Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

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Lerner wrote: Replacing cars is not so difficult–people repalce cars all the time. If there are about 600 million cars in the world, as you say, the replacement time is about nine years, since current auto productions is 66 million per year. Of course the auto industry will have to be retooled, and that is why the auto industry is totally opposed to electric cars. But the chasis and body would not change. As to the engine, electric motors are enormously simpler than gasoline engines. The elcetric motor industry is already large and mature. The only new industry is in the energy storage device, either batteries or super-capacitors or other.

As to food prices, they are soaring world-wide not just in PR. Food production is well below consumption and reserves are falling rapidly, which drives up prices (helped along by speculation). There are a number of factors invovled, since per-capita grain production has actually been falling globally since 1984, long before biofuels were a factor. But they certainly are not helping.

World food production could be increased greatly if government subsidies were aimed at food production for people and not mainly for animal feed or biofuels. The US government has long subsidized corn and soy rather than wheat, for example. Eliminating subsidies for biofuels, which would make them non-competitive, would certainly be a good, small step, to lifting food production.

I agree EV are highly viable alternatives with the best energy efficiencies of any alternative, and less industrial reworking requirements then hydrogen, but EVs need lighter aluminum and composite chassis to try to add range and EVs won’t be able to power long range uses. Biofuels or fuels made from biomass require the least infrastructure changes and can be energy positive and carbon neutral. Making Biofuels from biomass is now of highest priority in the biofuels research community because we all admit the food crops can only replace a tiny fraction of oil usage while biomass could replace as much as 30% with moderate estimates and higher. Cheap fusion would likely increase biofuels production dramatically by powering hydrogenated pyrolysis of biomass and CO2 into hydrocarbons.