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Biofuels Coming With a High Environmental Price?
DurandalTree writes "With the spectre of global warming on the horizon, biofuels have been touted as the solution to motor vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions. But with biodiesel use on the increase, it appears a distinctively environmentally unfriendly footprint is being left behind by some of its prime sources; affected food prices are surging out of reach of the poor and rainforests are being destroyed to create larger plantations."
One of the the first renewable fuels was firewood, and using it in quantity caused quite an impact on forests.
at least we're finally starting to see significant efforts in the world, and doing nothing just because of the costs would still be more stupid that these problems.
"We think people rightly feel that once they buy something, it stays bought," --Suw Charman, Open Rights Grp
Nothing occurs in a vacuum any more. Efficiency and economic viability of any product is tied to the current supply chain, and any change in the balance of this order of magnitude will be felt everywhere. I always thought it interesting when there were stories on biodeisel being made from recycled cooking oil nobody ever mentioned that there is a fairly limited supply of said oil when compared with the demand for automotive fuel. Sure, there's lots going to waste, but making the waste product a viable commodity in a quickly growing market is bound to create scarcity. All of a sudden, stuff that's free because it is waste now has an actual market value.
Are we really so myopic that the lure of "free fuel" has completely distracted us from the fact that nothing on this planet is being produced in such quantity that changing the market for that product radically will not affect the marketplace?
I guess the answer is, "yes."
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Not at all unexpected if you only thought about it for a moment.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Growing fuel in the dirt is very hard on the planet. Not only does it suck up a lot of land (on top of what we already need to grow food) it also covers that land with one single crop that needs all sorts of nasty things such as pesticides and fertilizers.
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.
Yes, switching to these kind of fuels will leave less of an environmental impact, but it will hurt poor people the most who consume corn frequently and will certainly lead to an increase in price in corn-produced food. (Think Corn Syrup in soda) This is why we can't radically switch to biofuels like some people are calling for.
People don't care enough to change less.
The simple answer is to reduce energy usage, but people don't want to.
Stop travelling, have new stuff, heat/cool their houses, import food etc.
Myself I fully intend to visit a few more far off locations, I want a new couch and bigger TV, I want my house warm in the winter and cool in the summer and I want a broad selection of fresh fruits and vegetables year round.
That's gonna use a lot of energy, even if I gave up my car to walk to a market. People don't want to change, and they won't yet.
The latest trend I saw is directly blaming the "rich", which pretty much includes most of us with computers and the time to argue on slashdot. I don't see us making huge changes.
Why is biofuel taking off and leaving hydrogen in the dust? Is it the safety factor or the control factor?
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
You ever see a rig take off from a light? That big black plume of smoke coming out of the stack is 100% shit.
Diesel engines are pollutin' machines. The industry just shifted the focus on "carbon", and morons buy it.
Remember acid rain? I guess that's not an issue anymore
We'd have never had a gasoline economy if the tea totallers had allowed Ford to build his first cars to run on ethanol. We never will, for the same reason. So there's some food for thought. We're too fucking uptight to let people under 21 buy alcohol, even if it is for their car. Closest we'll get is 85%
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This is one of those things that should be obvious but that's very difficult to explain to some less critical radical environmentalists.
Energy demand = Growing rapidly without forseeable upper bound
If you switch from fossil fuels to biofuels, all you do is change the problem set, from pollution and peak oil to deforestation and starvation. There is one solution and one solution only: energy efficiency and conservation. I suppose you could say there is a second, getting energy from outside the system (i.e. space) but that still leaves the problem of getting the energy back out of the system (i.e. pushing it cleanly and transparently back into space once used) so that we don't simply heat/pollute the globe beyond control.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Algae grown on raw sewage.
Is that going to lead to a shit shortage?
Indeed - there's another resource we need to care about here. Viable soil is a renewable resource - but like fresh water, it has its limits, and is geographically quite limited in terms of cheap availability. By forcing the land to both feed everyone, and fuel all their vehicles, we place a much lower maximum on the population that can be supported by that land. More than that, by potentially stretching the demands on the land too far, we risk that farmers and companies may deplete or despoil the soil they use for short term gain before they decide to leave the market, making it difficult for anyone else to economically recover that same area.
That said, we could make better use of the oceans - but I trust our current free market much less there - the oceans have much more of a "tragedy of the commons" dynamic than elsewhere, with fragile ecosystems and high difficulty sectioning off properties. Algae on land-based ponds in otherwise nonviable landscapes would offer the most promise for producing biomass in a way that would not negatively affect prices for the poor. Algae can produce its own food, doesn't need to use much fresh water, can produce various kinds of oils, and could even be used as a part of foods if we are interested in exploring that. The only question is, will it be able to scale and pay for itself in terms of needing to control its environment to mass produce it? Given the history of livestock, I can't imagine algae can't be made efficient or be properly bred en mass.
That's just my idea though - and I'm fairly uninformed about the whole field of energy crops. Why are we currently pursuing the whole turn-food-to-fuel path anyway, given how wide open the algae field is?
Ryan Fenton
The only reason it's so cheap is the corn lobby demanding big payouts from the government. It's not even particularly healthy, corn syrup isn't the best form of sugar for you. And it's a crap source for ethanol production too.
Deleted
When will people listen???
Biofuels are simply not environmentally friendly in any way, shape or form. They are seen by some as a temporary solution to dwindling oil stocks. Not as the environmental saviour some idiots have imagined them to be.
It's the corn lobbyist factor.
For any problem, first solutions prove to be questionable. First, and many existing nuclear power plants are obviously very dangerous - just consider Chernobyl. Yet, now we can build very safe nuclear plants that produce less radioactive waste than comparable coal plants. No matter what it is now, early adoption of biofuel will eventually encourage better solutions. In principal at least, plants get all their combustible content by capturing greenhouse gases from the air. If dry grass or agricultural byproducts can be burned, at least for home heating purposes, without much processing, we are reducing our output of CO2.
Which might not be as hard as it sounds. The University of New Hampshire did a study in 2004 where they concluded that biodiesel from algae could -- at least theoritically -- supply all the nation's fuel supply without require food oil (like soy or palm) to be used at all. On the ethanol front, cellulosic ethanol can be produced from high-cellulose plant products, like sawgrass or wood chips, without cutting into the corn crop. Some of cellulosic plants are beginning to approach commercial volumes of production.
It's not that biofuels are a bad idea, but not all implementations of those ideas are equally valid.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
The argument against ethanol because of corn is going to be off the table in relatively short time. Cellulosic ethanol is coming commerically viable now and it will turn your green-waste trash into fuel. The US Department of Energy gets this and has formerly denounced corn as the future of ethanol. So when you use corn as a reason against ethanol, consider the other sources of it.8 30990020070328
Corn is not the future of U.S. ethanol: DOE
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN2
A cellulosic ethanol company who was recently awarded a $40M grant from the DOE in February:
http://bluefireethanol.com/
Nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
Diesel engines are pollutin' machines.
Diesel engines are much cleaner now, if the proper technology is used to clean the exhaust. Unfortunately all that technology got clogged up by the sulphur in US diesel through last year, so none of it was used.
US diesel switched to a low-sulphur blend at the start of the year, and all 2007 model year diesel cars require it. It exchange, they now have the particulate filters that make diesels run cleaner. This does little to clean up the millions of diesel cars and trucks built before 2007, unfortunately, but it shows that the problem hasn't been forgotton.
Please don't attack diesel based on a complete lack of information and one anecdote. For more information, see the National Clean Diesel Campaign.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
If you want to be serious about replacing oil with bio-fuel you probably need to use resources that are otherwise unused. For example in Sweden we use waste to create most of our heat, as well as some electricity. By now the waste burning plants and our other bio-industries produce more energy than all of our nuclear plants! And yet most Swedes are unaware of it. Which is probably because burning waste does not disturb anything else. Another set of resources that exists in many countries is salt water, sunlight and unused land. In theory, countries around the equator could grow algae in salt water and use it to produce enormous amounts of bio-fuel. This would go on without much interference with anything else.
All I see anymore is marketing crap disguised as "save the planet" feel-goodiness.
Yes, I've seen the commercial produced by the "americas oil industry" of a rig driving around making the world green and beautiful.
All diesel engines spew shit out, it's nearly impossible to have a complete burn.
And even low-sulphur diesel is many times worse than the exhaust from a gas engine.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Um, a large part of that black plume is just plain ol' carbon particulate. Not tremendously good to breathe in because particulate matter irritates the lungs, but not that bad in the overall scheme of things. As for your sulfur assertions - well, wrong. Diesel fuel is being transitioned to ultra-low sulfur (>15ppm) as of last year. The newest EPA Tier 2 gasoline standards set a flat cap for gas at 150ppm. New diesels will kick the crap out of gas vehicles for SOx reductions... Now I will admit, diesels do generate other weird exhaust by-products not created by gas engines, but as for your black plume and sulfur emissions, that's bunk.
When you consider the higher thermal efficiency of a diesel engine, the higher energy density of the fuel to start with, the fact it will run on dang near anything combustible, and the now the ultra low sulfur emissions, they really are just a better design.
The "black" that comes out of the diesel pipe is a lot of soot for sure. It's mostly particulate matter, and contributes to smog and can promote asthma.
However, that has nothing to do with the environmental damage of CO and CO2, the "greenhouse gasses". Diesel doesn't contribute to a global issue nearly as much (being mostly localized). And if the diesel is made from grown material (which pulls the carbon out of the air), it has a net change of zero. I remember having a 15yo tell me the same thing once, basing all his knowledge on what he observed. I'm glad to see foolish youthdom is still flourishing. But you're still provably wrong.
Likewise, the sulfur in diesel which would cause acid rain, is also beside the point. It doesn't come with diesel as a necessity, and biodiesel also doesn't have sulfur as a requirement.
