Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says, here's to
Speaker 1: our last drink of fossil fuels. May be vow to
Speaker 1: get off of this sauce. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren
Speaker 1: bog Obama, and our other co host, Joe McCormick, is
Speaker 1: out today. Yeah. So it's a it's a once again
Speaker 1: a two person show. We've been playing kind of musical
Speaker 1: hosts because we all took vacations close to one another summertime,
Speaker 1: and it's nice to swept in other places in your hometown.
Speaker 1: Fantastic to go someplace else and be just as uncomfortable
Speaker 1: outside with a better view. Yeah. No, I was out
Speaker 1: by the ocean for a week and it really was nice,
Speaker 1: And you guys did an awesome job holding down the
Speaker 1: fort while I was gone. Yeah. I mean, that's one
Speaker 1: of the wonderful things about having two co hosts. Any
Speaker 1: one person can be gone and still be confident that
Speaker 1: the show will go on. Yes, and so we are
Speaker 1: going to go on today. We are with a topic
Speaker 1: that is one that I've been I've talked about before
Speaker 1: on tech stuff. I've talked about it on the radio
Speaker 1: with NPR, You've written blog posts on Forward Thinking dot Com.
Speaker 1: I have, and we're going to talk about bio fuels
Speaker 1: because it's a complicated topic. It's one of those that
Speaker 1: on the surface, you think, oh, a biological alternative to
Speaker 1: fossil fuels. Perfect. Yeah, it's cut and dry, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously switched from one to the other. But as it
Speaker 1: turns out, when you get into the details, it's a
Speaker 1: lot more complicated than that. Yes, Also, biofuels have been
Speaker 1: in the news recently because on May twenty nine, the
Speaker 1: e p A proposed a new renewable fuel standard for
Speaker 1: the next couple of years. And this new propos as
Speaker 1: all of theirs had been delayed so much like since
Speaker 1: at least because part of their proposal that just came
Speaker 1: out was for Yeah, it's it's hard to propose things
Speaker 1: for the past. I've I've seen that bit referred to
Speaker 1: as kafka esque, and I can't say I could be
Speaker 1: a little or well into like the retconning of actual history.
Speaker 1: Well it did, it did match up with what was
Speaker 1: actually produced, but but at any rate, um uh so
Speaker 1: it's seeing all of these huge delays um. So much
Speaker 1: so that fossil fuel and chemical groups sued the e
Speaker 1: p A for harm to the market over these delays. Um,
Speaker 1: although getting this proposal out before June one settled that suit.
Speaker 1: Uzzah um. So So this this proposal includes increases of
Speaker 1: the u s S creation of renewable fuels by about
Speaker 1: nine percent by the end of which falls short of
Speaker 1: Congress's mandate for for renewable fuels that year. Um. Basically,
Speaker 1: proponents of the standard are saying that it's not enough,
Speaker 1: and opponents of the standard are saying it's still too much.
Speaker 1: And what does all of this mean. Let's let's back
Speaker 1: up just a wee bit and and discuss what the
Speaker 1: fuss is about these renewable fuels. Yeah, because again, the
Speaker 1: name renewable fuel makes it sound incredibly positive. I mean,
Speaker 1: the fact that we're not relying on a resource that
Speaker 1: is deplenishing over time and will eventually reach a level where,
Speaker 1: because of the amount of energy we need to get
Speaker 1: at it, it will not make sense for us to
Speaker 1: use as a fuel. Sure. I mean, and technically petroleum
Speaker 1: based fuels are renewable, but just they're renewable geologic time scale,
Speaker 1: not a human one. Yeah, so problematic. If you have
Speaker 1: time to sit around for millions of years, not an issue.
Speaker 1: But for those of us mirror mortals that have to
Speaker 1: get around in our day to day lives, we need
Speaker 1: something that's going to be a little more renewable for
Speaker 1: the law term, for us short term, for the galactic
Speaker 1: scale at any rate. Bio fuel, So bio tells you
Speaker 1: a lot about what we're talking about here. It is
Speaker 1: fuel that comes from living things. So sometimes we're talking
Speaker 1: about using living things directly as fuel. Uh and not
Speaker 1: like hamsters or something um, but but usually plants of
Speaker 1: some kind or or algae. Yeah, yeah, for example, I
Speaker 1: mean the simplest form would like you burn, would that's fuel?
Speaker 1: So that would be one way. Or you could also
Speaker 1: look at waste products generated by living things and using
Speaker 1: those waste products as a source of fuel. So there
Speaker 1: are a lot of microbes that will while consuming their food,
Speaker 1: generate stuff that we can use as fuel as a result,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk more about that. And biofuels can be
Speaker 1: in solid liquid or gas form. U solids include refuse
Speaker 1: derived fuel, which is just as pleasant as it sounds
Speaker 1: it's it's fuel that you get from waste. Solid waste.
Speaker 1: You generally want to get as much water out of
Speaker 1: it as possible for it to burn efficiently. Um. And
Speaker 1: you can also use that specifically to make stuff like
Speaker 1: briquettes or pellets. You can make brickettes or pellets out
Speaker 1: of other stuff. Besides, uh, they refuse derived fuel the
Speaker 1: r d F stuff charcoal bricketts as an example, and
Speaker 1: these are really efficient because of their surface area, they're
Speaker 1: they're very efficient at burning, so they're very efficient fuel
Speaker 1: in that sense. Uh. And again they also are designed
Speaker 1: to get as much water out as possible, so they
Speaker 1: burn thoroughly. You can also use sewage treated sewage as fuel,
Speaker 1: right right. You don't want to just get a handful
Speaker 1: of it. Again, you're gonna want to dry it out first.
Speaker 1: Yet things burn less good. Yeah. A lot of these
Speaker 1: things require some form of processing, which shouldn't come as
Speaker 1: any surprise. Oils the same way, so like it's not
Speaker 1: like we pull oil out of the ground and immediately
Speaker 1: put in our cars. Uh. Industrial waste is another example.
