E85 Costs More Than Regular Gas. Has Done. Will Do?

E85 Costs More Than Regular Gas. Has Done. Will Do?
By Robert Farago The Truth About Cars
April 26, 2008 - 629 Views

E85 is, indisputably, a less efficient energy source than normal gas. (In other words, you get less miles per tank with E85 than non-E85 fuel.) According to a study based on EPA data by the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at Ohio State University, the "E85 penalty" varies according to vehicles and vehicle types, and city or highway driving. "The mean fuel economy of E85 in city driving is 73.42% that of gasoline, with a range of 66.89% to 81.33%. In highway driving, the mean fuel economy is 73.4% that of gasoline, with a range of 67.61% to 81.53%." OK, so the American Automobile Association tracks fuel prices for both blends. "Over the course of time that AAA has been tracking adjusted E85 prices, they’ve never fallen below the daily price of regular gasoline," The Wall Street Journal reports. "Since early October, adjusted E85’s price spread over regular gasoline has varied widely, between 4% and 12%, suggesting there’s at least some potential for improvement. However, Trilby Lundberg, publisher of the Lundberg Survey newsletter… says it’s 'extremely unlikely' that the adjusted E85 price can ever fully close the gap with retail gasoline." I dunno. E85 is already heavily subsidized from the field to the pump; what's the bet that [more of] your tax dollars "help" close that gap?
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/e85-costs-more-than-regular-gas-has-done-will-do/
Wall Street Journal Market Watch »

UK New Car Carbon Tax Scarfs $5b, Does Sweet FA for CO2

More Global warming fraud - government imposed carbon taxes will not reduce carbon emissions. Read the latest article in the Truth About Cars and The Daily Mail.
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UK New Car Carbon Tax Scarfs $5b, Does Sweet FA for CO2
By Edward Niedermeyer - THE TRUTH ABOUT CARSApril 24, 2008 - 320 Views
The Daily Mail reports that the UK's new carbon tax works spectacularly… as a revenue-builder. The recently-increased "showroom tax" costs consumers between $500 and $2k on cars based on their C02 emissions. According to her Majesty's Treasury, the carbon tax will add nearly $5b to the government's coffers. And here's the kicker: the gov's own figures will only decrease auto-related greenhouse gas emissions by… wait for it… less than one percent. Conservative Treasury spokesman Justine Greening discovered the discrepancy between the cost to consumers and benefit to the environment during that awesome fixture of the British Parliamentary government known as "Parliamentary answers." "This is a massive tax hike which will have virtually no impact on the environment," said Greening. "Despite their claims, the Government don't expect this move to change behaviour at all - it is just another eco stealth tax of the worst kind." Hear hear.

Original article and readers comments can be found here: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/uk-carbon-tax-works-for-increasing-government-revenue/

Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh
Phil Chapman April 23, 2008 The Australian News


THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity.

What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot. Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.
All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence that 2007 was exceptionally cold. It snowed in Baghdad for the first time in centuries, the winter in China was simply terrible and the extent of Antarctic sea ice in the austral winter was the greatest on record since James Cook discovered the place in 1770.

It is generally not possible to draw conclusions about climatic trends from events in a single year, so I would normally dismiss this cold snap as transient, pending what happens in the next few years.

This is where SOHO comes in. The sunspot number follows a cycle of somewhat variable length, averaging 11 years. The most recent minimum was in March last year. The new cycle, No.24, was supposed to start soon after that, with a gradual build-up in sunspot numbers.
It didn't happen. The first sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days. A tiny spot appeared last Monday but vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more, and soon.

The reason this matters is that there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth's climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790.
Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon's Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots.

That the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No.24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for concern.

It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.

There is no doubt that the next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do. There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the US and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it.

Millions will starve if we do nothing to prepare for it (such as planning changes in agriculture to compensate), and millions more will die from cold-related diseases.

There is also another possibility, remote but much more serious. The Greenland and Antarctic ice cores and other evidence show that for the past several million years, severe glaciation has almost always afflicted our planet.

The bleak truth is that, under normal conditions, most of North America and Europe are buried under about 1.5km of ice. This bitterly frigid climate is interrupted occasionally by brief warm interglacials, typically lasting less than 10,000 years.

The interglacial we have enjoyed throughout recorded human history, called the Holocene, began 11,000 years ago, so the ice is overdue. We also know that glaciation can occur quickly: the required decline in global temperature is about 12C and it can happen in 20 years.
The next descent into an ice age is inevitable but may not happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027.
By then, most of the advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a catastrophe beyond imagining.

