THE GREEN PATH TO BETTER CARS

A recent article in the Santa Barbara Independent titled The Future of Biofuels Takes Root in S.B. has once again fueled my interest in fuel. And given the fact that the Dale Franciscos of the world don't have any love for promoting alternative transportation, it seems to me that our vehicles simply can't go with the status quo.

But saying you need better cars is one thing; getting there is another. Perform a few searches with The Google, and you'll see that there are certainly no lack of great ideas out there. From hydrogen to jatropha plants, it seems that everyone is feverishly trying to make a better auto. My recent conversations with friends on this subject, however, have had much less to do with technology and everything to do with politics. Case in point: I'd like to summarize a recent debate I had with Big Table, inspired by his interest in compressed air as a fuel source. In a nutshell, here's what we discussed ...

The Average Man - The excellent documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? has turned me into a cynic. The sad plight of the 1970's EV1 has convinced me that removing our dependence of foreign oil will never be about the technology. Because the best ideas in the world will be squashed by the millions of dollars that big oil and big automobile companies with pump into the hands of government officials in order to make sure things stay the same for a long, long time. Or at least, things will change at a snail's pace. It is for this reason alone, that my hope sits almost exclusively with the plug-in hybrid. In my opinion, this is the "gateway drug" our society will need to move from where we are today to where we need to be tomorrow. Not only do these cars get great mileage, but if you really want to be green, you will have the ability to charge your car when not in use. And if we're really lucky, there's even talk of being able to use your idle car to feed energy back into the grid. The important thing for me, though, is that a plug-in hybrid still lets the oil companies and car companies use their dirty oil. And thus, they will play along and slowly adapt to change.

Big Table - He thinks I'm living in the past, and I need to get over it. The 1970's was a lifetime ago, and the world is much different now. High gas prices, global warming concerns, terrorism, informed youths ... all these things are the reason that technology will win out over politics. The oil companies and auto companies are dinosaurs, and the asteroid is coming fast. These industries are so set in there ways and beholden to stock holders and such that they will be incapable of adapting. Thus, the young, fresh start-ups creating cars that run on things like compressed air will be the small mammals that survive the blast. We will have cars that run on alternative fuels, but they won't come from the likes of GM and Ford.

As much as I like to be right about things, I'd love to lose this one.

THE GOOD AND BAD OF ETHANOL

If you read this blog at all, you know that I spend way too much time thinking about global warming and what we can do to slow it down (much less stop it all together). As you can imagine, the subject of ethanol is frequently raised in these kinds of discussions, and there are no lack of opinions on this (bio) matter. If you didn't know, Santa Barbara County is actually considering the development of an ethanol plant in the Santa Maria area. A recent article from KCOY on the topic got me wondering if this is really a good idea. Here's what I think ...

PLUSES

Initially, I LOVED ethanol. There are many great ideas floating around out there for more fuel efficient vehicles, but in my humble opinion, it doesn't make sense to focus on things that are 10 to 20 years down the line. Hydrogen, for example, is a solid idea that can't be realized any time soon. I've always felt this way, and I was happy to hear on Tim Russert's CNBC show yesterday that Lee Iacocca agrees with me. Global warming needs big solutions that we can implement quickly, and it just seemed to me that ethanol was perfect:

- Firstly, it doesn't require a significant change to our infrastructure: many cars are already built to use E85, and those that aren't can be altered without much cost.

- Second, there are a number of E85 filling stations around the nation, so this isn't something we have to construct from scratch.

- Finally, we can boost the farming economy. This isn't my area of expertise, but don't we pay farmers not to grow things? Wouldn't this be a great way to get back all those small farms that have been forced out by big conglomerates? I was definitely liking the possibilities.

MINUSES

Now that I've sung the praises of ethanol, I have to come "clean" and admit that my mind is slowly being changed. Where I once saw a cure all, I now see a boatload of side effects:

1) Additional Pollution - It's been pointed out to me that the equipment we use to farm (like tractors for example) are very dirty. So, more farming obviously means more greenhouse gasses. Plus, there's clearly pollution produced by the ethanol conversion process itself. And if that's not bad enough, according to the KCOY article, existing "railroad tracks would be used to transport huge quantities of Midwestern corn that would be fermented to produce ethanol..." That can't be good for the cause. The Average Man wants to clean up the environment, but he wants solutions that work.

2) Corn - It's generally accepted that corn is not the most efficient way to produce ethanol: switch grass and sugar beets are better (just ask Brazil). Yet, the corn lobby has stepped in to make sure that corn is the primary source for ethanol in the US. This brings with it many negative issues. One such problem is the fact that using more corn for ethanol could mean less corn for food. That in turn, could mean that corn prices would go up. This could have a very bad snowball effect, because corn is a staple in much more of our food than you might think, and it is the primary way many farmers feed their livestock.

3) Land - There was a recent New York Times Editorial that pointed out another bad potential result from ethanol production: an increase in farming means an increase in land use. There are many areas of federally protected land that should remain that way. But the need for more ethanol could encourage politicians to open up that land for farming.

4) Not Enough - The general thinking is that, even if we were seriously committed to ethanol, we could only produce about 20% of our national energy needs this way.


Okay, so back to the original question ... Is an ethanol plant a good idea for Santa Barbara County? On the whole, I would give it a weak thumbs up. As Al Gore has stated, there is no silver bullet for this thing. Rather, there are many small fixes, and I think ethanol is one of them. Despite all the cons I've listed above, my gut feeling is that we need to urgently address the sheer volume of greenhouse gas producing vehicles on the road. This is more important than any other climate change issue, and adding ethanol into the mix -- as it were -- is a plus.