Speaker 1: And then the simpler stuff like like would actual would
Speaker 1: being in what the oldest fuel I can think of, UM, Okay,
Speaker 1: so that covers the solids. What about liquids. The two
Speaker 1: big ones are biodiesel and ethanol. And I've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about these in the past, if you've heard me
Speaker 1: talk about them. Uh, these are really interesting and they
Speaker 1: are in use today. It's not like these are unusual products.
Speaker 1: Certainly in many states there's a ethanol requirement. Absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's most most gasoline is a blend of gasoline and ethanol. Uh.
Speaker 1: You also have a lot of places where bio diesel
Speaker 1: is h is on is available, specifically like in the Midwest.
Speaker 1: That tends to be where you really find it. Um.
Speaker 1: And of course there are people who have either converted
Speaker 1: their diesel cars or have purchased an older model diesel
Speaker 1: car who run it on stuff like the grease they
Speaker 1: get from restaurants. This that made the news. Remember back gosh,
Speaker 1: I must have been maybe a few years out of college,
Speaker 1: so shortly after the sun shrunk down to its current size. No, anyway,
Speaker 1: it was one of those moments where I heard you
Speaker 1: can run a car on like restaurant grease. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean you shouldn't. You probably shouldn't try to run
Speaker 1: your car. You don't have a diesel vehicle, definitely don't.
Speaker 1: If you do have a diesel vehicle, still you want
Speaker 1: to look into this, yes, do some research first. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: while your car might smell of delicious French fries, it
Speaker 1: may also not run anymore. Oh man, I just thought
Speaker 1: about like like duck fat powered vehicles and how delicious,
Speaker 1: how hungry you should be Like now, uh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things where, um, there are
Speaker 1: actually a lot of issues that can come into it.
Speaker 1: For example, when the weather gets colder, this stuff can
Speaker 1: ca gel and congeal, which means that it will no
Speaker 1: longer run. It's not liquids anymore. Yeah, it's a gel
Speaker 1: and that is a problem. But uh, you know anyway,
Speaker 1: Biodiesel usually is made in blends, Like you'll get a
Speaker 1: blend of biodiesel B one hundred would be a hundred
Speaker 1: percent biodiesel, B twenty would be twenty biodiesel and diesel.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk more about that in a bit. Ethanol
Speaker 1: is an alternative to gasoline, Like Lawrence said, it's also
Speaker 1: used as an additive in gasoline, So you get gasoline
Speaker 1: blends where it might be ethanol is gasoline. Uh, Ethanol
Speaker 1: is created through the fermentation of sugars or ligno celluloses,
Speaker 1: which is biomass that is woody. It's the woody plant stuff.
Speaker 1: That's that's a much easier thing to say. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's essentially cellulose and lignant associated together. Excellent. So okay,
Speaker 1: those are your two liquids. Okay. So liquids and then gases.
Speaker 1: Gases are typically a byproduct of some other um process,
Speaker 1: So it's not something that you would like. Biogas is
Speaker 1: not something that just is floating around the atmosphere that
Speaker 1: we would capture. Biogas is something that you would get from, uh,
Speaker 1: for example, heating up a biomass to the point where
Speaker 1: it gasifies. So when we talk about plasma waste converters,
Speaker 1: which use a plasma torch in a giant furnace, you
Speaker 1: put waste in there. Non organic waste liquefies and turns
Speaker 1: into slag. Organic waste, anything with carbon in it gasifies
Speaker 1: and turns into gas that can be scrubbed chemically to
Speaker 1: turn into sin gas. That would be very similar to biogas.
Speaker 1: So sin gas, by the way, that stands for synthetic.
Speaker 1: If you couldn't Yeah, it's s y N not I
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's it's not not sinful gas. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: not fueling things based on your sins, right, No, that's
Speaker 1: that's a different type of gas comes from pacobell, different
Speaker 1: type of thing entirely. Oh man, if we could power
Speaker 1: cars from yeah, if we could alright, So anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are the three major formats, and really the the
Speaker 1: one that most people are familiar with because it would
Speaker 1: be the kind that they would come in contact with
Speaker 1: in their daily lives. It would be the liquid versions,
Speaker 1: the biodiesel and ethanol. Um solid and gas are typically
Speaker 1: more associated with like co generation of power for things
Speaker 1: like waste disposal places, incinerators, cement mixing facilities, that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and also coal plants in Europe. There's some
Speaker 1: coal plants in Europe have been used to just instead
Speaker 1: of burning coal, burn these solid fuels, for example, which
Speaker 1: is interesting because of lots of reasons, including the differences
Speaker 1: between how much energy is in one form versus another.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a second. Uh yeah, but
Speaker 1: before we get into that, let's talk about a couple
Speaker 1: of the other reasons why people are interested in in
Speaker 1: making the shift. I mean, aside from the time span
Speaker 1: of renewable that we talked about earlier. Sure, so a
Speaker 1: big one is the carbon output, right, the green reason
Speaker 1: for switching to biofuels reducing that carbon footprint that those
Speaker 1: emissions of carbon dioxide and et cetera that go into
Speaker 1: our air that contribute to climate change. Greenhouse gases in
Speaker 1: general are a big concern. And it is true that
Speaker 1: most biofuels would generate significantly lower levels of carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: while burning the fuel than gasoline or oil. And of
Speaker 1: course they still would produce some amount of carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: because that's generally what happens when you burn stuff. Yep,
Speaker 1: there would be there would be levels, it would just
Speaker 1: be lower. Also, you have to keep in mind, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about this later, that there's more going
Speaker 1: into this than just the burning of the fuel. Right.
Speaker 1: There's the production of the fuel, how you process it,
Speaker 1: how you harvest the biomass, how you grow it, how
Speaker 1: you transport, so all of those things also contribute to
Speaker 1: a carbon footprint. You have to look at the big picture,
Speaker 1: not just what happens when you burn the fuel. And
Speaker 1: that's where things get a little more complex, and we'll
Speaker 1: go into more detail about that in a bit not
Speaker 1: complex at all. That sounds totally easy to sess out. Yeah. Also, um,
Speaker 1: there there's some other reasons why people have been touting
Speaker 1: bio fuels over fossil fuels. Oh sure, well, I mean
Speaker 1: there's the entire political concept of petroleum and all of
Speaker 1: the contentious situations that it can get nations into. Sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the fact that if you live in a nation where
Speaker 1: you're getting a significant amount of your oil from foreign sources,
Speaker 1: it means that your nation is dependent upon those foreign sources.
