In the U.S. we can turn corn stalks and swithgrass into gasoline, kerosene and diesel and have more CO2 neutral fuels. It takes money to build the plants however. If we took the $100 billion we wasted for one year in Iraq, we could have built 100 fuels plants each producing 1 million gallons per day and we would not need to import ANY middle east oil at all.

You do the math, you can get 12 tons of switchgrass biomass per acre at about 100 gallons of methanol per ton for more than 1000 gallons per acre converted to gasoline, that would be 500 gallons per acre.

If each car takes 500 gallons per year then 100 million acres provides 100 million cars with fuel. We grow 100 million acres of corn each year, so we could provide almost half the cars with fuel using marginal farmland planted in switchgrass.

Half the cars would be a 25% reduction in oil usage or 5 million barrels per day. 5 million barrels less out of the 11 million barrels we import each day is significant.

There are lot of cynics and critics, it is always easier to destroy than create. If we do not make some real moves soon and continue on doing nothing like the last 30 years, we may not have another 30 years that we would really like to experience.

hehe...well, I would not be surprised :)

I would make one further important recommendation which the authors of this study have left out.

Namely, that members of the Spinach Party not be given a veto at the decision making table.

Not so long ago the Premier of Quebec Province and the Governors of New England came to an agreement that Hydro Quebec would sell renewable electric power to the northeastern states. The deal was ready to be consumated when the Green Party moved in to put the kabosh on the whole thing.

As a Bostonian I'd prefer to send money to Quebec for enrgy rather than Algeria.

@ SJC

I'm with you on the Iraq war.

One of the dumbest mistakes done by "The Decider"; the worst President in US history. Matter of fact he should have been impeached for lying us into that war.

@ ai vin

The Greens were against this plan for a couple of reasons.

1. Environmental damage due to construction of transmission lines.

2. Every hydro project requires a storage reservoir as you know. They were against having to construct this because a few Inuit in northern Quebec would lose the ability to hunt in the designated area. This excuse is rediculous since the size of the reservoir in relation to the number of Inuit who would have been affected is miniscule. The population density is something like 1 person per 10 square miles and the indigenous people are hunter gatherers so they move where the game is.

The project was discussed prior to the time when Weld was governor of Massachusetts.

The latest proposal is to place the transmission lines under water in Lake Champlain. I can hear it already, "that will disturb the spawning grounds of the yellow toad salamanders" or some such remarkable nonsense.

Wind power is also out because it spoils the view. The off shore Cape Cod wind project has dragged on for years because of "environmental concerns". There was also a proposal to import wind enrgy from the Maritime Provinces. That's right it also got thumbs down from the environmentalists.

Incidentally the Greens are also against building solar thermal plants in California and the US south west in general for fear that the desert ground squirrel would be disturbed. They managed to convince the gov't to put a 2 year moratorium in place to study the issue. I don't know if that has since been lifted.

Many Greens will oppose ALL energy projects. For them, a return to older ways, without electricity, is the only way to go. How ridiculous can they get?

The argument against low cost clean Hydro power doesn't hold scrutiny. How could the North Eastern States Governors fall for that argument? They were offered power as low as $0,05/Kwh, delivered to their border line and refused it. They could have made a huge profit over the next 25 years. Next time around they may have to pay $0.08/Kwh to $0.10+/Kwh because the USD value versus $Can has changed drastically and the new Hydro plants and power lines cost a lot more. Hydro power from the Lower Churchill Falls in Labrador will cost over $0.11/Kwh and at least $0.15/Kwh delivered to Maine and neighboring States.

Ha ha!! ai_vin climbs aboard the conspiracy bus!! Well, it's reasonable to assume there are ops to discredit both sides of big arguments.

I'm with Mannstein - green kooks have spoiled many good projects. The Audubon Society has had to bite their tongue on wind farm bird slaughter - to get past environmental impact reports.

Of course much of the controversy could be avoided by focusing on development of distributed energy systems. A real, near-term solution awaits in the installation of NG-fired Combined Heat and Power systems in residences and light industry. Demand for high voltage power transmission lines (and new power plants) would be slashed with rapid growth of distributed energy.

Can it be done? Of course. The engineers here know full well off-grid power is viable today. And some are actually going forward building projects with large scale CCHP:

http://www.solaripedia.com/13/173/1728/bank_of_america_tower_cogeneration_diagram.html

This direction is necessary to avoid the early introduction of disruptive energy technologies.

@ HarveyD

As a heads up, I'm paying $.18/Kwh right now in southern New England and the price keeps going up.

Nothing will change until those with the grip of power decide to grab something else. They will never let go until we pry it from their hands.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

What does the internet have to do with the power of big oil? We are locked into our addiction by pushers and enablers like Bush and Cheney.

"The internet HAS given the world a way to get information not filtered by mainstream agendas."

And given us a way to get information filtered by alt-stream agendas.
The best thing about the internet is that anybody can go on it and write anything they want.
What's the worst thing? Dido.

Case in point: Orly Taitz