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Zero taxes on land? There may be some places but I'm not aware of them. However, here in New Hampshire (and probably other states) you can place parcels into current use. This drastically lowers taxes on that parcel as a reward for letting it retain its forest-like characteristics. Here's a link to a decent PDF which explains.

all the H is produced by means of Solar power

Solar isn't the only way to produce hydrogen. A Three-Step Microbial Hydrogen-Producing System shows promise in viably producing hydrogen. There's also Iceland's method of hydrogen generation, though there's not many places that can use it's method, Iceland uses their volcano. Algae can also produce biofuels: Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae.

http://iol.unh.edu/

Keep in mind this was an environment where we literally had hundreds of uncertified and untested wireless devices all around us. My job was going to be to read through the draft 802.11 standard, and write perl scripts that tested conformance to the standard. Well, the very first day the first thing they did was hand me a study that basically laid out that it would take at least a decade before any real conclusions could be drawn about the hazards (or non hazards) of wifi and human health. It mentioned that there was a correlation between ocular cancer and the radiation from television, and that it took something like 25 years before this was discovered.

Do I find it scary that we put so much into our environment and expose ourselves to so much that we don't understand? Yes. My big problem is that wifi uses the airwaves, so even someone who does not want anything to do with Wifi is having the air that surrounds them used by wifi. I'm a libertarian, and I consider the commons (earth, oceans, space, air, nature basically) to be something that each of us has equal rights to. I see this as the tragedy of the commons (read the book if you're unfamiliar). I would at least like to be able to tax those that use my air for purposes that I don't approve of, or have some kind of options. Right now, the FCC just decides using a decision making process that I find repugnant.

I see the potential health problem of wifi to be a symptom of a much greater problem.

The best bet for biofuels is something that has less of an impact on the soil and the planet, such as algae based biofuels. Algae is grown in tanks, so the process requires less land, and any chemicals used in the process can be contained so it isn't spread over open land.

Algae is better for biofuel but even better would be to use the algae to produce hydrogen.

You mean like 12.5% of the Sonoran Desert: http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Algea could make enough oil for biodiesel to replace petroleum for transportation in a fraction of the surface area that is going into corn production this year. And it wouldn't have to be good farm land either. This could be done for roughly twice what the US spends to import oil each year. There are no big technical hurdles to overcome.

You want green?
A Hummer using Soy BioDiesel would have less fossil energy input per mile than a Prius

Hummer weighs 3x more than a Prius
8600, 2932

BioDiesel has 3.82x less impact than a Hybrid
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_vehicle_co mpare.html

And thats probably being generous on the Prius side of things.
And thats using Soy as the feedstock. When Soy is one of the worst feedstocks.
Use Algae and you could blow the doors off of hybrids and ethanol.

Algal biodiesel! This can be done with non-arable land using non-potable (even brackish) water with sewage as a feedstock. The article makes a compelling argument that the US could satisfy all of its vehicular needs domestically, provided we all switched to diesel.

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Nonsense. It would only take about 1% of the land currently used for agriculture and grazing to produce the equivalent in algae-based biodiesel that the US consumes in petrodiesel and gasoline. Here's more info.

Targetted location for a giant algae farm is the dying inland sea,
the salton sea on california, due to salt and nitrates.

Enough in fact to replace all needs for petro based fuel:

with just 12% of the sonora desert around the salton sea.

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

I think a lot of the original research was done here - http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/

There is a great need to increase world-wide carrying capacity without impacting high biodiversity ecosystems such as the Brazilian rainforests or continental shelf fisheries, and that reduces greenhouse phenomena. There may be an economic option that uses sea water pumped to desert areas powered by the fact that ground level temperatures are much higher than temperatures at high altitudes. Indeed, it would dump greenhouse heat to space for its power while producing biodiesel, electricity, fish, fresh water, salt and real estate -- all in quantities demanded by developed-world populations -- without adding to, and possibly even sequestering, greenhouse gases.

Proposals for solar updraft towers have typically assumed that they would be single use structures: solar to electricity via heat differentials between high altitude air and ground level greenhouse-enclosed air. The resulting system has marginal economic value.

Something which would further enhance the value of the solar updraft tower power structure is to use the greenhouse area for algae ponds to add biodiesel, water, fish and salt production to the production of electricity normally envisioned.

