jani_fuel

I am annotating movie Fuel directed by Josh Tickell released in 2008. This movie explores biodiesel as an alternative energy to oil. One thing I found most interesting is that this movie at least cares to present the other side instead of assuming that nothing can be wrong as long as your intention are better than others. This movie puts emphasis on accumulation of bio diesel from waste products, and conversion of biodiesel from various organic waste materials. The movie also discusses plastic waste and green garbage bags that will decompose in nature and explains many ideas about replacing current oil consumption with various sources of bio fuels. There are many stakeholders in various green industry and anti-pollution movement. Main stake holders are bio fuel manufacturers, algae fuel manufacturers, air lines that run on the bio fuels and everyone in “green industry”. Health of residents of Louisiana is also at stake. Oil industry has created some environmental disasters. People suffering from various diseases caused by toxic chemicals can be stopped by rule of law. Therefore, rule of law is also at stake. This movie at 13:40 suggests that 1/3rd of crude oil refining is a waste. This is not true. The last byproduct of oil is a black tar which is used in road construction. Therefore, almost all of the crude oil that was used in the refining is put to the use. The movie does not provide any peculiar insight about what that waste is. I saw a pile of barrels in the movie, what does this show? What is in it? This movie at 19:50 shows that Henry Ford had designed his first car to run on ethanol. This is true. However, the director forgot to mention that at time of first automobile, there were not 200 million cars in USA and world population was not 7 billion. Fueling your car with ethanol is not possible. The environmental disaster created by ethanol is another issue. I would let it go. The movie at 23:00 shows Loremo car getting 150 miles per gallon. This does not show why is any one not buying the car. I saw on Loremo.com that this car weights only 550 kg. If this car is involved in any crash, there is zero chance for a driver or passenger to survive. At 38:20 movie shows oil company profits in billions of dollars. This presentation is deceptive. In 2010, chevron made 9% and ExxonMobil made 8% profits. High prices of gas are because of high prices of crude oil not because of oil company conspiracy. Movie infers that Rudolf Diesel was killed because of he was working on alternative fuel. However, his biography suggests that he had committed suicide (Grosser, 1978). Again, there is a global warming hit piece. It is true that Hurricane Katarina was bad. However, if it were created by global warming, why have we not seen this hurricane again in last seven years? I have given a list of five books in my oil on ice movie review to debunk global warming myth. Check them out. At 1:10:00, movie says that one needs 1 gallon of energy of ethanol to produce 1 gallon of ethanol, and energy ratio of energy used to energy produced in 1:1. This is a blatant lie. This is against laws of physics. According to second law of thermodynamics, 100% efficiency is impossible. Therefore, this claim is a blatant lie with no substance. The actual energy required to produce ethanol is six times as much as ethanol releases during combustion (Patzek, 2004). The director spews another lie that 20% more energy is required to produce oil than oil releases during combustion. We do not need to produce oil; it is already there. If oil refining and drilling required more energy to produce gasoline, oil would not have become biggest energy supply in the world without government subsidy. The third lie about biodiesel production is that one needs 1/3 gallon of oil to produce 1 gallon bio diesel. The fact is bio diesel requires 27% more energy than it releases at combustion (Pimentel, 2004). This movie at 1:16:00 shows Richard Branson who flew his first flight of 747 with bio fuel. This is impressive. However, neither Richard Branson nor director mentioned how much it costs. I will tell you that. Today, price of bio fuel is equivalent of $800 per barrel of oil (Kanellos, 2009). That’s why you cannot fly in bio fuel aircrafts to save the world. Energy from wind power is intermittent and one needs to build a fossil fuel power plant just in case wind stops blowing. I have found numerous other propagandists fallacies in this movie, but I would let it go. The most convincing idea I found in this movie was bio degradable plastic bag. This movie does not mention economics of biodegradable plastic bag. I looked more into it. I believe that bio degradable plastics are economically viable. However, I do not believe government should mandate people to use it. Government should start using those plastics first and people should follow by an example not by a mandate. The Gulf of Mexico has developed a dead zone because of corn production. There has not been a single suggestion than convinced me that shift from the oil is possible. =Bibliography = Grosser, M. (1978). //Diesel, the man and the engine.// Anhenum. Kanellos, M. (2009, February 3). //Algae Biodiesel: It's $33 a Gallon.// Retrieved April 23, 2011, from greentechmedia.com: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/algae-biodiesel-its-33-a-gallon-5652/ Patzek, T. W. (2004). Study: Ethanol Production Consumes Six Units Of Energy To Produce Just One. //Science Daily//. Pimentel, D. a. (2004). Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass, and Wood; Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower. //Nanural Resources research//, 65-75.
 * Meghal Jani Fuel Movie 4/26/11 **