Speaker 1: And if those foreign sources either decide no longer to
Speaker 1: sell you that oil or sell it at an elevated price,
Speaker 1: or you get into a political conflict, you being your
Speaker 1: country really not not you personally. Like I was on
Speaker 1: the phone own with the entire nation of you know,
Speaker 1: uh Iraq, and as a result, gas is going to
Speaker 1: be really expensive for the next three months. That would
Speaker 1: be Jonathan. What did I tell you about calling around?
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I just I was watching The
Speaker 1: Simpsons and it just seemed like it was so funny
Speaker 1: when Bart would call it MO, and I thought, I
Speaker 1: want to do that. Um No, when I say you,
Speaker 1: I I do mean countries. So if a country comes
Speaker 1: into conflict with another one and they depend upon that
Speaker 1: other country for some of their source of oil. That's
Speaker 1: a problem, it's an it could lead to an energy crisis.
Speaker 1: We've seen this happen in the past multiple times throughout
Speaker 1: the world, not just in the United States. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's the one that Lauren and I are most familiar with.
Speaker 1: Perhaps I'm a little more familiar with Lauren because I
Speaker 1: don't think you were born when the last one really happened,
Speaker 1: but I was not in fact. Yeah, but at any rate,
Speaker 1: the uh, you know, going to bio fuels, you could
Speaker 1: potentially grow all of your fuel at home, so you
Speaker 1: can make it a domestic fuel source rather than a
Speaker 1: foreign fuel source. Even if it just means that you're
Speaker 1: offloading some of your oil needs so that you are
Speaker 1: supplementing them with biofuel, it could mean that that you
Speaker 1: are able to get a little more control over your
Speaker 1: energy needs, and it could improve national security as a result.
Speaker 1: So there is a political motivation for investing in renewable
Speaker 1: sources of fuel. Also renewable energy in general. You'll hear
Speaker 1: that argument used a lot. In renewable energy, whether it's
Speaker 1: geothermal or hydropowered. You know, wind powered, solar powered, whatever
Speaker 1: it may be. That tends to be. One of the
Speaker 1: big arguments is get get off the dependence of foreign oil.
Speaker 1: So those are your big ones also. I mean, depending
Speaker 1: upon the situation, you might be able to produce biofuels
Speaker 1: more cheaply than you would be able to produce or
Speaker 1: purchase oil or gasoline. And so there's a financial incentive
Speaker 1: there form a consumer standpoint point, right, the idea that
Speaker 1: you could buy the same kind of you know, fuel
Speaker 1: that can do the same sort of things is what
Speaker 1: you had depended upon before, but at a lower price. Now,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, that's not true across the board,
Speaker 1: but it could be true in certain cases depending on
Speaker 1: where you are, when it is, and what kind of
Speaker 1: fuel you're you're using, yes, and in the amount of
Speaker 1: mass production that you can squeeze into something. So a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of the discussion about biofuels has
Speaker 1: really been uh fiery. That's like a really bad pun.
Speaker 1: I apologize fantastic for the past. It may be like
Speaker 1: like ten years or so, um, but the idea of
Speaker 1: using biofuels is certainly not new. Right. Yeah, first of all,
Speaker 1: we've got the the ancient ones, you know, fire discovery
Speaker 1: of fire, using wood to make fire, and that's we've
Speaker 1: been using biofuels for ages, sure, and their use in
Speaker 1: motor vehicles is actually pretty ancient too, I mean, like
Speaker 1: as far as motor vehicle history goes. Rudolph Diesel himself
Speaker 1: originally envisioned vegetable oil as a motor fuel, and his
Speaker 1: engine at the nineteen hundred World Exhibition in Paris ran
Speaker 1: on peanut oil probably smelled delicious. Henry Ford also tried
Speaker 1: ethanol with his Model T, and through the kind of
Speaker 1: tight pocket times of the nineties and forties, vegetable oils
Speaker 1: were sometimes used as diesel engine fuel, and then petroleum
Speaker 1: kind of happened. Um, it proved a lot cheaper and
Speaker 1: more efficient than biodiesels, and so they went out. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't until a few things happened in the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties that the US revisited the idea. First off,
Speaker 1: the EPA passed the Clean Air Act in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: and that set new standards for for pollutants and vehicle emissions,
Speaker 1: so that, you know, it became profitable for companies to
Speaker 1: start looking into alternate energy sources. UM. Also, Hey, political
Speaker 1: turmoil in the at least it more than doubled the
Speaker 1: world price of curde oil from nineteen seventy one, like
Speaker 1: fourteen dollars a barrel too, I think like thirty five
Speaker 1: dollars a barrel. Yeah, more than doubling is is bad.
Speaker 1: And and that's what also led to Russia's on gasoline stations.
Speaker 1: You had gasolene shortages. It was a nightmare. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: And and the prices have never returned to those pre
Speaker 1: turmoil points. I think they even doubt. It's something like
Speaker 1: twenty eight uh. Yeah. So so the first International Conference
Speaker 1: on Plant and Vegetable Oils was held in two I
Speaker 1: did not know such a thing had existed. Does It's
Speaker 1: glorious um. And of course since then, further acts from
Speaker 1: the e p A have also driven development of biofuel
Speaker 1: knowledge and technology here in the US and in the
Speaker 1: rest of the world that the interest in biodiesel is
Speaker 1: really booming. Brazil and China are the other two largest
Speaker 1: produced years of bio diesels UM after the United States
Speaker 1: and in India. In two thousand eight, for example, a
Speaker 1: national biofuel policy set the goal of replacing twenty percent
Speaker 1: of the petroleum diesel fuel in the country with biodiesel
Speaker 1: bye when I'm not sure, but they set that goal
Speaker 1: and the European Union produces a whole lot too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually read an interesting report that was obviously published
Speaker 1: in the European Union because of all the figures being
Speaker 1: in euros, which it's a tip off, yeah, made it
Speaker 1: made a little tricky for me to figure out how
Speaker 1: much is that in real money? Uh, of course that's
Speaker 1: just a just just a little little uh joke there.
