Corexit is killing the Gulf

Brazil has replaced 50% of its transportation petroleum usage with ethanol in the last 20 years. While the world economy has been in recession, the Brazilian economy has gone from bankruptcy, street riots and communist insurrection 20 years ago, to 8th largest economy in the world today. The Brazilian Real along with the Chinese Yuan are the strongest currencies in the world. They are gaining value in comparison to other currencies. The Chinese became net exporters of ethanol in 2005. Today, China is building 2.4 million cars per year capable of running on hydrous ethanol, straight from the still, no blending) at their Dong Feng factories---cars meant for domestic sale.

Sweden is the leading user of ethanol in Europe. A majority of vehicles produced in Sweden are flex fuel---and can use E85. Sweden, Norway and Finland are producing ethanol from wood. The Scholler process is used in making wood pulp used to manufacture paper and cardboard. Black Liquor is a by-product of pulp making. Black Liquor is the biologic equivalent of crude oil. Anything made with crude oil can also be made with black liquor. The largest source of methyl and ethyl alcohol fuels was wood from logging and millwork waste in both the US and Germany as far back as the 1890s. Chemrec, a Swedish company, is the world leader in adding biorefining capabilities pulp making plants to use black liquor to produce ethanol and other products from wood. All the rubber used in the US during WW2 was butadeine(artificial rubber)--produced from ethanol---which mostly came from a plant in Wisconsin that produced ethanol from wood logging waste.

Germany has several models of VW, and Audi available on sale now that use both gasoline or methane at the flip of a switch. Methane is also used to generate electricity. Germany has a very aggressive program to capture biogas from sewage treatment and refine it to be fed into the national NG pipelines. A city of 90,000 people recently converted to all methane power generation using methane made from farm animal sewage in the local area. Italy has over 600,000 vehicles on the road that can use CNG at the flip of a switch.

The Fiat Siena Tetrafuel can use petroleum gasoline, gasoline and ethanol mixtures, hydrous ethanol, or methane(compressed natural gas). It is in manufacture, on sale, and in use on the road by consumers now in Brazil and Argentina.

Biofuels can be used in combination with petroleum, or they can be used in place of petroleum. They can even be used in the same vehicles. In Brazil, the only gasoline available for sale is 25% ethanol. In the US, about 80% of gasoline is E10(10% ethanol).

We do not "need" oil. Biofuels can do anything that can be done with petroleum.

Well, anything except coat beaches and marshlands with tar. Ethanol would simply dilute in water and wash away. Methane is a gas---it would simply blow away.

Why is the price of gasoline in Europe more than twice as much as it is here, and has been for many years?

hint---it is not because we have a lot of oil, 75% of the oil we use is imported, about the same amount as Europe. It is because European governments do not subsidize oil like what is done here. The only reason gasoline is NOT $6 per gallon is government subsidies.

The current commodity price of ethanol was about $1.80/gal. +/- $.10 depending on the trading location. The amount of BTU energy contained in gallon of ethanol is 70% of the BTU value of gasoline. The cost equivalent for the same amount of energy with ethanol is $2.40 as that contained in one gallon of gasoline. Ethanol costs slightly less per BTU than gasoline.

Subsidies are paid to blenders, not producers. Oil companies do not want to blend ethanol into gasoline----they do not produce ethanol, therefore, they prefer to sell you oil that they do control. They manipulate the market by decreasing supply to increase price. They would rather sell you gasoline because they can keep increasing the price by reducing supply. They can do this because, oil producers mostly act in the same way to increase profits---at the expense of consumers. Oil producers are effectively a monopoly---consumers have no choice but to buy their product. There are no large tankers available to hold oil skimmed from the Gulf of Mexico right now. Why? Because all the available large tankers are already full of oil, and sitting off shore waiting for the price to go up before they off load. And it WILL go up. Producers and speculators right now are stashing oil anywhere they can, including Grandma's antique tea service because they KNOW the price of oil is going to go up----like a 4th of July rocket.

As for worse mileage from ethanol----that is not true. Flex Fuel vehicles get less mileage from ethanol than they do from gasoline now----but only because the compression ratio in the engines must be kept low in order to be able to use gasoline. If ethanol were available everywhere----it would be possible to build engines that are over 2X as thermally efficient as gasoline engines. About 45% efficient on ethanol, vs. about 20% for gasoline. A dedicated ethanol engine gets much better mileage and breathtaking performance compared to a gasoline engine. We've been doing it for over 45 years.