Doing so brings the proposal from marginally viable to viable, with a net present value, primarily from live fish production, of $3.5 billion per system, thereby allowing for far higher capitalization and/or return on investment.

Let's start with just the value of algae biodiesel:

The greenhouse area required per solar updraft tower of is huge:

(pi * (5km/2)^2) ? hectares
= 1963.49 hectares

producing peak at peak 200MW via a 1km tall tower.

We now add to this the production of algae biodiesel:

The UNH estimate for algae biodiesel production is 1 quad per 200,000 hectares. Let's assume only half of the area of the solar updraft tower greenhouse would be available for production at any time (the other half would be used for ponds that buffered heat for the inner ponds, produce fish, provide additional evaporative surface for desalination and provide recreation for residential areas at the outer rim).

That gives us:

(1963.49/2)hectares/tower;200000hectares/quad ? towers/quad
= 203.719 towers/quad

Or about 200 towers per quad of biodiesel.

We can now calculate the biodiesel per tower:

7.2gallon/1e6btu;200tower/quad ? gallon/tower
= 3.5998E+07 gallon/tower

or about 35M gallons of biodiesel per year per tower.

At $2/gallon for wholesale diesel, this yields $70M biodiesel revenue per year.

Now for electrical revenue:

At an average rate of sold production only 1/2 (100MW) of peak capacity (200MW), electrical production per tower per year, is:

100MW;year ? GWh
= 876 GWh

At $30/MWh wholesale:

100MW;year;30$/MWh ? $
= 2.628E+07 $

or about $25M electrical revenue per year.

Interestingly, the biodiesel revenue is nearly 3 times the electrical revenue of a solar updraft tower!

200*200MW or 40GW electrical peak capacity is produced per quad of biodiesel.

Further that same UNH document estimates 19 quads to replace all transportation fuel in the US or 3800 towers, which would also produce 3800*200MW or 760GW or .76TW of electricity.

Current winter capacity in the US i

Where do you assume this is physically hardwired?

That is specious and presumptious at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst.

As far as I know there have existed a number of socieities that have been quite permissive of pedophiles and in some cases made it socially expected.

This hardly indicates a hard-wired aversion.

It IS social conditioning of the strongest kind. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but you are inventing science to support your moral argument, which is disingenuous.

Ok, now lets actually address what you SAID.

statistics show paedophilia charges and convictions are on the rise.

The only thing that is "obvious" is that media reports of these charges are on the rise.

Please cite statistics that show charges and convictions are on the rise. Or you can simple let me illustrated that you are ignorant of the facts and are simply pontificating on moral grounds with your "epidemic" "on the rise" claims

Here, let me do it for you

Statistics show a decline in child abuse and neglect
The decline in child sex abuse cases
national child abuse and neglect statistics continued to decline
Child-Abuse and Neglect Cases Decline for Fifth Year, HHS Says ...
national child abuse and neglect statistics reported by states continued to decline
Statistics Show Decline in Child Abuse
national child abuse and neglect statistics reported by states continued to decline
total decline of 39% in identified sexual abuse cases over a 7-year period
New Child Maltreatment Statistics Show Continuing Decline
Department of Justice: CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE CASES FALL 31 PERCENT OVER SIX YEARS
he hotline has seen a 24 percent annual decline in child abuse reports

I'm sorry, that's just the first two pages out of about 40 in my google search.

Speaking of head in the sand...

Stewed

Where do you assume this is physically hardwired?

That is specious and presumptious at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst.

As far as I know there have existed a number of socieities that have been quite permissive of pedophiles and in some cases made it socially expected.

This hardly indicates a hard-wired aversion.

It IS social conditioning of the strongest kind. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but you are inventing science to support your moral argument, which is disingenuous.

Ok, now lets actually address what you SAID.

statistics show paedophilia charges and convictions are on the rise.

The only thing that is "obvious" is that media reports of these charges are on the rise.

Please cite statistics that show charges and convictions are on the rise. Or you can simple let me illustrated that you are ignorant of the facts and are simply pontificating on moral grounds with your "epidemic" "on the rise" claims

Here, let me do it for you

Statistics show a decline in child abuse and neglect
The decline in child sex abuse cases
national child abuse and neglect statistics continued to decline
Child-Abuse and Neglect Cases Decline for Fifth Year, HHS Says ...
national child abuse and neglect statistics reported by states continued to decline
Statistics Show Decline in Child Abuse
national child abuse and neglect statistics reported by states continued to decline
total decline of 39% in identified sexual abuse cases over a 7-year period
New Child Maltreatment Statistics Show Continuing Decline
Department of Justice: CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE CASES FALL 31 PERCENT OVER SIX YEARS
he hotline has seen a 24 percent annual decline in child abuse reports

I'm sorry, that's just the first two pages out of about 40 in my google search.

