54 Replies to “Y2Kyoto: They Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans”
Well, citations of hypocrisy on the left is getting trite, what?
But here’s another trite observation: during that 2-3 day hot spell in Vancouver, I visited the excellent salad bar at Whole Foods. I was kinda dreading going in assuming it would be sweltering.
WOW, it was almost TOO cool in there, the air conditioning was so effective. I could readily see, too, that there were quite a few loiterers taking advantage of the wonton destruction of mother earth.
How does using Biodiesel generators contradict Earth day again?
I don’t know why they couldn’t have powered all the Earth Day displays with a few solar panels, some renewable rainbows & magic unicorns, and a giant wind turbine set up downwind from the perpetual gale of hot air coming out of Congress.
Earth Day is a contradiction in itself.
If you leave plastic items on a curb, they are picked up by trucks spewing out smog into the air we breathe. These plastic items are then sent to China which has zero regard for its people or the natural environment.
How have we helped the earth?
Eco-fanatics are simply delusional, and it’s no exaggeration if you were watching last night’s TVO panel on “Stereotypes of China”. (TVO’s Steve Paikin is usually excellent — the best — but last night’s show was a rare lemon).
Anyway, one of the TVO panelists (I think his name was “Harden”) claimed that “environmental activists effected the collapse of the Soviet Union and liberation from Communism”. Whaaaaa???!!!
Where are our historians, and what kind of junk history are our Universities pumping into today’s graduates? In other words we are expected to believe that Greenpeace and World Wildlife Foundation activists overthrew Communism!
I happened to be working in Soviet Bloc countries when communism collapsed, and during the many years I was involved I didn’t hear hide nor hair of an environmental activist doing a damn thing. Even during the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Western environmentalists were too busy attacking the U.S. to notice what was going on in Soviet Bloc countries.
To set the historical record straight folks, here’s who can take credit for collapsing the Soviet Communist system:
Ronald Reagan and his tough anti-communist policy, Russian reformers like Gorbachev, Pope John Paul II and his support for dissidents, labour movements like Solidarity headed by Lech Walesa of Poland, heroic underground dissidents who held up the banner of freedom no matter how oppressive the tyranny — often paying the price of incarceration, torture or even their lives. And the most important reason Communism collapsed: it was, and always will be, a failed economic system “destined for the trashbin of history” (Vladimir Lenin’s ironic words erroneously predicting the fate of capitalism).
Eco-fanatics in fact did nothing to fight communism, and their fascistic methods today are identical to how tyrannical communistic systems are imposed.
I’m wondering why they would require so much power for the displays? Do they all have large screen TVs and air conditioning in those tents?
Because biofuels take more energy to make than they are worth. And the energy to make biofuels usually comes from fossil fuels.
IOW, the gov’t mandated use of biofuels causes higher fossil fuel consumption. But this fact does not matter to the green fascists. The environment is not their ultimate cause du jour, it is covert communism.
But, anyways, happy earth day.
“How does using Biodiesel generators contradict Earth day again?”
Wouldn’t you expect them to choose not to use any power at all for their outside displays? Biodiesel still produces harmfull emissions & “greenhouse gases”, generally just a little less than diesel at the exhaust pipe.
Yeah, but the generators were painted green so it’s okay.
Rabbit: “Yeah, but the generators were painted green so it’s okay.”
Both brilliant AND hilarious!!!
That picture/image doesn’t open for me.
For a momment there I thought this was in reference to that Spanish Solar Farm/diesel generator scandal.
This was about regulators investigating readings that a solar farm was putting power into the grid AFTER SUNSET. It seems somebody forgot to shut the diesel generator down at sunset. Ya get this sorta thing when solar power gets a ridiculous premium………..
BJT – even if you ignore the basic fact that diesel is diesel, no matter its origin, and is going to have essentially the same emissions; the reality is that biofuels are using foodstocks, which is why a lot of really poor folk in Central America are not eating so well: their foodstock is your fuelstock, and the demand for said fuelstock (because of fat subsidies) has caused the price of the foodstock to rise.
Biofuel creates global shortages of corn and starvation is sure to follow. Starving people or green energy, hum green energy won that battle but the econuts can sleep sound in their beds that they are morally superior to the rest of us who care about people starving globally. Upside down loopy leftards.
“But the end justifies the means!”
“But the end justifies the means!”
“But the end justifies the means!”
“But the end justifies the means!”
Scream the greenies, who think if they say it often enough it will become true.
(BTW is BTJ= Basement T’s Junk?)
“How does using Biodiesel generators contradict Earth day again?”
If it was biodiesel from hemp, then they get a little gold star.!
If it was from corn, well then, using food to generate electricity, is NOT being green.
It was earth day was it not..?
Where are the solar panels and the mini 400 watt bird choppers?
“If you leave plastic items on a curb, they are picked up by trucks spewing out smog into the air we breathe. These plastic items are then sent to China which has zero regard for its people or the natural environment.”
They are not sent to china, most plastics (#1,2,4,5) are recycled regionally in most places.
What would you do with those plastics otherwise? Throw them in the garbage and a big truck spewing smog would come by and pick them up and DUMP THEM IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND. Not exactly human ingenuity at it’s finest.
“Because biofuels take more energy to make than they are worth. And the energy to make biofuels usually comes from fossil fuels.”
Lies…unbacked claims…misleading statements.
“Wouldn’t you expect them to choose not to use any power at all for their outside displays?”
No, but sounds like you would, likely because you identify environmental concerns with hippies or ‘primitivists’ (those who believe we should abandon technology). Rational environmentalism seeks to manage actual, in vivo resources as carefully (or more) as we manage virtual, subjective economies. It seeks human advancement, rather than relying almost solely on advancements made a century ago (burning fossil fuels).
“Biodiesel still produces harmfull emissions & “greenhouse gases”, generally just a little less than diesel at the exhaust pipe.”
That’s not the point, the point is it’s RENEWABLE and forms a circular chain of production rather than a linear one.