Flex Fuel option costs minimally more that conventional engines, and in many cases costs the same. Most detail trim options cost more.

The price of gasoline in Europe is about twice the cost of gasoline in the US. This is because of all the subsidies given to petroleum producers in the US. You are paying for cheap gasoline when you pay your taxes.

----" If we could make it with cane sugar like they do in South America it might be differant."---

Sugar cane grows very well in the US, in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, California and Hawaii.

Sugar beets grow anywhere there is arable soil and sufficient water in the US from Florida to Alaska----and have similar yields to sugar cane.

I'd rather pay American farmers for fuel than foreign despots and terrorists.

If we get a law mandating that all new vehicles sold in the US be multifuel and biofuel capable, it will not take long for the new vehicles to begin moving down in greater and greater numbers to the used car market. After the first year for instance, you will have left over vehicles from the previous year leaving dealerships---and sales demos---and rentals start hitting the lots after one to two years. After 5 years, around 40 to 50% of available vehicles will be Flex Fuel. After 10 years, around 70 to 80% of vehicles on the road will be Flex Fuel capable. Remember, each year's production is cumulative to the % of biofuel capable vehicles, because as new vehicles come on the road, older vehicles are taken off the road.

After 5 or 6 years, finding a Flex Fuel vehicle will be pretty much common in the used vehicle market. Remember, we also already have about 10 million Flex Fuel vehicles on the road now.

No subsidies needed.

-----" I too would rather know that my money is helping a farmer pay his bills than putting an Arab on a gold plated private jet."--------

It is not just farmers. Farm waste is a huge resource to be sure, but there is also forestry waste, which would create jobs of all sorts and expansion in managed timber stands. Biofuels(ethanol and biodiesel) would just be two of hundreds of products that can come from managed forest lands. Even sewage and landfills can produce biofuels. Landfills can be tapped for biogas, and biogas is produced naturally with the anaerobic decomposition of sewage and waste cellulose. The final product of producing biofuel methane? Clean water, and compost.

Do you want an economic stimulus without any tax raises or adding to the national debt? Take the roughly $500 to $600 Billion per year we use to buy imported oil---and keep it here. Instead of burning imported oil in our vehicles, use biofuels made right here by US workers, using crops grown here, or mostly waste raw materials. We have a wide range of materials to work with. The workers get paid here, and spend the money they make here, creating more jobs. Each dollar that stays in the US will circulate about 7-10 times more per year. If we keep $500 Billion here by not buying oil from abroad---the effect on the economy will be somewhere between $3.5 to $5 Trillion in total economic stimulus. A sum greater than all of the bailout and stimulus money spent so far---and not one penny added to the national debt.

@ MrMxyzptlk

Does continuing to use oil mean so much that it is worth destroying our beautiful country?

Does continuing to use oil mean so much that it worth destroying our freedom and economic well being?

Does continuing to use oil mean so much that it is worth sacrificing the life of even one of our military members who defend us and our freedom?

And it will cost us less to use biofuels than it does to use petroleum.

The choice is very easy for me.

I want the choice to be available to all consumers.

------" Your ideas sound good in the air. But on paper they start to fall apart."----

Only in your mind because you are a stooge for corporate oil interests. In all your blathering, you have never made one single statement based on facts---just repeated little jingles and trite cliches meant to keep oil profits flowing by denying that biofuels work----and are working right now. You are just a mouthpiece for corporate oil.

I'm a tree hugger? Sure I'm a tree hugger. I LOVE trees. I want to have lots and lots of trees. I want to make fuel, houses, and all sorts of things from trees. To do that, I'll need lots and lots of trees. I want to have loggers cut down lots of trees---and at the same time, I want lots and lots of trees planted. If we do that, we will always have lots and lots of trees. We can have old forests, new forests, and middle aged forests----just like nature have been doing for hundreds of millions of years. I like forests. The dogs and I are going up to the national forest today.

