Re: Oil Independence Day 2006

So it doesn't mess up the flow of reading.

Graham

230,000,000. Even, if by some magic, the US could produce

That will not happen for a long time, since above 10% ethanol, you need to start thinking about engine adjustments. That means, engine adjustments for all

230,000,000 vehicles. Brasil has moved to flex-fuel vehicles, but we barely started with that.

And I suspect that we will not get beyond 6% blending for a long time, because the reason is that current rush on ethanol in the US is not driven by the same forces that drove Brasil to the stuff. Currently, the US uses ethanol mostly as a replacement for MTBE, as an oxygenator for gasoline. So, simply to reduce good old air polution.

Several states, including California, have already phased out MTBE in favor of ethanol. If I am not mistaken, it is blended into gasoline at about 6%.

The phase-out of MTBE and phase-in of ethanol in California alone (some 45 million vehicles?) already caused the entire US ethanol industry to run at full throttle, forced ethanol prices far above gasoline and caused the considerable investment in US ethanol production that we see these days.

Now parts of the US East Coast are also moving in that direction (replacing MTBE by ethanol) ethanol prices will probably go up more, and we might HAVE TO import from Brasil :

Once we have MTBE replaced, and 6% ethanol in all US gasoline, the incentive to blend in more disappears. So I suspect by that time ethanol prices will level off, to the point where they are competitive with gasoline from a burn-value perspective. If we can still crank out more ethanol at that price level, then so be it, but I actually suspect that some time will go by before that happens.

It is brought in (to California) by rail (from the Mid West). Until there is a cheaper solution. I think we can safely leave that to the distribution companies.

Maybe they can fix the gasoline piping system so no water gets in there ? Then we can just blend it in at the refinaries.

OK, I was thinking of the US. (We Americans do have a knack for being provincial, don't we . . . )

But is that short or medium or long term supply?

Not that I expect Brazil to fuel the world. But ethanol prices in Brazil are apparently lower than current gasoline prices, and I'd expect them to reach equilibrium if demand exceeded supply.

Also, I understand that at least one venture is underway to build a refining plant with the objective of avoiding the American tariff. And I understand that the shift to flex-fuel technology reflects both improved technology and the fact that Brazilians were burned some years back when the price of oil dropped and gasoline became more economical than ethanol.

Should have done that years ago in New York. Unfortunately, in the US, newer cities and suburbs are largely automobile dependent, and our government's policies have encouraged middle class people to leave the inner city (although that trend has changed some in recent years as the crime wave came under control). They aren't dense enough for effective transit. And even in smaller cities and large towns that were once served by trolley lines, the retail centers are now too spread out to be accessible to transit.

I've generally focused on the US, which is well situated in that it has a lot of arable land and wind resources. The situation in other countries will of course vary, e.g., the UK has excellent wind and hydroelectric potential but as I understand it countries like Germany don't. So what might work here wouldn't necessarily work there. OTOH, Western Europe is far ahead of us when it comes to energy conservation and is accustomed to high fuel prices. I've used as a baseline the assumption that Americans would continue to drive oversized vehicles (not because I think we should, but because I'm trying to be realistic). New technologies such as plug-in hybrids would, when applied to more moderately sized, more fuel-efficient vehicles result in spectacular efficiencies. Plug-in hybrids might also achieve a nice synergism with the well-maintained and comprehensive European train networks, in that they would be used mostly for the short haul commutes and local expeditions in which grid power is sufficient.

Thus demand for ethanol and biodiesel might be less in Europe than it would be here, and closer to the resources that Europe has (fewer opportunities for energy crops, but as much agricultural waste as we have, since it's a consequence of food and feed production). Grid power is another matter where wind, hydroelectric, and potential solar/tidal/etc. resources aren't plentiful. In that case, I suspect that the best fallback would be fission, which is as economical as wind with storage and involves lower capital costs than wind, albeit higher extrinsic ones and higher risk. Not an ideal solution, but better than what we have.

I wouldn't rule out carbon sequestration, either, albeit what I've seen so far hasn't given me much faith in its potential.

Probably correct technically, although I see the word used more freely. For that matter, if you want to be technical, a forest can be either a sink or a source. Left unmolested, though, forests apparently act as sinks as atmospheric CO2 levels increase, because they absorb more carbon.

