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The Economics of Wile E. Coyoteby Charley Hardman
~ anonymous Did you know that you can power a car with peanuts? When Rudolph Diesel demonstrated his engine at an exhibition in Paris a century ago, it ran on peanut oil. Naturally, he died mysteriously. Ask around, and you'll eventually hear somebody claim that he was killed so that evil oil distillers would have a market for what is now called diesel oil, a component of crude oil (more properly known as black gold or Texas tea). Crude oil is culled from the earth by shooting double-barreled shotguns at "food," which, coincidentally, rhymes with "crude."
Okay, olive oil burns if you put it on a paper towel or something like that, but it doesn't go out of control when you apply flame to it by itself, like that squirt gun I once filled with lighter fluid to see if it would make a cheap flame thrower (it did not). That experiment, with its melted plastic and spewing black smoke, probably wasn't "good for the environment." Educated the hell out of me though. The key behind a diesel engine is that it ignites fuel using heat from compressed air rather than spark from a spark plug. The golden word of writers on such subjects is "efficient," as in "It's much more efficient than x." Well I'm cursed with reflexive package thinking. I don't hear somebody say "this does this" without wondering what else "this" does. Naturally, I was drawn to the writing of Bastiat, Mises, Hayek, Mencken, Rothbard, Rockwell, et al., though I didn't find them until the Internet arrived to save Liberty from the clutches of its enemies. The enemy of package thinking is seen in "accentuating the positive" hooey, an approach often manifest in the classic technique now called spin. Physicist Richard Feynman gave a good talk on accentuating the positive, spin fashion. He called it Cargo Cult Science, and it's worth a read. Pro-biodiesel sites (e.g., here and here) burst out of the gate with page after page of miracle claims and pronouncements, but when you get down into the details they can't hide the telltale signs of that great slayer of most miracle products which just haven't been given the "proper chance" in the "tyranny of the marketplace": Drawbacks.
Hurdles dressed up as stepping stones compose your first clue to the presence of fanaticism. Enter Mr. Coyote, co-star of the beautiful Road Runner cartoons. According to Chuck Jones, their co-creator and chief director, there were rules the animators used in making the series. Rule 3: The Coyote could stop anytime – IF he were not a fanatic. (Repeat: "A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim." ~ George Santayana) Sometimes when I'm programming I fall into the trap of fanaticism. There are pathways to a solution which appear to be so cool that they MUST. BE. IMPLEMENTED. In the middle of an intense drive down a particularly nifty programming road which is, wonder of wonders, seeing required fixes and workarounds blossoming by the minute, experience has trained me to knock on the door to my head once in a while and ask, "Is this really worth it?" The answer sometimes comes back loud and clear. "Don't run away from obvious inefficiency just to embrace disguised, convoluted inefficiency." It's a lesson I heard explicitly from a senior programmer at a bar years ago, and before that from a squib called Pippin who said, "Short cuts make long delays." Fanaticism. To hear enviro-dorks wax rhapsodic about electric cars, you'd think they had figured out not only how to harness lightning bolts, but also how to conjure up thunderstorms on a whim (without those messy clouds, wind, and rain). It's one of the best examples of the mindlessness which worms its way into popular opinion. You know why these people love electric whatever, to the point where they will destroy people and property for their agendas? Because they don't see the fumes. They don't see them, so they must not exist. "The majority of electricity used in the United States is generated from power plants that burn fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) to heat water and make steam. The highly pressurized steam is directed at the blades of turbines to make them spin." ~ Southern California Edison As with most socialist agendas, the down side has been distributed far away from stage front. Electric cars are typically powered by energy from coal-fired power plants with efficiencies lower than self-contained automobile power plants (diesel engines), and transmitted over long lines which can contribute to further losses of approximately 7%. And what do we hear about electric vehicles from this idiot paper generated unconstitutionally by the "U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT"? "These vehicles run completely on electricity stored in onboard batteries. They produce