-------" But you can't force the change."-------

All I've ever asked people to do is to support getting vehicles that use petroleum or biofuels equally well. That way, everytime someone fills up, they can choose to use petroleum, a mix of petroleum or biofuels, or biofuels. No one is forced to do anything at all. They are free to use whatever they want.

If YOU want to keep using petroleum, FINE, keep on using petroleum, you are perfectly free to do so. And the rest of us who don't want to use petroleum, can be free to use what WE want to use.

-------" Start a biofuel business. Make it happen. Stop waiting for lawmakers to solve it for you and get out there and do something."--------

Good idea, I think I'll do that. I'll start by getting politicians and oil monopolies out of my billfold by making vehicles available that give everyone the right to choose what fuel they want to use. If they want to use petroleum, fine, if they want to use something else, even better.

--------" That's crazy talk.'--------

Tell that to the people who build and drive the fastest, most advanced race cars in the world. All the cars in the Indy Circuit Racing League run on 100% ethanol. And have run on alcohol fuels for over 45 years. Petroleum can't even get into the shadow of the power and thermal efficiency it is possible to get with ethanol.

Using methane(natural gas)----you can drive over twice as far as you can on the same amount of money using gasoline.

Ethanol has a comparative octane rating of 115---and methane has a comparative octane rating of 120. Both ethanol and methane can be used in the same high performance engine with the use of high compression ratio and fuel injectors.

With ethanol, you have the advantage of clean burning, liquid fuel. With methane, you have the advantage of the cleanest burning, highest economy fuel you can get---an equal amount of energy from methane compared to gasoline costs about 1/3 the cost of gasoline.

But with petroleum, you wouldn't even come close. Regular gasoline has an octane of 85-87. It would destroy your high compression engine by preignition. Gasoline can't handle high compression ratios because the octane is too low. In Flex Fuel vehicles, the compression ratio has to be kept low to allow the use of gasoline. If ethanol and methane are widely available enough that you do not need gasoline----we can easily double the power and efficiency of our engines. We've been doing it for over 70 years.

Is getting 2X the amount of work and power out of an engine using the same amount of fuel crazy?

Yes, I say that, It's an opinion based on what I'm seeing and reading from scientists. Nothing hysterical about it. And once again, you couldn't help yourself from tagging on after me. Where's a fly swatter when you need one.

Just one little minor accident, that has shut down fishing in 33,000 square miles of ocean.

And this is only one of 246 waivers for safety and environmental studies granted by MMS. And 3500 other wells operating in the Gulf of Mexico by oil companies no better prepared to handle an emergency than BP.

The truth is, no one needs to give up anything. Biofuels can do anything that petroleum can do, and they can do it better, cleaner, more safely and at less cost.

There are cars being made in Europe right now that can run on either petroleum gasoline or CNG(compressed natural gas). CNG is both a fossil fuel and a biofuel, we've been able to make methane for 150 years, even from sewage and landfills. Germany has a city of 90,000 people that uses electricity generated entirely from natural gas manufactured from farm waste---with enough left over to feed into the national gas grid. Germany has 10X as many CNG filling stations for vehicles as the US, and the US is MUCH larger than Germany. It costs less than half as much to drive the same distance with CNG than it does compared to using gasoline.

-------" your side will use this industrial accident to justify driving us common folks back 100 years of technological advancement."------

If we continue to use petroleum, we'll be back to steam engines with wood and horses before you know it. Oil is running out. And even faster, we are running out of money to import it with. This is a major cause of the current recession---or hadn't you noticed that we are spending half a trillion dollars a year importing oil? A lot of it from the very people who want to kill us. Every time you buy gasoline---you are supporting terrorists in a round about way.

I don't mind Al Gore flying his private jet and riding in an armoured SUV----he's making his millions by putting his money where his mouth is---investing in clean, safe, renewable energy. It benefits me because it makes the world a better place for me to live, for me, and everyone else.

On the other hand, reading your bigoted, deliberately blind, hate, greed and envy drenched words makes me think----what is there in what he is saying that benefits me?
Nothing. Your only concern is what you have, or what you can take away from someone else. It sounds to me like you have a lot more interest in continued profits from oil than anything else. Why else would what Al Gore does or has be of any concern at all to you?

He doesn't really care...he is just another drone here who repeats the same tired phrases we hear in the media and dogs me because I support Al Gore and he can't stand it. And I say to that, tough sh**. Live with it.

