Americas News
Mar 29, 2007, 10:11 GMT
Castro ends eight-month silence to slam US environmental policy
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Older Talkback
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shut up!!!!!!!!
Anyone gots a link to the actual text of Castro's op-ed?
Let 'em eat oil! They're the one's forcing us to use corn for our fuel!!
Kind of scary that Castro makes much more sense then our leaders recently.
I saw a great movie on urban, organic farming in Cuba. They are decades ahead of us on that!
It would be the epitomy of sin for the US to ignore other, real solutions that greatly reduce our consumption and pollution but don't let the old guard make profits in favor of a inefficient polluting and wasteful soluton like many want to turn ethanol into.
Sugar cane, or Hydrogen would benefit us tremendously, the idea of changing the light bulbs is great,
Everything Bush says -- or means to say -- is politics. His actions are consistent and clear. His comments about greener environmental solutions are nothing more than hollow words; there is no intent. He talks of cleaner fuels, such as derivatives of plants, and he talks of reducing reliance upon middle-eastern oil, but his words cannot be taken seriously.
His words are empty political statements so his minions can defend his non-existent environmental record by pointing to forward-thinking speeches. But that is all they are, pre-fabricated fabricated speeches.
Bush's financial support for hydrogen fuel cells has more to do with how far off and expensive that technology is than its capacity as a cleaner burning fuel. Bush is all about oil.
In regard to Castro's statements, I echo swarmon mosthmort's interest in seeing the actual text.
I am also interested in knowing about the actual effects, in relation to world hunger, of converting food crops, or portions of them, to developing fuels.
I think that for years, because of farm subsidies, the U.S. government pays farmers to destroy portions of crops. Whether they actually do, I don't know, but if that is the case, certainly those crops could be used for fuel.
I don't know upon what information Castro is relying to support his conclusions, but it seems suspect. The consequences for not quickly and intelligently addressing global-warming issues (carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere) will be catastrophic to hundreds of millions of people -- maybe billions -- integral portions of the food chain, as well as monumental changes to coastal regions and the world map.
Since Bush and other elites, with money to buy new beach-front property, and the guns to conquer desired lands, and the law to help them or not stop them, and access to doctors and medicine to stave of disease, they feel insolated. They do not concern themselves with the trivialities of world suffering. They live in a different world.
If you listen to them, and connect the dots, it is clear.
castro is an idiot
the world has more to fear from global warming and fossil fuels than starvation
for castro to hold up cuba as a model is a joke cuba sucks , they are a poor dictatorship with no democracy its like a trailer park guy telling the mansion owner how to decorate.
shut up fidel pull your head out you messed up your own country and communism sucks!
what a great guy..
Fidel Castro has only proven that he knows nothing of American agriculture. Gone are the days when the traditional family farm was the rule. Nowadays, agribusiness rules the roost. And agribusiness is ruled by one all-encompassing capitalist principle - making a profit. The switch to bio-fuel would not happen overnight. But even if it did happen quickly, agribusiness can and would step up to the challenge ... switching from growing rutabagas, brussel sprouts, spinach (ech), etc., etc., to a corn crop if there was more money to be made.
In short, no mass importation of corn from developing countries. Instead, there'd be a mass redesignation of American farmland to a more profitable purpose ... with an added benefit. With agribusiness being able to cut a volume deal on corn sales to refineries, the likely people to step up to the plate to supply corn for our dinner tables would be the remaining family farmers - who, through co-ops, could extract a nice price for their table-corn from grocers left in the lurch by agribusiness. Top that off with a benefit to farmers in developing countries who fill the need for non-corn crops.
The only loser would be OPEC. True, at first, they'd be able to sell any oil they produce to feed China's ever-growing demand. But (grin), how long do you think China would accept the status-quo if they were able to do what we do ... and to achieve energy independence?
My freshman-year world history teacher in college once asked students who would rule the world in 2050. Everyone had their own answer. The teacher's answer was the USA. Why? Because we are the only country in the world with the capability of becoming totally self-sufficient in food. And that sooner or later, OPEC would realize it couldn't eat sand (grin).
Castro has a right to be angry, though ... but not for the reason he suggests. He's angry because he knows that dependence on foreign oil is our big weakness. And once we wake up to the bio-fuel possibilities, it will make it much harder to exploit that weakness (especially by characters such as his soul-brother in Venezuela).