Speaker 1: I do consider euros to be very real money. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, Um, you know, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of things you have to take into account with bio
Speaker 1: fuels that make it this complicated issue where you can't
Speaker 1: just say, oh, bio fuels are good, fossil fuels are bad,
Speaker 1: let's switch to biofuels, because there are some things you
Speaker 1: have to take into consideration. Some of them may involve
Speaker 1: trade offs. Uh. For example, you might have to say, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to limit our use if we switch
Speaker 1: over to this because of supply issues or the energy
Speaker 1: that is contained within the fuel, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And if you're willing to make that change, then it
Speaker 1: may end up being the right choice full bio steam ahead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there are other issues too that make get even
Speaker 1: more complicated. So first we have to talk about specific
Speaker 1: energy versus energy density. Uh. These are both very important
Speaker 1: concepts as far as energy content is concerned. Now, that's
Speaker 1: the amount of potential energy represented by the fuel. It's
Speaker 1: whatever work you can do by burning that fuel, right,
Speaker 1: because of course, you know, an ounce of of hamster
Speaker 1: and an ounce of wood, are you going to get
Speaker 1: you the same no output? I'm sorry, I'd prove the
Speaker 1: hamsters are not worth their ou stairs for It's just
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about like I'm having these terrible mental
Speaker 1: images of the boiler room on the Titanic shovels full
Speaker 1: of ansters, and it's just the screaming is terrible. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm all right, I'm gonna I'm a bad person. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about specific energy and energy density. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: different fuels provide different amounts of energy for comparable amounts
Speaker 1: or you know, whether you're talking about mass or volume,
Speaker 1: and specific energy is talking about mass. It's the amount
Speaker 1: of potential energy within a fuel per unit of mass
Speaker 1: of that fuel. So if we're using the proper scientific units,
Speaker 1: we would be talking about jewel per kilogram of fuel,
Speaker 1: or more likely kill a jewel of kilogram per kilogram
Speaker 1: of fuel. Energy density refers to the amount of potential
Speaker 1: energy within a fuel per unit of volume, and volume
Speaker 1: and mass are two different things, right, Density plays a
Speaker 1: big part here. So if we're talking about the scientific
Speaker 1: units again, where we'll be talking about jewels per leader
Speaker 1: of fuel. So let's take a look at the energy
Speaker 1: content of bio fuels versus gasoline. This is what I
Speaker 1: gathered this data from lots of different sources. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing is that the data on this stuff can
Speaker 1: vary widely because there are so many different means of
Speaker 1: production and so many different crops, and the types of
Speaker 1: bio fuels you can produce from these different things are
Speaker 1: not all equal. So there's generally a range of what
Speaker 1: these these different fuels, how much energy they represent, um.
Speaker 1: So keep that in mind that any figures we give
Speaker 1: our kind of estimations or ranges. Let's start with gasoline, though,
Speaker 1: because that's the one that you know, we're trying to replace,
Speaker 1: right at least as far as cars go. We can
Speaker 1: talk about oil as well, but I'm specifically referring to
Speaker 1: gasoline gasolenes. Energy content ranges from one twelve thousand, one
Speaker 1: teen to thousand ninety b t use per gallon. And
Speaker 1: I know you're thinking, Hey, you just gave me all
Speaker 1: those scientific units. Why are you saying BTUs per gallon?
Speaker 1: What's a b t u? Who are you? What podcast
Speaker 1: am I listening? Why did gallon suddenly come into the equation? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's because this is the way this particular source
Speaker 1: had worded it. But don't worry, I did some work
Speaker 1: for you. So BTU stands for a British thermal unit,
Speaker 1: And just in case you're curious, one BTU is the
Speaker 1: energy needed to heat one pound of water by one
Speaker 1: degree fahrenheit. Thank you Britain. Yeah, keep in mind that
Speaker 1: a gallon is eight pounds of water. So yea, so
Speaker 1: one pound of water is not a gallon, okay. So
Speaker 1: BTU is equivalent to jewels, So just over a killer jewel? Okay?
