EU estimates biofuels produce much more carbon than oil does

Allow me to (not so) briefly explain that comment.

A few years ago I was assigned a semester-long class project on energy. I tried to suggest that the group focus on how corn-derived ethanol is not the answer to energy concerns. They liked it and misunderstood it so that we spent a whole semester planning to advocate an ethanol-distribution network. Thus: frustration!

The greatest irony came about when, at the end of the semester, the professors liked it so much they offered me an independent study for the next semester on the same topic. When I raised my hesitations about going through with ethanol advocacy, the arrangement for the independent study fell apart. You'll understand, the professor I was going to be working with was a Capitol Hill senatorial staffer. And all the congress-people were gearing up to support ethanol, a political proposition with seemingly no downsides. Both environmental blue-staters and midwestern/energy-independence red-staters would get beaucoup political points. So this staffer was not about to understand me dragging my feet.

Of course, I may be a bit greedy because irony already delivered me a wonderful I-was-right moment later that very semester. That's when food prices spiked like crazy and the wider public suddenly turned on ethanol, calling it the cause. Of course, it wasn't technically an I-was-right moment since my main concern wasn't about food prices. It was that studies had already indicated that using corn ethanol produces about the same amount of carbon emissions as gasoline.

And now I see this report. It's a study by the EU which found that it potentially produces four times as much carbon as conventional fuels. And by the way the EU's incentive is actually to tout ethanol as a great thing.  They got this by taking into account that raised food prices cause farmers to cut down more rainforest to grow more food. And cutting down rainforest is a big carbon no-no. Very high emissions.

So. On behalf of my kind-of-accidental moment of following my conscience, ahem..

Ha.

This Trololo is actually very good and will make you happy

Wait til he starts up again the second time.

Ironing... TO THE EXTREME

(Or, for shorthand, Ironing^extreme)

 

(even more after the jump)

How many third-party sites have their sticky fingers in the websites you visit?

 
Using NoScript is an interesting experience.

Btw NoScript is a Firefox add-on that disables all the javascript running on any website you visit unless you allow it. What you quickly learn is that a website can (and usually does) run javascripts from other websites, and you have to individually allow each third-party site's script. Which is great for blocking ads from doubleclick.net or frivolous social media widgets from blippr.com. But it also lets you peer behind the curtain at how many other sites are, through some deal with the site you're visiting, getting a taste of your patronage.

Now, there are lots of sites with very few or no third-party scripts running. A visit to wikipedia.org will expose you only to wikimedia.org additionally, which is of course another domain from the same organization. On average you'll see, say, six other sites. But others...