P.S. Playing the Devil's advocate, however, a couple of points. Right now, we are approaching the break-even point where it costs relatively the same to import oil from OPEC as it would to extract shale-oil from known North American reserves. And this is not a pipe-dream by any means. Just ONE such reserve of shale-oil is said to have the capacity of supplying all of North America's oil needs through the middle of the 22nd Century. It's located in Alberta province in Canada ... a much friendlier trading partner than OPEC. And mind you, that's just ONE reserve. There are others - some in the USA.
In short, if extracting shale-oil would be competitive to the price of conversion to bio-fuel, why bother? Pardon the pun but maybe we should just 'go with the flow' ... at least until the year 2150. And, extracting shale-oil would have the added advantages of (A) no change to our gasoline distribution infrastructure, and (B) no worries about (ulp) corn-crop failures due to unforeseen climate changes.
Second point. Another gripe I have about our energy policy is why we don't devote more funding to fusion-power research (not the cold kind) ... or the potential for 'microwaving' energy gleaned from Sun by orbiting satellites to Earth-based electrical generation stations (plural). In short, if you're going to go looking for energy, why not go for the inexhaustible supplies first?
Off pulpit (grin).
P.S. I'm not the only person questioning Castro's statements about bio-fuel. The largest country in South America, Brazil, thinks he's nuts ... or so says Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose leftist government is no great friend of the USA. Brazil wants to be energy independent, too ... just like the USA could be ... and has dedicated a number of resources to bio-fuel development. Of course (grin), Brazil has the land that Cuba doesn't. But that certainly isn't the USA's problem.
In reply to AnswerMan's Answers.
First, the transportation system that burns the least amount of fuel hurts OPEC the worst.
Second, the transportation system that burns the least amount of fuel pollutes the least.
Third, diesel engines are twenty to forty percent more efficient than gasoline engines. Todays diesel engines burning diesel distilled to current standards are as clean if not cleaner than gasoline engines.
Fourth, ethanol, or any other alcohol for that matter, is a good deal less efficient as a fuel than gasoline and a whopping seventy percent less efficient than any form of diesel.
Fifth, ethanol is just as 'dirty' as gasoline. Blending gasoline with ethanol helps nothing.
Sixth, ethanol is more expensive than gasoline is now and will remain so forever.
Seventh, blending ethanol with gasoline only hurts your fuel mileage. This translates into you having to visit the pump more often, paying more fuel taxes, buying MORE gasoline, enriching the bankers in the agri-business, enriching the oil companies, enriching dictators like those in the Levant and Venezuela, enriching Archer-Daniels-Midland and others of their ilk, all while breaking your emptying your checking account.
Eighth, we are being asked to burn the wrong fuel in the wrong kind of engine for the wrong reasons.
Ninth, We should be phasing out the gasoline engine in favor of the diesel engine while finding ways raise lipid rich algae along with our other crops. Further, we should be designing, testing and marketing diesel-electric hybrid vehicles to ourselves and the rest of the world, especially India and China.
Tenth, the government of the United States has been funding and conducting controlled fusion research since 1953. We have already spent hundreds of billions of dollars on it in today's money. Building a fusion reactor is rather like designing a stove that needs a flamethrower for a pilot light. We are still spending billions of dollars on fusion research including current collaborative efforts with the Europeans and the Japanese. I am not holding my breath waiting for one of these Rube Goldberg contraptions to work. So far, not a one of them has produced sufficient power light up a single LED.
Here are some comparison figures:
**************** Mid Size Cars***************
Monte Carlo on E85: 16 mpg city -- 23 mpg highway
Toyota Prius (Gasoline Hybrid): 60 mpg City -- 51 Highway
**************** SUV *********************
Chevy Tahoe/Suburban E85 11 mpg City -- 15 mpg highway
Toyota Highlander (Gasoline Hybrid) 31 mpg city -- 27 mpg highway
A diesel-electric hybrid that is a full hybrid, that is one that could be plugged into the grid at night, would easily top 100 mpg with today's technology. BTW, Caterpillar just recently made a major breakthrough in the design of lead-acid batteries that will very likely reduce the cost of hybrid vehicles dramatically. Have a look at fireflyenergy.com for a quick study on the subject.
Do your homework, folks. Don't take my word for it, and don't take AnswerMan's word for it. The truth really is out there.
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