Ronald Steenblik

I admit I had to hit replay at one point when Rick Wilson was talking about possible U.S. agents already in Iran to make sure what I heard him say was "nuke hunts". 😳

How many Americans do you know? 😉

Not a criticism of you. I wish my fellow ‘mericuns would say “gasoline” (or even “petrol” 😱) when they mean gasoline, but, no, it’s always just “gas”.

Not to mention pharmaceuticals and microplastics.

On my iPhone I see a man slapping his face.

Great explainer by @katemac.bsky.social on price formation in oil markets, especially following supply shock such as the one the world is experiencing now.

You mean natural gas? (Many readers in North America see the word “gas” and think “gasoline”.)

Some 90% of the “alternative fuel vehicles” purchased for federal government fleets were FFVs, and most did not tank up with E85.

… accomplished by 2020. How’s that worked out?

Meanwhile, Detroit got huge CAFE benefits from selling “flex-fuel vehicles (those capable of using E85) — mostly huge SUVs and pickups — even if those vehicles never actually tanked up with the fuel.

Cast your mind back, please, to the mid oughts (circa 2007), when Dubya was promising a bright future for cellulosic biofuels, made from feedstocks “such as switchgrass” (as highlighted in his SOTU). Crop-based biofuels were subsidized and mandated on the assumption that the transition would be …

You are correct: Khamenei Sr. was not head of state. He had even more power than that.

Show me the vote in Congress declaring it a “war”. And, as you may have seen, now Iran considers the Trump Regime fair game for “decapitation”.

Besides all of that, how’s that “regime change” working out? The Ayatollah’s son is now Supreme Leader, and Shia Muslims everywhere are incensed.

ILUC is an international phenomenon. Yes, in the short term, thanks to trade wars, I can understand that there’s excess capacity for many broadacre crops. I’m thinking long-term.

I’d love to debate all of this, but not by typing dozens of 300-character posts. If you want to talk by telephone, send me a DM.

In the USA, where some is even being made from further processing corn ethanol (!) and earning federal subsidies of at least $1.25 a gallon! It’s not sustainable!

If you are thinking only of GHG emissions, you’re glossing over a lot of environmental (and social) problems associated with biofuels.

I’m sorry, then, that you’ve not had good experiences.

Thanks to govt incentives (like the one in the USA for 🌽 SAF). Do you have data on the shares of the various types of feedstocks that are currently going into SAF? And what’s the current cost of producing E-fuels?

Let’s levy a carbon tax on aviation fuel instead, and see what technology wins out.

I’m all for R&D into finding ways to reduce and ultimately eliminate the use of jet kerosene, but I regard SAF based on UCO as greenwash with knock-on, damaging effects for the environment (and food prices) as long as biofuels for ICE vehicles are mandated.

I would need pages to answer that question in full, but I disagree with your starting point. As with land vehicles, biofuels are to fossil fuels as Hamburger Helper is to hamburgers: it perpetuates the building and use of combustion engines.

Tell me you haven’t lived in France without telling me you haven’t lived in France.

🤣🤣🤣

… so to the extent that UCO gets diverted from making biodiesel to making SAF, the biodiesel producers turn to virgin vegetable oils (soy, canola, palm), with all the environmental consequences (including indirect land-use change, increased fertilizer use and water pollution) that entails.

Much if not most SAF is made from used cooking oil (UCO), the supply of which is extremely limited and cannot be significantly increased. That would be OK if aviation wasn’t competing with biodiesel producers for that same feedstock. Biodiesel blending is mandated or subsidized by governments, …

Well said. I see in your bio that you are a cancer researcher. I hope you are getting adequate funding for such important work!

After that period, my wife and I moved to France. Here, nobody asks for whom you voted in an American election. They would regard it as impolite and intrusive.

Have you yourself traveled to the UK? I lived in England during the mid-1980s (when Reagan was POTUS). I had never voted for a Republican; still haven’t. But people often asked me bluntly for whom I had voted for President, which I, too, found to be rather blunt and none of the person’s business.

So you’re talking about the regime. I’m not defending that regime. I’m talking about comments by politicians that implicitly condone a U.S. President sending troops to kill a head of state, especially when there hasn’t even been a declaration of war.

Adolph Hitler committed suicide. You don’t see the difference?

“We’re clearing out the bad guys”. Uh-huh. While cozying up to Putin, sending love letters to Kim, palling around with MBS, and pardoning the former President of Honduras.

And post the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.