Alt Energy Revolution: It's Here, People

Yes, and I've found a safer way to shoot heroin, Thank God!

We should wake up to the changes happening around us and embrace them. In the field of alternative energy, we've got a revolution, baby. It's the conventional clowns of conventional wisdom that serve conventional puppetmasters that want you to think differently. Go for the change, and try to be informed, supportive, and (cautiously) celebratory:

The New York Times brazenly claimed in 2012 that cellulosic ethanol, a type of fuel made from agricultural waste such as corn stalks, "does not exist" -- and many other news outlets also adopted this misleading framing. Industry journal Platts published a blog titled: "Puzzling over the US mandate for a fuel that doesn't exist yet," later clarifying that the fuel simply did not exist "in the US at commercial volumes" at the time. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote that "Congress subsidized a product that didn't exist" and "is punishing oil companies for not buying the product that doesn't exist." FoxNews.com called the fuel "merely hypothetical." National Review Online contributing editor Deroy Murdock stated "EPA might as well mandate that Exxon hire leprechauns."

However, since a new facility started producing cellulosic ethanol on a commercial-scale on September 3, these outlets have remained silent.* Poet-DSM Advanced Biofuels opened the biggest cellulosic ethanol facility in the country for production, which will "convert 570 million pounds of crop waste into 25 million gallons of ethanol each year." The Iowa facility is being heralded as "a major step in the shift from the fossil fuel age to a biofuels revolution."

Support this, plan for this. I'm not the best example, but I bought a high-mileage diesel car in 2010 with an eye to switching to biodiesel when my warranty ends at 70k miles, maybe another two years. I expect the biodiesel industry to catch up in price and distribution by then. If it doesn't I expect to make my own somehow. I have acquaintances that want to participate.

I want my around-town car (two-person household) to be electric eventually. I'm hoping Elon Musk's megabattery factory has plans for creating a standardized battery that we just swap out at battery stations. Works for me, but guys like Elon Musk think outside the American Petroleum Institute box. We all should and embrace the future.

American Petroleum Institute spokesmodel Brooke Anderson says "Find
out more." But do they really want you to? Not about alternative energy.