Speaker 1: So uh converting gallons to leaders right, Okay, so three
Speaker 1: points blah blah blah leaders per gallon. Okay, I did
Speaker 1: all this. I went to a conversion website because I
Speaker 1: was not trusting my math because once you start getting
Speaker 1: into all this divide and my and my and UM
Speaker 1: and your and your multiplan and stuff, you're no longer
Speaker 1: just adding. I know, you're just just a simple Georgia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I come from simple stock folks, and I'm
Speaker 1: an English literature major at heart. So I I did
Speaker 1: a conversion using a website and it's about thirty two
Speaker 1: jewels per leader. So that's that's gasoline. Okay, what about diesel,
Speaker 1: Because diesel is different, of course than gasoline. It has
Speaker 1: higher energy content than gasoline, which is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why it's being used in these really large vehicles
Speaker 1: because it has much higher energy content. It is around
Speaker 1: one b t use per gallon or going into the
Speaker 1: scientific units, hundred kilo jewels per leader. Now, pure biodiesel
Speaker 1: contains more energy per unit of volume than gasoline, but
Speaker 1: less than diesel. So you've got you've got gasoline and
Speaker 1: d all. Bio diesel is smack dab in between them
Speaker 1: as far as energy content per volume is considered. Okay, um,
Speaker 1: but that is probably in fact why bio diesel is
Speaker 1: frequently blended with diesel, as we mentioned earlier in the podcast, Right,
Speaker 1: so you can blend it with regular diesel, and that's
Speaker 1: when you get something like B twenty, which is the
Speaker 1: bio diesel diesel. This reduces the carbon emissions of diesel
Speaker 1: when you burn it, so there is a benefit there. However,
Speaker 1: it also decreases the energy content. Uh it's got about
Speaker 1: the energy as regular diesel, so close. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: not bad, just slight. It has a d and nine
Speaker 1: percent the energy of of gasoline. But then you don't
Speaker 1: run a diesel engine on gasoline. You should not know,
Speaker 1: don't don't try it. Um, I like that. We're amassing
Speaker 1: a list of things that you don't want to re
Speaker 1: you're normally diesel, biodiesel, peanut oil, hamsters. Right, there's a
Speaker 1: whole list of things. So B one hundred would be
Speaker 1: pure biodiesel. That one has a lower uh energy um
Speaker 1: content than than diesel does. It does still have higher
Speaker 1: than gasoline. It's like a hundred three percent of what
Speaker 1: gasoline has. So it's still better than gasoline is for
Speaker 1: its respective ability to do work, but less even less
Speaker 1: than diesel. And like we said, there's some other issues
Speaker 1: with biodiesel as well. Sure, okay, what about ethanol? Alright,
Speaker 1: ethanol good old corn, gasoline ethanol. Yeah, it's of course,
Speaker 1: corn is the the premier source of ethanol here in
Speaker 1: the United States, partially because of laws that uh, some
Speaker 1: people say are influenced overly by the corn lobbies. Yeah, Iowa,
Speaker 1: we're looking at you. Yeah, you know. But at any rate, yeah,
Speaker 1: mostly made from corn here here in USC and in
Speaker 1: other places like in Brazil it's sugarcane. There are other
Speaker 1: sources as well, And like we said earlier, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of different potential sources for ethanol, and a
Speaker 1: lot of researchers are looking into those to find out
Speaker 1: ones that would be the most advantageous. At any rate,
Speaker 1: ethanol does not have the same energy content as gasoline,
Speaker 1: has about seventy three to three percent of the energy
Speaker 1: of an equivalent amount of gasoline, So gallon to gallon,
Speaker 1: we're talking of the same amount of energy represented there.
Speaker 1: So in other words, if you want to go a
Speaker 1: certain distance, you're gonna need more ethanol to get there
Speaker 1: than you would gasoline. All right. Also, you would probably
Speaker 1: want to have very special fixtures in your engine so
Speaker 1: that your your tubes wouldn't rot away. But but that's
Speaker 1: another issue. So ethanol, like biodiesel tends to be used
Speaker 1: in blends, so E ten would be a blend of
Speaker 1: ten percent ethanol to gasoline. Again, it lowers the carbon
Speaker 1: emissions that you would get if you were just using
Speaker 1: pure gasoline UM and it has about ninety six point
Speaker 1: seven percent of the energy of an equivalent amount of
Speaker 1: pure gasoline. So so it's again a small step down
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of things. If you were to
Speaker 1: look at something like methanol, that's less than half the
Speaker 1: amount of energy content of an equivalent amount of gasoline.
Speaker 1: And you can look at other stuff too, like you
Speaker 1: could look at uh, natural gases things like yeah, or
Speaker 1: or even liquefied gases like um propane. Now, those some
Speaker 1: of those have very high energy content, but I didn't
Speaker 1: really look at those specifically because we were we were
Speaker 1: really focusing on biofuels as opposed to the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that you would sort of siphon off of um
Speaker 1: natural gas like usually we get propane from when we
Speaker 1: do oil mining or natural gas. You know, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: one of the products which can be incredibly useful, but
Speaker 1: not biomass. So maybe maybe if you guys are interested
Speaker 1: in hearing a whole lot of other numbers about fuel types.
Speaker 1: We can do a whole nother podcast about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in fact, it's it's good to look into it
Speaker 1: because it teaches you to really start looking at the
Speaker 1: broader picture and to ask the questions that need to
Speaker 1: be answered before you can just categorically say, oh, here
Speaker 1: is the fuel of the future. Because right, uh, speaking
Speaker 1: of that broader picture, I love that that. Our next
Speaker 1: little bit in the notes here says, here's where it
Speaker 1: gets complicated, as though the rest of this it's just
Speaker 1: been dreamy walk in the pod. Well, I took I
Speaker 1: took a note from stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: You know, here's where it gets crazy. Here's here's where
Speaker 1: it gets complicated. Alright. So, like we said, if it
Speaker 1: were just a question of energy content, you could take
Speaker 1: a look at these things and say, all right, this
Speaker 1: is close enough to gasoline where the difference in performance
Speaker 1: is is insignificant compared Yeah, yeah, it's it's you don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about that, considering the benefit of the
Speaker 1: reduced carbon emission, for example, or so reduced price. But
Speaker 1: but but we have to take that other stuff about
Speaker 1: how it's produced and transported and how an entire industry
Speaker 1: could possibly be formed around those those things. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: biomass or biofuels come from biomass. You have to grow
Speaker 1: that biomass somehow. That means you have to dedicate land
Speaker 1: to growing the fuel stock that you're going to be using,
Speaker 1: whether that's the stuff that you are directly converting into
Speaker 1: fuel or that's the stuff that will be producing whatever
Speaker 1: you use for fuel. Sure, and that's land that might
Speaker 1: otherwise be used to grow food, or to graze cows,
Speaker 1: or to have a really fun state park. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure you know any number of things. Yes, and and
Speaker 1: these are these are real issues. It's not so simple.
Speaker 1: In fact, one of the biggest concerns about biofuels and
Speaker 1: getting behind them is at it could drive food prices
Speaker 1: up because let's say scenario. Let's say that you are
Speaker 1: in a country where there is a strong incentive to
Speaker 1: move towards bio fuels for whatever reason. So you create subsidies,
Speaker 1: tax breaks or actual direct subsidies to farmers to say,
Speaker 1: grow these types of crops for fuel, because we need
Speaker 1: to meet our energy needs for the population, and so
Speaker 1: in order to do that, we have to grow a
Speaker 1: huge amount of fuel stock so that we can convert
Speaker 1: it into fuel and then everyone can drive their cars everywhere.