Lastly, alcohol can be produced from things other than sugar, resulting in methanol (which burns about as well as ethanol) and is toxic... so the modern teetotalers shouldn't care.
Somebody will mention the word "clean" at some point - it is not a word that really makes sense in the context of burning stuff in air (nitrous oxides are produced), and the clown that always mentions nuclear whenever energy is mentioned should also remember that mining and processing is not "clean" either.
With all of this massive growning and killing and burning of plants I am going to have to take a stand. From this day forward I will only eat plants that were not grown in mass production thrown into huge warehouses and treated imhumanely. Save the plants!
Yeah I know sounds silly....
To avoid saying the market is always right, I will simply say it's right 99% of the time. So when a special intrest group imposes it's will upon everyone, by coersion instead of persuasion, then the converse principal comes into play, that monopolies are always bad, or at least 99% of the time.
1) Spread FUD about competitors
2) Buy legislators, or wait for FUD saturation to accrue to the point where shameless politians will knowingly doing the wrong thing because it will appear that they are "caring" or "taking action"
3) Monopoly Profit!
For example, take the "alternative" bag industry, spreading FUD about plastic bags being bad for the enviroment. They fail to mention that the total paper process actually mixes more chemical contaminints into the enviroment, but somehow people start believing the overly simplistic "plastic bad" and "paper good" mantras. What follows are monopoly laws that force everyone to fuck the enviroment, in order to line the pockets corporations, so that the ignorant populace can continue to feel sanctimonious over the "evil" deniers.
My personal opinion is not to blame the corrupt polititians, they aren't dictators, they were elected by people. And not to blame corporations, they can't make you buy their products, their products are purchased by people. But to blame the people that are content being ignorant so they can continue to follow their "faith" (enviromentalism, communism, appleism, liberalism, islamo-fascism, etc...) And last but not least, some blame for the rest of us that tolerate all the intolerant behavior of the preceding groups of religious nuts.
Sad but true. The environmentalists who used to hate nuclear so much will end up being the greatest proponents.
Direct injection two-cycle engines may be another tool in the war against pollution.
The summary is right... biofuels made from food are causing deforestation and a rise in food prices. The solution is obvious. The USA needs to get it's head out of the sand and legalize THC-Removed Hemp for biofuel production. Hemp is more efficient, has more crops per year, can fill the roll of many other crops that are less efficient, and won't increase the price of foods that shouldn't be associated with fuel anyways (corn? Come on. Painful example of how rampant lobbying can overcome a products inefficiency).
With legal, non-smokable Hemp, we could stop cutting down forests. We could cut back on the amount of cotton crops that have to be grown (and the corresponding amount of land that has to be rested because cotton crops sucked the life out of them). We could even use it for biofuel until we can get algae farms that are efficient. Hemp was made illegal because some big tycoon decided he wanted to protect his cash cow. It's time to get rid of that silliness, and start using our heads. Hemp is where it's at. Wake up, USA.
And, in conjunction with Hemp, let's work on algae... a great way to make use of inhospitable land, and possibly the best/most-efficient biological source that we can turn into biofuel to replace our dependence on dead dinosaurs.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Oil companies were saying "We'll need to build more coal plants to support the electric cars! You don't want more coal plants, do you?"
Now a shill is saying "We'll all starve if we use biodiesel or ethanol! You don't want to starve, do you?"
If a new car ran on 1/4" bolts, the price of 1/4" bolts would go up. But guess what, so would production. And it doesn't even have to be the kind of production that takes up food. Methanol could be produced by the corn stalks along with all sorts of other waste materials, and then the remainder used to enhance the ground again. Or you could use the corn oil for biodiesel and the starch for ethanol. But you don't even need to use corn, either. You can grown an amazing amount of corn in a very small area, without using all the idiotic equipment or chemicals. Who cares if it has some worms if it'll just be fermented or pressed?
This is what happens when money and politics (but mostly money) start to collide with society who's looking at the situation and saying "Hey, you can't do that!" There are big, big companies getting fat by polluting where we all have to live, and using our money to propagandize it so that we're happy to line thier pockets at our expense.
The biggest problem with all of this are the propaganda machines. They've been in full swing for decades now, and I'm getting tired of it. This blog was a shining example.
Switchgrass grows just fine with little tillage required. An added benefit is job creation, especially for small hobby farmers who could sell to processing plants.
The best example of where such a model falls down was the Australian wool industry. Wool was selling at a low price. Leading economists said the answer was simple - kill lots of sheep to make wool scarce. It didn't work, they forgot that cotton exists. I wish I was making this up but this piece of utter stupidity that ruined many farmers really did happen.
Biofuels - wrong direction! Having a high value commodity compete with a low value one from the same resource in a planning and regulation nightmare! Not even considering the pending environmental desaster. But we have the solution: Hydrogen. It's one of the few short-term energy carriers readily available - days to months conversion cycle versus yearly or worse for biofuel or millions of years for fossils and billions for nuclear! Accordingly affected is the enrgy balance on the planet. Hydrogen production has a very efficient conversion rate - way beyond the alternatives for transportable energy. It also has extremely high energy density, good for travelling distances. H is volatile in concentration but not for long as is disperses harmlessly in seconds. This technolgy is very challenging to energy companies as its generation is essentially low tech. Africa can have its own plants - not good for American economy and that is the reason why there is no push towards it. We'll probably miss out.
Not at the levels projected/required!
Corn is produced through an incredible usage of fossil fuels. From the fertilizers, through the mechanized Ag cycle. It's just awful! A petro-carbon boondoggle, for Monsanto and the usual Cheney back-room.
Then there's the "let's burn food!" aspect.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Well it is obvious that we cannot produce the required amount of energy out of biomass or solar energy (including wind and water). A solution can only be to reduce the energy footprint of our major systems: transportation, heating, production and communication.
:-)
Beside the fact, that cars consume a lot of energy during production (so when they run longer, this is better for the environment), they also use a lot of materials. Iron is widely available, but other materials, like copper, are rare. In addition to that they need a lot of space to park and to move. This space has to be created and maintained, which is also costly (in resources and energy). Concrete needs cement and lime, which require a lot of energy in production. So a solution for this sector should be more efficient than cars. In cities this can be streetcars, which are even more efficient than buses. In regions with low population density, this solution will not work. Therefore cities should be prefered over the country side. Also a more dense living should be encouraged. But this could lead to ugly cities. This must be prevented, because otherwise humans go mad. A good solution is the use of houses with 4-6 floors (you do not need elevators in such houses at least not in all), plus parks and decentralized supply systems (e.g. supermarkets).
The next system to optimize is housing. Houses must be insulated. Today we can build low energy houses with almost no extra cost. Zero energy houses or houses which produce more energy than they consume are also possible, but more expensive today. So the housing problem is not a technological problem, but a political problem. To give you some figures. An average German house consumes only 1/5 of a US-house and even that amount is still too high. This is because not all houses in Germany use modern heating systems (99.x% efficiency) and insulation. Most houses have 10-20 year old (or even older) heating systems.
The last problem is production (and it is connected to the transportation problem). Most goods are not produced where they are used. Also a lot of parts are delivered cross country and around the world, which requires a lot of energy. In many cases it would be cheaper to deliver the knowledge somewhere and let them build the parts there.
Another point is the lifetime of most goods. The break after a couple of years and are not designed to get fixed. This is a big problem, because a replacement is expensive (in energy terms), because the material of the broken device has to be recylced. A better solution is to fix such devices. For instance a mixer. A cheap mixer (about 14 EUR) breaks, when used, very soon. I have seen our device going out of service after 6 month (twice). We got a new one for no cost, but on the resource side we allocated three devices. If the device would be fixable, the resource allocation would be somewhere close to 1 unit.
There are more points. But I think these few give you a picture of the things which lie ahead of us. We have to change our habits. Think different
1) Biodiesel use in the US has more than doubled for 4 years in a row
y
2) You know 2 people who make their own
3) Hydrogen Economy and Ethanol Economy look silly next to Vegetable Oil Economy
4) Environmentalists are worried we are growing to much vegetable oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_oil_econom
Sorry, that's the "Pro" link, here's the one for those of you smart enough to not pay for it: link
...it depends on how you produce it.
Note that the linked articles are foreign, discussing production of biodiesel in places like Malaysia. US biodiesel production, OTOH, is a by-product of soybeans grown for human and animal consumption; the fuel does not compete with food here in the USA.
Now, if we started importing biodiesel the way we have with ethanol, then its an entirely different situation. Product from Brazil or Malaysia would almost certainly come from a process of deforestation.
The EU farms rapeseed specifically for biodiesel production, and it is pushed heavily as a rotation crop. They are introducing ways to make the byproducts edible (at least for livestock) although how beneficial this is remains to be seen. At least there seems to be no large-scale deforestation associated with EU rapeseed.
I'd also like to note that the EU some years ago blocked the import of palm oil fuels. Partly because of this, in order to have any biodiesel market at all, Malaysia and other Pacific rim nations have agreed to form a commission regulating the land use associated with the industry.
The other problem is that there is currently no (nada, zilch, zip) infrastructure for supporting hydrogen energy. Converting a gas station into an ethanol station isn't hard. Brazil already requires new cars to be "dual fuel" and capable of using ethanol or gasoline. Biodiesel is even easier since virtually every diesel vehicle actually runs better on biodiesel.
Hydrogen has a whole raft of other hurdles to cross as well but, until it crosses those two, it's not even really a serious contender.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
I'm sorry, but what?
If you want to be literal, then basically nothing we do is environmentally friendly. At least, nothing modern. In fact, the only environmentally friendly thing we could really do is to bury ourselves and become fertilizer.
