Text 2486, 65 rader
Skriven 2006-06-13 19:47:00 av Robert E Starr JR (2932.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Atheists: America's m
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Carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of Josh
Hill of rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated make plain: 

> On Tue, 6 Jun 2006 23:08:25 +0000 (UTC), Charlie Edmondson
> <edmondson@ieee.org> wrote:
> 
>>Josh Hill wrote:
>>
> <stuff about ethanol in Brazil>
>>
>>Interesting, since it goes against the two or three engineering
>>analysis I have seen on this.  My basic worry when using the Wall St.
>>Jrnl for things like this, is that sometimes they don't get the real
>>story, just the 'official' story, like how much of the $1 a gallon
>>price relies on direct government subsidies.  You see, the real tale
>>will be told with ADM opens up a chain of fuel stations due to the
>>great profits to be made.  Right now, ethanol is used as a fuel
>>additive largely because it costs too much, even with the subsidies
>>the government has here. 
>>
> The reason ethanol is so expensive here is I think that a) the ethanol
> here is made from corn, which isn't an economical source and takes
> almost as much energy to make as it yields, while the Brazilian
> ethanol is made from sugarcane; b) we tax Brazilian ethanol at IIRC
> 54c/gallon, making imports uneconomical; c) the American government
> hasn't encouraged an ethanol infrastructure or, until this year,
> research into cellulosic ethanol; and d) the oil companies are doing
> everything they can to avoid distributing it, meaning that we have
> several million flex fuel vehicles on the road but they can fill up on
> E85 at only a few gas stations in the Midwest.
> 
> As to the government, the White House is staffed by oil and gas men
> and the oil industry has given large campaign contributions to the
> Republicans. No surprise then that they've been dragging their hooves.

It's amazing. There's a principle in business of "knowing what business 
you're in." For example, in the heyday of the railroads, the big railroad 
companies thought they were in the railroad business, rather than 
recognizing that they were in the transportation business. Thus when the 
railroads became less important, they failed to adapt, and most of them 
died or were swallowed up.

The oil companies think they're in the oil business, rather than 
recognizing that they're in the energy business. Thus they resist change. 
But change is inevitable -- you either embrace it or you get run over by 
it. Hell, they should be *leading* the charge to develop alternate energy 
sources! Then when the change comes, they'd be right there in front.

It's truly amazing that such apparently intelligent people can't think 
past the end of the fiscal year.

-- 
Methuselah
"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."
  -- Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
                                                                               
                                              
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