Autopia

I'm trying to understand the folks who get an adrenaline rush from bashing any mentions of alternative energy. While the research into the production of ethanol and biodiesel (along with hydrogen production, natural gas, and coal conversion)
continues to improve, some folks just want to be like David Spade's Capitol One character, and shout NO to any efforts to replace oil.

Every time I write about a development such as the Bosch Flex-Fuel engine, the naysayers will rant about the current limitations (some real, some imagined).

To the many folks who treat alternative fuels or hybrid vehicles like leprosy, what is your justification? Is it a fear of change (the ICE put a lot of horses out of work), or aversion to anything associated with respect for the environment? Just because technology has limits today doesn't mean it's not worth pursuing.

Sure, biofuels require substantial amounts of fossil fuels to produce, but so do fossil fuels when you factor in the drilling, refining, and transportation costs. (I'm in search of a definitive report on the cost of acquiring oil, please forward any reliable information).

When you add in the political cost of importing a majority of your transportation fuel, it's no wonder that countries like Brazil are happy to be energy self sufficient thanks in part to ethanol and biodiesel. Are we admitting that a country emerging from the third world can do something the great USA can't?

Posted by jggsf 1:32 PM PST | post your comment (14) | link to this post