Australia may escape total annihilation but would surely be overrun by millions of refugees. Once the glaciation starts, it will last 1000 centuries, an incomprehensible stretch of time.
If the ice age is coming, there is a small chance that we could prevent or at least delay the transition, if we are prepared to take action soon enough and on a large enough scale.
For example: We could gather all the bulldozers in the world and use them to dirty the snow in Canada and Siberia in the hope of reducing the reflectance so as to absorb more warmth from the sun.

We also may be able to release enormous floods of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) from the hydrates under the Arctic permafrost and on the continental shelves, perhaps using nuclear weapons to destabilise the deposits.

We cannot really know, but my guess is that the odds are at least 50-50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades.
The probability that we are witnessing the onset of a real ice age is much less, perhaps one in 500, but not totally negligible.

All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead.

It will be difficult for people to face the truth when their reputations, careers, government grants or hopes for social change depend on global warming, but the fate of civilisation may be at stake.
In the famous words of Oliver Cromwell, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Phil Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer who lives in San Francisco. He was the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-5013480,00.html
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Now, you may be wondering why an auto detailer has taken to posting news articles about Global Warming. Well, as you are probably aware if you've read my posts I have a great love for nature and because of my deep felt I began researching Global Warming. My research has led me to the opinion that Global Warming may in fact be a scam. Much of the supporting evidence of this tall tale has not been published in mainstream media but when the occasional article shows up in the newspaper I feel I have an obligation to share it. Most of my visitors are auto detailing customers, other automotive detailers and people in the car sales industry. By sharing the collection of reports as they appear it helps broaden the reach of the audience and may help to enlighten others or inspire them to research Global Warming themselves.

If we are being told a lie about Global Warming the outcome could be disastrous perhaps not in an ecological sense but in a way that will decay freedom, rights, liberties, create higher taxes, higher gas prices and could in fact be a plan for population control. The world is eating up bio-fuel and buying into Global Warming but it is causing people to starve to death worldwide. The government, the Federal Reserve, car manufacturers, oil corporations and environmental industries have tapped into a pot with Global Warming especially during a time when we are experiencing a peak oil crisis.

However, there is a very positive outcome even if Global Warming is proved to be a fraud - people are taking notice that we are over consuming and abusing Mother Earth. It's time to put the brakes on. But how many of us are actively participating by taking responsibility and acting on it ourselves? Too many people think they are doing their part by paying air pollution - but their money is not fixing any of the problems we have created for nature. Whether Global Warming is real or not we need to physically get off our butts and fix the problems ourselves not pay an irresponsible and untrustworthy government to sell us the hope of a green future.
So all I ask; is that you be a well informed citizen before you agree to pay for what they are selling. Do own research on the matter, refuse to pay for this agenda if you find it to be false but never stop moving in the direction of assuming responsibility for earth. Being responsible doesn't mean paying your government it means you take control by reducing, recycling, reclaiming, researching, rejuvenating and loving all that is nature.

Are you ready to start paying carbon taxes like California?

Global Warming - Is it Fact or fiction you decide

The environment is a big concern for me - if the earth can't live with us how do we plan on living without it? I know there is a serious environmental problem that needs immediate action. Nature in all its realms should never be ignored and as the care takers of this planet and must actively assume responsibility for it.

Some experts say we may be looking at paying a Global Carbon Tax in the near future but is the Global Warming agenda fraud or fact? My research has led me to the opinion that the real agenda behind Global Warming has nothing to do with saving the environment and everything to do with making money.

This marketing ploy is a means to stimulate an debt-ridden economy, slow crude oil consumption during a peak oil crisis, a diversion tactic to steer people away from other important issues and to hide the truth about what is really causing these earth changes. What the Government is selling about Global Warming I'm not buying!

Global Warming has problem, reaction, solution written all over it and it comes at the expense of the consumer and small business owner. Yes, according to the latest emissions news San Francisco says the big boys will pay a tax too. Whether that happens is another story. What we do know is that the citizens/consumers will be flipping the bill.

Problem, reaction, solution has been used for eons by governments to create, orchestrate and direct mass mindedness as a means to move an agenda forward in order to meet their goal. 9-11 is the perfect example. A problem is created... terrorism. People react demanding that their government protect them. The government offers there ready made solution war and Homeland Security and it's many other branches. Yes 9-11 happened; but the facts and evidence have directly linked this catastrophe with the United States government not the supposed terrorist.

