Secrets of the City

There’s also this story in the Strib about a wind turbine story with a new twist: reverse outsourcing. Jobs moving from India to rural Minnesota!

Those windmills are a great source of jobs. Their downside is that they require a lot of regular maintainence, so there have to be people close by at all hours.

Their downside is that they require a lot of regular maintainence, so there have to be people close by at all hours

The same could be said of babies. Let’s hope the wind energy industry soon outgrows its infancy in Minnesota.

I saw a smart car go by my window this last summer and I ran outside to try and chase its driver to ask where he got it, but alas, it had zipped away.

This was before I gave up my license. Now I can’t legally drive anyway.

Agreed. It’s so uncool to have those maintenence workers crapping their pants and trying to suckle from random breasts all the time.

tmay, smart cars are made by Mercedes. I’d call Sears Imports and ask them.

You can also search the Smart Car web site at http://www.smart.com.

Tom, I know that but they’re not localised yet. They’re supposed to do so … what, next year? But this was back before that was announced when the only way to get them in the US was via places that hacked them to meet US safety standards (which added a bunch of bank to the price). I was hoping something had changed and I hadn’t noticed, but I went back and read and that person must have bought one of those.

In any case I’m not a legal driver now anyway so car shopping isn’t high on my list. Though I might consider it if the smart cars us release has them at a somewhat equivalent price to what they sell for in europe.

Re: Smart Car pricing, from the web site:

“Pricing for the smart fortwo is expected to start under $15,000, excluding destination charges, tax, title, license and optional equipment. Exact pricing will not be determined until late 2007.”

A very cool car for the city. I would definitely consider buying one as a second everyday-go-to-work car.

After coming back from the UK in 2005 and seeing the SMARTs all over… I inquired all over as to how to get one. Finding I couldn’t get one from anyone in the states, I set about looking at ways to get one from Canada. I found a dealer ready to work with me with no problem. After talking to the state about registration requirements, I found that there was no legal way to actually own and drive one in MN. They stated emission and safety concerns. I eventually gave up on it since the only possible way seemed to be to have it converted to US standards for a cost that nearly equaled the car (and negated the efficiency).

I never understood why someone can hack together a “chopper” motorcycle in their garage and register it just fine… but I can’t drive a SMART.

Here’s blog a posting with more… if you care:
http://www.bland-o-rama.com/MTarchive/000160.html

There’s also this Smart Car site:

Zapworld

Gee whiz Bob, you should have a little foresight about the next ten years and advancements in technology. I can’t figure out why you would make a statement that cellulosic ethanol isn’t commercially viable, when the reason to be giddy is that this is a big step toward that goal.

Corn-based ethanol is a bust. It does little for the environment, it’ll be obsolete in ten years, and then we’ll have to bail out the farmers and the bio-fuel companies.

This study is a big deal. It exposes King Corn for what it is, a vegetable that’s good for feeding to your livestock and putting on your dinner table, but it’s not a good source of bio-fuel. Hopefully it’ll prevent people from buying into the corn myth.

Perhaps an opportunity to return our prairies to their original state, produce a more efficient, carbon-negative bio-fuel that requires less water, no fertilizer, and no pesticides doesn’t make you excited, but I think its pretty great news.

I just knew corn-hating Tom would chime in. It’s an inconvenient truth to some granola-crunchers like Tom that Minnesota has, with some help from us, created the country’s first and largest alternative fuel network using E85.

More than 300 E85 stations in Minnesota and 1,000+ outlets nationwide is not a “myth,” Tom. It’s a success story we can all take some pride in. Without the pioneering effort in this state and elsewhere in the Upper Midwest, no one would be talking about cleaner-burning ethanol at all, including the cellulosic ethanol you pitch as a magic bullet.

There is no single solution to this big problem. Ethanol, either from grass or from corn, can’t do it all. We need to attack this one from all side.

I agree, Tom. It certainly seems like Bob has been reading his own propaganda a little bit too enthusiastically. I guess that’s about what you’d expect from a lobbyist.

Corn-based ethanol is on its way to becoming commercially viable; they’re working on ways to use all of the plant to make ethanol, which will make processing and production much more time and cost efficient.

It’s going to take time to make renewable energy economically viable as well as environmentally viable. But we have to commit to the transition period…it might hurt in the short term, but in the long term, we’re helping both the environment and the rural farm economy. It’s something we can’t afford not to invest in. Fossil fuels are going to run out, and they’re going to run out sooner as opposed to later. Focusing on renewable energy at home prepares us for that inevitability, and also reduces our unhealthy dependence on foreign oil.

Suzlon (the Indian company mentioned above) is going to transform Pipestone. I know a handful of people who work there, and my family is from there, and from what it sounds like, what was once a dying prairie town has new life.

I know Pipestone as well (I used to live in Windom), it’s great that the company landed there, where the jobs are needed, and the wind energy potential is great.

BTW, I’m a communicator, not a lobbyist. I have testified on the issue from time to time, but my job is to get people to think about using cleaner alternatives that cause less air pollution.

Sure, corn ethanol is cool, but it’s a 5-year band-aid solution.

People can bury their heads in the sand because it makes money for farmers, but the facts are, corn-based ethanol simply cannot provide us with enough fuel for our vehicles. It also has caused the price of corn to go up, which is bad for the food supply, and it’s subsidized to hell. So what happens in 5 or 10 years? Well, if more people start using corn-based ethanol, prices will go up higher due to demand, the government will drop subsidies, it will be more expensive than gasoline, and it will be a bust. So farmers might be making money, but our food supply of corn will be strained, we’ll be paying more for fuel, and basically everyone but the farmers lose.