Speaking of head in the sand...

Stewed

Eventually demand will surpass capacity to produce
Remember, this is just one source of vegetable oil / biodiesel.
Biodiesel can be made from many other organic products or waste:
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/transportation/fuels/biodie sel/biodiesel-benefits.cfm?attr=16
One more for the list, and possibly even the most important source; biodiesel from algae:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Actually many many people (I daresay most of them) who drive on SVO (straight vegetable oil) or vegetable oil used to make biodiesel do most of their driving to work and back every day.

I think what you need to grasp is that it is not necessary for one fuel source to solve all problems, for it to be a good alternative fuel source and a step in the right direction. Right now what gets processed as waste, can be used to reduce fuel consumption. This solves two problems. Will a few people converting their diesel powereed vehicles eliminate all petroleum consumption? I don't think anyone made that claim. However, some research is being done to see if vegetable oil can be produced in the amounts necessary to petroleum as a fuel source in the USA:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
I guarrantee you, neither I nor any of the researchers at university of new hampshire have trouble differentiating between a dollar and a cent.

I have not converted my car yet, because the conversion is quite expensive and processing fuel is a little too time consuming for me at this point, but as my car has a 12 gallon tank and I get around over 40 miles per gallon and on my lifestyle that requires me to fill up the tank a little more than once a month. The local restaurants produce WVO at a rate much higher than I can burn it, and they pay to dispose of it. True if enough people started doing this, waste vegetable oil from restaurants would not be enough to meet the demand. Those who convert soon, have the opportunity to store large amounts of filtered oil in drums to avoid having to purchase un-used vegetable oil. They are also talking about converting the local mushroom farm (which went out of business) to a farm that just grows high oil yield crops and producing biodiesel there :) I'll certainly pay an extra dollar or two a gallon to know I am using a sustainable fuel source and have somebody else do all the processing for me!

higher CO2 means higher temperature

That would be a rather circular reasoning method, since the purpose of this is to try and prove that greenhouse gasses cause higher temperatures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core suggests that the way to tell what the temperature was at the time is to compare hydrogen and oxygen isotopes, and is backed up by http://www.gisp2.sr.unh.edu/MoreInfo/Ice_Cores_Pas t.html. I believe you can also determine how cold it was when the water froze by measuring the oxygen in the ice, the colder it is, the faster it freezes, and the more air bubbles get trapped in it (see your freezer's icecubes for details) but this might not work for thin layers of precipitation, especially snow.

Take hydrogen. The day someone figures out how to easily produce hydrogen the days of energy monopolies are over - anyone with access to water (or whatever the raw material turns out to be) can do it.

That's not going to happen. The most plentiful source of hydrogen on the planet is water. No one is going to be able to figure out a system that uses less engerdy to split the molecules than you get in return by burning the hydrogen or using it in fuel cells.

True, current technology widely available isn't able to generate more electricity from hydrogen than the energy required to generate the hydrogen from water, however some places can produce hydrogen relatively cheaply. Iceland being one such place. With the volcano there they are able to use geothermal energy to hydrolyze water. In the US, maybe in other countries as well, there's research going on to use algae to produce hydrogen or other fuels such as biodiesel. University of New Hampshire has the UNH Biodiesel Group working on Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae.

``Oil replacement first, then reduction.''

I wonder if that reduction is even necessary (though I would say it's a good idea anyway). According to the CIA world factbook, the USA consumes about 4 trillion kWh of electricity each year. According to Wikipedia the energy content of biodiesel is about 35 MJ per liter. For 4 trillion kWh, this works out to about 15 quads (the unit used by the UNH study). To produce that much Biodiesel, according to the UNH study, we would need about 12000 square miles of desert land. This is a very rough approximation; converting Biodiesel to electricity is not 100% efficient, energy consumption has changed since the CIA world factbook was updated, we don't need to go all the way to Biodiesel to generate electricity (just using the oil extracted from the algae, or even the algae themselves, should work), etc. etc.