But a biofuel can be mostly environmentally friendly. There are problems with issues like nitric oxides, which are produced by burning many fuels - gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, and vegetable oil alike. But then, burning wood releases many things that we would prefer not to breathe, and it is a natural occurrence.
One thing that you can say for biofuels is that they themselves are carbon-neutral. Other processes related to them may not be, of course. But if all of our energy was derived from biofuels, it would all be carbon-neutral.
Arguably the best fuel to use for these various reasons would be hydrogen. It is not an energy source, but then, neither is biofuel, which is the liquid result of processing plants made mostly with solar energy. Hydrogen burns most cleanly (the outputs are water and heat) but of course the energy has to come from somewhere, and it has a laundry list of problems, probably the most serious of which is hydrogen embrittlement which destroys everything dealing with hydrogen eventually.
An option I like a great deal for transmitting power is the use of compressed air. MDI's air car technology is quite environmentally friendly.
But put quite simply, the biofuels are our best hope for reducing our environmental impact in the short term, and one article that says that one flawed method of producing biofuels is causing problems is quite simply not evidence that the entire concept is flawed.
You make clever use of propaganda in your comment, but I notice that there is no actual content, no facts, no science. Please come back when you have some meat to place in your comment.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sugar cane not only has a greater concentration of sucrose (about 30% more than corn) but it is also a lot easier to extract. Yet the USA places a 53 cent tarif on all imported ethanol. Powerful interests are at play, the greater good not being one of them. Brazil is lucky to be largely energy independant, which is in their politcal interest economically and security wise. The USA has double the oil of brazil with a roughly only a 30% larger population, but instead of being anywhere near energy independent, the USA imports 20% of its oil from Venezuela of which whose leader calls the USA president "the devil." Expect the USA to screw their corn industry, play brinkmanship with oil producing countries and thereby rising the price of oil, and continuing tarifs on importing ethanol. Confused? Follow the money and you may not be.
Soylent Green enough said.
please tag this as rideafrigginbike
If Bush wants to kill the terrorists, he should jump off a cliff.
But are a number of economic ones...
1. Building enough trays to contain even six inches of water, over several square miles.
2. Pumping enough water to fill said trays
3. Pumping enough water to keep the trays filled against evaporative effects, or inversly to cover all the trays and keep temperature in the right range.
4. Stocking the trays with the right nutrient and algae stock
5. Collecting and refreshing the trays.
Power shouldn't be much of a hassle, solar panels and maybe a nuclear plant to handle night-time power demands.
I don't read AC A human right
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Outside of an election year, there just isn't that much effluent in the US. Imagine, if you will, that your daily commute requires 3 gallons of ethanol. Are you going to generate enough effluent in one day to feed the algae required to generate that? I though not.
Non-food cellulose is an option, but frankly that stuff is already being used now -- plowed back under, ground into cattle feed, a bunch of other uses.
Extracting nitrogen from the air might be an amplifier. What are the long term effects of that, I wonder.
An algae farm large enough to support the automotive fuel needs of the US completely would require a set of ponds the size of New Mexico. A prerequisite for the ponds is that they be at least 10-15 meters deep, flushable to the sea (not far inland), on a site with good heavy transportation infrastructure. For a pilot project New Orleans is an ideal site.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Ever see a somewhat-recent VW Jetta TDI (i. e. Diesel) take off from a stoplight? The utter lack of a big black plume of smoke is great! Oh, and the 46 combined miles per gallon (41 in town, 53 straight highway) don't hurt, either. :-) Disclaimer: I have a 2006 Jetta TDI, and I love it. What a fun, efficient, and surprisingly peppy car to drive! I look forward to seeing Honda's Diesel engine in the States in a couple of years (it's already in Europe since 2003--the lucky bastards).
*Old*, *ancient* diesel engines put out that plume of smoke. Modern diesels don't do that, and that includes all American pickup trucks made since oh, say, 2000 (Chevy/GMC stuck with a slight smoke-maker until the 2001 model year, Ford's Power Stroke and Dodge's Cummins were both fairly low polluters by 1994). Bringing up those ancient semis is like comparing a 2006 Toyota Corolla to that 1973 muscle car with the 9 miles-per-gallon, pollutin' dog big-block that so many seem to still love these days.
As for sulphur dioxide, yes, that was true back in the day. Petroleum does contain sulfur in it, and it was in gasoline, too. Several years ago, we went to Low-Sulphur Diesel (yes, "LSD"), which cut that problem down a lot. As of January 2007, we're now on Ultra-Low-Sulphur Diesel (ULSD) in the USA, so that problem is now pretty much gone in this country, and that's for *all* diesel engines, even the 20-plus year old, sooty big-rigs. Oh, and if you use B100 Biodiesel, you have *ZERO* sulphur emissions. Virtually all modern Diesels can use Biodiesel with no problems.
Time, it appears, for you to update your knowledge on Diesel engines. They've come a loooooong way in the last 20 years.
mailto:spitz@cmosnetworks.com
Every time this subject comes up, people pipe up that we need to stop consuming, stop using power.
Well, I don't intend to go back to living in a world of horse flop in the streets, coal in my stove, pumping water every day from a well a half mile away. Nor should I. Nor should anyone else.
What is flabbergasting is that the same crowd that joneses for Star Trek all the time is so fast to posit that we need to live simply so that others may simply live. If there's anything Trek should have taught you is that life is not a zero sum game, mankind can design and reason its way out of situations it creates, and there are more than enough resources to go around and you just need to figure out what they are and how to use them.
We are truly stupid if we turn backwards right when we figure out how to do high efficiency fusion, store energy as extra mass, and other off the wall things we've cooked up in sci-fi but haven't gotten around to figuring out in the basic physics departments. We will be condeming all future generations to poverty of not only economy, but morality and ethics, because with poverty of nations go all those things we so hate in our pasts: war, slavery, conquest, exploitation, disease, starvation. We have more than enough of those things left now. We have been fighting damn hard to change ourselves for a long time. To rise from that horrid muck.
There's a difference between being more efficient and doing an about face in our march forward. And getting things done from building pyramids to cities needs energy of one kind or another. We can't simply stop using energy. We can make things use less and still use. We cannot stop using.
Damn us all now if we reflexively retreat from advancement now like idiot children. Damn us to hell.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Isn't this the same George Monbiot that 'proved' a few months back that global warming was a hoax? One can't help but wonder if Exxon/Mobil is the ultimate source of his 'data'. Not that I completely disagree with him; improving efficiency would be vastly more effective in the long wrong than trying to 'grow' our way out of global warming, but he sure does seem to have an inordinate love of petroleum.
US electric consumption is roughly 1/1000 of your figures. Net 2005 generation was 4038 billion kWh (not MWh).
The insolation in mid-Kansas is about 1550 kWh/m^2/yr. At 15% efficiency, this would produce about 230 kWh/m^2/yr of electricity. Divide 4.038e12 kWh/yr by 230 kWh/m^2/yr and you get 1.76e10 m^2, or 17,600 km^2. Total impervious area in the USA (roofs, pavement, etc.) is 112610 km^2, so we'd need to put PV on about 16% of what's already covered. This can be done when we re-roof.
True, covering the rest of our energy needs would take more, but that's no reason to curl up in a fetal position and suck your thumb.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
... "The Ultimate Resource", by Julian Simon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Resource _(book)
That book is the reason why I refuse to believe the current doomsaying is any more reliable than that of the past.
Biofuels are useful because of the economic benefits of fuels mostly compatible with current engines. It's the first step: renewable energy rather than non-renewable. But we're not meant to stay with biofuels. Compared with other pieces of the alternative fuel puzzle, it's one of the most expensive. It's only meant to subsidize oil consumption for now. The next step is cheaper, enviro-freindly, economical, renewable energy *sources*.
In regards to fuel, there is a practical difference between an energy *source* and an energy *carrier*. (In general physics, it's all just energy transfer. But this is in practical terms, not theoretical.) There are only a handful of what we might consider energy *sources*: solar, nuclear, geothermal, wind, etc. Energy *carriers* would be: hydrogen, electricity, compressed air, etc. Biofuels are somewhere in between depending on how it's made. The difference is that with sources, we don't really expend very much energy to get a net gain of energy. Especially with solar (which is now cheaper and 40% efficient compared to past solar tech) we simply soak up the sun and use the energy. Biofuels are basically carriers of solar energy, just like oil. If we can make it with little effort, it's more of a source. If we consume a lot of oil, coal, etc. to make it, then it's more of a carrier. Hydrogen is made with electrolysis, which spends electrical energy (e.g. from the sun or another source), and you get the energy back using the fuel cell in your car that reverses the process to output eletricity, so hydrogen is also carrier (electricity could be seen as a carrier as well, since we are ultimately concerned with kinetic energy for motion).
To make a long story short, biofuel technology is meant for backwards compatibility until cars are designed to run on something else. The future will be energy sources that are practically free or will be very cheap in the long run once the tech becomes more widely used (e.g. solar, wind, nuclear, etc.).
A plant that has been proposed for making cellulose ethanol is a Brazilian water hyacinth, it has the advantage of being one of the fastest growing plants in the world. This one is definitely a pest, if left to grow it will quickly choke any water surface. If it could be harvested to make ethanol, many swamps in tropical and sub-tropical areas that are not considered "arable" today could be used for making fuel.
I think the solution for our energy problem will not come from a single source. There are many alternatives, we will have a mix of different sources, just as we have hydro power together with nuclear and fossil fuels today.
Anyhow, I agree that it's a fact that the current population of the world is too large to live at USA standards of consumption with our current technology. Malthus has been proven wrong before, but even with technological innovations, there are physical limits to growth, one of them being the absolute availability of energy you mentioned.
