Earthrace - A $3,000,000 wave-busting turd
January 4th, 2008 by 
Evil Carbon
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I am sure you haven’t heard about this yet.
Earthrace, a weird looking, “wave piercing trimaran”, a.k.a. a boat, will try to set the world record for circumnavigating the globe by powerboat (current record 74 days, 23 hours and 53 minutes, they’re shooting for 65 days). The catch? Earthrace will handcuff itself, Houdini style, “by running on exclusively 100% Biodiesel fuel, and with a net zero carbon footprint. Admirable goals, you might say… let’s look closer. Biodiesel fuel, while not uncommon anymore, is also not widely available. “The voyage includes twelve refueling stops at various ports around the globe. For around half of them, we are linking in with existing biodiesel producers and marketers who are sponsoring fuel. For the others however, such as Majuro (Marshall Islands), Koror (Palau) and Panama, we are shipping fuel which will be ready at the dock when we arrive.” Let me get this straight, Earthrace will guzzle over 7,000+ gallons of 100% Biodiesel fuel ($3.50/gallon x 7,000 gallons = $24,500) and leave no carbon footprint? As far as I can find, biodiesel is 74% cleaner than regular diesel. So what about the other 26%? And how exactly is the 3,500+ gallons getting to the Marshall Islands, Palau and Panama? The Gossamer Albatross? My guess regular tanker boats and trunks running regular diesel. Not to mention all the “volunteers” and support crew traveling in their cars, boats and planes to assist in the journey. That’s a lot of “zero carbon footprint” in the name of saving the earth. Nice scam guys.
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Posted in Stupid Ideas, Stupid People, Stupid Products | 
January 27th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Dear Evil Carbon
Quite take your point that, without have done the research (there are 109,000 locations for info via google to date), it might seem that the Earthrace project is counterproductive.
But for your information and to set your mind at rest, Earthrace is a carbon neutral project, as we offset our CO2 including transportation of the biofuel to the record stops, the biofuel itself, and all the travel of the ground crew) through downwithcarbon.org.
In addition, the crew recycles and resuses everything whenever possible, uses local (preferably organic) produce and will continue to do so throughout the world record attempt, and the boat itself has been made using environmentally friendly products.
I hope that helps to clean up your concerns.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Bev, this “carbon-neutral” stuff is horse manure. Assume for a minute that CO2 really is going to raise the temperature by 25º-500º (or whatever you warmmongers are trying to scare people with today) do you not realize that unless you’re permanently locking carbon into the crust of the earth you’re just storing it temporally outside the atmosphere? *ALL* “carbon neutral” plant material decays and returns that carbon back into the air. Therefore if you use any petroleum-based energy for ANY aspect of this stunt (including the power for your computers or driving cars to work on this project) you are NOT carbon neutral. You’re just like those judgmental electric car proponents that ignore the source of their energy, the toxic chemicals in their battery, and the energy required to produce the car.
BTW 1: One of the big reasons why biofuels are such a scam is because it requires so much energy to produce the fuel.
BTW 2: Thanks for starving the people of Haiti by diverting our agriculture industry into making corn for ethanol. I’m sure the poor will appreciate that their sacrifice of starvation is for the “common good”.
BTW 3: The fact that you cite “organic” produce as a positive thing shows your ignorance. “Organic” farming is an inefficient and resource demanding form of farming.
BTW 4: I’m sick to death of you environmentalists. From your repeated failed predictions of Armageddon to your other discredited claims you people are nothing more than lies. No wonder your type literally fears debate.
May 10th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Amen Steve! All it takes is a library card, a modicum of intelligence, and a scratch pad (or calculator, if you must) to disprove carbon imprint and man made global warming.
I hate to call these people liberal and/or progressive, because they are neither. I’m a progressive, because I can use my mind and decipher issues for myself based on reading and fettering information. So called sheepish liberals never educate themselves on any topic of discussion nor have fact (actual numbers) to back an argument. Sorry, flowery hand waving and BS does not constitue a rebuttal or or disprove that we are only creating .02% of the heat that the sun and earth’s core bestow on this planet and is not rejected back into space. That same .02% is that same difference as the amount of heat fluctuation of the sun every year. Yes, some years more, some years less. It seems that we are in the area of where instrumentation can not even detect is effect (the difference between precision and accuracy).
CO2, so when did a pillar of life (N2, O2 and H20 being the others), and a nearly thermal inert molecule that is required for photosynthesis become a pollutant? As best of my reading and research, earth’s population and our use of machinery and animals create about 14% of the total CO2 generated each year. Compared to water vapor in the air, this accounts for about 0.25% of earth’s lower atmosphere heat retention. Could this also be the difference between precision and accuracy?
Could it be remotely possibly that the earth is changing its own temperature,…………much like it always has. Intensely warm periods (and higher CO2 levels such as the Cretaceous period), Ice Ages, Greenland was green, there were periods of no icebergs, periods of icebergs, the Millennium Optimum, the Great Dust Bowl, periods of floods, varied histories of massive hurricanes, then periods of calm, etc., etc., etc. Now some are back peddling since their theories do not match new measurements of the ocean temperatures. Remember hypothesis and theory don’t add up to Scientific Law, Mr. Gore.
I will bequeath a note of appreciation, however. The more knowledgeable of the contingent for more than 150+ years (probably starting with Henry David Thoreau) have been our social guide to pollution and conservation. Everyone needs a feedback loop to one’s actions. I prefer a dampened one rather than this new breed that operates from one Eigenvalue to the next.
Populations once shunned the village idiots. Now we elect them to office, allow them to operate our educational institutions, influence our children with fear, dictate/affect failed energy policies, and apparently operate high performance boats. Just like in the early 1970’s with the new Ice Age upon us, don’t expect an apology to be forthcoming when Man Made Global Warming is disproven.
What we need is a new Thomas Paine, because we could use some Common Sense!
May 10th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
This makes no sense at all. You could save a whole lot of carbon emissions by just NOT going around the world. Buying off other peoples non-pollution does not change the fact that Earthrace will be pouring out the carbon emmsions - much more than I will in a year or two. Why should any of us poor folk stop polluting when you elitist won’t?
May 19th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
All true…
But that is one cool boat!
May 19th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Did you catch Bev’s signoff:
“I hope that helps to clean up your concerns.”
Get it… “Clean Up” your concerns. These enviro wackos are so crafty.
June 10th, 2008 at 8:55 am
finally…rational people shedding light on what a freaking scam global warming and carbon footprints is.
Thanks for this website!