My dear Center Party and the Ethanol discussion

Today the official spokesman for my own Party - Claes Vasterteg at www.centerpartiet.se - defends the Ethanol industry, as he in the same time seems to support the criticism of Ethanol production and it's consequences. "Anyone fueling their car with Ethanol in Sweden does a good thing", and then states "It would be wrong giving Ethanol the entire blame for increasing food prices in the world". Mr. Vasterteg even promotes Ethanol as a good crop for hungry people in the third world! I think they would like to grow food first, dear collegue...

I am amazed that basic physics and math don't work with some people. Even one of the most positive Ethanol enthusiasts - Sekab CEO in Sweden - clearly states that Ethanol never can replace fossile fuels as primary source for transportation. A vast number of research done by independent institutes clearly states that production of Ethanol will no matter how much better the technology gets still only provide a fraction of the world wide need for inefficient cars.

The only way out of the car is promoting something better than the car. I don't know if Podcar technology is the best answer, but it will use ZERO fossil fuel and/or any other bio fuel. It seems to be safer, faster, more convienient and much more energy efficient than enything else around. To argue against evaulation of this technology makes me suspicious that Sekab and other supporting organisations are taken over by the car industry. Let's hope that I'm wrong.

Better and Worse

As days go by, things get better and worse. The good news - more and more people, especially decisionmakers, start to understand the unreasonable price on all levels for burning fossile fuel in an extremly inefficient transportation system. Also, the rate of americans using bikes and public transit is steadily increasing. The bad news comes from IPCC again - is does not really matter for the next hundred of years what we do now in terms of producing CO2. We could all be driving electric cars or switch to Podcars, light rail and trains - it matters only for another 100 years after that. The only way to have a short term impact is to take special carbon consumption measures, like planting trees and possibly other technologies like sending the CO2 back below sea level.

I am born optimist and I am confident that humanity will fix the mess we created. However, we have seen nothing yet in terms of climate change and peak everything - oil, fish, food, crop etc.