no emissions and are very quiet." Magic! That's some real science for you. No mention of whence this mysterious electricity comes, and no discussion of transmission losses, battery inefficiency (wasted energy), highway safety (cars with poor acceleration are dangerous), crash protection, or the obvious death knell staring these fanatics in the face, being that people don't want electric cars enough to have them. If these things are so great, how come the masses aren't clamoring for them? Because they haven't yet been beaten over the head enough by self-aggrandizing charlatans, I guess. The best argument to be made right now in favor of electric cars is that they allow some pollution of major cities to occur elsewhere, though often at total pollution levels higher than if electric cars were banned. "Save the Environment; Ban Electric Cars" is as logical as the converse. Logic from biodieselists: 5. What are the emissions when using biodiesel? From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank devotes quite a few pages to this topic. There are no sulfur dioxide emissions from biodiesel, since biodiesel does not contain sulfur. Soot emissions from biodiesel are 40-60% lower. Carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions are cut by between 20%-60%. Vehicles running on biodiesel still emit the same amount of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) as they did while running on diesel fuel. The difference is that the CO2 from burning biodiesel will be captured in the next batch of crops grown to make biodiesel. Then it will be emitted and captured again and again ad infinitum. The key here is that no new carbon dioxide is added to the Earth’s atmosphere. For more information, see our Biodiesel Emissions page. Wow, that's so cool how CO2 knows that it's supposed to go from your tailpipe and into the next batch of crops grown to make biodiesel. Hey, quick question: Isn't the petro-diesel I'm burning now creating CO2, which is being "captured in the next batch of crops grown" to feed hungry children in Bangladesh? How come enviro-nazis keep giving me the finger then? I'm confused. I suppose that the CO2 for those crops only comes from farting. Hey, I'm learning as I go here! Between the two characters of the Road Runner cartoon, why does sympathy usually lie more with Mr. Coyote than with Road Runner? Because he's "the victim." Yeah, Road Runner is together and sleek, effusing a strange aura of oblivious competence which tends to appear as though it's running over Wile E. Coyote. However, Coyote really runs over himself by focusing on one goal, presumably for his betterment, to the exclusion of his betterment. One thing to be said for poor Wile E. – he doesn't conscript others into his pattern of habitual disaster, and his frail sadness remains his alone. That is a quality worthy of admiration, whether he intended it or not. He gets what he deserves. One would think such an outcome would be the goal of any government to which supposedly good people give their hearts and souls, but I don't see any of that when I look around, nor when I get summoned to have my tailpipe inspected because some wayward idiots hold sway. Anybody ever wonder how much pollution is generated by forcing hordes of people to drive to/from emissions inspection stations (which themselves generate pollution), making them spin their wheels at sustained highway power on treadmills, one after the other? It can't be as much as the pollution they save by pulling arbitrarily declared excess polluters off the road. I mean, it can't be, right? And there's no way that the vast collection and processing systems involved in the great god Recycling could ever create more pollution and waste than they save. Such a thing would be . . . well, to quote a certain LRC blogger, it would be shocking. SHOCKING! I refuse to accept it. And don't give me any trouble when I pull up to your gas guzzler with my Acme bazooka.
Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com
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I've been looking into making or at least using
Yes, amid the advantages, there are problems
with pure biodiesel, not the least of which is that it's much more
expensive than petro-diesel. If you follow the navigation at a
biodiesel site, your experience begins with the astonishing and
eventually mires in the mundane. "Simply pull up to a McDonald's,
siphon the used oil out of their fryers, and drive forever on
peanuts – literally," gives way to "There are several ways around
the propensity of biodiesel to solidify in your fuel lines when
below a certain temperature." Huh? Oh, there's nothing to worry
about. You simply install a fuel tank heater or other such minor
detail. But never you mind, because it's just one of the stepping
stones on the path to enviro-nirvana.
December 15,
2003
