On a totally irrelevant aside, I’d like to draw your attention to the latest über-crunchy initiative from everyone’s favorite yuppie enclave to hate: Park Slope, Brooklyn. This week, two Slope activists proposed launching an ethanol fuel co-op in the style of the neighborhood’s popular food co-op.
Now, the idea is of course intriguing. And being from Iowa, I suppose I should unequivocally love it. But seriously? First of all, the organizers say that all co-op members would need to make their cars ethanol-compatible—in order to reap the sweet, sweet rewards of cheap ethanol—would be to buy a $375 thingamajig (and shell out “hundreds more for installation”). Also, members would need to pool cash up-front to cover the cost of a lease for an appropriate site, which I’m sure is totally reasonably priced in Park Slope. Strike one.
Secondly, shouldn’t Brooklyn yuppies be in vogue enough to know that corn ethanol is, like, so passé?
But most importantly, why do all these tree-hugging Park Slopers depend on cars in the first place? Haven’t they heard of the Subway? In a city where more than half the population doesn’t own a vehicle (jumping to something like 75 percent among Manhattanites), why not really save money and ditch the gas guzzler? I don’t get it. Here in D.C., where the Metro is far less extensive than the Subway, I’d argue it’s actually less of a hassle to get around sans car. I respect a person’s right to own a car, but if you’re a hippie who thinks a co-op will solve the problem? It just seems counterintuitive.
(Besides, unless this co-op comes lined with a granola wall, I’m just not sure what the appeal is.)
Photo via Flickr
My thoughts exactly, Katie! Why own a car at all in Brooklyn? And I bet they don’t pocket mulch:
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/CABF01
speaking of counterintuitive, how are these people yuppies in one paragraph and hippies in the next?
and a small side point: park slope residents don’t exactly have a cornucopia of subway options to choose from the way the manhattanites do – though I will admit they seem to have quite a pick of creepy buses to choose from…
also, i seem to remember a certain blogger making comments to a certain commenter for using non-ethanol gas… but since ethanol is passe, I guess it’s like wearing poofy sleeves in the eighties.
also, i oppose this article because I (heart) BK.
ps. i (heart) Katie
Hello!
Nice to see this is getting attention in Wash DC. Some clarifications.
We had the paper change a couple facts. The thingie that costs $375, which also include a cold-start device (98 percent ethanol will not start in cold weather) takes 5 minutes to hook up and will not cost hundreds more dollars unless your mechanic is a crook, which in NYC, is not out of the question.
Actually all our cars are ethanol compatible, just not optimized to run on ethanol. Anyone can run a non diesel car on 50% ethanol, no problems. The kit lets your non flex fuel car be flex fuel, so you can switch back and forth if you have to. Priuses are flex fuel, BTW, the computer can distinguish which fuel is which and adjust.
Obviously, people who don’t need to drive in Brooklyn aren’t going to be interested. But many families go upstate in the summer, or just need a car for their work.
The article did explain,although not many seem to listen, that we had a corn surplus last year that left food lying on the ground. The problem with feeding people who have no food is the same as it always has been: they have no money to pay for the food.
Other factors in food prices include rising oil prices,depreciating dollars, disgraceful trade agreements, incompetent governments, etc.
The problem the coop solves is the fossil fuel/greenhouse gas problem in a miniscule way. When down the line we contract with a local group of farmers upstate, or decide to make it in NYC out of stale donuts, although we are trying to promote the idea of community supported energy, not unlike CSAs where suppliers deliver fuel right to our tanks, no middleman. It is a concept discussed in the book I edited (not wrote) with David Blume. It would seem a better idea than relying on foreign oil (yes, I also consider Canada with its toxic tar sands process and Mexico to be foreign) and keep our older cars running longer as ethanol keeps the engine clean and emissions low.
Investors will be needed to support the station. There are huge tax credits available from the feds and the state for this sort of thing so that makes it very attractive. THe site is a tricky issue, but there are many marginal industrial sites along the Gowanus Canal and perhaps the city will have access to a space. It is early in the process and we are investigating.
This is about grassroots fuel, no mega corporations. Call it yuppie, hippie or whatever, Blume’s book attracts mucho attention from “necks everywhere. They like telling Big Oil to stick it!
Thanks for all the info, Mike. I want to point out that we’re not anti-ethanol here at D,S. In some applications and forms, we think that it’s certainly an improvement over fossil fuels. Your point about corn surpluses and food prices is taken, but we don’t think that it really addresses the issues behind the ethanol debate as a whole.
The reason (it seems to us) that so many people are against an ethanol-centric biofuels agenda is not so much that the fuel itself is not environmentally friendly or that the production of corn ethanol effects food prices per se. Rather, it’s that the conserted production of corn ethanol is not a feesible solution for large-scale replacement of fossil fuels. The land needed for the additional corn production just isn’t there, and (perhaps more importantly), the environmental effects from the additional industrial agriculture would be quite devastating for the states in which the production would occur. As Iowans, we’re fairly attuned to the consequences of industrial-level fertilizer and pesticide use, and would rather not base an energy policy on encouraging more of it.
However, we do realize that industrial production of ethanol is definitely not what the Brooklyn Co-op is about. We recognize that no one solution is going to get us away from petroleum, and that people should definitely work to create their own solutions. So if people must drive, we think grass roots efforts such as yours are awesome. The main point of this post was that we’d rather see efforts focused on discouraging driving and enabling a car-free life. That, we think, is the most effective way at combating climate change and fossil fuels.
Anyway, thanks again for your comment. It’s really great what you guys are doing with the co-op.
PSEC (The Park Slope Ethanol Coop) is emphatically about producing ethanol from non-corn sources, using permacultural methods. It supports local farmers, builds topsoil, nets negative CO2 and makes communities self-reliant for energy. It also eliminates the kind of fertilizer and pesticide inputs that have so ravaged the Midwest. The food vs. fuel argument, sorry to say it, is major propaganda that the oil companies have spent $70 million and counting to defeat ethanol and other alternative fuels. It’s false. You’d be incredibly heartened to learn more about what Dave Blume has been up to for the last 30 years, putting this all into practice. Yes, we should all be without cars in Brooklyn, but since we aren’t, and since we have a very progressive population who can get behind this, and we can prove that it can be done in the most populous county in the USA, this will get a lot of attention and hopefully embolden other communities to try it, communities who have no choice but to drive great distances. If communities across America did this they would be supporting themselves and freeing themselves from the ruinous reliance on oil. It’s no tailpipe dream!