…but this is ridiculous. Actually it isn’t, I just wanted to make the cheap joke.
I’ve been on the fence on whether I should use my holiday giftcards to buy Zubrin’s new book Energy Victory, which takes a look at flex-fuel alternatives, such as ethanol and methanol, as means of creating cheaper fuel, controlling carbon emissions and, most importantly, breaking the stranglehold of the OPEC cartel on world events.
I’m a fan of Zubrin’s Mars efforts, but he has a quasi-crackpot zeal that I find a little unnerving. Also, I’ve been skeptical about ethanol — admittedly only one part of Zubrin’s strategy — because we have other uses for corn. My understanding is that Zubrin really gets into the potential for methanol, which can be easily (relatively) generated from trash, sewage and other waste material, but that methanol takes a toll on car parts. I don’t know, but it is worth looking into. Instapundit had an interesting podcast interview with Zubrin, where Zubrin brought up the notion that pure methanol mix wouldn’t be good for folks in cooler climes (would a plugin engine warmer, like the kinds used now, help the matter?).
Today, Reynolds linked to this Scientific American article this morning on switchgrass as a source for ethanol instead of corn. Switchgrass is a native American species (I think, it is undomesticated, at least) that grows up to 6-7 feet tall. I bring this up only because I came across this video from the University of Tennessee on SciVee yesterday (below), which talks about scientists working on getting a better understanding of switchgrass (not really a crop plant) yields and growing conditions. My question is whether the land can sustain intense switchgrass farming.
Regardless, this discussion is all good, as far as I’m concerned. I’m all for flex-fuel vehicles, especially if paired with plugin hybrid technology. As I may have said before, it’s the future now, time we started acting like it.
EDIT: I can’t get the embed to work, but watch the vid here: http://www.scivee.tv/node/4813Â