So why would the US government carry out such an evil deed on it's own citizens? Power, money, control and opportunity to manipulate the people. Sway them in the direction that allows this elite structured organization to make the necessary changes to move forth with the globalization agenda.

If the people hadn't responded as they did the plan to invade Iraq and take away your rights would have failed. A new plan would have to be devised to strip your freedom, spy on you and turn you against each other, but the plan went as it should. The people cried out and looked to their government like a God that could save them and handed their rights and freedom over including their God-Given rights as a spiritual being. If only people had questioned authority and demanded proof instead of buying into the lies well over 100,000 lives could have been spared, the liberties and freedom of the citizens worldwide would not have eroded to a point of living in a police state and the tax payers would have been spared by the unprecedented cost of an ongoing war for oil. Our cry for help has made the elite richer, more powerful and moved the Totalitarian plan forth. As for us; we are true slaves to the masters with blood on our hands, without freedom or rights and we are now poorer than we have ever been.

We are living in a sick and twisted society that has been programmed to believe and trust our government without question just as we would a religion! We accept everything they say and believe it to be the true. Our pseudo governments are not acting responsibly or on the behalf of the citizens. They are acting out of greed and for their own reasons. The free-thinking individuals wanting to challenge or question it are suppressed and controlled by fear. Fear to stand for freedom, truth and liberty because those who do go against the grain get penalized. As for the sheep - they fear each other and their government. We have fully bought into the divide and conquer theory. Politics has turned people against one another to a point where an 82 year old Deacon wearing an anti-war t-shirt is seen as the enemy and arrested because he expressed his views on the Iraq war with his clothing. People are being tazered for not paying a $2.50 bus ride or because they look suspicious to brainwashed security and policing agents. The sick thing about it is people think this is okay and that these people had what was coming to them. Wow do we have any common sense left, ethics or morals?

The Global Warming issue as I see it is no different. Present a problem so great that people will react then present the solution. Again, I have to be clear - I do believe that the environment is in danger and we as individuals need to respond. I do not feel that the proposed taxing solutions or handing over our hard-earned money so that the elite forces who run the private corporation such as the Federal Reserve and the top 500 fortune companies can make a profit. Think about it...what is your money being used for - a giant air purifier? No, it is lining people's pockets... oil industry, car & environmental product manufacturers just to name a few. It is also funding a war for oil, making corporations richer, stimulating a bankrupt economy and to keeping you divided because those who don't buy into in become the enemy. It is good that the government has stirred up a buzz making people environmentally aware but they are deceiving you about what is really happening to the earth and who is responsible. They are forcing you to pay their new stimulus act through false information. Just look at Y2K. How much money was generated by worried consumers who bought up everything because we were told a catastrophe could happen?

The solution to global warming doesn't lay in your paycheck and that won't help alleviate any guilt when it comes to what you are leaving behind for your children. As a consumer YOU NEED TO MAKE THE CHANGES to help your environment NOT YOUR GOVERNMENT.

Paying taxes for carbon emissions and buying products to be more environmentally friendly isn't doing the environment any favors. Who do you think owns the big companies who are producing environmental products - you got it they do! They even own the majority of big name health food brands. While some products do make sense others you can do without.

Here is something else to consider. On the eve of Earth hour we all turned our lights out and we all felt that we had done something positive for the world but did we really. The vast majority of people packed up and headed out in their cars - so what did we achieve and why didn't the government report that in the news? Who benefited from it. Probably them. There is an peak oil crisis and they do need you to cut back on energy consumption because the longer they can keep the oil circulating the more money they are earning as stock prices skyrocket. But there is a more important issue at hand. The exercise you participated in was just that an exercise to see how conditioned you are. Again we all dove in head first obeying without questioning. Haven't you noticed since that day there has been mass marketing on green products, news stories about carbon emissions, plans and taxes. We responded to their test marketing and now they are selling the hope of a green future at your expense.


I don't claim to know it all about Global Warming or have the answer to the environmental problems but I do have common sense which tells me to be responsible through actions. To participate and do our part to protect the environment by means of: reducing, reusing, recycling, researching, reclaiming and rejuvenating.

RESEARCH

Decide to make an impact and act on it. Start by researching what products are harmful and how certain technologies are harming you and your environment. You can start by looking into the following:

Plastic - Another lie we bought into. It is not our salvation in fact it has become our demise. Only a small portion is recycled because it costs more to recycle than to produce new. Carbon emissions from recycling it are greater than producing new plastic and the landfills are piling up with it. On a health issue plastic is toxic and has being directly linked to numerous health problems.