So, give or take, for transportation and electricity combined, we need about 30000 square miles of desert land. We have that much. And this is for the USA, which, to my knowledge, has the highest energy consumption per capita.

I think biofuels may be a good investment. A study by Michael Briggs found that we can produce enough oil from algae to provide for all transportation in the US from just 15000 square miles of _desert_, and that this is a lot _cheaper_ than buying crude oil to make fuel from. Biodiesel made from these algae can be used in existing Diesel engines (sometimes requiring minor modifications).

Producing fuel for power plants and the like is even simpler, because they are generally less picky about their fuel.

Using fuel from cultivated algae or plants has a net zero effect on atmospheric CO_2, because all the CO_2 emitted in burning the fuel has been captured first, while growing the algae or plants. Biodiesel also causes less emission of many other pollutants than petroleum Diesel.

In short, I think we can kick our oil dependency, stop burning coal, and probably even stop using nuclear fission, and just produce our own, environmentally clean, homegrown fuels.

For a year, researchers watched algae multiply in huge, bubbling test tubes beneath the hot Arizona sun so they could find just the right strand of the microscopic single-celled plant.

The experiment has been so successful that it's about to expand into greenhouses on the plant grounds, and in time, be grown in such large quantities that it could be converted into fuel, cutting down on harmful greenhouse gases.

Terrestrial solar power takes a great deal of land.

Solar power towers produce roughly half a megawatt per acre of constant, dispatchable power (Solar Two produced 10MW with a 20-acre heliostat array). Total US energy consumption is roughly 3.3 terawatts. Dividing gets you 6.6 million acres, a chunk of land less than half the size of the Mojave.

Of course, no single source of power will ever supply the entire US, and people will distribute these things where the sun is good and the power is needed.

We don't have nearly enough arable land in the whole world to produce enough biodiesel to satisfy world energy demand

Who needs arable land? We can grow algae in salt water under the same desert sun, in quantities necessary to replace oil.

Speaking of oil, the US has one trillion barrels of it locked away in shale oil deposits, in the same places they keep digging up all those dinosaur bones. Like all the other things we're discussing, it was previously too expensive to warrant much attention.

this is nothing new: it started before the WWI and now there are dozens of companies, universities or hobbyist doing it. It is called: "content analysis", "data mining", "discourse analysis" etc. There is a legend that sais that British intelligence managed to predict quite acurately airstrikes on England based on content analysis of Goebels' radio speeches. Take a look at this links if you are interested. Bibliography of Content Analysis Listings from Communication Abstracts, 1990-1997 Content Analysis Resources web site Text Analysis Info Page - all on text analysis and related topics The discourse analysis page of AI Topics Centre d'analyse des politiques publiques (CAPP) Département de science politique, Université Laval The Center for Social Research Methods: not necesarily content analysis, but it's good to take a look at Research Methods Knowledge Base The Annenberg School for Communication Web Concordances at the English Department of the University of Dundee Companion Website for the book Word Frequencies in Written and Spoken English: based on the British National Corpus Journal: Language Awareness; has some free issues/articles. The General Inquirer Home Page Journal of Second Language Writing Writing Guides: Conducting Content Analysis at Colorado State University; with a nice adnotated bibliography The Content Analysis Guidebook Online, An Accompaniament to The Content Analysis Guidebook by Kimberley A. Neuendorf. The Association for Computers and the Humanities and the Literary and Linguistic Computing eximancer - Practical Text Mining and Concept Mapping Journal Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation: some online articles Content Analysis News and Discussion mailing list archives some Resources related to content analysis and text analysis; updated quite recently: June 30, 2005;

A long time ago, I attended courses taught by Joshua Meyrowitz at the University of New Hampshire. While I was there, he was working on a book entitled "Television and the Obliteration of Childhood" which appears to be either out-of-print or available at the University of North Carolina not in book form. His more recent "No Sense of Place" also speaks to this particular issue.

If Josh will be so kind as to correct any brain-scrambling on my part, it's his thesis that "childhood" may be defined as a limit on what one knows and/or can know and that, with enough knowledge one functions in society as an adult. Children, exposed to the same television programs as an adult, aren't "children," in the old-fashioned sense of the word as they are in posession of the same information that adults have. From an informational approach, videogames also serve as an "information leveler" like television and, in my case, may serve to actually increase the knowledge a child may have about the virtual world of videogames over that of an adult. I don't play video games, so my daughter may know more than me (though, at five she does not play any yet).