Speaker 1: And so the farmers say, well, I can make way
Speaker 1: more money taking in these subsidies dedicating this land toward
Speaker 1: growing fuel stock than I ever would growing food. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop growing food. So fewer and fewer farmers
Speaker 1: are growing food. That means that the ones that are
Speaker 1: growing food, that that resource becomes more and more precious
Speaker 1: as a result, because it's more precious and demand supplies lower.
Speaker 1: Demand is equal. Yeah, demand is demand is the same.
Speaker 1: We still got to eat. Then those food prices start
Speaker 1: to go up, and then that could end up being
Speaker 1: a really slippery slope that could lead to some dangerous
Speaker 1: consequences down the road. Sure, I mean, and especially in
Speaker 1: countries that are perhaps less lucky than the United States
Speaker 1: and having less land mass to work with. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So this is one of those things. And we have
Speaker 1: seen this happen specifically in Iowa, where we've seen corn
Speaker 1: prices change because of the fuel. So now that's not
Speaker 1: to say that there aren't ways to work around this
Speaker 1: and solve this issue. It's it's just, at least in
Speaker 1: the short term, it tends to have this thing where
Speaker 1: we have the unintended consequences come out, right, So that's
Speaker 1: a big part of it, is uh is the food
Speaker 1: prices also, Again, depending on how you're making this stuff,
Speaker 1: how you are growing it and maybe you're using fertilizer,
Speaker 1: how you harvest it, how you process it, all of
Speaker 1: that has a carbon footprint, right, So you have to
Speaker 1: start looking at the collective picture out of all the
Speaker 1: stuff that goes into producing this fuel, how much carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide are you producing? If it's if it's getting close
Speaker 1: to what we're doing with fossil fuels, then it's harder
Speaker 1: to make the argument that it's greener, especially since a
Speaker 1: lot of biofuels also produce things like sulfur dioxide, which
Speaker 1: can lead to acidification of water supplies, acid rain, that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Um Plus, if you're using fertilizers, pesticides
Speaker 1: or besides that kind of stuff in order to grow
Speaker 1: your fuel stocks, rain could wash that into the water table.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, that of course has an impact on
Speaker 1: the overall environment as well. Yeah, I mean they're there
Speaker 1: are folks in northern Louisiana who say that the reason
Speaker 1: why there's a dead zone there is because of the
Speaker 1: runoff from Iowa from the corn fields. So, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things that it's it's a
Speaker 1: real impact, it's and it's again something that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily first associate with biofuel because you're looking at a
Speaker 1: different part of the equation. But you've got to look
Speaker 1: at the big picture, um, and then you know, you
Speaker 1: also have to figure out with the energy density doesn't
Speaker 1: make actual sense based upon your needs, how much of
Speaker 1: the biomass are you're going to have to grow to
Speaker 1: meet the same needs as what you're being able to
Speaker 1: fulfill using fossil fuels. Right If if you're only getting
Speaker 1: i mean even a reasonable like ninety six point seven
Speaker 1: percent of the energy out of this stuff, at what
Speaker 1: point I mean, I mean you know you have to
Speaker 1: really do the math and go like is it worth it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Exactly if if your if your net energy is lower
Speaker 1: than what you put into it, then that's bad. We
Speaker 1: talked about this with fusion. I was just about to say, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: same sort of thing, which totally works, it just doesn't work. Well, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's exactly the problem. We can we can get a
Speaker 1: fusion reaction going, we can even get more energy out
Speaker 1: of the reaction than we put into it. Finally, it
Speaker 1: took years for us to be able to get there,
Speaker 1: but we still it consume enough of the fuel for
Speaker 1: it to be worth our while to make that an
Speaker 1: energy source. Right now, there's still we have people working
Speaker 1: on it to to advance the science to the point
Speaker 1: and technology to a point where we can rely on fusion.
Speaker 1: But the same sort of thing with biofuels, right like,
Speaker 1: if you are pouring so much energy to produce the
Speaker 1: fuel that it's more than what is represented by the
Speaker 1: fuel itself, that's a losing proposition. And you look at
Speaker 1: it by creating a ratio and that energy ratio and
Speaker 1: that is essentially a number, and as long as the
Speaker 1: number is above one, you're getting more energy out than
Speaker 1: you were putting in. And uh that's important. So gasoline
Speaker 1: is way ahead of the game on this, like depending
Speaker 1: upon uh, you know, depending upon how oil supplies are
Speaker 1: at any given time and how you're getting the oil.
Speaker 1: You're looking at around fifteen, a number of fifteen, which
Speaker 1: is that's much higher than for most biofuels. You're looking
Speaker 1: at maybe one point three to two. Some of them
Speaker 1: go a little higher than that. And also, again, like
Speaker 1: I said, it depends on how you get the oil.
Speaker 1: If you're getting your oil from oil sands, that's closer
Speaker 1: to a five for the oil, so much lower than
Speaker 1: what you know gasoline would typically be. And it also
Speaker 1: has a greater negative environmental impact, so your your environmental
Speaker 1: impact per unit of oil is much greater that way.
Speaker 1: So you gotta take all of this into consideration. That's
Speaker 1: why I said, here's where it gets complicated. So other
Speaker 1: things you have to think about. What if you were
Speaker 1: to look at a different means of creating your biofuels.
Speaker 1: So instead of going out and planting corn as just
Speaker 1: that's just for biofuel, what if you were to plant
Speaker 1: the corn as a food crop, but then you are
Speaker 1: converting all the rest of the stuff, the husks and
Speaker 1: the stalks, Yeah, all the things that normally you would
Speaker 1: not you just have to throw that away because it's
Speaker 1: not edible. What if you were to convert that into fuel?