If you pull fossil fuel from the earth and burn it, there is no way to pull what you burned back into fossil fuel (it’s a very long natural process that makes fossil fuels *dinosaurs long* so is essentially linear (fuel to emissions)).
If you extract biofuel from the earth and burn it, somewhere it’s being ‘pulled’ back into creating new biofuel (the natural process is short *on the scale of a year* and essentially circular (fuel to emissions to fuel).
“the reality is that biofuels are using foodstocks, which is why a lot of really poor folk in Central America are not eating so well”
BS…biofuels use the leftovers from food stock…the stuff left over from sugar cane processing, corn husks, etc. If anything it would drive food prices down because it provides a market for what was once a cost of producing food…garbage. Plus, there is so much corn in the US, an unimaginable amount, so much so that it took over sugar as the number one sweetener, so much so it’s what most cows are fed…biofuels have nothing to do with people staving. The big banks drove wheat prices up back in 2007/08..that put hundreds of million more in starvation. Most of the world’s poor and starving are in south east asia and africa.
Re: the claim of a TVO panelist that “environmental activists effected the collapse of the Soviet Union and liberation from Communism”. As I recall from a couple of former students who became activists in Hungary, the government routinely suppressed publications on the grounds that they would threaten the environment by using up precious paper.
Holy freoles…
You are one whack job BTJ, get a grip!
well BJT, if most of the world’s starving people are living in S.E. Asia and Africa, I guess they need to grow more food, stop socializing the land, pay the farmers what their crops are worth, and bon appetit baby.
Food prices spiked when oil spiked in 2008, because farmers sold their edible food products, such as corn (not only husks) to be processed into ethanol for transportation uses.
Banks do not control wheat prices. In Canada, government does control the price, and that’s as far as you need to look to find the problem.
and the real point is, if the Green lobby gets its way, processing food into ethanol will be mandated by government and people dependent on these foods will be S.O.L. Ultimately, I believe that is what the Green lobby wants, to take food from people, burn it, and point at the starving people and say, if only these brown/black/or fill in the blanks here people had aborted their babies, if only “the right” had done something to control our birth rate… isn’t that what it’s all about though, CONTROL. That’s why we call them the watermelon party, green on the outside, red on the inside.
“Because biofuels take more energy to make than they are worth. ”
Bullfudge.
That may be true of corn ethanol, however biodiesel is quite different.
Firstly, much of it is made from recycled ‘waste’VO, and secondly for every unit of petro-energy used to produce oil seed feedstock crops. 3.5 units of biodiesel energy are produced.
Furthermore the toxic pollution from burning biodiesel is SIGNIFICANTLY less than the toxic pollution from burning petro diesel, especially in a power generator in an urban environment.
Maybe spend some time educating yourself on the important details before beaking-off your unfounded opinions.
Assuming you are correct in your maths, Mr Galt, you and BTJ have to admit that given Earth day is about minimizing energy use, the fact that they needed even 1 generator, biodiesel or otherwise, is ironic to say the least.
This has nothing to do with the fuel that was used, but that fuel was used at all. Yet another case of environmentalists not practicing what they preach.
“BJT – even if you ignore the basic fact that diesel is diesel, no matter its origin, and is going to have essentially the same emissions; the reality is that biofuels are using foodstocks, which is why a lot of really poor folk in Central America are not eating so well: their foodstock is your fuelstock, and the demand for said fuelstock (because of fat subsidies) has caused the price of the foodstock to rise.”
What a bunch of twaddle. See my previous post on biodiesel. The poor people in Central America are not eating recycled VO nor are they eating the non-food grade oilseeds used to produce biodiesel.
The “Biodiesel Takes Food From Our Mouths” argument is based on fallacy.
The most common biodiesel feedstock soybeans, is mainly grown as animal feed for the industrial meat business i.e. pork, poultry and beef. Biodiesel is a potential value-added byproduct from this process. Processing this feedstock to make biodiesel, makes the byproduct ‘seed cake’ more digestible as animal feed. Thus the animals get more nutrition from the ‘byproduct’ than the original feedstock, and less is expelled as waste. We can get food and fuel from the same crop.
Granted that the feedstock legumes could be exported to feed the starving millions instead of being used to feed meat animals, and additional land might be cleared to produce more animal feed for the industrial meat business. However that practice has been considered ‘acceptable’ for decades, is not likely to change, and is totally external to the biodiesel issue.
The world’s poor are not starving because of biodiesel but rather due to a variety of causes including local corruption which ‘re-directs’ food aid. Most importantly is the simple fact that 50% of the world’s growing population no longer lives in rural areas where they fed themselves, but now live in sprawling mega slums where food has to be shipped in at ever increasing transportation costs due to rising petroleum prices.
The US has TONS and TONS and TONS of corn. Corn is one of the, if not THE, least efficient crops to use for biofuel production. Biofuels can be made from a variety of sources, many of which consist of waste products. Hemp would be arguably the best choice for first generation crop to use for biofuel.
Why not turn your garbage into fuel rather than ‘hole-filler’?
See “The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away with it”
“No, but sounds like you would, likely because you identify environmental concerns with hippies or ‘primitivists’ (those who believe we should abandon technology). Rational environmentalism seeks to manage actual, in vivo resources as carefully (or more) as we manage virtual, subjective economies. It seeks human advancement, rather than relying almost solely on advancements made a century ago (burning fossil fuels).”
Rational environmentalists are practically extinct these days, so as with many people I’m extremely cynical of any in the new Green Industry. I’ve got nothing against biodiesel, worth more research and development, but wouldn’t you agree that +4 x 50kw (at least) generators is a little excessive for an outdoors tent based trade show? They could run a small amusement park.
btw, if more corn was used up on biodiesel would that create a shortage of high-fructose corn syrup? Maybe not such a bad thing.. 😛
Mr. Galt, we can indeed get feedstock and fuel from biodiesel products but seeing as a lot of environuts are also vegenuts… they would be completely against using the biproducts of biodiesel to feed animals for human consumption. These same environuts I’m sure would be against the kind of production systems that are used to create the crops as they would liken them to “industrial agriculture”, which seems to mean in the media these days, anything produced using a machine. I’m sure that they won’t be satisfied until farmers are out tilling the land with hoes wearing wide-brimmed hats (think the pictures of rice fields in China). That is why it is ironic that they need a generator for their Earth Day. Wanna bet that the generator just says biofuel and is truly burning diesel?
