Ethanol is good?

Within the next few months regular unleaded is going to be replaced by E10. That is a 10% ethanol petrol blend. The purported reasoning for this is that ethanol is an environmentally friendly renewable energy source and E10 is cheaper.

I don’t buy this bullshit.

Can someone show me how ethanol will in any way significantly reduce CO2 emissions or be any good for the environment? Some argue that the CO2 produced by burning ethanol is taken back in by the plants grown to produce it in the first place. Okay that’s good for the environment right? But what about the fact that land is going to need to be cleared to grow the crops needed for these plants. A forest removes more CO2 then a field of wheat or corn. Not to mention the environmental damage done by modern farming practises, fertilizers, pesticides etc.

Then off course you have to ferment the plants and dump all that waste, then you have to distil it (using more energy) then you have to ship it and by the time I get it it has made no difference to C02 emissions whatsoever whilst damaging the environment in other ways.

There is only so much arable land. Already soy bean prices have soared as farmers in the USA opt to grow corn to make ethanol instead, thus reducing soy bean supply. The ever enterprising Brazilians are chopping down a few trees to grow soy beans to fill this void. That forest they have is pretty big I am sure clearing a few thousand acres won’t hurt it. After all there are still three million square kilometres left. Hang on in 1970 there was four million acres. Well 75% of it is still left and I am sure they’ll stop clearing it eventually.

But it has less harmful emissions and no benzene. Oh really.

Form Wiki...

“Ethanol combustion in an internal combustion engine yields many of the products of incomplete combustion produced by gasoline and significantly larger amounts of formaldehyde and related species such as acetaldehyde. This leads to a significantly larger photochemical reactivity that generates much more ground level ozone. These data have been assembled into The Clean Fuels Report comparison of fuel emissions[30] and show that ethanol exhaust generates 2.14 times as much ozone as does gasoline exhaust. When this is added into the custom "Localised Pollution Index (LPI)" of The Clean Fuels Report the local pollution, i.e. that which contributes to smog, is 1.7 on a scale where gasoline is 1.0 and higher numbers signify greater pollution.”

WTF. It is no better just different.

But it is cheaper. Yeah for now. Already pundits expect E10 prices to jump by four cents once regular unleaded is phased out. Basic supply and demand principles people. Another thing that bothers me is what affect this will have on wheat prices. 90% of Australia’s Ethanol is produced from wheat. It also is made from sugar cane and corn. Again basic supply and demand. Wheat, corn and sugar prices will go up. Good for the farmer but not for those that like to eat.

It is also less efficient then straight petrol so you need more of it to go the same distance. How is this cheaper again?

It is widely reported that the corn needed to make one tank of fuel for a 4wd could feed a person for a year.

There is debate as to whether Ethanol is actually a net energy gain.

Ethanol is a rort. It will not reduce greenhouse gasses, it will cause damage to the environment like deforestation and it will drive up food prices. How come sheeple buy that this is a good thing? I don’t understand why it is being pushed so hard. Who benefits? We don’t and nor does the environment.

Is Fifty Over Cricket Dead?

There are many that see the rise of twenty over cricket as the death knell for the fifty over form of the game. This summer in Australia the domestic T20 tournament has smashed the ODI format of the game in relation to crowd numbers. Traditionally Australians have never given a fuck about domestic cricket. No one goes to shield matches except parents and significant others, few go to domestic 50 over games. This year however the Big Bash has outdrew the ODI’s by many thousands. The biggest crowd of the summer so far was for the T20 vs. Pakistan. Not one ODI this season has sold out and that is bad.

Last nights game at The Adelaide Oval was the lowest crowd ever for a fifty over game at the ground, a measly eight thousand.

I don’t think 50 over cricket is dead just yet but the real test will be this years Ashes series. We play seven ODI’s and if these don’t draw then Cricket Australia will have a problem.

I don’t think fifty over cricket will ever die but the bottom line is that money talks. It is inevitable that we will see fewer ODI’s and more T20’s. I don’t mind the twenty over format of the game but being a purist test cricket is where it is at for me.

My concern about the rising popularity of T20 is the long term effects it will have on the game. As it grows in popularity more and more junior players will learn that you should try and belt every ball for a boundary and bowlers will learn to bowl full and straight and nothing else. This will impact on future test players who will have learnt nothing of the skill, finesse and patience needed for test cricket.

That is why it is vital that The Sheffield Shield not be tampered with. If you want to make room for more T20 game then axe Ford Ranger Cup games because no one cares about them anyway

The Population Problem

Take a look at this chart.


It represents human population growth for the last thousand years. You will notice that in the last forty years our population has doubled. For the forty odd thousand years prior to the Year 1000 our population was steady at about three hundred thousand. As technology improved our population grew and grew and grew. This is unsustainable growth.

In nature it is not unusual for animal populations to explode when environmental conditions are good, inevitably though what the environment giveth the environment taketh away. A good example of this is mice plagues in Australia. When conditions are good the mice breed like crazy. Mice are everywhere. They eat everything in site and then when drought inevitable returns they starve to death.

Hence our population has exploded because conditions are good. The main thing that has made things so good is oil. We are totally reliant on oil. It is the base of all our plastics, all our fertilisers and the thing we run all of our machines son. It is estimated that ten calories of oil energy is used for every one calorie of food produced in the western world.

Oil is running out. It is my opinion that we are currently at the plateau of oil production. That is peak oil. Canadian oil sands and unconventional oil are not the answer as the energy put into extraction is more than the energy that you get out. When we get to the point of having to rely on them then oil will be too expensive anyway. Many will tout alternate energy as the answer but that is just bullshit. It is not just about energy and BTW electricity is not an energy source, electricity is created from some other energy source and if we don’t have oil how they going to make your electric car? How will they make the plastic for your car? The tyres?

Ethanol. Some say ethanol is an alternate energy source. I pity them. There is not enough arable land to grow enough corn to produce enough ethanol to even power one country like the USA, at least not if you want to grow food too.

There is no alternative energy source that can do for us what oil has. It is fantasy to think there is. When the oil runs out or becomes prohibitively expensive so our good time ends and people start starving until eventually we are back to that sustainable population of less than one billion.

Nothing can prevent the inevitable collapse. Our population will double again within thirty years and speed up the depletion of oil exponentially. Even if we kill off five billion people today then it only delays the inevitable. The collapse will be slow and painful and it has already started. Open your eyes and you’ll see.