The True Purpose of Capitalism

Only a very small fraction of the carbon taken from the air ends up in the alcohol. NO MINERALS are taken from the soil in the alcohol produced.

Although some of the cane (roots and very low stalk) does get plowed under, it is the crushed cane that passes thur a cow enriches the soil.

(Some is burned to produce energy - more evidence that it is a net positive energy source. If it were negative source as you falsely claim, then one would not burn not the crushed cane. I.e. if it takes three Joules of oil to produce two Joules of combustion energy in alcohol and cane, only a fool would burn the cain for generation of crushing power steam and electricity at the larger plants. There have been serious proposal to grow trees in US for small electric power plants near the forests, but that I doubt will be significant net energy, but it does capture solar energy economically, as growing cane does.)

Brazil exports a lot of beef (may be world leader, often is, but have not seen recent data). Good agriculture policy has crop rotation, and of course this helps enrich the soil. Brazil uses a lot of fertilizer, but mainly for food crops, like soybeans etc. Producing cain in alternation with cows feeding on grass that was in earlier years a sugar cain field ENRICHES THE SOIL. It is partially why (good rains, cheap farm labor etc also help) Brazil can produce food (including sugar from cain) cheaper than most countries. US coustomers are denyed this low cost food by tarrifs and quotas. - For example, the cost of your glass of orange juice could be half what you, in US, pay for it; but GWB's brother is gov. of Florida and would lose a lot of campain funds if Florida's orange juice industry went belly up. - Florida even has a state tax/duty on Brazilain OJ to suppress imports further than the federal one, which if menory serves is $1008/ ton.)

I will not comment in detail on rest your long post (did not even read the end part) as it all seems to be founded on the error.* I.e. assuming that alcohol from sugar cane is not a net energy yield.

The quickest way to refute this error, is to note the great reduction in oil reqirements that many cars now driving on 100% alcohol has achieved. Brazil is now a net exporter of oil, thanks in large part to the positive energy contribution of sugar cain alcohol to Brazil's energy needs (Petrobras has found more oil and this also helped, but without 100% alcohol powered cars, Brazil would still be an importer of oil.)!

If there were even the slightest truth to your basic assumption, then the more Brazilian cars that are converted to run on alcohol, the more oil Brazil would need to import.

You are slowly begining to realize that the old reports you have read showing alcohol production is a net negative energy source apply ONLY to when it is done in the US from fertilizer intensive corn. (More recent ones - see footnote below- show even in US it is positive net energy.) It is obvious that it is a positive source when done in Brazil and has reduce Brazil's need to import energy to extent that Brazil now exports energy! Get real.
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*Ethanol Energetics
Is there a net energy gain?
35% if ethanol produced from grain
50-60% if ethanol produced from
grain and cellulosic biomass
Compare to 85% energy gain when liquid
fuels derived from petroleum
Meiliang Wu, Argonne Lab

From slide 12 of:
http://fairway.ecn.purdue.edu/~lorre/16/research/Biofuels-research-at-Purdue-feb-22-06.pdf

I might note that this for the US. In Brazil, this solar genergy system is much more efficient and has much greater POSITIVE ENERGY YIELD.

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I find that capitalism isn't very friendly to those less fortunate then it is.

 

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Billy T seems to be right on this one...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060224/sc_nm/bizfeature_energy_ethanol_dc

 

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Well, you meant to say "no minerals are left in the well distilled alcohol". Yes, it's true. But what about mash, ashes, inevitable soil erosion?

I thought some part of cane are burnt to produce energy? Mash could be fed to cows if there are cows nearby, that's true. You seems to be a city guy and know/heard about agriculture and alcohol production little bit of something theoretically. I tell you some practical things, if you'll care to read

First, use your power of imagination

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, imagine a cow eating a grass on the area of 4 square meters and making relatively small hip of dung covering much lesser area. If cow is kept confined, its shit composted and then spreaded, nothing will change principally. Compost can be spreaded onto significantly lesser area than the area it took to feed cows. The rest of the land must wait, sometimes for 5-10 years. Now imagine all that sun, wind and rain, nutrient flowing into nearby river together with top soil, evaporating, or being blown away to the nearest wooded area or ravine. Imagine what is actually returned to soil. Imagine no mineral fertilizers are available.