Ricardo says ‘In other words we are expected to believe that Greenpeace and World Wildlife Foundation activists overthrew Communism!’
According to Lord Moncton, when the Berlin wall fell the commies rushed through and took over the environmental groups. One of the original founders of Greenpeace, a friend of Lord Moncton’s, then left the group.
And I gotta say John I’m not sure I believe you. The simple fact is if you are using land to grow stock for biofuels you aren’t using it to grow food and therefore you ARE taking food out of peoples mouths. Plus even using one molecule of oil and gas as energy in growing the crop or to mine, build, or transport any of the equipment used makes the greenies massive hippocrites.
“you and BTJ have to admit that given Earth day is about minimizing energy use”
No I don’t have to admit that, because that’s not what earth day is about..it’s about inspiring awareness and appreciation for the earth/environment/our resources. NOT about going primitive…as much as that gets press and all.
Here’s a link to the EPA’s study on relative bio-diesel emissions. Page 4 has an interesting graph. Not sure what the inputs would be and if they offset the reductions though. Being a renewable resource is a bonus I admit. http://www.epa.gov/otaq/models/analysis/biodsl/p02001.pdf
“Rational environmentalists are practically extinct these days”
I beg to differ, in fact rational environmentalists have never been more plentiful. The 70’s was the age of the irrational hippy.
“seeing as a lot of environuts are also vegenuts… they would be completely against using the biproducts of biodiesel to feed animals for human consumption. These same environuts I’m sure would be against the kind of production systems that are used to create the crops as they would liken them to “industrial agriculture”, which seems to mean in the media these days, anything produced using a machine.”
Again…identifying environmental concerns with the primitive hippy label…a cheap and easy way to argue.
roseberry @ 6:31: “…in Hungary, the government routinely suppressed publications on the grounds that they would threaten the environment by using up precious paper”.
No doubt there were homegrown environmental activists, but as you point out they were severely repressed. And the one’s in the Free West were tools of the Left. (Plus see Marko @ 7:44).
roseberry @ 6:31:
[…….. “…in Hungary, the government routinely suppressed publications on the grounds that they would threaten the environment by using up precious paper”…….]
That was the excuse—the real motive was to suppress the publication itself. Journolist writ large…..
BTJ
[……I beg to differ, in fact rational environmentalists have never been more plentiful. The 70’s was the age of the irrational hippy……]
The Sierra Club and associated loony-tunes have a campaign on to “free the rivers” by having ALL hydro-electric dams destroyed. This is rational????
BTW—while ethanol/methanol can be derived from bio-mass—biodiesel requires soybeans or palm oil as a feedstock.
Extracting oil from soybeans does not enhance it’s digestability but results in concentrating the protein fraction into the bi-product….SOYBEAN OIL MEAL.
btw—-PETROLEUM/NG is not from decayed dinosaurs etc…..
Explain how petroleum/ng is found many thousands of feet down…..while the KT boundary is quite shallow—-on the surface in places like Drumheller AB……
Explain how a fossilized tree truck with the roots below a coal seam extends above the seam and yet has not turned to coal….
Methane is generally considered an organic compound—explain the methane on Jupiter’s moons….
“The Sierra Club and associated loony-tunes have a campaign on to “free the rivers” by having ALL hydro-electric dams destroyed. This is rational????”
Did I say that was rational? Or did I say that rational environmentalists have never been more plentiful?
“biodiesel requires soybeans or palm oil as a feedstock.”
Or other sources of plant/animal fat.
“Explain how petroleum/ng is found many thousands of feet down…..while the KT boundary is quite shallow—-on the surface in places like Drumheller AB……”
Geology..do you know anything about it? Nothing is stationary, the earth moves in all sorts of ways. Correlating geological formations with time is not as easy as pealing an onion.
I didn’t say it was from decayed dinosaurs…I said the time it takes to form is ‘dinosaurs long’. It takes geological time, heat, and energy to make petroleum.
“here all ya hav’tado is point and click. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/many-moons-to-go-the-promise-of-lunar-mining/article1626913/“
Very interesting stuff. I’m sure our solar system has much to be found.
In regards to short-term interests, as well as more available and reliable ventures, looking at earth is of primary concern. IMO, it would be absolutely wacko if we mined the solar system before we took care of the billions of starving people problem.
Biofuels are not environmentally friendly. The amount of land that would have to be cleared/burned to meet green fuel standards is staggering. How come the greens are not worried about habitat destruction, biodiversity, water diversion to irrigation, pesticide and herbicides?
March 1, 2010
Green fuels cause more harm than fossil fuels, according to report
“…The findings show that the Department for Transport’s target for raising the level of biofuel in all fuel sold in Britain will result in millions of acres of forest being logged or burnt down and converted to plantations… The EC has conducted its own research, but is refusing to publish the results. A leaked internal memo from the EC’s agriculture directorate reveals its concern that Europe’s entire biofuels industry, which receives almost £3 billion a year in subsidies, would be jeopardised if indirect changes in land use were included in sustainability standards. A senior official added to the memo in handwriting: “An unguided use of ILUC [indirect land use change] would kill biofuels in the EU.”” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7044708.ece
“Biofuels are not environmentally friendly. The amount of land that would have to be cleared/burned to meet green fuel standards is staggering.”
BS…hemp and algae are two potential sources that would not require a ‘staggering’ amount of land.
Given that AGW is a complete fraud and the planet is not warming, why on earth would anyone want to burn vegetable oil other than to cook some fries? BTW, lard cooks the fries much better than vo. Burns hotter.
Try it and see. But don’t feed the fries to your kids. The people that wish to save the planet will want to prosecute you.
