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Howard,
What are these new alternative fuels you are talking about?

Brian

Howard... Howie!!!!!! 87 is a TERRIBLE idea. As much as i like Thom. Friedman's perspective he flunks econ 101. You tax something you get less of it.. subsidize... you get more of it... All 87 would accomplish is less oil drilling in California (huge mistake... any barrel we get from here is one less needed fom Hugo Chavez or from those pesky Arabs)
California's need for oil won't change... the net result is more oil from foreign sources.
What we need to do, while aggressively persuing all alternate energy sources, i.e. wind, solar, nuclear, fuel cell, wave, geothermal etc., is to open up the entire west coast for oil exploration... most of which will occur over the horizon. While we all want these alternate energy sources, the reality is that they will not be sufficient overnight. Petroleum will be a reality and a needed energy source for the rest of OUR lives as these other sources mature.
Finally, as to the tax being recinded in 2017 or $4 billion. What a joke!!! Just remember the toll on the Golden Gate bridge was ONLY to be in effect/collected until the bridge was paid off. Ther is absolutely no guarantee a revenue source to the government will vanish as promised. If you believe 87's promise I have another bridge for sale to you from your old neck of the woods back on the east coast. No on Prop. 87!!!!!! Even Thom Friedman can be wrong... Pulitzers or no!

Please, to all bloggers and thread weavers in regards Leland Hammerschmitt...

Please do not encourage him to continue blogging but not for the reasons you might first think.

Leland, yes, our Leland, is supposed to be at work developing a progressive Solar Energy & Public Education Support bill for the California Legislature.

This bill would permit, fund and otherwise encourage all public schools to install massive solar power facilities on their roofs with the caveat that any surplus energy they create will be sold back to the grid to help fund public school education.

Any time Leland spends blogging is clearly a distraction from getting a draft of this signficant and progressive legislation ready to be reviewed by various local industry and political leaders.

(This is not a joke.)

I want Leland to complete his draft as soon as possible.

Parading all this local political theater in front of a documented and addicted political letter writer such as Leland is akin to waving a a prime martini with a succulant olive in front of an alcoholic.

I beg you all to cease and desist so that this important and thoughful piece of legislation can get moving. Thank you all.

Any idea what these "new" alternative fuels are? Can you please address this question.

Brian

Brian...

You can't possible be asking that question in all seriousness, can you?

Howard,
Yes I am actually, if you could just name them and then explain how they would replace fossil fuel that would be very helpful.

Brian

Howard, thank you for the public rebuke.. you remind me of my 5th grade Nun albeit non-jewish ^o^.
Regardless, Howard's protestations aside... 87 sucks. Why? because all it would accomplish is less California oil drilling that would be replaced by more expensive oil from.. let's say Hugo Chavez's hometown. Howard means well, but succobs now and again to the pull of leftist-enviro's. That said, at least he supports the LNG from Australia over the horizon of Malibu. Howard has the difficulty of being a capitalist...i.e. a (my) stockbroker and his roots as a socialist. I find it most interesting how he reconciles the twain.^o^ In the meantime, his rebuke is not only heartfelt but spot on... there IS a pragmatic way to encourage domestic energy sources that bothj a socialist/capitalist like Howard and a Conservative/environmentalist like myself.Leland, can join hands and make a better community. ^o^

Leland - get back to work - you have legislation to write. ;)

Yes, Tyler

.......>head hanging in rebuke.....
but 1st to the gym!

I figured you wouldn't have an answer Howard !

Brian

You figured what? Like anyone out there doesn't know what alternatives are available or in development?

Come on, get serious.

Besides, if you've got a complaint with the article, take it up with Tom Friedman of the NY Times. He wrote it.

At great time and expense away from my "day" job, I've published a half dozen articles on energy related issues. I also put on an entire one day conference, "Fueling the Future, The Politics of Power," a year ago as chairman of VCEDA at the Ojai Valley Inn attended by some 300 of the top civic, political, business and activists in the region.

Where you there? I don't remember your name on the lists, but maybe I missed it. The meeting was open to the general public and was well advertised.

The conference looked at the global energy picture with speakers as diverse and divergent as Congresswoman Lois Capps, author Paul Roberts, people from the solar world, biomass generation, the State of California, the gas company and yes, even LNG.

We had all sides present and debate their views. Yes, that's democracy. But in the process everyone got to hear about what's new, what's innovative, and what the future holds, such as the inevitable end of oil.

You sure you weren't there? It took nine months to put that conference together and get all those speakers to show up in one place at one time. While the meeting was going on I could have sworn there was some mosquito out there in the corner of the room, buzzing around, biting people in the back but with nothing much to add in the way of content.

If you have a particular point of view or axe to sharpen, be a man, be a mensch, get it out in words - I'd be glad to hear it, agree with it, or disagree with it...

But stop acting like a petulent child.