But just playing videogames does not necessarily confer information that is usable in society, though a recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggested that children who play games have a better chance at figuring out a risk-reward scenerio than those who do not.

So if you define "childhood" as playing ball or running around the block or playing kick the can and hide and seek, you may be on to something with respect to childhood's end. But I prefer Dr. Meyrowitz's definition. Because playing games in childhood (and adulthood) is normal behavior, whether real or virtual. My only concern about game-playing from the standpoint of a parent is that it not be something that atrophies muscles. There needs to be game-playing in childhood experience that builds muscles, too.

A long time ago, I attended courses taught by Joshua Meyrowitz at the University of New Hampshire. While I was there, he was working on a book entitled "Television and the Obliteration of Childhood" which appears to be either out-of-print or available at the University of North Carolina not in book form. His more recent "No Sense of Place" also speaks to this particular issue.

If Josh will be so kind as to correct any brain-scrambling on my part, it's his thesis that "childhood" may be defined as a limit on what one knows and/or can know and that, with enough knowledge one functions in society as an adult. Children, exposed to the same television programs as an adult, aren't "children," in the old-fashioned sense of the word as they are in posession of the same information that adults have. From an informational approach, videogames also serve as an "information leveler" like television and, in my case, may serve to actually increase the knowledge a child may have about the virtual world of videogames over that of an adult. I don't play video games, so my daughter may know more than me (though, at five she does not play any yet).

But just playing videogames does not necessarily confer information that is usable in society, though a recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggested that children who play games have a better chance at figuring out a risk-reward scenerio than those who do not.

So if you define "childhood" as playing ball or running around the block or playing kick the can and hide and seek, you may be on to something with respect to childhood's end. But I prefer Dr. Meyrowitz's definition. Because playing games in childhood (and adulthood) is normal behavior, whether real or virtual. My only concern about game-playing from the standpoint of a parent is that it not be something that atrophies muscles. There needs to be game-playing in childhood experience that builds muscles, too.

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Actually, it wouldn't be such a large monoculture. Current policy is good politics but lousy science and economics. Algae produces far higher yields than traditional crops, can be grown in salt water and waste water, and doesn't need fertile fields (displace food crops). In order to replace all of the US oil consumption 15000 square miles or 9.5 million acres of algae farms would be needed. Sounds like a lot, but in the U.S. 450 million acres are currently used for crop farming and another 500 million for grazing land. There's still a lot of research to be done into sustaining algal blooms and oil recovery, but its been proven to be practical. There is also consideration of using algae farms as carbon sinks for traditional power plants, boosting algae production while scrubbing exhaust. http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Actually, according to Michael Briggs at U.N.H. Physics Dept. biodiesel production from algae could be done with existing run-off from agricuture in places like the Salton Sea. Here is the link: http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Thank you.

Where are you getting your "NREL" numbers?

Mike Brigg's paper is derived from the NREL numbers from the final NREL Aquatic Species Project report, and he says that our cost per barrel drops based on operating costs.

My own unpublished work (published and NDA doesn't go well together) says that output can be sold for under the current price of oil ($75/barrel), including capitalization and profit margin... and my numbers are more current than the 1996 NREL numbers.

In general, it depends on which species and what conditions they're grown under. If you want an overview, go here.

Note: one area on which there seems to be a consensus. If one is primarily interested in growing biomass energy, don't bother with open air ponds. Too hard to keep unwanted algae species from growing.

I think we need to look for alternatives to Middle East oil in the short term,
and alternatives to polluting fuels in the long term .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

The Algae is the best producer per this chart excerpted from that site :

                * Soybean: 40 to 50 US gal/acre (40 to 50 m/km)
                * Rapeseed: 110 to 145 US gal/acre (100 to 140 m/km)
                * Mustard: 140 US gal/acre (130 m/km)
                * Jatropha: 175 US gal/acre (160 m/km)
                * Palm oil: 650 US gal/acre (610 m/km) [2]
                * Algae: 10,000 to 20,000 US gal/acre (10,000 to 20,000 m/km)

It also burns cleaner than conventional diesel and bio-diesel is added to petrol
diesel to meet emissions requirements . It is also better for the engine as well .

Some environmental groups take issue with the amount of fertilizer and other factors
it would take to grow enough Algae to produce enough oil to replace petrol diesel .