Second part is hard to imagine. I'll describe. Not all processed mash can be fed to cows or even composted, it must be discarded into waste holding ponds where it's being sedimented and eventually buried for future generations to take care of. Gosh, the stench of those ponds is impossible to describe. And yes, digging and periodic cleaning networks of those ponds doesn't take any fossil energy either

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The second part is kind of obsolete. The age of civilization saving enzymes has come. So if old fashioned waste ponds just stunk, but trees and grass were growing around. Enzyme enriched waste produces lifeless moonscape + stench.

Last part, but not the least. Only mild starvation can force animals to eat enzyme treated mash. The longer it's stored the hungrier animals should be to eat it. The taste of the flesh of the enzyme mash fed animals is very distinct in the bad sense. I'm not going to speculate about possible health issues connecting with consuming it. It quite could be beneficial.

Let's assume, alcohol is an energy champion, still substituting fossils with alcohol will require enormous amount of land = less land to grow food + increasing population. Modern agriculture is unsubstainable independently whether it's powered by diesel or alchohol. To doom future generations (if any) to life on the edge starvation so that we could drag our asses to our overall meaningless jobs and megastores is immoral.

 

you may burn just about anything dry and organic, it will produce energy. It just happened by chance or design (whatever makes you happy) that combined energy of the atoms in a CO2 and H2O molecules is lower than that of the corresponding atoms in any known organic compound . And, according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, all spontaneous processes are going in the direction of energy dispersal. Our flesh doesnt burn (fast) only because energy activation barriers slow down the action of the cursed law. There are some stories of spontaneous human combustions though. Not sure if they can be trusted.

With all due respect, burning cane economically is possible only because Brazil has an abundance of the cheap and desperate labor to cut and dry all that cane under hot sun. I see great future there, an army of untouchables working on the energy of sun are producing precious liquid for the few to enjoy rides.

the rate of capture is very slow to have any significance for the Earth populated by 7 billions of souls. It's imbecility (from a common not financial point of view) to plow American plains and plant it with corn to feed it mostly to cows, which could happily eat all those grasses unplowed plains produced with the same (except being slower and healthier) result.

LOL, destroying jungles to create unsustainble pastures, to export meat to already fat westerners paying funny money for it is not only DUMB it's criminal.

Since I last time heard, it takes years for soil to recuperate after a season or few of sugar cane growing. Grasses do restore fertility but it takes hundreds of years. Only certain grasses can produce more meaningful in human life term results. Is alfalfa being sown over old sugar cane fields? About cows contribution to fertility I've already said above.

 

I doubt there are such cars even in brazil. small amount of gas is being added to fuel.

Did you compare the increase in oil output with an increase in oil export, or you just get exited cause it makes you happy?

To get over with an argument, let's just wait and see. Let oil prices to increase significantly, which would lead to significant decrease of the direct and indirect oil contributions to the alcohol production. Sure, Brazil has an army of poors to offset some of the unpleasant consequences, but manual labor cannot compensate for everything. If after significant oil prices hike, Brazil transportation patterns will be preserved for all its citizens (not just fat cats) for a decade or so we have some grounds to discuss its sustainability. So far, it's an argument of a believer and a sceptic.

I could write another laundry sheet giving the possible reasons, which you would not read, but let's just wait and see.

 

*cough

Can fungi trim the gasoline habit?
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Souped-up microscopic fungi could help cut the U.S. gasoline habit by converting a billion tons of agricultural waste into domestic fuel, while also slashing greenhouse gas emissions.


As if that isn't enough, the concept has the blessing of the president -- an ex-oilman.

On a tour of the Midwest this week, President George W. Bush reiterated that he wants to wean the United States off its "addiction" to imported oil, partly by funding research into new methods of producing ethanol -- a fuel currently made in North America mostly from corn kernels and in Brazil from sugar cane juice.

Filamentous fungi and other microbes can be bred to break down an array of feedstocks, including wood chips, corn stalks and switch grass, that require no fertilizer and less input than traditional sources of the fuel."

 

Not true. In fact just the opposite is true. All gas in Brazil is "high test" - "Regular" does not exist. Normally 25% of "gasoline" is alcohol, and that makes if very "high test." Currently sugar* is at historically high prices, at least twice the average price of the last decade.

