The Other Drummer

Via CNN.

So this city in Iowa is having problems keeping their stray cat population under control. The city council decided to pay alert, proactive, responsible citizens (you know, people who don’t have cats) five bucks for each stray cat they bring in.

Unfortunately, it appears that you have to bring the cats into the vet alive so the vet can do what? Kill them. Seems like you could follow Jim’s example (see above photo) and save some money – a .22 round is cheaper than a shot at the vet.

Dang it. I thought I could retire early. Rob, our dream will have to wait.

Photo from here. See the original CNN video here.

I’ll quote some highlights from the article, then the link if you’re interested in learning a bit more. But first, some background.

Ethanol (or E85 which is 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline) was once looked upon as a possible replacement for oil – we can make it here in the U.S. reducing our dependence on foreign oil, it’s renewable (most likely from corn) and it’s burns cleaner than gasoline. Sounds swell.

However, it has a couple of negatives as well. It’s been driving up the price of corn (which makes other things more expensive as well), it takes just about as much energy to make ethanol as using gasoline in a car so there aren’t any real environmental benefits after all and there’s the whole ethical thing of using corn to drive our cars while people in our country and around the world are starving.

Fortunately, a company called Coskata has come up with a way to create ethanol that’s seven times more efficient than gasoline, only costs $1 gallon to make and you can use any kind of biomass material – a lot of the stuff you put down the garbage disposal or throw away in the trash. Remember Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future II? Kinda like that. But non-nuclear.

OK. Now on to the quotes:

• It’s not five years away, it’s not 10 years away. It’s affordable, and it’s now.

• Coskata’s ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even after accounting for the energy needed to produce and transport the feedstock. It also generates 7.7 times more energy than is required to produce it. Corn ethanol typically generates 1.3 times more energy than is used producing it.

• If you’re in Orange County, you can use municipal waste. If you’re in the Pacific Northwest, you can use wood waste. Florida has sugar. The Midwest has corn. Each region has been blessed with the ability to grow its own biomass.

Sounds good, eh? Read the rest of the details here. Then buy some Coskata stock.

Corn image courtesy of here. Mr. Fusion image from here.

See here.

While I definitely think things need to be done about the way we treat the environment, and I’ve blogged about An Inconvenient Truth before, it seems a little weird that Al Gore’s work on climate change wins a Nobel Peace Prize.

I don’t get it.

UPDATE: Apparently I’m not the only one with this thought. NPR had a bit on it here.

(Photo courtesy of USA Today)