Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I got woken up early by Ranchero music being blasted at 5:30 AM, so while I wait for video clips to render I played with my calculator…

I was reading some numbers recently on world biofuel production levels, and got to wondering just how close we are to being able to meet our fuel needs using ethanols and biodiesels and so on. The US currently produces 5 million barrels of oil per day domestically — 290 billion liters annually — although it imports 75% of its oil for a total annual domestic consumption of 5.8 trillion liters of oil. This doesn't count oil consumed internationally (manufacturing in China for example), nor does it include other non-renewable fuel use like coal (which currently is used to generate 55% of the electric power in the US).

To put those oil numbers into a slightly different context, with a population of 300 million, that means that every American citizen from babies to those on their deathbed consumes 19,345 liters of oil every year inside the borders of the country. If oil was beer, that would be like drinking 141 beers every single day. Every two days, you could fill a standard sized bathtub with the oil consumed… and as I said, that doesn't count the fuel consumed internationally or the coal.

Now, the largest biofuel producer in the world is Brazil, which manufactures a whopping 16 billion liters of it every year. To put that into context, that's a miniscule 0.28% of the annual US consumption. The US government is considering mandating minimum levels of biofuel production inside the US (which is currently the world's number two producer thereof) — by 2012 they want to see US production reach 30 billion liters per year. This would consume a quarter of all corn production in the United States, but would only satiate 0.52% of the current oil use. Even if every current corn farm in the US dedicated its output to creating biofuel, barely 2% of the US oil demand would be met.

I'm skewing the numbers a little because I'm comparing apples and oranges; one barrel of oil produces less than half that much in gasoline, whereas ethanol fuel can be run in your car as is — so if you want to be overly optimistic, double my numbers. Unfortunately, even doing so, production of biofuel can meet at best 1/25th the current fuel consumption. Renewable electrical energy generation (solar, wind, and hydropower) is ramping up, but it will be some time before it can replace fossil fuels — if ever; wind power for example is believed to max out at about 20% of total consumption. Hydropower currently generates about 10% of US power, and wind and solar account for well under 1% each.

Barring the advent of some new miraculous method of power generation (cold fusion, zero point, whatever), it should be clear that the only way that the US can avoid a horrendous crash is to ramp down its energy consumption, and fast. ExxonMobile predicts that by 2035 the average US car will have achieved a fuel consumption rate of 35 miles per gallon. To put that into context, in 2005 the average car sold in Europe has a fuel consumption of 35 miles per gallon.

If the best America can do is taking thirty years to reach the standards of the second most gluttonous region of the world, there's going to be a problem…

“The one and only solution to internal pollution is purification.” I am so f'ing grossed out right now. I don't even want to think about what's inside my guts. I just hope the copious quantities of hot peppers that I eat have killed it. Click the picture for more (found via We Like It Raw).

One of the fascinating things about George “My Democracy” Bush is that with all his claims of wanting to seed the world with democracy, he really seems to despise the concept… Seeing as he's said it at least three times publicly, I'm sure everyone remember's Bush's commentary that “a dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier.” Keep that in mind when you read this story that 62% of Americans (and growing) disapprove of the President's Social Security plan. His response? “I don't care what all the naysayers say”, or to put it in different terms, “I don't care what the majority says.”

Along the same lines (and contradicting the claims of Bushies that the insurgency is mostly “foreign militants”, and that “the average Iraqi is happy we're there”), US Major General Joseph Taluto in Iraq has described “99.9%” of the insurgency as “good, honest Iraqis” who are “offended by [US] presence” in Iraq. They want a democracy he says, and the voice of their democracy appears to be saying one thing to America — go home.

Stories about over-the-top recruiters continue to fill the news as the military misses its recruiting goals month after month and hemorrhages current staff sick of being mistreated — let alone getting killed by roadside bombs, currently the number one killer in Iraq. While maintaining that it is “unlikely” to be used, the draft system is on full alert and ready to start calling people up, be it for another deceitful war, or an extension on a current one.

Back at home, Bush continues to fearmonger and promote the police surveillance state, while at the same time continuing to work against the American people and for the American corporation. In a recent anti-tobacco lawsuit, not only were the Justice Department pushed from above to cut their demands, but government lawyers actually asked two of their own witnesses to make their testimony less damaging… So that's what hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Bush and the Republicans buys you.