AW: [ RadSafe ] query

[garyi at trinityphysics.com]

> 
> From:           	Franz Schönhofer <franz.schoenhofer at chello.at>
> To:             	"'Bernard L. Cohen'" <blc+ at pitt.edu>,
>  "'RadiatSafety'" <radsafe at radlab.nl>
> Subject:        	AW: [ RadSafe ] query
> Date sent:      	Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:46:32 +0100
> 
> Bernard,
> 
> I have problems to understand your message - simply because consideration of
> methanol as a fuel is several decades old. In the late 70's there was a project
> (not executed) to build a pipeline from Poland to Austria through which a slurry
> of coal in methanol should be sent to Austria to substitute power from the
> "cancelled" nuclear power plant at Zwentendorf.  

That's interesting - I didn't know that.  I wonder why they didn't 
execute that plan?

> 
> Methanol has a much higher value concerning energy efficiency per liter compared
> to ethanol. Without doubt there are much higher costs for producing it than for
> ethanol. Of course it may be produced from wood - but at what costs? Heat is not
> the only cost factor. What about the tremendous amount of by-products, which to
> a small part could of course be used commercially, but the major part would
> cause a lot of costs for disposal? A simple reasoning: If this kind of producing
> fuel would be financially favourable the big oil companies would have changed to
> it since long. Thinking of this possibility this might have changed politics
> dramatically - no invasion of Iraq would have been taken place, not tens or
> hundreds of thousands of people would have died. Another question is whether

That's even more interesting!  You mean that the US would not have 
gone to war in Iraq except for our oil interests?  I guess that means 

that 911 was either a big tactical error by al Qaeda, or else that 
whole terrorist organization is a puppet group manipulated by the US  

to give us a pretext for war.  Wow, how devious we Americans are!    
We are SO BAD (and so dumb, and so ignorant, and so fat,.......).   
Willing to kill our own civilians to achieve our purposes.  Now, who 
does that remind me of?  Its on the tip of my tongue ...Salam 
Insane...no, uhm, its that guy on trial (sorry, but you know that US 
citizens do not take into consideration that there is a world outside 

the US, so its hard for us to remember anything that occurs outside 
our borders!)  

> wood is really so easily available and so cheap. This depends on the region,
> sure this is not the case in the middle east. I see again that comments by US
> citizens do not take into consideration that there is a world outside the USA.
> Regarding the use of for instance corn for fuel production I would question
> whether it is politically and ethically correct to use potential food to produce
> fuel for thirsty car engines.  
> 

I always thought that if there existed a button, which would make 
every American head (man, woman, and child), suddenly explode, that 
the al Qaeda "freedom fighters" would kill each other to push it 
first.  However, if it only killed Christians world-wide instead of 
just Americans, I bet they would they would draw straws.  Maybe they 
would even hold an election for the honour.  What nobility!

So, Franz, thanks for that interesting and enlightening post. 
However, I must disagree with your comments about "whether it is 
politically and ethically correct to use potential food to produce 
fuel for thirsty car engines."  You have failed to account for the 
effect of ownership in democratic countries, which can be summed up 
as "you do what you like with your corn, and we'll do what we like 
with our corn."

Regards,
Gary Isenhower, M.S.