It actually kinda makes me mad when people rest on their laurels about corn-based ethanol simply because it has made money for farmers. Sure, we need to help them out, but that doesn’t mean we should focus on something that just isn’t going to work as a fuel for more than a few percent of the population. I’m glad that Minnesota is leading the charge on an alternative fuel, which shows me that we’ll be more accepting of other fuels in the future. However, we should not in any way accept corn-based ethanol as a solution.

I’m glad there’s some fanatic alternative-fuels folk on here who are determined to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. We need more of those people in America. However, the FACTS simply show that corn isn’t the answer. While cellulosic ethanol hasn’t panned out yet, early indicators show that it will be higher-yield and lower cost than corn. Beyond that, we can use lots of different things to make it… like wood, grasses, oh yeah, and CORN STALKS. So the farmers won’t be left in the cold Furthermore, there’s other research that needs to be completed as well, there’s some promising evidence in using algae farms to make biodiesel….

I’m tired of ethanol and all the chatter surrounding it. There *may* be some small benefit to it, maybe even more with a different plant. That said, when can we start talking about real solutions like wind?

Hey Josie, I used to dig in those pipestone pits back in the day, when I was young and good looking. I was even interrupted by a couple of jehovah’s witnesses once in the middle of a 100 degree day. There I was bare-chested, swinging a pick axe, sweating my ass off, searching for that elusive pipestone, and along comes a couple of guys to tell me about jesus, or some such thing. But I digress. I suggest you alternative fuel advocates stow the “Fossil fuels are going to run out, and they’re going to run out sooner as opposed to later” meme and stick to the “reduces our unhealthy dependence on foreign oil” argument. Just a suggestion. The only way fossil fuel will be gone within the next 50 years is if we nuke the middle-east, making it difficult to drill. Something I advocate, btw.

I’m tired of ethanol and all the chatter surrounding it.

Jeff, I’m tired of people who believe they can advocate for their brand of cleaner/renewable/alternative energy by attacking other alternatives. I have no problem with wind power, or cellulosic ethanol, or biodiesel, or mass transit, etc. I do have problems with so-called environmentalists who turn against one angle simply because its not theirs, or because it’s not faultless. The challenge ahead is big enough without attacking each other, guys.

corn-based ethanol simply cannot provide us with enough fuel for our vehicles

Er, who says that it would?

Our goals are a little more realistic. If every Minnesotan who drives a flexible fuel vehicle that can use E85 instead of gasoline, that would be great. If the fuel was easier to find, even better. More people using biodiesel? Great!

We support E85 and biodiesel for one reason — cleaner air.

If politicans and car companies want to tout the benefits to farmers and reducing our dependence on oil, that’s great. But that’s not why we are in the game.

Corn-hating? Granola-crunchers?

I don’t understand your motives, Bob.

I never claimed cellulosic ethanol was a magic bullet, but I don’t understand why we would invest billions upon billions of dollars in a crop that is simply and clearly not the best long-term solution?

You say your job is “to get people to think about using cleaner alternatives that cause less air pollution,” but it seems only as long as it’s not an alternative to corn? What gives?

It seems like the biggest obstacle to more widespread use of renewable energy is that people seem to expect all of our energy to come from one place. That’s just not going to happen. All of our cars aren’t going to run on ethanol, and all of our houses aren’t going to be powered on wind. No one in the field expects that to happen. That’s why we see research into so many different areas…and some don’t work out, but some do.

Ethanol can and will be viable as the science behind it continues to get better. The Model T certainly didn’t get good gas mileage, did it? Look at how far the technology behind fossil fuels has come in the past century!

Transitioning to renewable energy going to hurt for a while and there’s going to be a lot of patchwork and a lot of initial expense, but it has to happen. Our country uses so much energy, much more than our fair share, and if we can start making more of it our own and make it in a way that’s good for the planet that we all have to live on, it’s good for everyone.

It’s not like I’ve chosen wind as a better alternative to corn-based ethanol like I’ve chosed the Twins as my favorite baseball team. I’m specifically arguing that having the entire country haggling over a crappy solution is obscuring good ones. Attacking ethanol isn’t like attacking a person. It doesn’t have some intrinsic worth. I’m pointing out its flaws (or at least I have in the past, now I’m just repeating my position I suppose).

Interestingly enough, the Model T was designed to run on ethanol.

This thread would be better if we were all running on ethanol as well!

It could be the first ever MNspeak alternative fuel lovers get together!

Not a bad idea….

I run on biomass exclusively.

But then, I’m not a motorized vehicle, nor do I own or operate one. I also tend to top out between 10 and 20 mph on my bike, so take that as you will.

The comment that it will take many ways to do this is absolutely correct. But more specifically, it will take a shift in priorities. We will need to learn to quanitfy things in (gasp) other than dollars. We could, right now, just cover Nevada or some other shit state with solar panels and be done with it. But then energy would cost twice as much and we couldn’t afford to buy as much crap. We need to fix the way people think as much as we need more research.

Thirty years into the future, a Green Party presidential candidate named “Jeff K” will lose the race to the White House when the 5 p.m. holographic news feed reveals some old offensive comments he had made about the state of Nevada (with 6 key electorial college votes) on a quaint old technology than called the “Interweb.”

President Bud Jr. then offically declares global warming as a “hoax” while being sworn in during a 87 degree day in January.

Gosh, me, a Green party candidate? I’m honored!