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How much wood would a wood chip chip if a wood chip could chip wood?Wood chips made the State of the Union. Here's to you, Mr. Chip.
Wood chips made the State of the Union. Here's to you, Mr. Chip.
How much wood would a wood chip chip if a wood chip could chip wood?Wood chips made the State of the Union. Here's to you, Mr. Chip.
I'm thinking it might serve my own best interest to learn to read and speak Chinese.
Just a hunch.
If we can go ahead and make this the "official" State of the Union thread ...
Am I mistaken, or did Bush broach (D.C.) ethics, and IMMEDIATELY segue into gay marriage?
Yeah, he lumped a bunch of into a phrase and when it hit the applause line, it look like the attendees had no clue what they were applauding.
Virginia governor eyebrows ... LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO!
I sense a theme in the Response...
I'm young, so help me understand... Have SOU addresses and responses always sounded like canned campaign speeches?
And they wonder why people don't vote.
It reminds me of a high school student body campaign speech.
It's pathetic.
He's like the Ron Burgundy of politics (VA Gov)
Frist plays the "terror" card when pleading for bipartisanship.
Can I be the first to ask... why the would we want to use Wood Chipis to make ethanol?
There are already other feedstocks to ethanol production aside from corn... in fact Sugar Beets are probably the most efficient feedstock. And given how long it takes to grow a ing tree, I'm thinking Wood Chips is not a good idea.
Anyway, that's just my random Wood Chip comment.
Anyone get a count of how many times "activist judges" was tossed out?
It's the GOP ace card.
Hey Scott, can you please provide an "alternative fuel for dummies" link, something that explains to me how wood chips or sugar beets can reduce America's dependance on Middle East oil. ... Or, you could just tell me.
Thanks much in advance.
I'll avoid silly catch-phrases like "reduce our dependence on Middle East oil" because until cars start running on happy thoughts - it's just that... a catch-phrase.
However... Ethanol 101 goes something like this... ethanol is pure alcohol, refined from the sugar found in crops like corn, sugar cane, sugar beets, etc. Where wood chips come into play, I have no clue. Ethanol is a gasoline blend stock that (get this) actually reduces the supply of gasoline where is replaces traditional blendstocks like MTBE. I won't go into the specifics of why, but to meet specification, you need to blend more traditional gasoline components into your blend using ethanol than you did using MTBE. Now, cars can be designed to run on specs with higher ethanol - but that is another story.
Hydrogen is talked about as the other big "alternative fuel" but currently the most efficient source of hydrogen is... get this... OIL. Hydrogen is not a viable fuel source for cars for other reasons - it's highly volitile so you can't pressurize it enough to get it to the point where you aren't lugging a trailer full of highly dangerous hydrogen around just so you can go 100 miles.
Personally (and I admit I am biased here - I have personal, professional, and financial reasons to have this opinion... but I can assure you that it's also my opinion as an economist and not just someone who works in the oil industry... if you can believe that), I think the push for alternative fuels (as it exists today) is misguided. Pres. Bush is right in that we reduce our need for Middle East oil via technology - but it isn't the technology to turn wood chips in to ethanol. We need to focus on more fuel efficient engines and if you are dead set on hydrogen, make an engine that can go 300 miles on a small tank of hydrogen that is protected enough so that it won't create a massive explosion in the case of a fender bender. After you have that engine, then worry about more cost effective sources of hydrogen (like the quite abundant thing called water).
I think the key is going to be in extracting hydrogen from ambient air on the fly.
Technology that is way, way, way down the road...
Brazil uses Ethanol as 40% of their fuel nationally right now in their dual use cars. You can also use existing infrastructure, stations, etc. I think you have to go this way as a step towards the H engines, scott. Back in the day, it cost over $3 a gallon to distill the corn ethanol. Now its about 20 cents for the cellulose brand.
Of course, I don't believe Bush will take any meaningful steps in either the direction of ethanol or H. That would be like the Crips announcing that they are opening rehab facilities to wean all of their junkie customers. Bush 41 and Bush 43 are still in bed getting it on with the entire Saudi royal family, so I expect this is just a soundbite.
Last edited by exstatic; 02-01-2006 at 07:44 AM.
scott, they have enzymes now that will break down and convert the cellulose in plant waste, wood chips, etc. into the sugar, and you no longer have to waste the "food" part of the plant. Harvest the corn on it's cobs, and convert the rest of the plant into ethanol.
Didn't he do "Need some wood" 2 years back?
Clinton sucked the same Saudi BEEP...
Really Saudi love to hang out in Houston. You know it's 1981 and they have a rented convertable with longhorns on it. At the H town Petrol convention.
Saudi really has been good friends with us for the most part and assholes never even thank them for that sweet saudi juice that takes us to work, play and travel.
Ungrateful pussy liberals that STILL drive ing cars and cry about prices.
Give up your car and i'll ing belive you.. otherwise your a prision to Saudi too.
Bush is probably itching to bomb Iran, but his advisors keep telling him that will cause the next energy crisis. As a result, energy independence (and the closely related wood chips) has found its way into his vocabulary.
I've read studies that say that you can't produce ethanol at a rate where it is producing more energy than it is taking to produce. The whole alternative energy s game is a farce, although when the technology merits, hydrogen is appealing. We should work on mass-producing the new hybrid technology the FEDS recently announced that uses your cars breaking fluid to power the hybrid engine, instead of just a feul cell. If we could get our cars to average 50 MPG, the energy crisis would virtually dissappear.
Brazil is naturally advantaged because they have abundant supplies of the 2 most efficient feedstocks in Ethanol production: sugar beets and sugar cane. In fact, even with our tax incentives, imports for ethanol feedstocks from south america still pour in... corn simply cannot compete.
I spoke with some folks in our alternative fuels group today and the consensus was that wood chips = stupid. Even with the cellulose technology, sugar beets/cane is still more efficient.
While I don't think it would "disappear" it would at least prolong the impending doom - hopefully long enough for viable alternative energy to be developed.If we could get our cars to average 50 MPG, the energy crisis would virtually dissappear.
Last edited by scott; 02-01-2006 at 06:54 PM.
Looks like Bush cited what America may have an advantage in. Can't wait to pull up at the wood chip station and fill up the truck.
SWITCHGRASS!!!
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