I doubt many workers and property owners back in the seventies had to jump through as many hoops with their wallet in hand as they do today when it comes to the environment.As it seems the hippies must have eventually took office.
BTJ, the amount of land needed to produce biofuels in the quantity needed to meet government mandated standards is staggering. The problem is that either existing crop land will need to be converted leading to food price spikes, or new land will have to be cleared leading to loss of habitat. If the EU and UK can admit is then so can you.
Algae has only been tested in small scale production and , like all plant based green energy, is highly dependent on optimal growing conditions. Biofuels are good only for harvesting taxpayer subsidies.
BTJ
[……Very interesting stuff. I’m sure our solar system has much to be found.
In regards to short-term interests, as well as more available and reliable ventures, looking at earth is of primary concern. IMO, it would be absolutely wacko if we mined the solar system before we took care of the billions of starving people problem…..]
A little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing….
That is called shifting ground….avoiding…changing the subject.
The subject is that petroleum, coal and Ng are probably abiotic in origin. Unless you can postulate Tital having fostered a biodiversity in excess of that of earth—resulting in a greater abundance of hydro-carbons on a relatively small moon that exceeds that of a planet—EARTH.
Labeling petroleum, coal and NG “fossil fuels” is as obsolete a concept as lightning being the weapon of Zeus.
” the amount of land needed to produce biofuels in the quantity needed to meet government mandated standards is staggering”
BS…if you were to use hemp and food by products it’s not. You can also produce biogas through anaerobic digestion using a wide variety of feedstock that would otherwise get tossed in the ground.
“The subject is that petroleum, coal and Ng are probably abiotic in origin.”
On Titan, sure…we’re talking about earth though. You can’t argue about fossil fuels on earth with the Saturn’s moons as your only subject.
Your argument is held by the very, very few…95&+ of geologists agree that earth’s fossil fuels are just that..from the decay of organic matter.
None of this changes the fact that petroleum, et al are produced naturally by geological processes that take geological time, heat, and pressure.
“why on earth would anyone want to burn vegetable oil other than to cook some fries? BTW, lard cooks the fries much better than vo. Burns hotter.
The biodiesel I use is made from recycled VO, ie. AFTER it’s been used to cook food. When they grow canola for oil, not all of the seeds are food grade quality and so they’re used to extract VO for biodiesel. Extracting the oil from soybeans does not reduce it’s value as animal feed.
I would never suggest that biodiesel can significantly replace petro-diesel. If ALL the used VO in N.America was made into biodiesel it might displace 3% of the petro diesel. Biodiesel is most valuable as a petro-diesel fuel additive. Even integer percents of BD significantly reduce the toxic pollution from petro diesel. Diesel fuel can be made from coal and natural gas not just oil. These will be the diesel fuel feedstocks in the future, not oil seed crops grown for fuel.
Lard [and industrial pig]is so laced with chemicals that it should never be consumed as food. Unless of course you raised the pig yourself and only fed it chemical free feed.
Actually, BTJ, BS to energy would be a superior form of production.
As usual, the ability to comprehend the scale of production needed is completely beyond the grasp of the green crowd. As is the unreliability of crop based fuel. Biofuels, solar, wind etc. will never have the 24/7 reliability of fossil fuels.
“Lard [and industrial pig]is so laced with chemicals that it should never be consumed as food. Unless of course you raised the pig yourself and only fed it chemical free feed.”
“Industrial pig” – That’s a good one. True though. But so is most of the food we eat.
Yes I have raised my own pig, but rather than rendering the lard, I threw it out with the trash.
The important part is to feed the “grass” to food, then eat the food. You may think differently, but that is what debate is all about.
Ever kill a pig? A cow? A chicken?
“Ever kill a pig? A cow? A chicken?”
Yup, and sheep, moose, deer, caribou, beaver, muskrat…
Most of the meat I eat comes from locally grown bison. I don’t eat industrial meat.
Okay I think I get it now:
You use diesel burning equipment,which spew co2, to knock down oxygen emitting forests.
Then the trees are burnt releasing more co2 in the atmosphere. At least that replaces the oxygen the trres no longer produce.
Crops are then sown with fuel burning, co2 emitting tractors. Later harvested releasing more co2
These crops are used by the trainload, to produce ethanol in industrial-scale plants. These plants run on electricity produced by burning coal, or natural gas, releasing more co2.
Finally the ethanol is burned in my aunts car, releasing water and… co2.
I’m sorry, I forgot what my point was …….
“Okay I think I get it now:
You use diesel burning equipment,which spew co2,….”
…and you’re Amish, and grow all your own food with horse power, and wear wool clothes knitted from the sheep you raise…
…or maybe you’re just another greenwashed hypocrite?
I heat my energy conserving house with deadfall wood, the electricity comes from 100% renewable energy, I buy clothes at the thrift store, some of the fuel my vehicle uses is made from recycled cooking oil, and I prefer to eat locally grown food.
I’m not the least bit concerned about the CO2 my lifestyle generates; it’s all absorbed by the boreal forest I live in. My eco-footprint is less than half the Canadain average.
As for the starving billions? They’re not my responsibility, I haven’t fathered any 3rd world children.
I’m far from being perfect; I don’t strive for that. However I do make a conscious effort to reduce my impact on the planet.
Take only what you need. Use everything you take. Respect the earth.
“As usual, the ability to comprehend the scale of production needed is completely beyond the grasp of the green crowd.”
And apparently for you too since all you’ve done to quantify it is use the word ‘staggering’. Would the scale not depend on the feedstock used? Needed for what? Why is it assumed that alternative energy sources must be a magic bullet capable of supplying all of the world’s energy needs?
Well, citations of hypocrisy on the left is getting trite, what?
But here’s another trite observation: during that 2-3 day hot spell in Vancouver, I visited the excellent salad bar at Whole Foods. I was kinda dreading going in assuming it would be sweltering.