Speaker 1: Those are the questions people are asking now, like, how
Speaker 1: can we double up so that it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a co generation that we're generating food and fuel at
Speaker 1: the same time. Thus, that way we could perhaps get
Speaker 1: around this issue of driving up food prices while still
Speaker 1: meeting some of our fuel needs. Uh. Yeah, the the
Speaker 1: e p A is calling those types of fuels advanced biofuels,
Speaker 1: and they they're also including that category stuff like like
Speaker 1: a restaurant waste from your grease traps and in any
Speaker 1: kind of fryer situation or anything like that. So uh
Speaker 1: And and actually the e p A in that new
Speaker 1: proposal of their's recommended a twenty seven percent increase in
Speaker 1: those types of biofuels in the next few years. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's good that we have people looking
Speaker 1: ahead on these issues because again, oversimplification is just going
Speaker 1: to end up causing bigger problems down the road. So
Speaker 1: we have to take this stuff into into account. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the economics that's important too, right, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not just the environmental impact, it's not just an energy
Speaker 1: it's all of these things. Sure, sure, I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's it's nice to it. It's more heartwarming to think
Speaker 1: about the environmental impact, but you have to think about
Speaker 1: the money too, of course. Yeah. Yeah, because if it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where you know it's it's going
Speaker 1: to be demonstrably much more expensive to go from fossil
Speaker 1: fuel to bio fuel. It's a lot harder to do.
Speaker 1: I mean it it could mean harder to convince scientists
Speaker 1: to do the research because there's no money in it.
Speaker 1: It's hard to convince farmers to make it happen because
Speaker 1: there's no money. It's it's harder to convince consumers that, hey,
Speaker 1: it's okay that that fuel prices have gone up a
Speaker 1: dollar a gallon because the fuel is different now. It's uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's tough. It's not easy, and
Speaker 1: that's you know, it doesn't mean that it's not worth doing.
Speaker 1: I always want to point that out, Like I like
Speaker 1: to address the challenges not as a means of discouraging people,
Speaker 1: but rather as acknowledging the things that we have to
Speaker 1: take into account to overcome in order to reach that
Speaker 1: future that we want to get to. So I don't
Speaker 1: want everyone to think I'm being super debby downer. I
Speaker 1: just want I just want to be realistic and and
Speaker 1: and it may mean that some biofuels make a great
Speaker 1: sense for us to invest in, and other biofuels might
Speaker 1: be more dangerous. I mean, we haven't even really talked
Speaker 1: about it. But another potential downfall with going with biofuels
Speaker 1: is that it could create an incentive to create more deforestation,
Speaker 1: to clear outland to grow fuel stock, and and forests
Speaker 1: are a great carbon sink, whereas biomass biomass is good.
Speaker 1: I mean the idea being as long as you're growing
Speaker 1: the same amount as you're using, then you're staying carbon neutral.
Speaker 1: But that's an assumption, right that one that you're able
Speaker 1: to do that, and to that you know you do
Speaker 1: do it, not just the dable, but you actually do it.
Speaker 1: And uh, of course bio fuels would also be subject
Speaker 1: to things like drought or flooding, stuff that would anything
Speaker 1: that could affect food crops could affect fuel crops as well.
Speaker 1: So and since we don't have weather control quite working yet,
Speaker 1: Cobra commander has not cracked that egg yet. Commander, you
Speaker 1: are slacking. You tried so many times and yet we
Speaker 1: don't have weather control. Work it out, man, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: obviously that would be a real that would be a
Speaker 1: huge issue with national security. I mean, you could say, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're producing our fuel within our borders, but if you
Speaker 1: have a really awful drought in the same region as
Speaker 1: where you're growing most of your fuel. That's a nationwide shortage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's a huge problem. And it's not the kind
Speaker 1: of problem that you know, if if you have a
Speaker 1: pumpkin shortage one year and all of a sudden, Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: is a few bucks more expensive for everybody, that's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's annoying. I'm not going to say I'm not annoyed
Speaker 1: by my pupkin pie costing more. But that's why I
Speaker 1: had to swim which to carving squash for Halloween for
Speaker 1: like two years straight. It was tough. Yeah, those those
Speaker 1: butternuts are difficult to work with. Yeah, they just topple
Speaker 1: over and yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't like to
Speaker 1: think about it. It's coming from a place that it's
Speaker 1: all full of pains. Let's move on. But let's talk
Speaker 1: about the future of bio fuels. You know, we've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about the the various issues that are there,
Speaker 1: and I mean, it gets even more complicated than that.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to kind of lay out sort of
Speaker 1: the the big issues surrounding bio fuels to explain why
Speaker 1: this this has you know, been one of those things
Speaker 1: that has taken years and years and years too kind
Speaker 1: of adopt because it's not as cut and dry as
Speaker 1: you would first think. The nice thing to note is
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of researchers working very hard
Speaker 1: to make bio fuels a more viable alternative to fossil
Speaker 1: fuels in the future. In fourteen, I read about a
Speaker 1: pair of studies actually that were both published in Science
Speaker 1: at the same time. Uh, and then one of them
Speaker 1: there was some Danish scientists who were using genetically modified
Speaker 1: yeast to produce biofuel in a more efficient way than
Speaker 1: previous methods. Yeah, go yeast. Yeah, they're specifically created. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can guess because they're using yeast. So biofuel would
Speaker 1: probably be ethanol, which is a type of alcohol. So
Speaker 1: you know, yeast being using yeast to ferment sugars and
Speaker 1: alcohol not that's something that we that a lot of
Speaker 1: us have heard a lot about. That's that's something that
Speaker 1: makes both beer, bread and wine, I believe. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not, you're not, because, yeah, you've got to have
Speaker 1: something to to convert the sugars into the alcohol and
Speaker 1: the fermentation process, and yeast typically is that thing. So yeast,
Speaker 1: you've got this organism that's able to process sugars and uh,
Speaker 1: it ferments them, creates the alcohol it excretes um. Yeah, alcohol,
Speaker 1: it's essentially pooping out alcohol. But yeah, the the problem them,
Speaker 1: the problem that they are running into, or one of
Speaker 1: the limitations they were running into, is that the the
Speaker 1: ideal operating temperatures to produce ethanol were higher than what
Speaker 1: the yeast could tolerate. So if the yeast could just
Speaker 1: tolerate a little bit more heat, they could produce ethanol
Speaker 1: on a much more efficient rate. Hence stage genetic modification. Yes,
Speaker 1: they were able to identify a single gene and change
Speaker 1: it and they were able to have the yeast tolerate
Speaker 1: much higher temperatures. And so, uh, folks at m I
Speaker 1: T think that with some improvements to this method that
Speaker 1: was first revealed in two thousand and fourteen, there could
Speaker 1: be an increase in ethanol production efficiency by eighty percent,
Speaker 1: so almost doubling the efficiency. And now you're really talking
Speaker 1: about like, well, yeah, the ethanol we talked about earlier
Speaker 1: has lower energy content than gasoline. But if you're able
Speaker 1: to produce it efficiently enough so that you can balance
Speaker 1: out that and you know, take other factors into consideration
Speaker 1: as well, it also may mean lowering the price of ethanol.