The world will move on without him---he'll be left behind. It is inevitable. The world can not go on as it has. Much as he wishes things to stay the same as they have always been---it will not happen. It can not happen. Oil is running out. It is drying up. It is getting scarcer. It is getting harder to get to, get out, and get to market.

Oil is already more expensive than biofuel options. Oil offers nothing that we can't do other ways. Oil is doomed.

Look at what he has written. There are no coherent or logical facts or line of reasoning. There are only little sound bytes and snippets of misinformation. When that doesn't work---he resorts to personal attacks and semantics.

He's just playing politics. He is trying to manipulate facts to fit his political agenda. It is not working. The truth is coming out. The truth about oil and coal can't be hidden by word games any more. The truth is there for everyone to see, everyday in the news. The destruction is enormous, and getting worse by the hour. All of the snide, petty, derogatory, dismissive and insulting remarks have come home to roost. Unfortunately, they are not roosting in the tree he intended them to. Now, they simply reflect on his own credibility. Every single time anyone turns on a television, picks up a paper or surfs the internet-----the proof of the falseness of his position is evident to anyone.

Things HAVE to change----the only real question is how to change. Continuing to use oil is not an option. To insist that using oil should continue does nothing but make the inevitable change harder than it needs to be.

-------" Have you ever made bio-deisel? Have you ever tried to make ethanol? Methanol? Do you even understand the idea of energy return on energy investment?"----

I teach college level chemistry and physics.

Every single statement you have made is completely wrong.

It requires far less energy to produce biofuels than it does to produce fuels from petroleum.

Argonne National Laboratory found that it takes 1.23 million BTUs to produce 1 million BTU of fuel from petroleum---and that was 15 years ago. It requires even more now because we have to get a greater amount of crude from further away. Not only that, it has to be refined after it gets here. You can't just dump crude oil in your car tank.

Biofuels do not need to be refined.

And not all biofuels come from crops or need cultivation; Forests are not cultivated, but we can produce biofuels from wood..........it has been done over 100 years. So long as we plant trees to replace the trees we have harvested, we will always have forests.

In 150 years of "producing" crude oil----not one single drop of oil has ever been replaced.

Oil is running out----like it or not----your petroleum burning vehicle is going to be as useless as a horse drawn wagon with no horse very soon. It is already happening now---the signs are everywhere. You can continue your blind denial of reality and end up walking if you want to--------the rest of us are going to plan on making the change to something else. Something that is clean, safe, inexpensive, powerful, renewable and sustainable.

it must be awfully dark down in that cave-----you are completely blind.

Yes, we are seeing the transformation, painful as it is. There will be no other choice unless we truly have a death wish as a species. Thanks for your contributions here.

-----" As for biofuels, you do realize that tractors, combines and trucks all use fuel? "----

Tractors, combines and trucks can also use biofuels. The same as automobiles. Actually, it is easier. Most tractors, combines and trucks have diesel engines. Diesel engines require no modifications to use biodiesel at all. Diesel engine vehicles have been successfully run on waste cooking and other oils as far back as at least WW2, 70 years ago.

-------" You realize that you don't just dump shelled corn into a fuel tank?"---------

Really? Where do you dump the shelled corn?

---------" Yes of course they can use the biodeisel. But again how much fuel is needed to be made to power the vehicles to make the fuel?"--------

About 3.75 gallons per acre, an acre produces about 160 bushels of corn, and dent corn produces about 1.8 gallons of oil per bushel. And what is left over can be used entirely to produce ethanol. The yeast that produce ethanol metabolize the starch in the corn kernel, removing the oil makes no difference to the yeast---they can't use it anyway. Each bushel of corn produces about 3 gallons of ethanol----and there is still DDG animal feed left over after the ethanol is produced.

The current commodity price of corn is $4 roughly. There are 56 pounds in a bushel. Slightly over 7 cents per pound. Hardly "through the roof".

--------" What will happen when we use it to make bio deisel too?"------

Nothing, the same corn is used to make both.

---" So where will you get the methanol from?"-----

It has been made by gasification from wood since ancient times----the Egyptians used methanol in their mummification process. That is why the common name for methanol is wood alcohol.