Fortunately some ppl have a solution to that .

In Southern California the Salton Sea has no outlet and is become super saturated
with phosphates and salt , more saline than the ocean in fact .

Tract ponds with Solar powered slow crawling harvesters could skim the Algae,
Extracting the algae which used the phosphates to grow and traps a large portion
of the salt in it thus lower salt levels in the water and fertilizer levels .

The tract ponds could be covered by clear recycled plastic to avoid massive
evaporation due to spreading out the water over such a large surface area .

It would be expensive to implement, but current we use over 140 billon gallons
of petrol based fuel , and at $3 a gallon approx. that is over 420 billion a year ,
4.2 trillion in a decade .

I think we could do it for a great deal less than that .

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

The above article covers the math behind what I have said .

Taking the above method and then using it with a very fuel efficient vehicle
and offer a REALISTIC tax break on the super fuel efficient car .

This prototype diesel car could reduce the amount of fuel used by commuters .

http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/gw/vw1litre .htm

It is made from VERY expensive alloys and composites, a much more affordable
version would still achieve well over 100 mpg vs. near 300 mpg .

In the Long term the Algae production could be converted over to this :

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54456, 00.html

Algae making hydrogen ...

The synergy of saving the salton Sea and providing a tremendous amount of oil
to end our dependence on foreign oil for all time is taking lemons and making
lemonade in my mind .

Not to mention the eventual hydrogen production once more hydrogen cars ,
and filling stations are available and affordable .

All the variables are not worked out fully, nothing worth doing is easy, but it beats
the situation we face now and the worse one in the future .

Hope for the Future...

Ex_MislTech

I don't think it will work. If you try to capture carbon from the atmosphere to close the loop, natural limits bring the productivity way down. Then you have the inefficiency (60% loss) and pollution of the engines.

If you're going to change the world, don't go halfway. There are at least five battery or capacitor technologies either on the market or near market (Firefly Energy carbon-foam lead-acid battery, A123Systems Li-ion cell, EEStor ultracapacitor, several companies making zinc-air batteries, aluminum batteries) which can supply enough energy density and recharge fast enough to eliminate the need for combustion engines. If your vehicle doesn't need a carbon fuel, you don't need to capture carbon to power it; you can use anything that makes electricity. The list of things that make electricity is a lot longer and some of them (e.g. wind) are mighty cheap per kWh.

Then their back of the napkin calculations would be wrong. To replace all the transportation fuels we use in the US, about 25% of what the world uses, would require roughly 15,000 square miles of the Sonora Desert, which is around 120,000 square miles total. This was previously reported on /. and the pilot testing for large scale production has already been completed. More detail and a good overview here.

The funny thing about all this is that the oil producing algae research was first conducted by our very own US Dept. of Energy. And just like Brazil is taking the lead in showing the world how to achieve energy independence, another country is taking our research and showing how to make themselves less dependent on foreign oil. Kind of funny to watch the rest of the world passing us by in energy research, education, and manufacturing while Bubba and his red state buddies think it's just a hoot to haul their gas burning 4 wheelers out to the recreation area in their pickups that get 9 miles to a gallon, which they absolutely have to drive all the time because they need a truck big enough to haul their gas toys on the weekend.

It's like living in a continuous showing of Hee Haw.

Hydrogen doesn't make sense in terms of energy efficiency. Production of hydrogen takes 2 to 3 times the amount of energy available in the resulting H2 gas. For electrolysis, it is much more efficient to just store the energy in batteries.

The UNH Biodiesel Group has an interesting explaination of H2 production efficiency.

Oddly enough, these numbers appear to have changed significantly since 1994. In later work by the same author, the rates of sexual assault per 1,000 juveniles have dropped by 56% (p.9), but all of that change has come from lesser victimization by persons known to the victim. In other words, the number of random pervs has stayed a more-or-less constant fraction of the population, but the number of abusive parents/clergy has dropped drastically.

In particular, though, that means anyone braying about how the Internet has made child abuse more common or made the world more dangerous for children is either completely ignorant or is out-and-out lying. "Think of the children" should not mean "ignore the truth".

Oddly enough, these numbers appear to have changed significantly since 1994. In later work by the same author, the rates of sexual assault per 1,000 juveniles have dropped by 56% (p.9), but all of that change has come from lesser victimization by persons known to the victim. In other words, the number of random pervs has stayed a more-or-less constant fraction of the population, but the number of abusive parents/clergy has dropped drastically.