Nanotechnology - A health risk and environmental danger to humans and nature. Despite known risks Government officials have declined to ban it because it is the answer to cheaper manufacturing costs and bigger profit.

Research gives you power and a better understanding of how these products impact your health and the health of the environment. Genetically engineered or modified food, chem trails, pesticides, fertilizers, prescription drugs ending up in your drinking water and fluoride in water are just a few...

Once you have gained knowledge about the hazards put public pressure on government and manufacturers to stop manufacturing them, have them labelled
appropriately, to spend tax payers money creating awareness of the potential hazards and proper disposal. Boycott products or manufacturers who produce hazardous products.


REDUCE

- Vehicle emissions , maintain your vehicle, use it less often, walk to the store if you can, carpool and reduce the number of vehicles in your home if it is feasible to do so.

- Use less energy and water at your home and business. Research products you buy and limit your use. Buy energy efficient products, turn lights off, don't let tap water / toilets run, wash full loads in cold water, repair dripping taps, reduce use of air conditioning/heat and unplug appliances when not in use.

- Limit consumption of new products. We are a materialistic society that wants everything. If we could go back to the days where want and need were two different things we would be better off. If we stop buying stuff we could actually help the environment. Reduced spending = reduced production of manufactured goods = reduced pollution and waste. Do we really need 20 different brands of each product from the same manufacturer? No, we did quite well when we only had 3 toothpastes and a handful of shampoo to choose from. Look on the shelves and ask yourself how many of these products end up going to waste because they weren't sold and how much energy was used to produce them. The numbers would be astounding.

- Buy products made in your own country. This will help offset the reduced consumption and help to create more jobs at home.

- Buy bulk foods whenever possible and bring your own reusable bag to place the items in, along with some ecobags for your groceries.

- Call local flier delivery services and tell them you do not want free newspapers, fliers or advertisements. Leave a note on the mailbox to the postman directing them to not leave junk mail. Stop buying the newspaper if you aren't reading it and try to cut down on magazine consumption. Instead of using paper towels buy clothes that are reusable after washing.

- Reduce the consumption of wood products buy used if you can and save a tree. Buy bamboo instead of wood.

- Eliminate plastic! Don't buy products in fancy plastic packages, use glass bowls for food storage, fill water bottles at the store instead of buying pre-bottled


REUSE
Buy used or keeping what you have and use it for another purpose. There are too many things around the house that can be reused so I am not going to list them all. Be creative - just because the product does not meet the needs now doesn't mean it won't work for something else.


RECYCLE

Many of us already recycle as part of our programming but recycling forced by government has not been the answer we thought it would be. There is big profit to be made from your garbage and when you wash it, sort it and bag it you are doing someones job. That means the big boys make more profit because they didn't have to pay anyone to do it and your taxes are paying the garbage man to deliver it to them. I'm not saying don't recycle because that would be insane. What I am saying is recycle but profit from it yourself or give it to someone who needs it.

- Recycle old clothes by taking it to a used clothing store and put it on consignment, put it in a drop box, take it to a homeless shelter or a
women's shelter - the choices are endless. When buying new clothes consider buying bamboo or hemp clothing.

- Recycle old furniture in the same way as clothes - you could even place an ad in the paper to sell it, give it away or have a garage sale.

- In Provinces or States that have aluminum can, glass, cardboard, paper, wood, and metal recycling depots take it in yourself and get paid for it. If you don't want to do it yourself and don't care about the money find someone that does. Many homeless people will jump at the opportunity as will independent trash haulers.


RECLAIM the earth!

Demand that deforestation stop, that the continuation of our concrete jungle come to a halt, that land and animals are protected. Demand that the use of plastic be limited for packaging and banned for food use. Refuse to buy soda, water, milk and other liquids for consumption that are in plastic - demand glass! Boycott companies who use unnecessary packaging.

Insist that consumers be given the option of new technology instead of being forced to use products that are hurting your planet, health and putting a financial strain by way of taxes on you as the end user. Free energy exists - it's real and it is less harmless to the environment but the organized structure doesn't want you to know about it or use it because there is no profit to be made in things like water fueled cars.

REJUVENATE the earth.