The energy chain has to be considered as a system. If you aim all your efforts at making diesel fuel, you are going to continue a host of current problems with inefficiency and pollution at the point of use. (Disclaimer: I drive a diesel car. I got it as a stopgap.)
A kilowatt captured with algae is cheaper than a kilowatt captured with PV, but the PV's output yields zero noise or pollution and more of it gets to the end-use than you'd get via a crankshaft. Wind is just as clean as PV but far cheaper. The future is electric.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
I call bullshit. I've travelled thru the rainforest twice, one for 3 weeks, and I didn't see any sugar cane at all. Lots of Mandioca is all. The brazilian rainforest simply a different type of soil not suited to sugar cane.
I've rode in a couple modern European diesel powered cars and seen many more, and even some of the new ones in America that use proper piezoelectric direct injection, I can say that not all diesels spew forth filth (the filth you're seeing is soot and particulate matter). Reducing the sulfur content of diesel fuel and using new injection technology (the techniques for fuel delivery and timing are constantly being improved with these), the emissions of diesel engines can be quite good. If big rig trucks were more modern in design (mostly the fuel system), combined with the new, much cleaner fuel that we now have here in America, giant trucks wouldn't need to spew forth much of any visible emissions when operating under heavy load like most of them do now.
Of course, this doesn't solve the Nitrogen Oxide problem (solutions coming such as Urea injection catalysts, and a nifty little nitrogen process catalyst from Honda).
Also, get ready for all internal combustion engines to operate much like diesel engines, regardless of fuel. Many car companies are looking into compression ignition for Octane engines because it will allow a nice jump in thermal efficiency under many driving conditions. Mercedes offers one now in Europe as a 3.5 liter V6, and though it's early for the technique, it already has more power and better mileage in the same car as the traditional spark only ignition version of the engine. And as techniques for NOx control and engine mapping improve the performance and efficiency will only improve more (and better integrate with spark ignition more). Still, it won't make an Octane type fuel engine match the Torque and efficiency of a real proper Cetane (diesel) engine.
you cannot dodge the quad laser. jumping is useless.
Corn rapes the soil. We were making a surplus of corn, so we started making whiskey, then we were making a surplus of corn, so we started making high fructose corn syrup and putting it in everything. Now we're making whiskey, sweetener, and fuel?
Just a few quick points. Whiskey doesn't go bad, so instead of letting surplus corn go bad making whiskey out of it isn't a bad idea. The demand for whiskey, while high, will doubtfully ever drive the production of corn. Then again, that's pure speculation
What isn't speculation, however, is that stevia is an herbal sweetener. Japan uses it in Coke. It tastes delicious(stevia itself, I've never had Japanese Coke). It's safe. It could be an artificial sugar substitute as well as a high fructose corn syrup substitute. I (while this is also speculation) have no doubt that high fructose corn syrup production has begun to drive corn demand.
In conclusion, Corn on the cob is great. Rum is better than whiskey and cane sugar is better than high fructose corn syrup. Stevia is better than Splenda. America is smart.
sometimes, nothing.
US oil and coal has very large amounts of sulphur, but with effort that is now removed before it becomes a problem. As for biodiesel - where is the sulphur going to come from? It has to be in there first to come out.
If you are seriously interested in looking at the carbon benefits of biofuels, one needs to consider the research done by Professor Tilman at the University of Minnesota. http://pd.startribune.com/sp?eId=18&ecId=197096337 &rNum=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.startribune.com%2F562 %2Fstory%2F1060375.html
Not only does the use of a diverse native prarie create a much greater return on energy invested than corn or sugar, but because it is a perennial there is no tilling (better efficiency, easy on the topsoil), the root structures end up sequesturing tons of extra carbon on a permanent basis, the nitrogen fixing of some of the plants actually improves the soil and, of course, it is better for wildlife.
Combining diverse prairie biomass production with cellulosic ethanol production and the infrastructure that the corn ethanol is providing may not solve every problem, but it sure beats petroleum and corn ethanol.
that's what it boils down to.
No - diesels run just as dirty as ever, they *appear* to run cleaner because we convert the dirty exhaust into toxic waste. That particulates haven't disappeared, they just been collected into a box rather than being emitted into the atmosphere.
"In fact, the only environmentally friendly thing we could really do is to bury ourselves and become fertilizer."
We don't even do that in the "developed" world. Embalming and cremation are hardly enviro-friendly.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Or, rather, false religion.
We have the religion of keeping up with the neighbors. (Joneses they used to be.)
We have the religion of the fastest, newest hardware so that we can play the best VR games. (I finally understand computer games as a way to learn strategy without taking a beating in the real world, but what is this about VR? At some point, we have to decide that the real world isn't scary any more.)
We have the sacrament of going out drinking with our buddies.
We have a religion of feeding the body what it craves on one hand, and on another hand the religion of forcing the body into the shapes we have arbitrarily (with the help of the media) determined are ideal.
There's the worship of the naked body that some people will claim has driven the explosion in internet tech. Well, maybe it didn't need to explode so fast. Or maybe there could have been other things to motivate us, if we hadn't all been so hell bent on the religion of consumerism.
We are all running around like chickens with our heads cut off, in the illusion that running around is useful work.
Then we get religious and start telling other people their version of running around is unprofitable, polluting, anti-social, or just plain bad.
And then, since we have to prove that our religion is NOT bad after all, we run around in circles, faster, and longer hours every day.
And that just increases the rate of entropy.
I can't say I blame anyone for thinking that all religion must be bad, but some of the more traditional religions do teach people to not be so focused on material things, or on the evaluation we get from our neighbors. There is some truth in every religion, I think, even atheism.
Of course, the answer is not to just drag everything to a standstill. At least, not yet. A occasional pause to reflect on the ultimate results of our current activity is good.
I suppose this will get modded off topic and troll, but even geeks need to spend a little time reflecting on who we are, why we are here, what we are doing today and what we want to be doing the day after tomorrow. You know, questions that tend to either be blown off by "More XBOX!" or be put down as being religious.
And don't argue that atheism is better than religion. Religions of the past that have lasted have lasted precisely because they motivated people in general to change their destructive behaviors. That religions would later be turned to destructive purposes is not surprising, seeing how easy it is get into states of high rates of entropy. But there has to be something to motivate people to take a sabbath and redirect their energies, and such a something tends to take on metaphysical aspects (or to attach metaphysical aspects to material things in many cases.)
I'd punch that asshole in the nose too.
The argument for conservation is not that we turn the clock back--- people in the past weren't terribly friendly to the environment either--- that's a strawman. The argument is that we make an honest attempt to balance our books. We are profligate spenders and mindless consumers. We argue about biofuels and watch *NASCAR* for cripes sake. We ship oranges from Florida for processing in California and back for sale in Florida (yes, really). We ship Wisconsin cheese to New York and New York cheese to Wisconsin. We ship potatoes *to* Idaho! We commute hours a day to/from work to live in huge cookie cutter developments that waste heat/cooling/electricity while letting the urban centers decay. We grow corn on marginal land to feed animals in feedlots that are designed by evolution to graze for themselves--- then we use antibiotics to treat all the diseases they pick up in the feedlots and chemicals to treat the fact that they can't digest corn. We waste non-renewable petroleum on disposable plastic packaging and risk running out of it for pharmaceuticals. We don't need to haul water 1/2 mile from the well (though I've done it), we just need to stop being *idiots*.
If we actually stopped and thought about what we were doing a small fraction of the time and budgeted what we had, we might have a chance of getting to that future you talk about. Otherwise, all that will happen is that new technology will beget *more waste*. How far has the space program gotten in the last half century? People flush the economy and ecology down the toilet and complain about research being a waste of money, so landfills fill up and space exploration languishes.
I think biofuels are ideal... unless the fertilizer used to produce them was made by consuming fossil fuels. Many of them are. My [admittedly limited] understanding is that most nitrogen based fertilizers require natural gas, and phosphate based fertilizers are made with rocks, sulfuric acid, and (grid-provided) heat. I haven't seen many processes that are 100% efficient, so where do we get the requisite doo doo to replace the manufactured fertilizers? Are we borrowing our way out of debt without clean nuke?
Nuclear, it's the only way to go.
There is not a master brain, but maybe there is a master plan with many little bush brains working together like an ant-mind collective.
... (as I say, PTFL), and no one pays much attention to the growth and/or increase in the number of ant-hills.
... need I continue ....
... invest in greenhouse gases for population control and "Soylent Green".
Never very bright, but effective maybe
Remember, there was a Hitler, Mussolini, Joe McCarthy, Stalin
Everything is working-out as intended I am sure, Bush did have the Biofuel vehicles at the Whitehouse a couple times. The Biofuel ant-hill is meant to grow
There is a difference between...(Score:4, Insightful)
by MyNameIsFred (543994) Alter Relationship on 2007.04.02 15:41 (#18578049)
In my mind, there is a significant difference between the US government meddling in a country's political processes, and some religious group taking someone to court. You should not equate the US population, its government, US corporations, various religious institutions, and other organizations under one banner of "US meddling."
Its not like there is "one master brain" that controls all of those groups and people.
