Greensumerism I

Ever heard of Fiji Water?

It is great stuff. Bottled in Fiji from an aquifer that is solely fed by rainwater leaching through volcanic lava. Sweet tasting water with a really full mouth feel from the silica absorbed in the volcanic titration process. I've bought it and it is really good.

The only problem with the stuff is that it is only produced in Fiji which is a long haul from Hawaii which is a long haul from here. For water. Which bubbles from the ground at my feet. At home.

Understandably, the folks at Fiji Water are a bit concerned about rising transport costs, oops I mean their carbon footprint, so they've launched a dandy new website called Fijigreen.com which tries like hell to explain how Fiji Water is going to achieve a negative carbon footprint by reducing packaging, reducing processing energy costs, oops I mean energy consumption, and purchasing carbon offsets to offset the carbon released when they ship their water halfway around the fucking world to reach their main markets.

We're talking about water here. You can open a tap and have some for free, or trot down to Cumbies and plunk down your $1.99 for a half liter of water that came from the other side of the planet. Sure, it taste good but if you for a second believe that all the offsets in the world somehow justify buying water that traveled by air, containership, semi-trailer, and rail to get to your favorite Cumbies, boy have I got a bridge to sell you.

Yeah - water from the other side of the planet is green as long as they buy their offsets. Oh boy.

Sorry Gardeners' Supply, you're next.

Smart Growth Vermont (Not)

Question -

The root cause of peak everything and global warming is population growth.

Given that, there is nothing smart about promoting any type of growth, green or not.

If the folks at Smart Growth Vermont could get past their own self-importance and bullshit 'green' agenda they'd rename (again) to Smart Shrinkage Vermont.

They probably do not realize that Vermont has a finite amount of land to either conserve or exploit.

Hiltard's Gas Tax Vacation

Hilary is proposing a summertime moratorium on the US gas & diesel tax and she plans to pay for it by imposing a windfall tax on the big 5 oil producers (BP, Exxon/Mobile, etc.).

Now faced with a windall tax won't this additional cost be rolled in to future gas prices?

Never mind that the big 5 only produce about 5% of the worlds oil. They do refine all of our gas but 95% of the oil they refine isn't oil they produced. How about serving up some windfall taxes on Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Nigeria, Argentinia and Iran? Huh Hilary?

Then there is the rebound effect, gas cost less, we buy more, prices go up. As do GHG emissions.

Go Obama! The truth hurts (our pockets and his campaign) but at least he's got the cojones to point out the obvious and weather the knee-jerk shitstorm the motoring public will direct at him for not supporting lower gas prices.

E85 or Ethiopians?

In 2007 40% of the US corn crop was fermented and refined into ethanol which contributed to 0.3% of domestic gasoline consumption.

At 100% of the corn crop the contribution would be about 0.75%.

Meanwhile food staples are increasing at 30-150% per year.

Next idiotic ideas up - Smart Growth Vermont and Greensumerism...

Fundamental Biofuel Flaws

1. 60% of our current total energy consumption is attributed to agricultural production, processing, and food distribution. Personal transport consumes about 15%. Transitioning to biofuels will profoundly increase our largest source of energy consumption, agricultural production. In addition to an unsupportable increase in agricultural energy consumption to increase biofuel production, there is the EROI of biofuels to consider - most likely it is negative so it will take more than a gallon of 'gas' to produce a gallon of biofuel. Smart.
2. Even when fortified with petroleum (E85) biofuels have less energy density than fossil fuels. In the case of E85 the figure is 20% less than gasoline. But gallon for gallon biofuels and petroleum have comparable amounts of biomass and when burned produce similar amounts of CO2 - so an E85 powered vehicle will produce 20% more CO2 to go the same distance as a gasoline powered vehicle. So in addition to increasing net energy consumption, biofuel powered vehicles increase CO2 production while in operation and in the fuel production process. No gain here.
3. Time for breakfast, toodles.

Hi -

Sorry I was away for so long. I'm going try and post one a day for a while so please stay tuned.

In the meantime of all people Fidel Castro has come up with a clear message defining the threat biofuels pose to our dinner tables. Please read on http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/usworld/news-article.aspx?storyid=78925

Carl

Ethanol at $5.00 a Gallon

It appears that a week and a half ago Ethanol hit $5 a gallon on the spot market. Current trades for late July delivery are at the $4.00-$4.50 level, more than double the price six months ago.

Ethanol demand is in its infancy, the E85 program is the first big step in bio-fuels and the price impact is amazingly quick. Corn prices are also up 15% which is going to impact food costs too.

On this scale, (ethanol) bio-fuel solutions are quickly becoming suspect.

Interesting to note that we're not hearing much about this in the US media!

Why isn't E85 around $8.75 a gallon at the pump considering the surge in wholesale pricing?

This morning Ford launched its E85 development, and midwestern "E85 Corridor", television and print campaigns after anouncing last week that it shelving its Hybrid progrom to focus on developing more E85 vehicles. To make an E85 vehicle all Ford has to do is change the programming in the ignition systems control chip.

Source article:

By Tom Doggett (06/23/2006)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said on Friday he was concerned about this week's jump in ethanol prices which might be passed on to consumers at the pump, but he said lifting the U.S. duty on Brazilian ethanol imports won't increase supplies that much to help.

"This is something that we're concerned about ... when I see that kind of price for ethanol," Bodman told reporters in a telephone briefing. Ethanol has jumped to $5 a gallon in the spot market.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-06-23T171056Z_01_N23275496_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENERGY-ETHANOL-PRICE.xml&archived=False

Today, we consume more oil than we discover.

"Today, we consume more oil than we discover. And the oil industry makes no secret about it. A Chevron ad asks: “The world consumes two barrels of oil for every barrel discovered. So is this something you should be worried about?” In 2005, that ratio took a turn for the worse: one found for six consumed."

The end of the 'age of oil'

Jorge Silva, Reuters
By Daniele Ganser for ISN Security Watch (30/05/06)

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=16043