WOW, it was almost TOO cool in there, the air conditioning was so effective. I could readily see, too, that there were quite a few loiterers taking advantage of the wonton destruction of mother earth.
How does using Biodiesel generators contradict Earth day again?
I don’t know why they couldn’t have powered all the Earth Day displays with a few solar panels, some renewable rainbows & magic unicorns, and a giant wind turbine set up downwind from the perpetual gale of hot air coming out of Congress.
Earth Day is a contradiction in itself.
If you leave plastic items on a curb, they are picked up by trucks spewing out smog into the air we breathe. These plastic items are then sent to China which has zero regard for its people or the natural environment.
How have we helped the earth?
Eco-fanatics are simply delusional, and it’s no exaggeration if you were watching last night’s TVO panel on “Stereotypes of China”. (TVO’s Steve Paikin is usually excellent — the best — but last night’s show was a rare lemon).
Anyway, one of the TVO panelists (I think his name was “Harden”) claimed that “environmental activists effected the collapse of the Soviet Union and liberation from Communism”. Whaaaaa???!!!
Where are our historians, and what kind of junk history are our Universities pumping into today’s graduates? In other words we are expected to believe that Greenpeace and World Wildlife Foundation activists overthrew Communism!
I happened to be working in Soviet Bloc countries when communism collapsed, and during the many years I was involved I didn’t hear hide nor hair of an environmental activist doing a damn thing. Even during the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Western environmentalists were too busy attacking the U.S. to notice what was going on in Soviet Bloc countries.
To set the historical record straight folks, here’s who can take credit for collapsing the Soviet Communist system:
Ronald Reagan and his tough anti-communist policy, Russian reformers like Gorbachev, Pope John Paul II and his support for dissidents, labour movements like Solidarity headed by Lech Walesa of Poland, heroic underground dissidents who held up the banner of freedom no matter how oppressive the tyranny — often paying the price of incarceration, torture or even their lives. And the most important reason Communism collapsed: it was, and always will be, a failed economic system “destined for the trashbin of history” (Vladimir Lenin’s ironic words erroneously predicting the fate of capitalism).
Eco-fanatics in fact did nothing to fight communism, and their fascistic methods today are identical to how tyrannical communistic systems are imposed.
I’m wondering why they would require so much power for the displays? Do they all have large screen TVs and air conditioning in those tents?
Because biofuels take more energy to make than they are worth. And the energy to make biofuels usually comes from fossil fuels.
IOW, the gov’t mandated use of biofuels causes higher fossil fuel consumption. But this fact does not matter to the green fascists. The environment is not their ultimate cause du jour, it is covert communism.
But, anyways, happy earth day.
“How does using Biodiesel generators contradict Earth day again?”
Wouldn’t you expect them to choose not to use any power at all for their outside displays? Biodiesel still produces harmfull emissions & “greenhouse gases”, generally just a little less than diesel at the exhaust pipe.
Yeah, but the generators were painted green so it’s okay.
Rabbit: “Yeah, but the generators were painted green so it’s okay.”
Both brilliant AND hilarious!!!
That picture/image doesn’t open for me.
For a momment there I thought this was in reference to that Spanish Solar Farm/diesel generator scandal.
This was about regulators investigating readings that a solar farm was putting power into the grid AFTER SUNSET. It seems somebody forgot to shut the diesel generator down at sunset. Ya get this sorta thing when solar power gets a ridiculous premium………..
If they wanted green and epically impressive at the same time:
http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2009/03/17/russian-mobile-nuclear-power-plants/
btw, note they are also olive green & khaki!
BJT – even if you ignore the basic fact that diesel is diesel, no matter its origin, and is going to have essentially the same emissions; the reality is that biofuels are using foodstocks, which is why a lot of really poor folk in Central America are not eating so well: their foodstock is your fuelstock, and the demand for said fuelstock (because of fat subsidies) has caused the price of the foodstock to rise.
Biofuel creates global shortages of corn and starvation is sure to follow. Starving people or green energy, hum green energy won that battle but the econuts can sleep sound in their beds that they are morally superior to the rest of us who care about people starving globally. Upside down loopy leftards.
“But the end justifies the means!”
“But the end justifies the means!”
“But the end justifies the means!”
“But the end justifies the means!”
Scream the greenies, who think if they say it often enough it will become true.
(BTW is BTJ= Basement T’s Junk?)
“How does using Biodiesel generators contradict Earth day again?”
If it was biodiesel from hemp, then they get a little gold star.!
If it was from corn, well then, using food to generate electricity, is NOT being green.
It was earth day was it not..?
Where are the solar panels and the mini 400 watt bird choppers?
“If you leave plastic items on a curb, they are picked up by trucks spewing out smog into the air we breathe. These plastic items are then sent to China which has zero regard for its people or the natural environment.”
They are not sent to china, most plastics (#1,2,4,5) are recycled regionally in most places.
What would you do with those plastics otherwise? Throw them in the garbage and a big truck spewing smog would come by and pick them up and DUMP THEM IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND. Not exactly human ingenuity at it’s finest.
“Because biofuels take more energy to make than they are worth. And the energy to make biofuels usually comes from fossil fuels.”
Lies…unbacked claims…misleading statements.
“Wouldn’t you expect them to choose not to use any power at all for their outside displays?”
No, but sounds like you would, likely because you identify environmental concerns with hippies or ‘primitivists’ (those who believe we should abandon technology). Rational environmentalism seeks to manage actual, in vivo resources as carefully (or more) as we manage virtual, subjective economies. It seeks human advancement, rather than relying almost solely on advancements made a century ago (burning fossil fuels).
“Biodiesel still produces harmfull emissions & “greenhouse gases”, generally just a little less than diesel at the exhaust pipe.”
That’s not the point, the point is it’s RENEWABLE and forms a circular chain of production rather than a linear one.
If you pull fossil fuel from the earth and burn it, there is no way to pull what you burned back into fossil fuel (it’s a very long natural process that makes fossil fuels *dinosaurs long* so is essentially linear (fuel to emissions)).