Pirate Bay Raid Investigation Finished
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Diesel does contain less sulphur than it used to, but the sulphur actually acted as a lubricant within the engine, now engines are wearing out faster than before, *(80% faster), rebuilding or replacing the engines in itself is very costly and fuel consuming and potentially polluting; (You can't win). Diesel in any form is polluting, yes! Also as with internal combustion engines most energy used is converted into heat and wasted. ( You can't even break even.) Alcohol added to fuel today in gasohol form is being used in Gasoline engines of all types, many older vehicles were not designed for alcohol use, and the pollution control systems from older engines were not designed for alcohol use. This leaves much fuel being used in systems that do indeed cause some exotic pollution. Also the cost added to gasoline by alcohol is increasing the price of a product already high. Alcohol evaporates at a much lower temperature than gasoline, and in older vehicles that do not have a sealed system this can cause an accelerated evaporation of the fuel from the tank, and these unburned petroalcohol fumes are then added as is to the atmosphere, to combine in varried forms with other molecules from other sources, and the consumer wonders if he has a fuel leak or are his neighbors stealing his gas...Much of the corn grown "Not for Human consumption" is genetically altered to produce it's own insect free biochemicals. This corn is mainly used in the Alcohol production arena. But it does use up lands taken away from food production. Also at this point in history, there is another major problem caused by Bee colony disorder, that has caused a major decrease in bee populations. The disorder has not been linked to genetically altered crops, but if the Bees are dying then expect an incredible increase in food costs! Ten dollars a gallon for gas? How about ten dollars for a small bag of almonds? If all things in agriculture will effect the prices over the board then food will skyrocket at the same time alcohol goes up as well. Lose/lose. Also if these genetically altered corn crops are used as a base for alcohol production, there has to be considered the possibility of adding exotic pesticides to the gasohol blends to be burned and dispersed by vehicles. How many chemicals are being tested for in specific alcohols that will be introduced into the air that we all breathe?All in all, these alcohol blends may be reducing our supply of fuel instead of increasing it when considered as it is actually being used, and adding to the complexity of air pollution compounds.{This is an old answer, but it is right; Electric Motors are the answer! Also Silica is the most common element in the Earths Crust,no heavy mining is needed. Silicon Cells are made of two layers of Silicon, one doped with Boron, and the other Phosphorous. We are not talking exotic elements, or expensive. Solar cells should have dropped in price long ago.}
MYSTERY
In the 90s there was a great deal of urban renewal, and a lot of people who had moved out of the city starting moving back.
Much of the urban renewal going on is due to gentrification which creates more problems. One, two, or more people may buy property in a rundown neighberhood which they'll fix up. Seeing this others will as well which drives up prices pricing lower income residents out, many of whom rent.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That was true in the past, but thanks to tough EPA/CARB (and soon European Union) mandates for dramatically lower diesel exhaust emissions, today's diesel engines aren't the loud-clattering and smoky engines we all remember.
With the availability of low-sulfur Diesel #2 fuel since October 2006 in the USA, diesel engines can now incorporate features like 2,000 psi common-rail pressurized direct fuel injection for extremely precise fuel delivery and the latest in exhaust emission controls to remove diesel particulates and lower NOx levels.
I would suggest you drive the Mercedes-Benz E320CDI sedan; it sounds almost exactly like a regular gasoline engine, and you don't see the big cloud of smoke from the exhaust, either, thanks to the BlueTec emissions control system developed by DaimlerChrysler. In addition to Mercedes-Benz, the VW/Audi Group and BMW have officially announced turbodiesel engines for the USA market that meets all our current emission control mandates that will arrive by 2008.
Yes, however a hundred years ago the forestry industry realized that they needed to start planting trees in order to have a long-term sustainable business. Now they plant more trees than they cut down.
My other first post is car post.
Very few people are as wasteful as the US. This extends through energy use/waste and food use/waste. The whole system is propped up by agricultural subsidies which keep the system inefficient and unsustainable.
The typical US diet uses a hell of a lot more arable land than the average diet. The resulting land use is a major land destructor and uses a lot more water, oil land input than it should. One of the biggest problems is high meat consumption.
If people ate the grain fed to beef, instead of the beef, they'd only need to consume one tenth of the grain (ie grain to beef is only approx 10% efficient).
Each pound of beef requires about 3-4 pounds of oil.
Thus, switching to significantly reduced meat intake would use vastly less oil and free up a lot of land that could be put to other uses (eg. biofuels).
Of course, the farming and oil industries don't really want you to change the current high consumption and are happy for you to keep funding this insane system through subsidy handouts.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Actually, what happens is that the particulates in the exhaust get trapped by a special filter. At a certain point, the filter gets small electrical charge the "burns off" the particulates into harmless exhaust. That idea has been around since the late 1980's.
Biofuels are horribly inefficient solar energy collectors and converters. Just another reactive diversionary goose-hunt to avoid coming up with proactive solutions that dig into the heart of the problem.
RTFA.
Stop beating-around-the-bush and go straight to the horse's mouth with something such as the Stirling solar concentrators that convert to electricity ~25% efficiency, or PV that can go up to 30% efficiency.
They'll take less land, no years-long pipeline that'll put up more air pollution, need no fuel and petroleum-based fertilizer to run the conversion process, and just requires we come up with better energy storage in either batteries, or fuel cells (as pipe dream as FCs are).
If there were studies showing GMO food as anything other than a way to grow more, better food on the same land, I'd be the first in line, but there isn't.
Ah but there is. Some people are allergic to brazil nuts, some have gone into shock and have died. Soy was gentically engineered with a gene from the brazil nut. In a study it was shown those with an allergy to brazil nuts were also allergic to the soy. The gene inserted encoded for a protein that's an allergin.
Case study: Brazil nut allergen in GE soybeans.
FalconShould there be a Law?
hiva, the great Hindu god, whose dance continuously creates and recreates the Universe, was once confronted by a rather rude demon named Rahu. Rahu is famous for occasionally trying to swallow the Moon, but, since he has no stomach, the Moon always escapes, resulting merely in a lunar eclipse. Rahu has been sent by King Jalandhara, a giant who has conquered most of the world, to retrieve Shiva's bride Parvati, for himself. When Shiva learns of this insult, he becomes so enraged that his furrowed brow gives birth to a terrifying looking fellow with flaming eyes and the mouth of a lion. Shiva orders this furious creature to devour Rahu, who, in turn, tries to run away but can't outpace this terrible manifestation of Shiva's rage. He finally turns and throws himself desperately before Shiva, begging for his mercy. Approached in this manner, Shiva cannot refuse. He orders his rage to stand down. But now this ravenous creature itself begins protesting, "But I'm hungry! Now what am I suppose to do!"
Shiva thinks for a moment then instructs the gluttonous creature to eat its own hands and feet. But the creature doesn't just stop there, it continues devouring itself until all that's left is its face and head. Shiva looks upon this and declares, "This is my most magnificent creation ever! Henceforth it shall be known as Kirtimukha, the Face of Glory, and must always remain at the entrance of my door. From now on, nobody comes before me unless they first bow to Kirtimukha." - Joseph Campbell.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
IIRC the research program was shut down by the Clinton administration, though it was making pretty good progress until then:r
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reacto
We need to systematically fund research into better nuclear power, solar power, etc. Biofuels suck almost as badly as fossil fuels.
IFR reactors would use like 99.5% of the fuel material, instead of ~1% like today's popular designs do. Their (very small amounts) of nuclear waste would decay to background radiation levels in about 300 years, instead of thousands of years, meaning that containment and disposal has a much lower chance of becoming a total clusterfuck while the stuff is still radioactive. Plus we literally have enough fuel for them for thousands of years. Hell, we could run them off nothing but the waste output of our *current* nuclear reactors, for at least a few hundred years.
You know, hydrogen has practically the lowest energy density by volume than biofuels, diesel, and gasoline, making it practically insane to try to use in something portable such as vehicles. Storing, and using it makes volume matter.
Hydrogen is a waste of time, energy and resources.
I agree but it's not just suburbia that is wasteful. We in North America, (and other parts of the world) have based our prosperity off the exploitation of cheap natural resources, while utterly failing to take into account the true cost that the exploitation. We developed all aspects of our society on the assumption that we will always be able to continue with an endlessly escalating usage of all our resources. Simply substituting one fuel for another, may buy us some time but it will ultimately fail to address the root of the problem, which is unsustainable consumption. In order to finally tackle the greenhouse gas problem (frankly ALL environmental problems!) we are going to have to use less (of everything). How we accomplish this is going to be interesting, we may finally have to account (and pay) a full replacement value for that which nature provides us, or (more likely) some people are simply going to have less access to resources that we once took for granted, as those who can pay will increasingly have preferential access.
... do you want to feed your family, or your car?
Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.
I love cities though I don't like living in one. Ideally I'd want to live maybe an hour or two away from a city with some art galleries, museums, and theatres. Every week or two I'd drive to the city then. Or if there was a good mass transit, say light rail, I'd use that. I'd walk a gallery or museum to see the exhibit, eat out, then watch a play. Otherwise I'd prefer to be in a rural area, with mountains, on the coast. That way one day I could go scuba diving then hiking the next.
FalconShould there be a Law?
So, was it math you majored in, or history? Your reasoning is sound.
The problem is that given a choice between a human-led organization capable of enforcing population control or the otherwise unavoidable famine and resource wars, I favor the latter and I believe most others do too. My offspring are less likely to thrive in the former environment and less likely to reach their human potential.
I still hold on to hope for the power of genius in the face of dire need. Perhaps when the crisis is closer... there is some time yet.
I do agree with your post, though -- at some level, we're no more than bacteria in a dish. We will reproduce to consume all available resources and then evolve to compete for the effluent of prior generations until there is nothing left. Or we'll escape the dish. Or both.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I live in a 1st world country. I don't care about food prices. Decades ago food cost was a much higher percentage of the average household budget. Now it is so low you've got grocery stores competing on quality at any cost instead of price. People gladly pay $5 for a cup of coffee because even though it is over priced, it is still affordable. The price of food doesn't matter.
Also the environmental damage isn't happening in 1st world countries, its happening in poor countries where it is profitable. So create a tariff based on how much environmentally sensitive land has been converted to agriculture and suddenly it isn't a problem anymore. Farmers in NA and the EU receive subsidies, make it so your biofuels have to come from your country's farmers and you solve the problems.