Such insightful critical thought. Thanks for bringing that to our attention.

You doubt wrong

Not sure how that differs all that much from welfare, which is paid by people who earn it and pay high taxes on it while doing so! Except insofar as the welfare payments are much higher, of course.

All over a fraction of a quad. Usenet is taken over by lala landers.

Said what? I'm not looking back, learn how snip with content that counts.

But the quote is in the part you snipped from his post!

It's at the end of all of Josh Hill's posts.

Or inherited it. Or stole it (e.g., Ken Lay).

Or used tax shelters.

But without the estate tax, not on the increased value.

If you buy $1000 worth of stock and it's worth $1 million when you die, your heirs get it as if it cost $1 million -- they owe no tax on the increased value. (If you had sold it the day before you died, you'd owe capital gains tax.)

Not if the Republicans have their way. And besides, only estates worth well in the millions are taxed at all. Most estates, over 90%, are taxed at zero %.

Yeah, poor children with food or Buffett's heirs with $3 billion instead of $6 billion. Tough call.

But I didn't snip anything _above_ my post.

What's it doing down there? Why is Hunter rearranging the order of thought?

This is a perfect example of what can go wrong with top-posting. Mike Hunter top-posted and the flow was lost.

Cite.....

One of the problems is people with small businesses and farms.

Should they have to sell their farm/business to pay a death tax?

As opposed to your posts, which have, to date, yielded no information other than the fact that you're severely troubled and quite possibly psychotic?

Ah, Usenet.

That article is a masterpiece of thought-free reporting, reporting as it does events like price swings without placing them within a contextual framework, e.g., that the price ethanol will naturally swing as demand and production rise and fall and the price of competing fuels rises and falls, modulating demand. I could go on, but, quite frankly, it's a waste of time.

Er, I didn't snip the quote: the person I was responding to top posted, and since I replied under his post the quote to which he had referred appears at the bottom rather than the top of the page.

Exactly. I didn't want to perpetuate the mistake by top posting myself.

You can find the figures here -- the exemption is currently $2 million and is scheduled to increase to $3.5 million in 2009, with complete elimination of the tax in 2010.

BTW, it's not a "death tax." It's been called the estate tax or inheritance tax at least since it was introduced by Teddy Roosevelt, and it doesn't tax deaths; the term "death tax" is a phony name invented to make it sound bad by Republicans who favor its repeal.

You are posting stuff without supporting numbers all the time. I'd say my post fits right in. When you are ready to crunch numbers, let me know. I've posted 'fraction of a quad'. Why don't you address that?

Because I already have, e.g., the GM Powerpoint, which according to my calculations matched the government study which was also posted here. Pointing to production in Brazil or the United States is senseless at this point: it's production potential that matters, and all the evidence that I've seen says that domestic production potential is sufficient to make a large dent in our gasoline consumption. Precisely how large, I don't think anyone knows, but a DOT study I saw mentioned the other day put it at IIRC 42%. Since plug-in hybrids reduce fuel use by about 60%, that should be enough to power a fleet the size of today's, and there may well be potential for higher production of biofuels and other improvements in vehicle efficiency.

That being said, I'm of the opinion that the precise number doesn't matter, since I don't expect ethanol and biodiesel (or butanol or what have you) to be the ultimate solution to our transportation needs. If the first gasoline-competitive FCV's enter production by 2015, which seems likely at this point, they will do so before the entire fleet can be converted to biofuels and in doing so will relieve pressure on the supply. If they don't, and if batteries don't advance more quickly than I think they will, we may have to downsize vehicles or use other technologies, such as flex-fuel plug-in hybrids with hydrogen ICE.

So really, from a technological perspective, I see nothing dire in this scenario. Even if biofuel production capacity turns out to be significantly less, there are other technologies in the pipeline that can and will fill the gap. The trick I think is more in developing capacities that allow for maximal flexibility, e.g., flex fuel vehicles, and that accommodate fluctuations in price and supply. I'm more concerned with the Administration's inaction, which is costing us valuable time and making the inevitable transition more difficult and expensive. And I'm more concerned with power generation. Wind is almost ideal, but I keep reading that we've pretty much exhausted our hydroelectric storage potential. If that's so, and if solar energy remains uneconomical, we'll have to rely heavily on fission if we want to eliminate air pollution.