Because Brazil wants to increase its exports (despite already running at historically high trade surplus) and develop more cane fields, alcohol production facilities (has about 300 plants now with 30 more in late stages of construction and 40 more beginning.) it has been exporting more alcohol (and sugar) each year. This exporting combined with with fact that until a few weeks ago, all cars that can (about 60 or 70% of all cars on roads) were using 100% alcohol as it was cheaper than gas / mile of use has made the price at the pump of alcohol rapidly climb. - At least a 30% increase this in 2006 thus far! In fact last two times I filled my tank in Sao Paulo, the per mile cost was essentially the same, so for first time in life of car, I put gas in the the flex fuel car that has previously used only 100% pure alcohol (except for about 1 second when it is started - there is a small separate tank for gasoline. I guess that tank holds about a gallon. I forget to fill it up once or twice each year and then it is a little harder to start the car. I never have understood why this is true - my knowledge of relative volitivity tells me just the opposite should be true, but it is not.) I did feel a little guilty after putting gas in my car because Sao Paulo is a city with pollution problems.

Because this is an election year (voting inOct for president and most others) the government has dropped the percentage of alcohol in gasoline down to only 20% and placed a lot of burcratic delays on exporting alcohol, about 3 weeks ago. This will probably revert back to normal in a few weeks more when the peak of the current cane crop begins to come to the alcohol production facilities. (The "end of summer" crop is the biggest annual one and in this hemisphere, summer should end soon - I hope - has been too hot rainy for me to work on my house much.)

CNN (international at least) had great 30 minute program on alcohol (and energy in general to some extent.) It was called "We were warned - tomorrow's energy crises." Set in year 2009, after a terrorist attack (on oil refinery -I think - I missed the start of show.) and then a hurricane like Katrina, cut backs oil production in Gulf of Mexico. (Venezuela could do much more than this to US any time it wants to.) It traces the disaster unfolding in US economy, month by month. By end of year, there were very few cars on the roads, and total economic collapse, just as I have been posting here for more than a year, but it happened much faster than I projected, as I did not consider any production interruptions as CNN did. I just considered the continuation of current trends, so my total collapse of US economy is extends over several years, not compressed into less than one.

Thread is about "free market" purpose. Unfortunately, that is to make a buck, if not now, very soon. As CNN said, "we were warned" but we did not listen. Instead, US kept gasoline prices low, compared to Europe/ Japan/China, etc. US built an infrastructure on cheap gas (Suburban sprawl, big cars, poor public transport, decaying central cities, little local food production, etc.) and will pay the price soon, by economic collapse, before oil is $150/ barrel.

Again your "facts" are simply wrong. As stated in the CNN program, Brazil became "energy self sufficient" a net exporter of oil BECAUSE OF ALCOHOL.

In the oil crises of 1973, Brazil's government was a military dictatorship, which decreed that Brazil will convert to alcohol. It took about 30 years (three times as long as the dictatorship lasted) to make the conversion nearly complete (80% of all cars now sold can run on 100% alcohol - It would be near 100%, but Brazil has many very rich people who drive imported cars costing more than $50,000.) - You have it just backwards; It is the "fat cats" who drive on gas! The average guy can not afford to do so, and as alcohol is now almost as expensive as gas, the average guy is unhappy, because just a year ago, alcohol was approximately only half as costly / mile as gasoline. The government, in an election year, is now taking measures (but not price controls or subsidities) to return to normal. - I.e. alcohol much cheaper than gas.

Both gasoline and alcohol production do require some energy use to produce the fuel you put in your car. Because oil typically comes from a very distant place, and must be thermally processed at the refinery and then delivered 100s of miles on average from refiner to your gas station, approximately 15% of the energy in the oil coming out of the ground is lost in the delivery and production of gasoline at your gas station pump. The total transport of alcohol is at most 100 miles, on average, as there are at least an order of magnitude more alcohol production facilities in smaller Brazil than refineries in US. (I do not know how many refineries US has, but soon Brazil will have about 400 alcohol plants.)

These alcohol production plants are typically surrounded by cane fields, extending in all directions to beyond the horizon! The heat required for distillation always comes from burning the crushed cane, unlike the heat need at an oil refinery. There is much more heating potential in the crushed cane than required. The larger plants are also small electric generation facilities, the smaller ones typically deliver the crushed can back to the farmers and they feed it to cows and pigs. This is a very low fossil fuel requirement system. Instead of 15% used to make and distribution gas, about 1.5% of the alcohol energy produced is currently fossil fuel (diesel for trucks) requirement. BTW, cane is a grass. Grass grows on very poor soil. No need to fertilize, but I can not say none is used as some small usage may boost yield and be profitable. The alcohol industry is completely free of government support (very different from Iowa's corn based alcohol system) and unfortunately for me, free to sell sugar instead of alcohol if that gives more profit.

