THE STREAKER'S LAMENT

Remember the streakers? Those interesting and seemingly more than slightly crazy folk who would run out over the sports field in their birthday suits, chased by the police or security guards. Often as not they were arrested although some really fast streakers, who really streaked, got away.
One streaker, seeking to explain his odd behavior to the judge, said "Your Honor, it seemed like a good idea at the time." This was The Streaker's Lament.
Many things seem like a good idea at the time and I am sure you have your own treasure trove of things that seemed to be a good idea at the time. How about the idea of using ethanol as a replacement for gasoline? To be fair, adding some ethanol to gasoline was a good idea and resulted in a significant reduction of smog in places like Los Angeles a decade or so back.
Not such a good idea when this is proposed as a alternative to gasoline. Why not? you ask...
Well, for starters, it takes about as much energy to produce ethanol as ethanol yields. Only corn subsidies paid to farmers made it look economic for a while. Then it seems like it takes lots of water to produce ethanol and water seems to be getting relatively scarce. Oh, and now we are being told that the carbon footprint for corn-based ethanol is bigger than that of gasoline when all the energy inputs are considered. Not to mention, finally, that growing lots of corn for ethanol results in less corn to eat.
Much the same story goes for biodiesel from feedstock such as sorghum and palm oil. I do think collecting used vegetable oil from McDonald's and the like, turning it into biodiesel and glycerine and using the former in your diesel powered motor car is a really smart idea, especially when done by small cooperatives. What did they do with all that vegetable oil before this turned up?
However, biodiesel production on a large, commercial scale seems to have unfortunate consequences for the poorer folk around the world, especially in Asia where palm oil is important for cooking. Thanks to biodiesel production, many folk are finding it more and more difficult to find oil to cook their food.
Farmers, who are really smart people, knowing that the increased demand is leading to better prices for corn and sorghum, are planting more acreage to these crops, even turning thumbs down to government subsidies for not planting crops so that land can be returned to natural growth. In the meantime, the price of corn at the ethanol factory door has risen so high that it is no longer profitable to make ethanol. Due to drought, even wheat has become a much more profitable crop and is competing for land formerly planted to corn.
All of which seems to take us back to our starting point: producing biofuels so as to reduce acreage planted to food crops is not really so smart an idea (especially when it leads to increased food prices when we shop)...although it seemed a good idea at the time.
At least the farmers are making more money and it is hard to argue against that!
Delta and Northwest airlines have decided to merge. A week or so back, it looked as if this mooted merger would probably not eventuate. What changed opposition to collaboration? Why, the realization that the price of jet fuel has risen so high that it is threatening to ruin the air travel industry. Even airline executives seem to be realizing that the high price of oil is not going to go away. The US Air Force is planning to run its vast fleet on fuel converted from coal.
What is driving up the price of oil? Two things are acting together: one factor is that oil production cannot keep up with rising demand (there is a little less oil produced each year due to depletion of oil fields and less oil is discovered than the increase in oil consumption. The other factor is that the rest of the world (particularly China and India) want to live like the Western World and drive lots of motor cars. India alone is building several oil refineries each of which will be able to refine more oil that is refined currently in Australia. It seems the only new refineries are those being built in Asia!
Someone should get over there and tell them that there is not enough oil to go around and they should give up this crazy idea. But...would they listen?
Hey, someone should shout the same to us. But...would we listen?
Eventually, the price of oil will make us attend. Gasoline in Europe costs about US$ 7.80 per gallon. Which is why Europeans drive smaller cars and prefer diesel engines. The cost of fuel is of less concern to them because most live in compact cities with excellent public transport including very fast intercity trains (think 200 mph). European cities do not have the sprawling suburbs we are accustomed to nor do parents spend large amounts of time and large quantities of fuel transporting children to this and that event because of the greater convenience.
My friend Jack recently purchased a Toyota Hybrid that gives 35 mpg around town and better than that on the highway. Another friend, Douglas, has been driving a diesel Jetta for some years and does not mind the 50 mph economy he gets, even at the current price of diesel. It seems that, if we all followed this path, we would be off dependence on foreign oil supplies or greatly reduce it. This is in the US, of course. Those of you in Australia can buy the new Peugeots, Renaults, etc with the efficient clean diesel engines. Petrol averaged AU$1.42 per litre last month, equivalent to US$4.79 per gallon. Compare Canada, where gasoline averaged CA$1.14 per litre, equivalent to US$4.19 per gallon.
Put it this way...if you really knew that gas would cost $10 per gallon at the end of next year, how might that change your motoring choices?