tisonlyi

The link you put up there is just a chap saying that ethanol can be produced from switchgrass on a +ve return, high yield basis, the Cornell and Berkeley study I linked to via PhysOrg reports:

If you've got some more info on switch grass that puts some flesh on the bones of the statement through npr, then I'll be out setting up switch grass cooperatives immediately.

Ahh: I went and nosed around for some more info... it seems switchgrass has the potential in some people's eyes, but is a red herring in others'...

The thing that has changed is the oil price, not the cost of the technology.

Above $35 dollars per barrel shale and sand oils start to become economical to extract, above $50 per barrel and they become commercially attractive to extract. The only problem is oil > $50 per barrel. I think, from memory, that economists reckon that world growth will slow by 1% for every $25 in the oil price over $20? something like that.

One good thing for Canada though, it becomes the nation with the second largest oil reserves while oil is over $50 per barrel (tar sands and oil shales are counted towards viable reserves then) - Venezuela is number 1.

Gracias Gringos! Viva Chavez!

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"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--