Stand up to the government and tell them you refuse to pay taxes for things that aren't being fixed. Now go out yourself and plant some trees because this is a vital key to the solution. We need to replace our forests - they are the giant air purifier we are longing for. Our problems really started to get out of control when populations increased and manufacturing, logging and plastic became big biz. So plant away using old world heritage seeds and help make this world beautiful again.

Ethanol Causes Global Warming

By Stein X LeikangerFebruary 13, 2008 - 22,727 Views

Politicians around the world were up against the wall. The World Trade Organization (WTO) was slowly picking away at all their fancy ways of sidetracking public funds into hopelessly anachronistic and inefficient agricultural subsidies. And the agribusiness beats the mil/industrial complex when it comes to lobbying skills. Even French politicians, famous for ignoring the plight of their people, tremble at the thought of another tractor phalanx of mad farmers pulling up in front of the National Assembly and launching putrid brie at their doorstep. Enter Peak Oil.
The WTO rulings are in place to regulate reasonable and equal trading practices between nations. But they cannot proscribe internal actions designed to protect the national infrastructure against potential disruptions. Running out of oil is one such potential downer. Enter a substitute that "solved" two problems at once:
1) How to keep moving money to the agribusiness without the WTO getting pesky.
2) Providing a palliative against Peak Oil. "See, we'll be driving on corn on the cob instead. Nothing has to change."
Well, now maybe it will have to. Bioethanol is a wildly inefficient way of propelling anything, whether aqua, auto or aero. Even in the most benign scenarios, the energy efficiency is pretty much 1:1. Add the fact that you're converting land from growing crops for food to growing fuel for cars, and you have a potential problem on your hands. To wit: rising food prices.
Turns out ethanol is bad in so many ways you don't even want to BEGIN thinking about it. Fortunately, we have people who are willing to do both the thinking and the research for us. The journal Science has just published two papers indicating that clearing land for biofuels will aid global warming.
Wouldn't you know it, the very thing that is going to cure us will kill us faster? Researchers from Princeton University, Woods Hole Research Center and Iowa State University (smack dab in the heart of E85 country) have all concluded that over 30 years, the use of traditional corn-based ethanol will produce twice as much greenhouse gas emissions as regular gasoline.
In the words of the report’s lead author, “this is not good news.” Surprise! There are hidden environmental costs to producing biofuels. "The land we're likely to plow up is the land that we've had taking up carbon for decades," Tim Searchinger at Princeton pronounced. "We can't get to a result, no matter how heroically we make assumptions on behalf of corn ethanol, where it will actually generate greenhouse-gas benefits."
Meanwhile, the governementos of the world are sleeping soundly in the knowledge that they have done a good thing, keeping rotting agricultural produce off the Capitol steps and letting people motor as usual.
Over at the Casa Blanca, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality isn’t surrendering the federal tit without a fight. James L. Connaughton says biofuels' benefits remain tangible.
"Like any issue, there are ways to do it right and there are ways to do things wrong, and the same is the case to biofuels. We move as rapidly as we can to second-generation [biofuels] because those offer the best opportunity for a low environmental profile."
And the Executive VP of the Biotechnology Industry Organization couldn't agree more. "It is much more logical to produce biofuels that recycle carbon,” Brent Erickson insisted. “Even if a short-term carbon debt is created. Even if it's 167 years, you're still better off than burning oil that can never be paid off."
He could have added that biofuels also offers the best opportunity for an abysmal energy ROI. Kind of like buying Eli Manning out of the Giants because you need someone to throw warmups to your starting High-School quarterback.
Michael O'Hare, who really knows his biofuels, is glum. Yes, another academic, from Berkeley of all places. What does he know?
"The bottom line of these complicated chains of events is that using crops for biofuels anywhere induces land use changes somewhere, and while the effect isn't a simple acre-for-acre replacement, and we don't know exactly how big the land-clearing carbon hit should be for a generic gallon of biodiesel or bioethanol, betting now is that it is most unlikely to be small enough to view crop-based biofuels as green substitutes for petroleum."
Well, doesn't that throw a wrench in the spokes of politicos and car honchos alike? Not to mention members of the green mafia who have been seduced by the notion they were supporting agriculture over oil wars.
It's worth restating. All those of us now alive have enjoyed an extended period with ridiculously effective energy readily available at an unbelievably low price. There are no viable substitutes to the energy efficiency of petroleum, and demand is outstripping supply, and faster than we'd like to think. What next? Sorry, but there is no easy answer.

Article courtesy of The Truth About Cars

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