If you extract biofuel from the earth and burn it, somewhere it’s being ‘pulled’ back into creating new biofuel (the natural process is short *on the scale of a year* and essentially circular (fuel to emissions to fuel).
“the reality is that biofuels are using foodstocks, which is why a lot of really poor folk in Central America are not eating so well”
BS…biofuels use the leftovers from food stock…the stuff left over from sugar cane processing, corn husks, etc. If anything it would drive food prices down because it provides a market for what was once a cost of producing food…garbage. Plus, there is so much corn in the US, an unimaginable amount, so much so that it took over sugar as the number one sweetener, so much so it’s what most cows are fed…biofuels have nothing to do with people staving. The big banks drove wheat prices up back in 2007/08..that put hundreds of million more in starvation. Most of the world’s poor and starving are in south east asia and africa.
Re: the claim of a TVO panelist that “environmental activists effected the collapse of the Soviet Union and liberation from Communism”. As I recall from a couple of former students who became activists in Hungary, the government routinely suppressed publications on the grounds that they would threaten the environment by using up precious paper.
Holy freoles…
You are one whack job BTJ, get a grip!
BTJ said “BS…biofuels use the leftovers from food stock…the stuff left over from sugar cane processing, corn husks, etc.”
You sir, are either in deep denial of reality or a liar.
Please read any of the following:
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/18173/
http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/2008/0128/p03s03-usec.html
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_06/b4020093.htm
Please go back to the CBC News website where you came from. You’ll be more comfortable over there, as no one will challenge you on YOUR B.S.!!!
well BJT, if most of the world’s starving people are living in S.E. Asia and Africa, I guess they need to grow more food, stop socializing the land, pay the farmers what their crops are worth, and bon appetit baby.
Food prices spiked when oil spiked in 2008, because farmers sold their edible food products, such as corn (not only husks) to be processed into ethanol for transportation uses.
Banks do not control wheat prices. In Canada, government does control the price, and that’s as far as you need to look to find the problem.
and the real point is, if the Green lobby gets its way, processing food into ethanol will be mandated by government and people dependent on these foods will be S.O.L. Ultimately, I believe that is what the Green lobby wants, to take food from people, burn it, and point at the starving people and say, if only these brown/black/or fill in the blanks here people had aborted their babies, if only “the right” had done something to control our birth rate… isn’t that what it’s all about though, CONTROL. That’s why we call them the watermelon party, green on the outside, red on the inside.
“Because biofuels take more energy to make than they are worth. ”
Bullfudge.
That may be true of corn ethanol, however biodiesel is quite different.
Firstly, much of it is made from recycled ‘waste’VO, and secondly for every unit of petro-energy used to produce oil seed feedstock crops. 3.5 units of biodiesel energy are produced.
Furthermore the toxic pollution from burning biodiesel is SIGNIFICANTLY less than the toxic pollution from burning petro diesel, especially in a power generator in an urban environment.
Maybe spend some time educating yourself on the important details before beaking-off your unfounded opinions.
Assuming you are correct in your maths, Mr Galt, you and BTJ have to admit that given Earth day is about minimizing energy use, the fact that they needed even 1 generator, biodiesel or otherwise, is ironic to say the least.
This has nothing to do with the fuel that was used, but that fuel was used at all. Yet another case of environmentalists not practicing what they preach.
“BJT – even if you ignore the basic fact that diesel is diesel, no matter its origin, and is going to have essentially the same emissions; the reality is that biofuels are using foodstocks, which is why a lot of really poor folk in Central America are not eating so well: their foodstock is your fuelstock, and the demand for said fuelstock (because of fat subsidies) has caused the price of the foodstock to rise.”
What a bunch of twaddle. See my previous post on biodiesel. The poor people in Central America are not eating recycled VO nor are they eating the non-food grade oilseeds used to produce biodiesel.
The “Biodiesel Takes Food From Our Mouths” argument is based on fallacy.
The most common biodiesel feedstock soybeans, is mainly grown as animal feed for the industrial meat business i.e. pork, poultry and beef. Biodiesel is a potential value-added byproduct from this process. Processing this feedstock to make biodiesel, makes the byproduct ‘seed cake’ more digestible as animal feed. Thus the animals get more nutrition from the ‘byproduct’ than the original feedstock, and less is expelled as waste. We can get food and fuel from the same crop.
Granted that the feedstock legumes could be exported to feed the starving millions instead of being used to feed meat animals, and additional land might be cleared to produce more animal feed for the industrial meat business. However that practice has been considered ‘acceptable’ for decades, is not likely to change, and is totally external to the biodiesel issue.
The world’s poor are not starving because of biodiesel but rather due to a variety of causes including local corruption which ‘re-directs’ food aid. Most importantly is the simple fact that 50% of the world’s growing population no longer lives in rural areas where they fed themselves, but now live in sprawling mega slums where food has to be shipped in at ever increasing transportation costs due to rising petroleum prices.
The US has TONS and TONS and TONS of corn. Corn is one of the, if not THE, least efficient crops to use for biofuel production. Biofuels can be made from a variety of sources, many of which consist of waste products. Hemp would be arguably the best choice for first generation crop to use for biofuel.
Why not turn your garbage into fuel rather than ‘hole-filler’?
See “The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away with it”
“No, but sounds like you would, likely because you identify environmental concerns with hippies or ‘primitivists’ (those who believe we should abandon technology). Rational environmentalism seeks to manage actual, in vivo resources as carefully (or more) as we manage virtual, subjective economies. It seeks human advancement, rather than relying almost solely on advancements made a century ago (burning fossil fuels).”
