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I certainly hope that political-issue-correctness doesn't hit here any worse than it has with the nuclear issue dust-ups. The idea that a certain form of energy is "right" or "wrong" is what Marx would have called "bourgeois idealism". If we are, indeed, facing a series of catastrophic energy crises in the next 10-50 years, then categorically rejecting any idea becomes tantamount to suicide.
For instance, most people don't discuss the problems with nuclear (or solar or wind or, as you posted, E85 ethanol) power, they discuss whether it's right. Considering that there are literally thousands of ways of exploiting any given form of energy, this isn't just a bad idea, it's an atavistic -- totemistic, regressive, and superstitious -- way of dealing with it. With the entire economic and agricultural systems dependent on energy, we have to think about these problems in modern, progressive, and "holistic" ways. Just saying that "ethanol is bogus" or "nuclear is un-cool" or "wind power is stupid" is laughable -- the laugh of madness that will surely be heard as billions of people develop malnutrition-caused dementia as they starve to death when agriculture fails en masse.
There is no risk-free form of energy; nor is there any kind of risk that can't be ameliorated or eliminated by applying effort, intelligence, and the intention to whomp the bugs out of existence. Forget the "quick fix" -- this is a philosophy of Humankind's oldest art, engineering. It should be this philosophy, rather than politicizing (and demonizing) technology, that guides us.
The lives of six or seven billion people take precedence over ideological acceptability. Better we deal with our problems intelligently than to hand the entire future over to tomorrow's mad shamans, eager to take us all across the bridge to the nation of death.
--p!
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