In particular, though, that means anyone braying about how the Internet has made child abuse more common or made the world more dangerous for children is either completely ignorant or is out-and-out lying. "Think of the children" should not mean "ignore the truth".

NREL's research showed that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced from 200,000 hectares of desert land (200,000 hectares is equivalent to 780 square miles, roughly 500,000 acres), if the remaining challenges are solved (as they will be, with several research groups and companies working towards it, including ours at UNH). In the previous section, we found that to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification - I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required). That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals.

1) Bio-panel - a panel that uses algae to produce either hydrogen or bio-deisel oil based
off hybrid algae, a variant replacement for conventional solar panels .

My idea based on already known uses for algae .

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54456, 00.html

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

2) Nanite memory - non-volatile ram that is 10 - 20 times faster than current DD2,
and and Ipod could have 10 Tera-bytes of a module the size of a sugar cube .
No power required to maintain the bit state either .

http://www.nantero.com/

3) Growing human organs with the recepients DNA markers on the backs of mice,
already been done, think it through to its full possibilities .

3rd pic down http://www.pbs.org/saf/1107/features/body.htm

4) Next Gen Fuel Cell vehicles .

http://www.japancorp.net/Article.asp?Art_ID=11628

5) LED based wall projectors to reduce electrical power usage world wide .
Imagine all display systems in the world going from 100 wats plus to 1- 3 watts .

http://www.lightblueoptics.com/

6 billion ppl, probably over 2 billion display systems world wide with a over
100 fold reduction in power usage, it could have a major impact . (Tv's, monitors, etc )

Ex-MislTech

Nothing new here.

Diesels can be run on almost any kind of oil: corn, soy, whale...but probably will end up running on a kind of algae since it is by weight 50% oil or so. Consider this info I got from the wikipedia article:

        * Soybean: 40 to 50 US gal/acre (35 to 45,000 L/km)
        * Rapeseed: 110 to 145 US gal/acre (100 to 130,000 L/km)
        * Mustard: 140 US gal/acre (130,000 L/km)
        * Jatropha: 175 US gal/acre (160,000 L/km)
        * Palm oil: 650 US gal/acre (580,000 L/km) [6]
        * Algae: 10,000 to 20,000 US gal/acre (9,000,000 to 18,000,000 L/km)

Sounds economically and environmentally tenable to me. Why economically? We won't have a choice in the matter as economical sustainability will have to equal environmental sustainability since the environment itself is taking such a beating; the exernalities must be considered when it comes to industry since we get exactly one planet to live on. Since the algae doesn't compete with farm land or water, it is the only teneable solution. Emmissions are just fine. The CO2 coming out was the CO2 taken in by the algae during production. For this reason I contend that this is a good way to sequester extra CO2 in addition to closing the carbon cycle: local, state and national governments could subsidize the production of algae-biodiesel (it's cheaper than you might think) to not only lower the the costs of fuel (a boon since the US economy, for example, hingies on cheap fuel) but also clean the air. There are slightly higher NOx emissions but they can be fixed with catalytic converters. Also see this.

The car is built up from a K1 Attack kit, which is a European competitor to the Lotus Elise. The Attack began as a kit car, and they've only recently started selling already-built cars in Europe. The only way to get them in the USA is in kit form. The most immediately noticeable difference between the Elise and the Attack is that the Attack has no roof (and I presume no heat or A/C) and is strictly a fair-weather car. The Attack is far from being able to pass US safety regulations (bumper, crash testing, etc), which is one reason why it's only available here as a kit. Even the more highly-developed Elise needs a regulatory exemption to be sold here. Starting in 2007 we're supposed to see a redesigned Elise that actually meets US standards.

If I'd built the thing, I would have bypassed all the hybrid technology (which is mostly hype, IMHO) and simply dropped a turbo-diesel engine into the Attack. I'm hoping that Lotus might someday build a diesel-powered Elise, that would be interesting (but I've seen no hint that they're interested in doing it). VW have shown something similar in principle, it was their Eco-Racer concept car. But there's no telling whether they will produce it.