Seems like the neocons were all over "unintended consequences" when programs were proposed to help the poor, for example. But I don't see any such caution for programs to boost big agribusiness, or drill the Arctic, or for that matter to invade other countries. What's up with that? Thank God DeLay's out, at least.
I am starting a biodiesel co-op here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I've read Monbiot's arguments. Every few months, someone brings them up. While I greatly respect The Guardian, they insist on printing his stuff. A lot of what I so vehemently dislike about Monbiot is not necessarily what he's saying. It is possible to easily produce sound counterarguments. Soy-based biodiesel and corn-based ethanol are temporary bases for fuel. Another reader pointed out that there is great potential for making biodiesel from algae. One plant apparently made it from turkey carcases. You can make biodiesel from a huge variety of sources, including fry grease.
:::end of rant:::
If biodiesel production causes food prices to spike, capitalists will find something different that does not cause this to occur. It may take longer than we wish, but it will happen.
As for land-stripping, it is well known tht most stripping has occurred to plant inefficient farms. This was happening well before the recent enthusiasm for biofuels, and it will continue. I'd love to see it stop. But I'm not going to give up biodiesel to try and stop it or even help it. My fuel comes from America, not Saudi Arabia, Brazil, or even Canada, as does a great deal of our oil.
The last thing I have to say about Monbiot, the most insulting, doubtlessly the one thing that will make people say "you lose this argument because you got personal, hell, you might as well just get it over with and violate Godwin's Law," is about his style of presentation. George Monbiot makes himself out being omniscient, and if only the world would listen to him, all would be well and people would live in peace. I had enough of that sort of person when I lived in Madison, Wisconsin. They're everywhere there. It is, IMNSHO, this sort of person that enrages the reactionaries among us like no other, the ones who think that they know better than everyone else how to live, function, even breathe.
Okay, let's put ALL biofuels on hold for five years. With that sweeping generalization, all work on it comes to an crashing end for five years. In April 2012, we will resume. And know what? We'll be right where we left off, only to find that we're five years behind, as we finally had the wisdom to listen to the one guy who knows better than us how to run the world. At least, we thought he was. You'd think we'd have learned by now to listen to people who claim to know better than everyone else, but our race is notorious for its memory deficiency.
-- haaz.
To me the proper place to grow biofuels, of the rooted variety, is on land that is agricultural but not being used for food. Where I live tobacco is on the way out, but other crops don't really pay enough for the size of the farms so there is a subsidy for not growing tobacco. In this case, I've argued that biofuel crops can make sense, though they can't really put a big dent in fossil fuel use. Maryland is considering a subsidy of about $0.30/gal for boifuel production which could be a help in a small way.s -selling-solar.html
--
Grow silicon leaves! http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
(ground diesel also has a similar effect -- just not as bad as corn diesel).
Where Biodiesel can claim to be .... well, not really good for the environment, but at least not as bad as ground diesel, ... is when you use waste products like restaurant grease as the feedstock. At least, then, you're using something that would otherwise end up in a landfill or our water supply. It still doesn't do much to solve the global warming problem, but at least it helps somewhere.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Now that the door has been opened. The real fuel alternatives will be unveiled.
You sure know a lot about what we cannot do, although you are partly correct.
But do you realize when you write all those negative projections on your computer, and millions of other Slash/.ers are typing the same negative projections we're all gonna die or something, realize how all that much sheer Negative impacts people? You have any idea at all how much negative typing accumulates, flies all through the Internet and drones it's message into people's home computer sound cards, clakkity-clacks the hard drive heads? You think our brains can't pick all that up like Morse Code? Think subliminal messaging using a flood of digital square waves, their precision singing into our brains like a naked Madonna with a bullhorn.
But unfortunately there's a lot of truth in what you wrote. Just last week when people were hopeful that nuclear would save humanity we were told there isn't enough nuclear to do it if we wanted to. Regular Energy is going south. Looks like we will have to whip us up a batch of Imitation Energy that does not pollute, pound us out a few zero emissions engines then. Yep, that's what we'll just have to do. Imitation Energy is contrived energy obtained from bringing materials together in such a way to get power off their interaction of Physics properties. Nothing gets combusted and it never runs out because the engine is the energy, the engine is the output. Want more energy? Build more imitation energy engines.
It's kind of like artificial energy. So we have imitation sugar and we have artificial lighting. The only reason the U.S. Government is trying to keep you guys from using imitation energy is because it kills globalization. The World's governments stop needing each other in a groundswell of energy independence. Corporations are running the White House, running the everything, and they like the taste of Chinese stock market money. So I'm afraid it looks like we have reached quite an impasse between the cliffs and the 2007 women singing to Tarzan to row closer. Al Gore wearing a Superman suit sweating in the summertime like he has a fever can't change the course of this tank.
Industrial Age 2 + How-to Stop Malignant Cancers.
Check out last month's Scientific American article on diesel fuels. Essentially, diesel is as clean as gasoline, it's just that U.S. manufactured diesel contained lots of junk in it that wasn't in diesel from other sources.
Read the March Scientific American article on diesel engines. Also, keep in mind two things:
1) Diesel fuel has more energy than gasoline, so it requires less of it
2) The big problem is C02 emissions. If we can become carbon neutral with BioDiesel, then the other issues can be dealt with.
The price increases are being instituted by game players in the very wealthy futures markets, fake free markets that seek to manipulate prices higher for the distributor and hoarder and shaft the producers and consumers. We don't need theses dicks -- they are anti-survival in the real sense, card sharks who are willing to starve the world to make themselves immensely wealthy. Control them and control their fake crap tables. Or dump them entirely. Strip them of their control and tax their profits away. The market is only free if you rent the stalls.
Second: biofuels make sense carbonwise because when burned, they release carbon that already existed in plant matter, and would have been reoxidized anyway when the plant died and rotted. There is no net greenhouse gas component increase when you burn plants. Fossil fuels, when burned, release carbon locked into the deep earth for tens or hundreds of millions of years, hence the enormous carbon gas buildup in the atmosphere. Coal and petro fuels add billions of tons of carbon oxides into the soup every year, greenhouse gases that would not exist had we not manufactured them.
I read in Nature recently that hydrogenerated power had a suprisingly large impact on greenhouse emissions as usually when dams are made, there's a lot of trees that are flooded, which ferment and produce a lot of methane.
"You first." Basically, for anyone who advocates something like that, I want to see them make the sacrifices first. If they are willing to do that, then I'm more willing to listen to them. For example it drives me up the wall people who rant on about people needing to use less gas, when they themselves drive a lot. They always have a ton of reasons but what it comes down to is they aren't willing to make the changes necessary. You can get around with driving much less. Does it require some compromises? You bet, but if you aren't willing to make those, what gives you the right to demand others make them?
That's kind of like reading the National Enquirer for the latest scientific news. Ten or fifteen years ago or more, I'd regard a cite of Scientific American as valid - but it's become a tabloid piece of crap.
Got a cite?
Biodiesel: Beyond however much CO2 it takes in or puts out, it only works well in moderate or tropical climates. Not only is a diesel engine difficult to start in the winter because batteries don't operate efficiently in the cold, diesel fuel has a tendency to 'gell', or solidify. I haven't had enough experience with biodiesel to know how it reacts to the cold, but here in Minnesota, there was talk about it 5 years ago and nobody's heard about it since. My guess is that it gells at a much warmer temperature than fossil diesel due to the lack of sulphur, or the abundance of wax, or both.
Ethanol - Corn: Beyond it cutting into corn as a food source, corn is grown from the ground, out in the open, and requires that ever-dependable stoic force, NATURE. Yeah, right. Droughts, floods, tornadoes, hail... all of these things destroy corn crops, all of them are not preventable by man. Also, I'd be interested in knowing about the studies that measure the amount of corn that can be grown on the land in a year... they need to cut it in half or a third, because you can't grow corn on the same ground year after year after year, regardless of how much fertilizer you add, unless you're in the blessed state of Iowa. Not rotating your crops is a great way to turn your land useless in a hurry. One year of corn, one year of hay, plow under the hay in the fall of the year, and you can plant corn again. That's a two-year process. Corn is a commodity, it's futures traded just like oil. Increase the use of corn and the price goes up, and it's measured by the bushel, not by the barrel, otherwise identical to other commodities. I hate to see the day that the price of corn overruns the price of oil just because we can grow it and the Middle East can't. People will be getting the popcorn out of the cupboards and bringing it in, just like the copper prices cause people to steal copper from empty houses and construction sites.
Ethanol - Switchgrass: There is no infrastructure in place for this, and establishing that infrastructure takes lots of time and lots of money. How are you going to measure it, by weight or by volume? Again, switchgrass is dependent on Dependable Nature, and the same shortfalls that apply to corn, apply to switchgrass.
Personally, I think we should be building a shitload of windmills and solar panels. Convert everything possible to electricity and run our lives from that. The infrastructure is there and we know how to harness it. It's almost free for the taking. The wind's always blowing somewhere, and the sun's always shining somewhere. Add geothermal to that mix and you could have a nuclear winter and still be making electricity.
As a side note, internal-combustion engines are only 40% efficient at best, regardless of what you run them on. There's a ton of heat that comes out the exhaust, out the radiator, out the crankcase (convection)... As humans go, we sure as hell know how to make heat, we just don't know how to harness it. Been that way since the caveman built a fire and warmed himself by it. 90+% of a campfire's fuel heats the air around the campfire, and does very little to heat you or anything else. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I think that the key to reducing car dependency is to increase the marginal cost of car use
Last year I read about a study I believe in the Economist magazine that said people budget a specific amount of their income even if not consciously for transportation, 17% I think it said. When fuel prices are low they use more expensive gas guzzling cars but when fuel is high they get fuel efficient cars.
