DIYbanter - View Single Post

On Tue, 3 Jan 2006 22:47:19 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

In misc.survivalism Ed Huntress wrote:

No one souce is a "long term solution". Not even oil.

Sources I've seen over the past few months, DOE-related, say up to 6% of
motor-fuel consumption could come from biodiesel (others say this would
require an all-out effort); 5% from corn-based ethanol; up to 12% from
cellulosic ethanol.

Every little bit helps.

Exactly. The point is to reduce our dependence on foreign energy. This
is a national security issue.

Objections that no one solution is compete miss the point.

If the goal is to reduce our dependence on foreign energy,
then ANY solution that REDUCES our dependence on foreign
energy IS "complete," in that it does reduce our dependence
on foreign energy. If more reduction is better than less
reduction, then more "complete" solutions are better than
fewer of them, and solutions that reduce more of the
dependence are better than those that reduce it less. If
the goal is to eliminate our dependence on foreign energy,
then no, merely reducing our dependence isn't "complete."
"Reduce" is not synonymous with "eliminate."

There are arguments supporting the idea that we are better
off burning the foreigners' energy now, and saving our own
for later, when it will be even more valuable. But that
really doesn't make much sense, since by then it will be too
valuable to burn, just as the foreigners' energy will be too
costly to buy. Why don't we do something really radical,
and let the market figure it out? The market seems to do a
much better job of it than politicians do.

--
Robert Sturgeon
Summum ius summa inuria.
http://www.vistech.net/users/rsturge/