As for bio-fuels, I have this to say: ALGAE

It's true that soybeans are not the most efficient crop for making bio-diesel fuel. It's true that growing conventional crops requires burning a lot of fuel (not to mention pesticides & fertilizer) that detracts from your energy yield. And of course they would compete against food crops for arable land. That doesn't mean you can write off biofuel. We've had articles in the past here on Slashdot about growing algae for biodiesel fuel, but everybody forgets so quickly. Tsk.

Biodiesel from algae:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
http://www.greenfuelonline.com/

VW Ecoracer:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/12/vw_ecorace r_pre.php

This is essentially marketing copy, but a start:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Wired had an article back in 2002:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.04/mustread. html?pg=5

This is probably the source article the parent read:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003999.html

Palm oil is also used as a replacement for hydrogenated oils because it is so stable at higher temperatures. That might make it a bad choice for starting your car in the winter!

Mustard oil was what UNH is recommending for New England vegetable oil producers a while back.
Oil-producing algae might also hold some promise. (http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html )

The Rhizome Collective also does a lot of hopeful stuff. We all have to learn to cut back
our energy consumption and start producing our own energy by whatever wind, solar, mechanical
or other technologies we can wrap our brains and our fingers around! I can give up my car,
but I do not want to give up my computer. I guess mass starvation is a more serious concern however.

This sounds very similar to a similar process documented by the UNH Biodeisel Group.

I think the best hope for bio-fuels is the Algae research being done, it already
outpaces soybean oil by a massive magnitude . In fact I don't think any other known bio
process can beat the Algae production of oil at this time .

Article here :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

Excerpt:

        * Soybean: 40 to 50 US gal/acre (40 to 50 m/km)
        * Rapeseed: 110 to 145 US gal/acre (100 to 140 m/km)
        * Mustard: 140 US gal/acre (130 m/km)
        * Jatropha: 175 US gal/acre (160 m/km)
        * Palm oil: 650 US gal/acre (610 m/km) [2]
        * Algae: 10,000 to 20,000 US gal/acre (10,000 to 20,000 m/km)

Further information:

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Excerpt:

Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert .

The Salton sea has no outlet, and has huge algae blooms that are causing mass fish die offs
and , and the salt level is rising to the point that nothing will live in it soon .

Also phosphates from agriculture are washing into the salton sea .

Massive Algae track ponds fed by this water could be used to desalinate the salton sea, lower
the phosphate levels, and provide enough oil to power the entire US .

It is hard to believe, but the math is there, and the Algae really is just a very efficient form of
solar energy . The simplest life forms are often the best at one task .

Ex-MislTech

You can find mind-numbing levels of information and speculation about CWT's Missouri plant at BioDieselNow.

There's been two clear problems with the plan so far as I can see: Firstly, their business model assumed that the use of animal waste as feedstock was not long-term feasible (concerns over Mad Cow disease). If animal remnants stopped being used as feedstock, there would be no competing market for them, and therefore their price would drop, or they might even be paid for taking away the waste and destroying it. That didn't happen.

Secondly, the plant did generate odor complaints from the area residents, enough to require remediation. I'm sure that's long-term fixable, it just wasn't fully anticipated.

The other thing people should keep in mind is that as the need for petroleum alternatives grows, the impetus for solving existing problems will grow. Rather than depending on inefficient sources like Soy, future needs will probably be met by alternatives like algae (covered on /. here).

Generation from algae is particularly promising, as it doesn't require arable land, and can use salt water.

Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae; Michael Briggs, University of New Hampshire, Physics Department; (revised August 2004).

That is true that the normal feed stock like soy, corn, etc is not enough to replace all petro use in the US. That is why there is a slow push to extract the oil from algea. If you are interested in more info, you can read this article http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

I personaly run 100% biodiesel in my new pickup truck and love it. It currently does not cost me anymore than good old petro-diesel. There is little to no loss in power and my mileage has increased. So it seems to be a great way to remove the dependancy on petro-oil for cars and trucks. This would leave the petro-oil available to aircraft and other uses untill we find a replacment for that us too. Removing cars, trucks, trains, and ships from petro-oil usage would leave petro-oil in less demand.

NREL's research showed that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced from 200,000 hectares of desert land (200,000 hectares is equivalent to 780 square miles, roughly 500,000 acres)

...

to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles.

...

  That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals.

While not necessarily your first image of a plant, algae do a much better job. They're mostly oil, and they don't muck about with growing pretty flowers or trying to grow to compete for sunlight.

There's a good link from UNH:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html