FalconShould there be a Law?
We should stop using corn to make biofuel and instead use Miscanthus.
9 128950913
Miscanthus is a genus of about 15 species of perennial grasses. Miscanthus giganteus has been trialed as a biofuel in Europe since the early 1980s. It can grow to heights of more than 3.5m in one growth season. Its dry weight annual yield can reach 25t/ha (10t/acre). The rapid growth, low mineral content and high biomass yield of Miscanthus make it a favorite choice as a biofuel. After harvest, it can be burned to produce heat and power turbines. The resulting CO2 emissions are equal to the amount of CO2 that the plant used up from the atmosphere during its growing phase, and thus the process is greenhouse gas-neutral.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscanthus_giganteus
Educate yourself http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-57028888
Are you for real?
FalconShould there be a Law?
So if US=4038 billion kWh/yr then world @ US standards would be roundly 80,000 billion kWh/yr, or 80 million MWw/yr, or 80,000 GWh/yr, at 8760 hr/yr that means power of 9,000 GWe continuous, or about 6000 nuclear reactors at 1.5 GWe each (a large modern design).
There currently is about 386 GWe of nuclear capacity in the world from 435 nuclear reactors operating in 30 countries supply 16% of world electicity with fairly rock-solid base load. We need to have about 14 times as many as we do now to meet world energy needs living as Americans do.
Regardless of what Al Gore says, giving up our cars will not save the planet.
It just might. Perhaps if we start riding bicycles and mass transport like Chinese, CO2 concentration will reach equilibrium where increased photosynthesis by plants due to higher temperature + higher CO2 compensates for remaining human activity.
Actually photosynthesis might not increase with more CO2 in the atmosphere. I wish I had a link to it but I read of one study that concluded some plants actually grow slower when there is an elevated level of CO2. On the other hand other studies have shown poison ivy grows faster.
FalconShould there be a Law?
In Austria there is a long tradition of producing heat and electrical energy out of small wood powerplants. The technology had an enourmous boost the last decade. Austrian companies are on the forefront. Heating works as comfortable as any other heating. Austria produces more wood than it consumes. It's cheap, it's CO2 neutral, it helps this little country to be a little more independent of external oil supply and to invest in local companies instead of foreign oil companies. Actually the room and my house I am sitting in at the moment is heated by bio energy (wood). http://energytech.at/
...you need to take into account all the planets they passed. Some of them had ruins of once great civilizations. Some of them were primitive, some of them had gone totally off the deep-end. Some of them just had small colonies. Some of them got destroyed when their stars went nova or something. Sometimes an entire planet would get destroyed by a war or a spacial anomoly.
The story was, by necessity, told from the PoV of a society that was functioning well enough to provide some continuity from episode to episode.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Planet Earth can no longer sustain the excesses of humankind. End of story.
The simple fact of the matter is this, there are too many people on this planet. We save too many, we help those living in a desert (move to where the water is available) we save those don't help move society, we save everyone.
Every environment has a max number of ppl it can sustain. People, not animals, because animals don't USE the environment like people do.
The best of the best animals lead the herd, the fish with the most plentiful breeding habits survive, the most aggressive plants weed out the others... and mankind takes all the sick, invalid, and infirmed with it to "ensure equality for all"
I never saw a weak willed horse eat, in my 20 years of horse breeding. The one who was bullied out of food, died off first in the heard.
Nature's other creatures, feasted off the dead. And other creatures off them. and others.
Our dead are encased in steel tombs to not even enrich the grounds that might have given them food!
I am. A Digital Monk.
Corn is produced through an incredible usage of fossil fuels. From the fertilizers, through the mechanized Ag cycle. It's just awful!
Putting more land into corn production is a guaranteed way to increase manmade CO2 output. 10x more CO2 is released into the atmosphere by soil erosion/oxidation than the burning of all fossil fuels combined. More cropland = more manmade CO2 unless you intend to grow all this biofuel without tillage. Besides, oil is a fungible commodity. All the oil we aren't burning will be burned by other countries. By not burning the oil ourselves, we simply lower oil prices for everyone else. Biofuels will not reduce the amount of CO2 produced by fossil fuels, but it will considerable increase the CO2 produced by tillage. *Guaranteed increase in manmade CO2.*
The real problem is that there is just too many of "US". We need to reduce our selves. No environment can sustain expentional growth forever.
That's the riddle, or is a kuan? As people's education and income grow they have fewer children. This is being seen in the two most populous nations, China and India. Both of these countries are seeing their birth rates dropping as thier people attain more education and their income increases.
FalconShould there be a Law?
How about Sugar cane ? Or even algae in ponds project ? Biological waste to buofuel ? I always see the debat polarised in the US as Biofuel="Corn Only" biofuel. I hate to break it to you but there are many other form of biofuel. It has been known for a very long time that corn biofuel is not viable at all on the environment side. And the economical side is not better : ask yourself why the US put a tarif of 53 cents per gallon of ethanol on brazil. Hint : this has nothing to do with free market but more with protectionism.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
A trillion here, a trillion there—pretty soon it adds up to real money.
You see it out of Hollywood types, US politicians, and so on all the time. They'll tell you you need to pollute less while flying on private jet, pay more taxes for the poor while living in 20,000 sqft mansions, and the like. They are very good at telling other people how they ought to live.
That is actually the genius of the whole "carbon neutral" thing and why it has become such a buzz word rather than something more accurate like "using less energy". It is effectively an indulgence system, like the Catholic church used to have. If you are unfarmiliar, the Catholic church used to let people buy their way out of sin, including future sin. So if you were rich you paid up, and then could sin away. Well same deal with carbon credits. Those of us without excess cash are expected to make vast cutbacks to try and reach a neutral status that we can never quite get. However the rich just buy their way out of it. Buy some "carbon offsets" and you are good. You don't worry about the details, just throw money at it and you can claim to be a good person.
Basically it is a big scam. The rich toss money at it and then claim they can keep living the way they always have since they are now "carbon neutral", the environmental groups give it their blessing since they are the ones that get the money, and nobody ever does much checkup to see if there's really any difference being done.
So my attitude stands: You want me to change my life? You change yours first. You show me you are willing to make the sacrifices you want me to make, and I'll listen. Until then, I'm not interested in what you've got to say.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/how-clean-diesel-fue l-works1.htm
It seems nobody (getting modded-up) here understands. Of course it's going to be difficult to start biofuel production, and any change of this level is going to cause short-term shortages, and higher prices.
Nobody is going to starve. It's just that we've all become so used-to subsidized corn, that we never expected having to deal with market forces. Now that we do, everything is changing. Farmers are looking for new cattle feed, companies like Coca-Cola are looking for other sugar alternatives than corn syrup, et al. The market is starting to take action on this change, and there's no reason to believe it won't work just fine.
That rain forest is being burned is a huge shame. However, biofuels certainly don't require the burning of rain forest, so they aren't really the cause. What's more, even in the current state of affairs, that kind of pollution is only a one-time issue, while that land will continue to produce biofuels for many, many years.
Claims of limited arable lands are nonsense as well. Water can and is being transported to arid regions for crops. Every farmer in the developed world fertilizes their own fields, and there is no shortage of compost available. Once again, it will require some changes, and initially higher prices, but it really is the kind of thing the free market is perfectly good at handling, if you just give it a few years to work itself out.
People are touting cellulose ethanol, which is a good option, but it's going to have precisely the same drawbacks, just less pronounced... Food prices rising because cellulose is currently used in hog and cattle feed. Expansion of farming to meet the demands. Rising prices of crops, as existing farmland is stretched to produce enough fuel. Increase in use of petroleum fertilizers, as cheap cellulose is no longer available for compost. etc.
Things like algae for production of biofuels have plenty of potential, but it isn't just going to spring-up overnight. You really need to create a guaranteed demand for the product, before anyone is going to be willing to invest in such technologies. Indeed, the more expensive corn ethanol gets, the higher the potential profit in developing algae solutions.
Just saying "to hell with it, developing biofuels is too challenging" is just going to prolong our problems. Giving up on a good option, because it produces complications like higher corn prices in the (very) near-term is horribly myopic. We'll be reaping the benefits of widespread production of biofuels for at least the next century, and probably longer. Those in the poorer parts of the world, affected by the food prices, will also.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Here is the solution: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hemp+fuel&btn G=Google+Search
Biodiesel has 0% sulphur dioxide in it. So sorry, no black smoke there.
u lphur+dioxide&src=IE-SearchBox
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=biodiesel+s
While, for arguments' sake, I will accept your numbers about how much energy we will need in the future, you're conclusion doesn't really follow your reasoning.
"That is just not possible and proves that our way of life is NOT sustainable in the long run without drastic reductions in energy use or population"
It is not sustainable when you follow two premises: that biofuel is the only way to go, and that reduction in energy is the only way that could be a solution of sustaining our way of life.
Both are untrue.
First of all, it is highly unlikely that no other energy-sources will be developed then bio-fuel for *all* our energy-requirements. In fact, apart from a replacement for our current petrol (thus, mainly for the use in cars) - which on itself may be temporary untill hydrogen cars are developed, or maybe they will keep a part of the market as far as the diesel is concerned, it can already be seen that the production of energy (electricity, for instance) is not only limited to biofuel.
Now, take your numbers again. What happens to it if you put all other possible alternative sources into it: solarpanels which tranform the suns' rays directly into electricity? Wind enery provided by turbines? Turbines who use the waves of the sea? And maybe in the future even nuclear fusion?
