Building a Better Metric

Net Energy -- A Useless, Misleading And Dangerous Metric, Says Expert - Science Daily

I hadn't realized the false assumption that the linguist concoction of 'fossil fuels' creates when compared to alternative fuels. What Professor Dale argues is, in essence, that we cannot lump all fossil fuels under a category of 'fossil fuels' since each different type of fuels provides a different level of energy. Petroleum provides a different amount of energy than coal or natural gas. So what Professor Dale proffers is a metric that measures how much an alternative fuel provides in service compared to a distinct type of fossil fuel.
The use of such a metric might make it easier to impose a national carbon tax as it would more accurately measure the amount of carbon produced by a particular type of fuel and tax it accordingly. The rhetoric employed against a carbon tax by the business industry would naturally argue that such alternative fuels like ethanol would, using the old metric, create more carbon in its production than normal fossil fuels. The goal then is to use a metric that is both true and useful to expose the linguistic lie of the old rhetoric.