[Diy_efi] Is E85 worth it?

[Adam Wade]

--- WSCowell at aol.com wrote:

> ...is being released back into the atmosphere as
> CO2.  In that form, in that place, it is damaging.

As far as we know from the mass-media sources.  I'll
admit there are a few (very few!) studies that
indicate we need to look deeper at how things are
changing with our use of fossil fuels.  It remains a
fact, however, that humans are only responsible for
about 5% of the carbon released into the environment
on a yearly basis, and that the earth has seen much
higher levels of greehouse gases, especially CO2, in
times past from strictly natural sources.  I remain
unconvinced that there is an impending crisis, at
least byt the "evidence" commonly bandied about. 
Sure, the mean temps are increasing, but that's not
out of character with the normal cycles of our planet,
and I haven't seen anyone yet provide any conclusive
evidence that we are seeing something distinctly
abnormal, rather than a natural cycling of
temperatures and gases on our planet.

Therefore, I object to the automatic characterization
of the release of CO2 being "harmful" in any black and
white terms.  The jury is very much still out on OUR
rate of CO2 production, and it can be pretty easily
shown that CO2 is a necessary and important part of
the life cycles on our planet.

<http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm>

> There is a difference between (i) liberating back to
> atmosphere carbon which was "reclaimed" by a plant
> earlier this year (biodiesel),  and  (ii) liberating
> back to atmosphere carbon locked up 300 million
> years and  more ago when fossil fuel beds were laid
> down (petro-diesel).

In what sense?  And even if that were definitively the
case, shouldn't we be spending billions trying to seal
volcanos, which spew more CO2 and CO into the
atmosphere yearly than humans do?  Why isn't anyone
doing that?  If our releases of CO2 are bad, then
these releases must be much worse, and should receive
priority for funding and research, yes?  Yet I have
never even heard of a proposal along those lines, much
less any funding or research.  Why is that, I wonder?

>From the above research paper:

"Total human CO2 emissions primarily from use of coal,
oil, and natural gas and the production of cement are
currently about 5.5 GT C per year.

To put these figures in perspective, it is estimated
that the atmosphere contains 750 Gt C; the surface
ocean contains 1,000 Gt C; vegetation, soils, and
detritus contain 2,200 Gt C; and the intermediate and
deep oceans contain 38,000 Gt C. Each year, the
surface ocean and atmosphere exchange an estimated 90
Gt C; vegetation and the atmosphere, 60 Gt C; marine
biota and the surface ocean, 50 Gt C; and the surface
ocean and the intermediate and deep oceans, 100 Gt C."

Then have a look over here: 
<http://www.ees.nmt.edu/Geop/mevo/geochem/co2.html>

Halfway down is a chart on volcanos and their CO2 flux
per day.  Etna produces roughly 70 Kt C a DAY, or 25.5
Mt C per year.  That's nearly 1/5 the total output of
the entire human population on earth!  From ONE
volcano.  Kyoto is going after the wrong guy...

Another interesting article here, showing how
seriously vulcanism threatens ozone and solar
adsorbtion of radiation from sunlight. 
<http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/of97-262/of97-262.html>

> The latter is the damaging event, because the
> atmospheric CO2 level will rise, and with it the
> mean temperature of the planet - or that is the 
> position apparently demonstrated by trend data.

Unfortunately, current data gathered in the past few
hundred years is not extensive enough to show that we
are definitively deviating from natural cycles.  Check
the graphs from the first link I posted in this email;
they show it quite clearly.

> So what you say is imho theoretically correct but
> practically  unhelpful, if not misleading!

Aside from the lack of meaningful evidence to support
your belief, and its condemnation of the point YOU
assigned to what I posted (which it does not have and
was not given by myself), I suggest you look at what I
posted.  Someone made a factual statement that was
wrong, and I corrected it.  You chose to assign some
additional meaning to it, not me, nor my words. 
Please don't blame me for something you did on your
own.

> Given the quality of your usual posts, and  your
> enormous experience, I am surprised that you would
> run this argument.  :-)

Ad hominem, even "gently" disguised, is generally the
mark of someone without evidence to back his or her
point, when there is a strong desire not to back down
from a claim.  And I'll again remind you that I made
no "argument"; you fabricated that from whole cloth, yourself.

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