The KwH of electricity produced by burning cane at larger alcohol production plants is much greater that the total energy content of the fossil fuel CURRENTLY required to produce alcohol energy! (and of course only about 1/3 of the energy in oil can end up as electric energy. These trucks could convert to alcohol to make it a zero fossil fuel system!) You argument is so wrong it is amusing! Get some facts. Watch the CNN program, if it is shown in the US.
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*This is true of almost all commodities: copper has more than tripled, iron ore doubled, oil more than doubled, etc. even grains are strongly up, but farmers can increase production more rapidly than new mines can increase the supply of metals and grains do not store as well or as cheaply as copper etc, so grains have not doubled in price.) Part of the rapid rise in commodity prices is of course the Chinese economy is rapidly growing, but speculators are playing their part also in commodities that store easily. For example most studies show that current oil production is adequate to supply all current demands. If there is any CURRENT problem, it is with refinery capacity and the gasoline supply is "tight." Speculators are able to drive up the price of oil, and have done so, even though they take only a small fraction from the market into storage (Including storing it in the ground/well - limiting production until the price is higher.

 

Any links showing how the production is increasing...?

 

Does "capitalism" realy have a precise meaning, or is it an attitude?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

Etymology

The word capital has roots in the trade and ownership of animals. The Latin root of the word is capitalis, from the proto-Indo-European kaput, which means "head", this being how wealth was measured. The more heads of cattle, the better. The terms chattel (meaning goods, animals, or slaves) and even cattle itself also derive from this same origin.

The lexical connections between animal trade and economics can also be seen in the names of many currencies and words about money: fee (faihu), rupee (rupya), buck (a deerskin), pecuniary (pecu), stock (livestock), and peso (pecu or pashu) all derive from animal-trade origins.
The first known use of the word "capitalism", if not yet in our sense, was by novelist William Thackeray in 1854
Enlarge
The first known use of the word "capitalism", if not yet in our sense, was by novelist William Thackeray in 1854

The first use of the word Kapitalist was in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels; however, "Kapitalismus," the german word for "capitalism" was not used. The first use of the word capitalism is by novelist Thackeray in 1854, by which he meant ownership of a large amount of capital, not a system of production.

In 1867 Proudhon used the term capitalist to refer to owners of capital, and Marx and Engels refer to the "capitalist form of production" ("kapitalistische Produktionsform") and in Das Kapital to "Kapitalist", "capitalist" (meaning a private owner of capital). However, the first person to use the word "capitalism" as it is commonly used today was Werner Sombart in his Modern Capitalism in 1902. Max Weber, a close friend and colleage of Sombart's, used the term in his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1904.

The Oxford English Dictionary cites the use of the term "private capitalism" by Karl Daniel Adolf Douai, German-American socialist and abolitionist in the late 19th century, in an 1877 work entitled "Better Times", and a citation by an unknown author in 1884 in the pages of Pall Mall magazine.

The definition of capitalism given in dictionaries has changed over time. For example, the 1909 Century Dictionary defined capitalism as:

1. The state of having capital or property; possession of capital.
2. The concentration or massing of capital in the hands of a few; also, the power or influence of large or combined capital.

The contemporary definition, however, probably influenced by the philosophical and ideological debates of the 19th century, refers to an economic system (as Sombart and Weber did). For example, the Merriam-Webster Third International Unabridged Dictionary refers to capitalism as: " an economic system characterized by private or corporation ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision rather than by state control, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly in a free market"

 

Capitolism is the only genuine and absolute (really) government that exists.

 

The typical view of history is that, as feudal estates collapsed, nation states arose and we entered the era of not "capitalism" but "mercantilism." It wasn't until the Scottish enlightenment that things started to change (most famously with Adam Smith in 1776).

The system in which people lived behind the walls and sought protection there...that was feudal (except it was the local lord who "protected" them, not the king). The protection as often as not consisted of protecting the citizenry from knights--mostly from the lord's own knights. It depends on where you look, but in England and, castle walls were not designed to protect the people from bandits, but the rulers from people. When the Norman Invasion was over, it's not beneficence that led to the great boom in castle building in Britain...it was to consolidate King William's power over the people who lived near the castles.

There were proto-entrepreneurs at the end, but one needed a license from the king to practice most trades, because the guild system was largely dismantled by kings looking to control trade.

That said, if you can find a libertarian non-corporatist version of capitalism that you think would work, the precise details of the history need not dissuade you.

 

Kings do not exist any longer. Monarchs and others are really on the rise with the recent rape and molestation on glaucon.

Capitolism has its roots in fact and truth instead of history and buisness corperation.