terms of tourists... how many people come to florida and visit both orlando and miami? not to many, a high speed train between the two cities would definetly help that and make the state overall more attractive

Click to expand...

Europe has trains that go to other countries the super fast ones that go like 150 MPH.

CalleOchoGringo said:

The really scary thing is... Any scientist who knows renewable energy well enough will tell you that ethanol is really only a band-aid solution. All it can do is slightly offset the high price of gas by causing the price of food to go up. And we don't even have enough land area in the USA (despite how big we are, and even if we chopped down all the trees) to produce enough ethanol to run the whole country on it. Really the best options we have right now are: better urban design, less sprawl, continue to work on more efficient cars, and most of all individual effort to life our lives less energy wasteful.

Click to expand...

From what I understand about Ethanol is that it takes almost 1 unit of oil energy to make 1 unit of Ethanol energy...that being one reason Ethanol refineries ideally should be near an alternative energy source (hydro, solar, or wind) [and not located in Tampa Bay as planned]. The real solution is, like everyone has mentioned, is density and mass transit.

Is the Port of Miami planning to add some mass transit to the tunnel project?