Speaker 1: Then that could be huge, so that could be the
Speaker 1: bust it needs. There's also been a lot of talk
Speaker 1: about using algae, various types of algae to process or
Speaker 1: or create bio fuels, very attractive, especially since there are
Speaker 1: large areas that we could harvest tons of algae. I
Speaker 1: even saw one guy who suggested an interesting proposal in
Speaker 1: which you would have algae harvesting ships running on nuclear
Speaker 1: power and using the nuclear power to gasify the algae
Speaker 1: to turn it into biocas. Uh So, instead of using
Speaker 1: nuclear power to just generate electricity the way the Navy
Speaker 1: uses shap power, these would actually have bio gas furnaces
Speaker 1: essentially you know, burning or not technically burning, but heating up,
Speaker 1: heating up biomass to the point of gasification, making warm
Speaker 1: to create that sin gas we're talking about. So cool.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting idea, although if you've listened to our
Speaker 1: episode on nuclear power, yes, also tricky. There's a there's
Speaker 1: a lot more mathematical like work to do, and something
Speaker 1: out whether that's a really good idea. Yeah, So go
Speaker 1: back and listen to our episode on nuclear power to
Speaker 1: learn more about about that series of pitfalls. Uh, and
Speaker 1: there's also a research about turning those agricultural by products
Speaker 1: I was talking about earlier into fuels. So the idea
Speaker 1: of being making more efficient use of plants so that
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have to sacrifice food crops for
Speaker 1: fuel crops. We can do we can use both for
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's just we used all the non
Speaker 1: edible parts of the plant to make our fuel. Again,
Speaker 1: whether or not you could produce enough to serve your
Speaker 1: entire country's needs would depend largely on a country by
Speaker 1: country basis um and Uh, it might mean that even
Speaker 1: if we switched to bio fuels that some countries would
Speaker 1: have to import a lot of that fuel. So it
Speaker 1: wouldn't change things dramatically for for everyone across the board
Speaker 1: all the time in all cases. But it's really nifty
Speaker 1: that we're working on ways to work that out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that the carbon emissions would drop dramatically. Keep in
Speaker 1: mind that the issues that we have with the emissions
Speaker 1: are that with fossil fuels, you get a lot of carbon,
Speaker 1: which has a global effect in climate change largely. Biofuels
Speaker 1: don't have as big of a global impact. They don't
Speaker 1: they do not emit as much carbon when you burn them. However,
Speaker 1: they do have a much more localized impact like that
Speaker 1: acidification I was talking about earlier. There are also some
Speaker 1: concerns that it could be releasing various types of nitrogen
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere, of nitrous oxides into the atmosphere that
Speaker 1: could lead to ozone depletion. So yeah, there's some still
Speaker 1: very localized but but not good. Um. Yeah, so they're
Speaker 1: you know, they're trade offs that you have to really
Speaker 1: take into consideration before you you make this change. But really,
Speaker 1: what I think, you know, obviously, what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: drive home here is that anytime we talk about energy concerns,
Speaker 1: it's very important to look at the big picture and
Speaker 1: to really look at how each element can affect us
Speaker 1: and decide whether that actually is a logical step or
Speaker 1: that maybe that's maybe we need to look at other alternatives,
Speaker 1: because once you really commit to one of these, it
Speaker 1: could be you know, you could be set on that path.
Speaker 1: It might not be easy for you to get off
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, and then you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like we are right now with petroleum. We have an
Speaker 1: infrastructure and an economy that's more than a century old
Speaker 1: and it's really hard to switch off of it, even
Speaker 1: when you know the downside. Yeah. Yeah, and we we've
Speaker 1: talked about that when we've talked about electric vehicles and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, where you know, and and that is
Speaker 1: starting to change, which is fabulous. As more car companies
Speaker 1: are producing more vehicles with electric motor we are seeing
Speaker 1: that infrastructure slowly being built up. Yeah, and and hopefully
Speaker 1: that will ultimately lead to a more environmentally friendly means
Speaker 1: of us getting around as well as long as long
Speaker 1: as we also make that investment in the generation of electricity. Sure,
Speaker 1: because as we have said when we've discussed this before,
Speaker 1: if you're just burning coal to take that, make the
Speaker 1: electricity so that your car goes room room or I
Speaker 1: guess not room room, because it doesn't make that noise.
Speaker 1: Just that's exactly the sound of makes. There's a little
Speaker 1: chirp and then nothing. Uh So. Yeah. Obviously, big picture thinkers,
Speaker 1: that's what we like to promote here on forward thinking,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of our listeners are that
Speaker 1: way too. They realize that because we get your feedback,
Speaker 1: we get your your points where you you say, you know,
Speaker 1: you're looking at something very specifically and often that's because
Speaker 1: we're focusing on a particular point. But we do want
Speaker 1: to stress that it's always good to take that thats
Speaker 1: eye view to really see, you know, what are the
Speaker 1: implications of this beyond just the the immediate carbon emissions.
Speaker 1: So this was fun. I mean it was fun in
Speaker 1: a sense of here's a whole bunch of data about energy, y'all.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I love talking about this because it's
Speaker 1: really important and it's something that I really believe we
Speaker 1: need to look closely into. So but I want to
Speaker 1: hear more about what our listeners think. Ah Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they can in fact get in touch with us to
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, there are a couple of ways you can.
Speaker 1: You can write us. There's an email address it's FW
Speaker 1: thinking at how Stuff Works dot com. Or you can
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