Oh, and if you are really interested in the subject, check out Ojai's own Rinaldo Brutoco and his World Business Academy. They've got a new book coming out shortly detailing advances in ethanol and other technologies.

Hey I know Rinaldo ! I keep bees over at his 7 Oaks Ranch. I'm not acting like a petulent child BTW, sorry I didn't have time to go to the meeting I was WORKING. So all you can come up with is ethanol? Don't you realize how much energy it takes to MAKE ethanol, and I'm not even counting the farm equipment to plant and harvest the corn ! You only get about 20 percent more energy out of ethanol than you put into making it ! Not only that but the burning of ethanol produces CO2 for more of your global warming and not only that but the fermentation process creates CO2 as well !
Hey, you posted the article so you're the one who has to defend it. You don't get a free ride at this forum (as long as you're civil ! ) Lois Capps, wasn't she the one who was instrumental in voting down drilling off shore so now we can even get our own oil that is sitting under our coast! Instead now we have to ship LNG from halfway around the world, hey I have an idea why don't we use our own oil. Duh ! So with all you folks at your meeting there were there any other bright ideas for new energy sources that can replace fossil fuel?

Brian

Brain,

Surprise, surprise, I actually agree with some of your comments. Corn ethanol is a horrible solution driven more by politics, Ag companies and Senators in the Mid West. What Rinaldo and other are talking about is ethanol from sugar cane, which is 4-5x's more efficient than corn and not a zero sum game.

Ethanol alone is not a solution. There is very little in the world was effcient as a drop of oil as a fuel. That's correct too. But by all accounts the global oil supply vs the ever growing international demand is increasingly in short supply. Probably not with in my lifetime, but possibly within yours, the supply - demand relationship will make oil unafforadable. In six years or so the price per barrel has gone from $13 to 60 after approach 80 recently. If we are to logically plan for a sound economic future we must come up with alternatives sooner rather than later. It's like preparing in advance of a crisis.

Also, if you look back over the past 100 years of warfare, one componet of almsot every major war has been about the control of oil and energy. Japan hit Pearl Harbor, for example, to clear a path in south east Asis to oil in the South China sea. We and the French fought in Vietnam to stop our enemies of the day from gaining access to the same. Germany and England fought in two world wars to gain control over the mid-east, among other issues.

Germany attacked Russia for the same reason - contol of oil - and even this week there are articles saying how Russia now has more influence over Western Europe thru the sale of oil and natural gas than they ever did by threat of nuclear arms.

So the issues is complex and the solutions are equally so. It takes everyone giving a rest to partisan politics to figure out real solutions.

The solutions will be a blend of "all of the above" and not from any one source.

Solar is, for example, far less efficent for the cost than oil or gas at current prices. But what happens when the price of oil goes up four fold or five fold again because a billion people in China start driving cars instead of bicycles?

It's not aobut who'sright or whose wrong. We are all in this boat together, so lets put our best toguths and technoliges to work to find answer.

Thanks for listen and pardon the typos, I am working on a bouncing lap top.

best,
hjs

I have no problem with alternative energy solutions, solar and wind definately have their place. I have a hot water panel for my hot tub, it does work but it has it's limitations. Ethanol really does not make that much sense. You mentioned sugar cane, sugar cane has a higher sugar content so there is more fermintable material, unfortunately sugar cane only grows in the lower latitudes. That is why Brazil has a big ethanol program. Converting our farm land from food to crops used for fueling our cars is a very inefficiant use of land.
Getting back the the really bad prop 87, it will make our already high gas prices even higher, it's just another tax on a producer of a product. The money from the tax is going to be wasted on special interest eco-fraud buracrates that will have no oversite and will produce no meaningful "magic" alternative fuel. For the past 30 + years the brightest scientific minds in the country have been working on this problem, the people who are going to end up with this money are going to be burocrates and their buddies, make no mistake about it this is a big waste of money. If you think you're going to be able to build enough solar panels and wind machines to to compensate for the amount of oil we use in California you probably did not pass high school math.

There is really only one abundant source of unlimited power and that is nuclear. Many other countries are moving ahead with nuclear, like France, Japan, and China. And the ironic thing is they are using our designs that have been evolving over the years. There are many safegaurds now that take into account all of the lessons learned from the accidents that have occured, which there have not been many. Chernoble of course was the worst, but 3 mile island was contained like it was designed and nobody was even injured. The spent fuel rods from a nuclear power plant comprise such a small volume of space it's ridiculous, consider that all of the spent nuclear fuel that we have created in all of the nuclear plants across the country for the past 30 years would fit in a high school gymnasium. If we had more nuclear power plants we would enventually be able to begin making hydrogen. This is what France is experimenting with now. They are producing hydrogen at night when they have excess power availble because of the lower demand at night. Nuclear power produces no greenhouse gases and does not give off any air pollution.

BC