------" Also how much energy will the processing use? How much will the transportation use? How about spraying for weeds and fertilizing? Pumping water to irrigate the corn feilds. All these things take energy too."----------

The energy used for all those things come from the plants being grown. If you use the energy in the biomass of the plants being grown.

----" Where will it come from, the energy fairy?"------------

The sun. All energy in all biofuels is solar energy stored in chemical form by the plants and bacteria that have produced it.

Ethanol is solar energy in a mason jar.

---" . You'd have to build a whole industry from the ground up."------

I think it would be a whole lot better for the economy to build a whole new industry from the ground up here, hiring people to work in that industry who live here, and using materials we have here----than it is to ship our money overseas to buy petroleum just to burn it up.

-----" But then I guess while you're out there creating entire technologies and such from ideas on drawing boards and expecting them to run 100% effiecntly from day one you may as well imagine building up whole infrastuctures overnight as well"-----

All new technologies start out on the drawing board. 20 years ago there was no such thing as cell phones, personal computers were novelty toys, and there was no internet.

We have bridges that are collapsing because there is no money to maintain them because we are spending almost a trillion dollars a year on wars over oil.

We are having a recession caused in large part by importing oil eroding the value of the dollar.

We have over 33,000 square miles of the richest fisheries in the world closed to fishing----and the tidal marshes that are the spawning grounds for those fisheries choked and dead under a layer of tar. We have oil and tar balls turning up in Lake Ponchatrain, up to 100 miles inland, and beaches 400 miles from the spill covered in oil. Even if the oil spill naturally degrades, and nature recovers----if you leave an asphalt parking lot to degrade naturally and recover, how long will it take before you can go out and plant a garden there and get anything to grow? That is the basic ingredient of what is washing up on our marshes and beaches, and floating in the Gulf. Asphalt tar. What I expect, and no one is saying on the news----I doubt that the Gulf of Mexico will recover within the lifetime of anyone reading this. There is still tar on the beaches from Exxon Valdez.

------" Your models are Indy car racers and technology used by ancient egyptians."----

Because we already know it works, it has been done before. In WW2, the Germans had almost no petroleum at all after the loss of North Africa and the bombing of Ploesti by the Allies. They produced fuel from coal and wood using the Fischer-Tropsch process---gasification. They produced alcohol and diesel fuels and powered everything from submarines to panzer tanks---even V1 and V2 rockets, and the Me-262 Swallow, the world's first operational jet fighter----using synthetic fuels. Wood was the preferred feed stock---coal was needed for steel production.

------" You want to do this in the middle of a recession."-----

The perfect time. We are desperately in need of jobs----jobs that have been destroyed by importing and spilling oil all over the place. Sugar cane grows very well in Louisiana.

-----" Talk about out of touch."------

I haven't heard any better suggestions from you.

----" Like I said, those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."------

I teach because I do. I have designed, developed, fabricated, and conducted clinical trials and clinical procedure guidelines for several types of cardiopulmonary medical devices for extracorporeal blood circulation and pulmonary support ventilation.
Patient's lives depend on the accuracy and dependability of the systems I design and operate.

What do you do? Deliver pizzas?

Silicon. It is biologically inert, flexible, and unaffected by pH and temperature shifts.

So, what you wanted me to say is that petroleum is what plastics are made from?

Well, in most cases, you would be correct. However, there is a catch. Petroleum is used because it is convenient, not because it is the only way to manufacture plastics.

Get yourself some picture books of WW2. Look at pictures of all the ships, airplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps etc. that were built. Thousands upon thousands of them. We could not have won the war without them. But when the war started, we had a serious problem. Because rubber comes from plantations in tropical areas----we could not get rubber. German and Japanese submarines made shipping dangerous and unreliable. So, the US used butadeine. Artificial rubber. Made from ethanol. Ethanol made from wood at a plant in Wisconsin, using the Scholler process. The same process that had been used to produce ethanol in commercial quantities in both the US and Germany as far back as the 1890s----it is part of the pulp making process.

The Scholler process produces "black liquor" from cellulose by treating it with acid, heat and pressure. Black liquor is the biological equivalent of petroleum. Anything made with petroleum can also be made with black liquor.

All the rubber parts on all those vehicles, bushings, gaskets, tires, treads---everything---were made from ethanol that came from a plant in Wisconsin that produced ethanol from waste wood from logging and milling operations.