Rational environmentalists are practically extinct these days, so as with many people I’m extremely cynical of any in the new Green Industry. I’ve got nothing against biodiesel, worth more research and development, but wouldn’t you agree that +4 x 50kw (at least) generators is a little excessive for an outdoors tent based trade show? They could run a small amusement park.
btw, if more corn was used up on biodiesel would that create a shortage of high-fructose corn syrup? Maybe not such a bad thing.. 😛
Mr. Galt, we can indeed get feedstock and fuel from biodiesel products but seeing as a lot of environuts are also vegenuts… they would be completely against using the biproducts of biodiesel to feed animals for human consumption. These same environuts I’m sure would be against the kind of production systems that are used to create the crops as they would liken them to “industrial agriculture”, which seems to mean in the media these days, anything produced using a machine. I’m sure that they won’t be satisfied until farmers are out tilling the land with hoes wearing wide-brimmed hats (think the pictures of rice fields in China). That is why it is ironic that they need a generator for their Earth Day. Wanna bet that the generator just says biofuel and is truly burning diesel?
Ricardo says ‘In other words we are expected to believe that Greenpeace and World Wildlife Foundation activists overthrew Communism!’
According to Lord Moncton, when the Berlin wall fell the commies rushed through and took over the environmental groups. One of the original founders of Greenpeace, a friend of Lord Moncton’s, then left the group.
And I gotta say John I’m not sure I believe you. The simple fact is if you are using land to grow stock for biofuels you aren’t using it to grow food and therefore you ARE taking food out of peoples mouths. Plus even using one molecule of oil and gas as energy in growing the crop or to mine, build, or transport any of the equipment used makes the greenies massive hippocrites.
“you and BTJ have to admit that given Earth day is about minimizing energy use”
No I don’t have to admit that, because that’s not what earth day is about..it’s about inspiring awareness and appreciation for the earth/environment/our resources. NOT about going primitive…as much as that gets press and all.
Here’s a link to the EPA’s study on relative bio-diesel emissions. Page 4 has an interesting graph. Not sure what the inputs would be and if they offset the reductions though. Being a renewable resource is a bonus I admit.
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/models/analysis/biodsl/p02001.pdf
“Rational environmentalists are practically extinct these days”
I beg to differ, in fact rational environmentalists have never been more plentiful. The 70’s was the age of the irrational hippy.
“seeing as a lot of environuts are also vegenuts… they would be completely against using the biproducts of biodiesel to feed animals for human consumption. These same environuts I’m sure would be against the kind of production systems that are used to create the crops as they would liken them to “industrial agriculture”, which seems to mean in the media these days, anything produced using a machine.”
Again…identifying environmental concerns with the primitive hippy label…a cheap and easy way to argue.
roseberry @ 6:31: “…in Hungary, the government routinely suppressed publications on the grounds that they would threaten the environment by using up precious paper”.
No doubt there were homegrown environmental activists, but as you point out they were severely repressed. And the one’s in the Free West were tools of the Left. (Plus see Marko @ 7:44).
roseberry @ 6:31:
[…….. “…in Hungary, the government routinely suppressed publications on the grounds that they would threaten the environment by using up precious paper”…….]
That was the excuse—the real motive was to suppress the publication itself. Journolist writ large…..
BTJ
[……I beg to differ, in fact rational environmentalists have never been more plentiful. The 70’s was the age of the irrational hippy……]
The Sierra Club and associated loony-tunes have a campaign on to “free the rivers” by having ALL hydro-electric dams destroyed. This is rational????
BTW—while ethanol/methanol can be derived from bio-mass—biodiesel requires soybeans or palm oil as a feedstock.
Extracting oil from soybeans does not enhance it’s digestability but results in concentrating the protein fraction into the bi-product….SOYBEAN OIL MEAL.
btw—-PETROLEUM/NG is not from decayed dinosaurs etc…..
Explain how petroleum/ng is found many thousands of feet down…..while the KT boundary is quite shallow—-on the surface in places like Drumheller AB……
Explain how a fossilized tree truck with the roots below a coal seam extends above the seam and yet has not turned to coal….
Methane is generally considered an organic compound—explain the methane on Jupiter’s moons….
“The Sierra Club and associated loony-tunes have a campaign on to “free the rivers” by having ALL hydro-electric dams destroyed. This is rational????”
Did I say that was rational? Or did I say that rational environmentalists have never been more plentiful?
“biodiesel requires soybeans or palm oil as a feedstock.”
Or other sources of plant/animal fat.
“Explain how petroleum/ng is found many thousands of feet down…..while the KT boundary is quite shallow—-on the surface in places like Drumheller AB……”
Geology..do you know anything about it? Nothing is stationary, the earth moves in all sorts of ways. Correlating geological formations with time is not as easy as pealing an onion.
I didn’t say it was from decayed dinosaurs…I said the time it takes to form is ‘dinosaurs long’. It takes geological time, heat, and energy to make petroleum.
BJT
here all ya hav’tado is point and click.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/many-moons-to-go-the-promise-of-lunar-mining/article1626913/
“here all ya hav’tado is point and click.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/many-moons-to-go-the-promise-of-lunar-mining/article1626913/“
Very interesting stuff. I’m sure our solar system has much to be found.
In regards to short-term interests, as well as more available and reliable ventures, looking at earth is of primary concern. IMO, it would be absolutely wacko if we mined the solar system before we took care of the billions of starving people problem.
Biofuels are not environmentally friendly. The amount of land that would have to be cleared/burned to meet green fuel standards is staggering. How come the greens are not worried about habitat destruction, biodiversity, water diversion to irrigation, pesticide and herbicides?
March 1, 2010
Green fuels cause more harm than fossil fuels, according to report
“…The findings show that the Department for Transport’s target for raising the level of biofuel in all fuel sold in Britain will result in millions of acres of forest being logged or burnt down and converted to plantations… The EC has conducted its own research, but is refusing to publish the results. A leaked internal memo from the EC’s agriculture directorate reveals its concern that Europe’s entire biofuels industry, which receives almost £3 billion a year in subsidies, would be jeopardised if indirect changes in land use were included in sustainability standards. A senior official added to the memo in handwriting: “An unguided use of ILUC [indirect land use change] would kill biofuels in the EU.””
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7044708.ece
“Biofuels are not environmentally friendly. The amount of land that would have to be cleared/burned to meet green fuel standards is staggering.”
