Green Cars

Right now there are about 400,000 hybrid cars in the USA and about the same number are equipped to use E85 Ethanol. The total fleet is over 130 million, meaning that green cars are a bit over ½ % of the total. We've got a long way to go.

Barriers to Green Energy

I'm thinking of writing an essay on the barriers:

1. Up-Front costs/Payback Time
2. Lack of Loan Funds
3. NIMBY
4. Citizen Apathy

To set the stage I will catalog the small amount of alternative energy today.

Sources of Electricity

Some statistics on sources of electricity (All data inpercent of total). Data from Energy Information Administration:

Source, U.S. (2007), Ohio (2006)

Fossil Fuels, 71.9, 88.4 Coal, liquids, natural & other gases)
Nuclear, 19.4, 10.8
Other, 8.5, 0.7 (See below)


Distribution of Renewables:


Source,U.S. (2007), Ohio (2006)
Wood, 37.3, 28.2
Waste, 16.4, x
Geothermal, 14.4, 57.1
Solar, 5.6, x
Wind, 31.2, x

x = < 0.05%

Ethanol Plants as CO2 Factories

I recently received a request from the Darke Cty. LWV for helpful information on the planned CO2 sequestration project at the local ethanol plant. It appears that this is a first (or early) attempt to do this. In thinking about it, it occurred to me that there are lots of uses for CO2. Some ethanol plants are capturing and selling CO2, which seems a better idea than gas suppliers (e.g. Linde) manufacturing the CO2 they sell. Capturing and selling must be cheaper and more profitable than pumping CO2 into the ground.