-----" Like you say, convenient. While it is possible to use other materials as long as using oil is cheeper than retooling to use other materials they will make stuff from oil. "-------

Like I said earlier----anything made with petroleum can be made with black liquor, the biologic equivalent of petroleum. It is a waste product of pulp making to produce paper and cardboard. Right now, it is mostly burned to produce electricity to run pulp mills. Replace the electricity to run the pulp mills with a renewable energy source such as wind, solar, hydro, geothermal or any mix of the above and you have the black liquor left over. Simply use the black liquor in place of petroleum to produce the plastics or whatever else you want to do. No major infrastructure changes needed.

Turn on your TV or pick up any newspaper. Look at the reports of the immense environmental damage that petroleum is causing right now. Look at the immense cost of the damages being paid out now----and we are not even scratching the surface yet. Oyster beds have been killed off in wide areas of the Louisiana coast now. There was an interview on CNN last night with an oyster fisherman who took the camera crew out, and showed them that every single oyster pulled up right in front of their cameras was dead. He told the reporter that it took three years for oysters to grow to harvest size. Three years minimum. But that is only AFTER there is no more oil in the oyster beds. And only AFTER those beds have somehow been reseeded and allowed to repopulate enough to allow fishing without destroying the population due to over fishing. Even conservatively speaking-----we are looking at the very least to maybe 10=20 years before there is any shell fish harvest on a HUGE portion of the Gulf of Mexico. Maybe not even within the lifetime of anyone reading this post.

When all these liability damages start hitting the cost of oil that you pay---it is the end of cheap oil. Oil is about $80 a barrel right now. I think by this time next year---once all money to pay these damages has hit home for awhile---and even escalated because remember---the oil has not stopped yet-----I would not be surprised if the price of oil doubles. What about when we begin to find out that there is nothing unique about BP---and that every other oil company out there is just as careless and reckless as BP has been throughout this whole business? They ALL have their hand in the cookie jar---it just happened to be BP that got caught this time when it exploded----there are plenty of other cookie jars out there just waiting to explode. About 35,000 of them.

If you want to continue to use oil because it is cheap at $6-$7 per gallon, or $150 to $200 a barrel, you'd better start saving your pennies because it is coming. Soon. The speculators are already drooling.

The Fiat Siena Tetrafuel can run on petroleum, petroleum and ethanol mixtures, hydrous ethanol, and/or natural gas.(methane is both a fossil fuel and a biofuel)

There are many other models of vehicles that can use biofuels as well as petroleum, or any combination of the two at the flip of a switch. Flex Fuel, and CNG vehicles for instance. Flex Fuel doesn't even need the flip of a switch---just fill up with whatever is available--gasoline or E85, or any % mix in between, we even have blender pumps that can mix whatever blend you want right at the pump.

We are headed into another recessionary phase----probably even worse than the one we are in right now. Even government economists, whose job it is to paint rosy pictures about the economy to placate voters admit this now. The very BEST thing we can do right now for ourselves is to produce and use biofuels made right here, by workers right here, using raw materials produced right here with the over 1/2 trillion dollars we are now using to buy oil from overseas. Each dollar NOT sent overseas will circulate between 7-10 times per year in the domestic economy----each dollar spent on biofuels will provide 7-10 dollars of new economic stimulus to the economy, and no new taxes---it is a huge bargain.

If we have vehicles being produced that can use biofuels just as easily as petroleum, no one is forced to do anything. Anyone can choose any fuel that they want. If you choose to continue to use petroleum, nothing will stop you from putting in petroleum. Other people who are concerned about the environment, war, the economy or other issues are free to use whatever fuel THEY want.

As it is right now---you are FORCED to continue to use petroleum whether you want to admit it or not----you have no other choice.

Freedom means having a choice. If you don't have any choice, you don't have any freedom.

What force? Forcing people to choose what they want to fill up their fuel tank with? I don't think that giving consumers a choice is bad.

If you want to use petroleum, fine, use petroleum.

I haven't changed a thing. I have always said that the government should mandate that all new vehicles sold in the US need to be multifuel and biofuel capable. That gives consumers a choice of what fuel to use. Freedom is choice.