BS…hemp and algae are two potential sources that would not require a ‘staggering’ amount of land.
Given that AGW is a complete fraud and the planet is not warming, why on earth would anyone want to burn vegetable oil other than to cook some fries? BTW, lard cooks the fries much better than vo. Burns hotter.
Try it and see. But don’t feed the fries to your kids. The people that wish to save the planet will want to prosecute you.
I doubt many workers and property owners back in the seventies had to jump through as many hoops with their wallet in hand as they do today when it comes to the environment.As it seems the hippies must have eventually took office.
BTJ, the amount of land needed to produce biofuels in the quantity needed to meet government mandated standards is staggering. The problem is that either existing crop land will need to be converted leading to food price spikes, or new land will have to be cleared leading to loss of habitat. If the EU and UK can admit is then so can you.
Algae has only been tested in small scale production and , like all plant based green energy, is highly dependent on optimal growing conditions. Biofuels are good only for harvesting taxpayer subsidies.
BTJ
[……Very interesting stuff. I’m sure our solar system has much to be found.
In regards to short-term interests, as well as more available and reliable ventures, looking at earth is of primary concern. IMO, it would be absolutely wacko if we mined the solar system before we took care of the billions of starving people problem…..]
A little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing….
That is called shifting ground….avoiding…changing the subject.
The subject is that petroleum, coal and Ng are probably abiotic in origin. Unless you can postulate Tital having fostered a biodiversity in excess of that of earth—resulting in a greater abundance of hydro-carbons on a relatively small moon that exceeds that of a planet—EARTH.
Labeling petroleum, coal and NG “fossil fuels” is as obsolete a concept as lightning being the weapon of Zeus.
” the amount of land needed to produce biofuels in the quantity needed to meet government mandated standards is staggering”
BS…if you were to use hemp and food by products it’s not. You can also produce biogas through anaerobic digestion using a wide variety of feedstock that would otherwise get tossed in the ground.
“The subject is that petroleum, coal and Ng are probably abiotic in origin.”
On Titan, sure…we’re talking about earth though. You can’t argue about fossil fuels on earth with the Saturn’s moons as your only subject.
Your argument is held by the very, very few…95&+ of geologists agree that earth’s fossil fuels are just that..from the decay of organic matter.
None of this changes the fact that petroleum, et al are produced naturally by geological processes that take geological time, heat, and pressure.
“why on earth would anyone want to burn vegetable oil other than to cook some fries? BTW, lard cooks the fries much better than vo. Burns hotter.
The biodiesel I use is made from recycled VO, ie. AFTER it’s been used to cook food. When they grow canola for oil, not all of the seeds are food grade quality and so they’re used to extract VO for biodiesel. Extracting the oil from soybeans does not reduce it’s value as animal feed.
I would never suggest that biodiesel can significantly replace petro-diesel. If ALL the used VO in N.America was made into biodiesel it might displace 3% of the petro diesel. Biodiesel is most valuable as a petro-diesel fuel additive. Even integer percents of BD significantly reduce the toxic pollution from petro diesel. Diesel fuel can be made from coal and natural gas not just oil. These will be the diesel fuel feedstocks in the future, not oil seed crops grown for fuel.
Lard [and industrial pig]is so laced with chemicals that it should never be consumed as food. Unless of course you raised the pig yourself and only fed it chemical free feed.
Actually, BTJ, BS to energy would be a superior form of production.
As usual, the ability to comprehend the scale of production needed is completely beyond the grasp of the green crowd. As is the unreliability of crop based fuel. Biofuels, solar, wind etc. will never have the 24/7 reliability of fossil fuels.
“Lard [and industrial pig]is so laced with chemicals that it should never be consumed as food. Unless of course you raised the pig yourself and only fed it chemical free feed.”
“Industrial pig” – That’s a good one. True though. But so is most of the food we eat.
Yes I have raised my own pig, but rather than rendering the lard, I threw it out with the trash.
The important part is to feed the “grass” to food, then eat the food. You may think differently, but that is what debate is all about.
Ever kill a pig? A cow? A chicken?
“Ever kill a pig? A cow? A chicken?”
Yup, and sheep, moose, deer, caribou, beaver, muskrat…
Most of the meat I eat comes from locally grown bison. I don’t eat industrial meat.
Okay I think I get it now:
You use diesel burning equipment,which spew co2, to knock down oxygen emitting forests.
Then the trees are burnt releasing more co2 in the atmosphere. At least that replaces the oxygen the trres no longer produce.
Crops are then sown with fuel burning, co2 emitting tractors. Later harvested releasing more co2
These crops are used by the trainload, to produce ethanol in industrial-scale plants. These plants run on electricity produced by burning coal, or natural gas, releasing more co2.
Finally the ethanol is burned in my aunts car, releasing water and… co2.
I’m sorry, I forgot what my point was …….
“Okay I think I get it now:
You use diesel burning equipment,which spew co2,….”
…and you’re Amish, and grow all your own food with horse power, and wear wool clothes knitted from the sheep you raise…
…or maybe you’re just another greenwashed hypocrite?
I heat my energy conserving house with deadfall wood, the electricity comes from 100% renewable energy, I buy clothes at the thrift store, some of the fuel my vehicle uses is made from recycled cooking oil, and I prefer to eat locally grown food.
I’m not the least bit concerned about the CO2 my lifestyle generates; it’s all absorbed by the boreal forest I live in. My eco-footprint is less than half the Canadain average.
As for the starving billions? They’re not my responsibility, I haven’t fathered any 3rd world children.
I’m far from being perfect; I don’t strive for that. However I do make a conscious effort to reduce my impact on the planet.
Take only what you need. Use everything you take. Respect the earth.
“As usual, the ability to comprehend the scale of production needed is completely beyond the grasp of the green crowd.”
And apparently for you too since all you’ve done to quantify it is use the word ‘staggering’. Would the scale not depend on the feedstock used? Needed for what? Why is it assumed that alternative energy sources must be a magic bullet capable of supplying all of the world’s energy needs?