Isn't the job of our government to guarantee the freedom of it's citizens? Why are you so dead set on keeping the choice of what fuel to use away from consumers? Do you have a reason to keep forcing people to use petroleum and nothing else? The only reason I can think of is that perhaps you are heavily invested in petroleum, and do not want to allow people the freedom to choose---because it might eat into your profits.

Are you afraid that if given a choice, people will choose not to use petroleum?

------" What I am opposed to is people like you who come along and see an idea that looks good in the lab and you insist that we can convert over to it easily. You don't understand the economics or the logistics of the situation. I'm all for the conversion, I just don't want it to happen because you get the government to force companies to do it."--------

What you are opposed to is anything that isn't on your personal agenda.

So what is your solution?

Do you have a problem with the government imposing safety and pollution controls on companies that protect you and your fellow citizens from danger? Initial investigation appears that BP, and the other companies involved ignored safety procedures and established practice----and were possibly even criminally negligent---causing the death of 11 workers, and the massive oil spill pouring into the Gulf of Mexico right now.

-------------" However if you try to force the change by heavily subsidizing the industry the only people to get rich will be the big ag corps."---------------

Nowhere have I ever suggested subsidies. But since you bring it up, and are so worried about paying a few cents more for a biofuel, consider this. The government has for over 100 years written subsidies and sweet heart deals into laws benefiting the petroleum industry. That is not even counting bribes, graft and corruption of oil companies buying off political support and regulatory favors---such as the revelation of the goings on at Mineral Management Service and Dept. of Interior for years. The result of which you see today as cheap oil in the US. In Europe,governments do not support the oil industry with subsidies and give aways. How MUCH does the US government subsidize the oil business? No one knows----it has been going on so long with so many catches and loopholes it is impossible to get an accurate figure. But let's compare the end result, price at the pump. In the US, gas is running about $3/gallon----in Europe, the price of gasoline runs about $6-7 per gallon and even higher in some places. That means, that for every dollar you spend on gasoline, you are also spending at LEAST on extra dollar in higher taxes due to subsidies, grants, and lost tax revenues to oil companies.

How is that for taking away your freedom by government control? The oil companies control the government by lobbying and buying influence with huge amounts of cash. The result of which is, THEY get all of the cash back, plus a whole lot more---and YOU pay the bills AND turn over huge profits to them. Oil companies have the highest profits of any business on earth. Oil companies are effectively a cartel monopoly.

If you really want to protect your freedom, and have lower priced energy, you should be supporting getting biofuels more widely into the market as soon as possible. A monopoly can not exist when it has effective competition.

------" Point being that if you push for biofuels through the government then you will get the same crookedness in that industry that you get in the oil industry now."------

Which is a very good reason to have vehicles that can use either petroleum or biofuels, or both equally well.

That way, every consumer has the choice of what they want to use, and government is not involved.

The reason we have abuses of power by the oil industry is that it is a monopoly---people have no choice. If people have a choice to use something else instead, oil is no longer a monopoly.

------------" Oh, and from what I read fuel in Europe is expensive because the petrol companies pay rather high taxes to the government. They pass them on in the pump prices."-------

That is what I just told you. Oil companies are not paying any taxes---that is part of their subsidies. Exxon was the most profitable company in the world last year, they made over $40 Billion in profits--AFTER all expenses were paid. Exxon paid $0 taxes to the US treasury last year. YOU paid for the taxes that Exxon did not pay----and YOU put the profits in THEIR pockets because you allowed them to continue the monopoly position by opposing the use of biofuels. If you think oil is expensive now----just wait until all the money being spent to clean up spills and pay damages and create liability escrow funds, stop drilling, review safety and environment codes and practice, etc. etc. start catching up with the market next year. By this time next year, it is possible we could see the price of oil double.

------" , I object to well intentioned government programs that don't look for the unintended consquences of their actions. Better to let things happen naturaly."------

Then let consumers decide by choosing what fuel they want to use. You are a consumer.

------" I'm not sure that was the source you wanted to give me."--------

It is exactly the source I wanted to give you.

------" The oil companies are oddities among the multinationals because many of the oil-rich countries where they do business levy even higher taxes than the U.S."------

When you buy gasoline at the pump---the cost of taxes the company has paid to a government, any government, is included---it is a cost of doing business. Since oil companies are transferring their earnings to other countries, the taxes that are being paid are to those countries, not to the US. You are paying taxes to other countries by buying imported oil. Therefore, YOU have to pay MORE US taxes to cover the amount of funds that went to support other governments where the oil comes from. Since this transfer of business also includes refining and other operations, this means that refinery and other industry jobs are being transfered overseas as well---slowly, but out of the US just the same. When an aging refinery or other facility needs to be replaced, the oil company does not build another one here. It moves the facility overseas to be closer to the source of the oil. This way, the company is shipping higher value refined products produced with low cost labor---so shipping represents a smaller percentage of the cost per unit. Jobs, manufacturing and refining capacity are lost to the US, and gained to overseas countries closer to the petroleum sources and with very cheap labor.

Jobs lost to the US means, more people out of work and fewer people paying taxes.

Biofuels on the other hand can be manufactured anywhere from a huge variety of sources, and they are renewable, they are not used up and gone, like most of the petroleum in the US. We can always make more biofuels. This makes a business situation exactly the opposite of what is happening with petroleum.

I think we NEED a business situation that is exactly the opposite of what petroleum is doing to our economy.

American farmers pay taxes to the US government---not arab sheiks.

------" HALF THEIR EARNINGS in income taxes? How is that none?"-------

Exxon Mobil DID NOT PAY ANY US TAXES. I can read FINE, YOU can't! ALL that money that Exxon Mobil paid in taxes came OUT of your pocket and went directly to other governments overseas.

Just like the article says, Exxon Mobil paid $0 to the US treasury in taxes last year. And most other oil companies did the same thing.

----------" Perhaps more surprising was this figure buried in the Exxon (XOM) report: $9.3 billion. That's how much Exxon paid in worldwide income taxes in the first quarter of 2008, representing a 49% tax rate on its gross income of $20.2 billion."------

Worldwide income taxes----not US income taxes. Exxon Mobil payed taxes to other governments, and none to the US.

Not one word in any of the things you linked to contradicts this statement.

That is not what Forbes, abc news, as well has AP reported. The amount paid to the US treasury was 0.

--------" Exxon paid an effective tax rate of 34% to the U.S. government in 2007, or $5.12 billion."----------

This is 2010, not 2007. And taxes are not figured by just multiplying the tax rate by the reported profits.

But, ok, we'll use your figures. Exxon's profits were $42 in 2006. $5.12 Billion / $42 Billion = 12.19%; less than 1/2 of the 34% you are quoting.

No wonder you are paying such high taxes.

The link to the news article that I posted says they paid $0 to the US government for last year. It is widely reported in the press.

------" Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas."-------

You have not shown anything. Other than your sources can not even figure a simple percentage rate correctly.

Even using your figures(which are obviously wrong to me)----Exxon Mobil paid less than 1/2 the tax rate that I did last year----and they had a LOT more income than I did.

If you want to say they pay taxes because because they pay taxes to Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Abu Dhabi, and other off shore tax shelters---yes, they pay taxes.

If you want to say that they pay taxes because they send money to the US treasury, no, they did not pay any taxes this year.

You can't do third grade math and find a simple percentage.

Yes, I do need some meds. Arguing with idiots is very frustrating.

The reports are that Exxon Mobil paid no income taxes to the US in 2010. You have presented no evidence that they have.

The filing deadline is April 15th. Taxes paid in 2010 are on income earned in 2009.

This year's returns were due April 15th---this is now July.

I guess if you don't file returns, you wouldn't know that.

-----" Oil companies pay taxes to the US Govt."-------

So, tell us how much they paid in taxes to the US government.

Gotcha.

Oh yes, survival is also a reason. That was a given to me. I honestly do not believe it is too much to say that what is now going on is indeed sinister. I cannot shake that feeling.

I can definitely empathize with you. My son graduated from high school this past week. I sat at the ceremony smiling at him, and then when he went up on the stage to get his diploma I started crying because I thought about the Gulf, the environment in general globally and what kind of world he would more than likely now have to live in... and feeling so helpless in doing anything to stop this is truly what is heartbreaking. I find myself hugging him more every day. So hang in there, there are many of us who feel as you do, and I thank you for helping to get this truth out.