While we don't know how succesful any of those alternatives really will become, it is a fact that we're already exploring them, and that we do NOT rely on biofuel alone. Thus, they are variables in the equation you have not calculated in. I'm not against reducing our energy-footprint, mind you; actually I'm all for making and doing things that cost less energy...but your conclusion just doesn't follow if you accept that there are myriads of other ways in which we could augment our energy-output. It may well be possible that our current lifestyle is sustainable, even without any reductions in energy-use. (Of course, if the population keeps exponentially growing, at some point it becomes unstainable; but note that this is also the case with reduced energy-consumption; an infinite exponential growth just isn't possible toi maintian).
Obviously, we don't need a better then 20% net efficiency for sunlight based on conversion to organic material, if other alternatives aren't based on biofuel. And equally obviously, we have more then the bands of arable landmass to our disposal if energy is (also) derived from sources that do not require arable landmass.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"The latest trend I saw is directly blaming the "rich", which pretty much includes most of us with computers and the time to argue on slashdot."
;-)
I wasn't aware arguing on slashdot is an indication that one is rich! I rather thought it indicated unemployement or being a geek without a girlfriend!
Now it turns out we're *all* rich elitists, while I used to think I was the only notable exeption in an ocean of pathetic mommies'basement-nerds and lazy bums!
I, for one, welcome my newly discovered fellow capitalist pigs!
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Anybody trying to play the relativism card with regard to Monbiot's work is deluding themselves.
He has always been more thorough with his research than anybody else who is published regularly in mainstream media and shares his left leaning on social justice issues.
This is the same guy who in much younger days snuck deep into the jungles of West Papua to expose what the Indonesian military neo-colonists were doing to a native population with one of the world's oldest agricultural heritages.
If what he says riles you so much, the smart thing to do would be recheck all the facts with an open mind. Way too many people are quickest to anger when deep down they know they are on shaky ground.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Yes, algae and human /choice/.
The future will present us with /choice/ for as long as we continue to demand /choice/. I choose to sell biodiesel to people who choose to buy biodiesel for their chosen applications. Because I am at the application level and not production (although I do my best to make sure that my biodiesel is
being produced by least-harmful techniques and from least-harmful sources) I see benefits that haven't yet been calculated
into pennies or glorified in popular science. Biodiesel saves resources in terms of reduced scheduled maintenance, it makes school-bus emissions less toxic which has been linked directly to higher grade-point averages and biodiesel is non-toxic and entirely biodegradable.
/There is no one analysis that will answer our application-specific questions./
/changed/ anymore?
Use Google search keywords in combination with 'biodiesel' : lubricity, school bus, grade point average, children, non-toxic, biodegradable
1) Biodiesel use in diesel engines prolongs service intervals due to increased lubricity. How many resources are saved when fleets of trucks don't need their crankcase oil
2) Health benefits of biodiesel - where grade-point averages of students are higher where biodiesel buses are in use. Also, reduces respiratory symptoms in illness.
3) Biodiesel itself is non-toxic to the environment, and is very biodegradable. It will serve as an effective herbicide but dissolves in water faster than salt.
. . . will always win out over the needs of the poor.
And nothing is more vain than living a life of privilege and consumption while pretending to care about the poor.
Are you listening Al Gore?
What?
So I am expected to believe your opinion of an article you didn't read, and combine that with a claim where you provided no references? It sounds like you are set in your opinion, and facts and information have become irrelevant. Really, you just increased my confidence in Scientific American.
While I applaud you're appeal for energy-efficiency, as I stated in another post similar to yours: the conclusion just DOES NOT follow the used reasoning. For instance, as long as the worldpopulation continues to have a growing trend, WHATEVER efficient energy-conservation you'll get (unless it's 100%, which is completely impossible for any living entity) you are merely posponing the problem you yourself indicated.
to put it simple, what you are saying is: "n people squander away x amount of energy, and the demand is rising with y% amount every year. If we would reduce the squandering to half the amount and the y% to one tenth, we have a solution for the ever growing demand of energy.
This is, of course, obviously only true if n people remains the same. The greater *efficiency* of machinery and activities, however, can never be a solution if there is an increasing amount of machinery or activities, EVEN if those activities/machinery on themselves are becoming more effcicient and conserve more energy then they used to.
Thus, what your proposal amounts to is that, should people willingly restrict their comfort (e.g. they use less machines or do less activities which consume energy). While that's a noblme thought, I think humans show a poor track record of limiting themselves. You yourself, after all, did not decide to not buy a computer, even though it's yet another machinery that uses electricity - neither did you throw out your TV to remain at an equilibrium; you just ADDED a new piece of technology which added a new amount of electricity-usuage.
But, EVEN if humans would go against their nature and manage to restrict their immer-growing lust for aditional comfort and gadgets, it STILL ouldn't help, as long as the human population keeps expanding. Even at the barest minimal energy-usuage per person, if populationgrowth keeps rising, sooner or later you'll arive at exactly the same point, where there is not enough energy-supply to cover the demand. Good luck with imposing worldwide birthcontrol.
While I think energy-conservation/eficiency is very useful on itself, and can be valuable at posponing a possible energy-crisis, it should be in conjuction with (new) methods of getting a higher enery-production. Just conservation without adding and providing new energy-sources just won't cut it. In fact, the reverse would be more true: as long as you find ways of delivering more energy (for instance, from outer space/sun), you can keep going (though, obviously, an exponential growth is impossible to maintain).
I have no doubt that, as a society, we will continue to need more and more energy (bar a catastrophic period where society as we know it gets destroyed or return to a pre-industrial state). I have no solution in the long run (unless infinite expansion, even into space) to continue to provide our energy, but in the short and midlong term, it will have to be a combination of energy-conservation WITHOUT loss of comfort (e.g. if one has the same computer which uses 500 watt, or 50 watt, people will not mind, and probably chose for the the less-consuming one. Give the choice of a computer of 500 watt and NO computer, people will chose for the 500 watt computer), and new energysources which will have to provide a lot more energy to cope with the demand - which will happen even if per unit things get more energy-efficient.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
As another poster pointed out [can't find the post right now, so no link, sorry], the difference in the source of the C02 that is released by burning petro- or bio-diesel matters. Fossil fuels contain carbons that would not ordinarily be dumped into the atmosphere in the billions of tons a year without we extract them and burn them.
Plants, on the other hand, bind atmospheric C02 into themselves, and that carbon is re-released when the plant (or its derivatives) is burned. It's a "zero sum" problem.
I think this argument is fallacious, esp in the longer term. If you have bio-diesel, why are you burning petro-diesel to farm corn? I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I would bet that an Iowa farm co-op can produce more bio-diesel from a soybean crop than fuel is required to farm that crop. That's a net gain in fuel, and the more efficient the farming techniques are, the greater the gain.
Furthermore, what causes you to think that pesticides can't be manufactured from bio- sources? So far, every thing I've looked at leads me to believe that there is not a single petro-based product (including e.g. plastics, packaging, etc) that cannot be produced better and more cheaply from bio-based sources.
And all this before we even start talking about refining bio-diesel into lighter fuels (bio-gasoline, anyone?) and perhaps blending it with something like ethanol.
Finally, I would point out that the main reason for moving to bio fuels generally, and bio-diesel in this particular instance, has a lot less to do with Global Warming than it has to do with National Security - both economic and materiel - in the US.
Bio-fuels represent a sustainable solution to the problem of fueling our transportation [and some other things] without totally distrupting the entire system as it exists at this moment (in the petro-based world). Bio-fuels can be implemented progessively much more quickly than we can e.g. develop the tech for vehicles powered using Hydrogen - or even electricity. Bio-fuel tech not only exists, it is well understood and is a low tech solution that trumps the high-tech, petro-based solution across the board. Any R&D we do is pure profit and long term gain.
In short, all the crap arguments like those presented in TFA have been addressed and solutions proposed. The continuing FUD is almost certainly funded entirely by short-term profit motive. What kind of an idiot goes to all the trouble to cut down a rain forest to create arable land, after all? The profit from rain forests is in things like pharmaceuticals, not bulk crops that are trivially grown far more cheaply in the millions of hectares of existing farmland we already have? The trivial case [for US bio-fuels]: If we produce the soybeans in S. America, we have to pay to ship either the beans or the oil or the finished product from there to here, and with the reasoning you present above [i.e. running tractors on petro-diesel to produce bio-diesel], the ships would be burning bunker C...
"The Internet is made of cats."
This idea might have some liability issues, but why couldn't a utility company install its own solar panels on other people's structures? They could pick a new housing development or office complex. They could install and service the hardware (like telco companies do now), and residents would see some decrease in their energy bill.
Has anyone developed this idea? Is it just too complicated?
At some point people have to realize that it is our (read everyone in the world not just the u.s.a.) car culture that has a high environmental impact.
A hand up and a foot on every chest...
as a way to lesson our dependency on foreighn oil.
v efuels/biodiesel.html
There is a difference.
As far as emission go, they are only cleaner then diesal, not gasoline.
From http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/alternati
"What's in it for me if I switch to biodiesel?
First, the vegetable oil portion of the fuel comes from a renewable resource that's grown right here in the US. That reduces our dependence on foreign oil.
Biodiesel reduces a number of tailpipe emissions, but actually increases the smog-increasing nitrous oxides compared to regular diesel.
When the "lifecycle" of the fuel is considered, using B100 biodiesel actually increases the particles that form smog by about 35%.
On the upside, biodiesel does reduce the amount of "air toxics" and soot released into the atmosphere, compared to regular diesel fuel. However, because diesel fuel is so "dirty," biodiesel is still not as clean as a regular, gas-powered vehicle. "
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
My predisposed opinion is that if you take the time to evaluate the possibilities, solar thermal electrical generation systems built from common materials supplemented with 10-20% wind turbines have the best potential for feasible scalability.
The main design criteria for a massively scalable system has to be availability of materials, location independence and base load reliability. Energy transport media like bio-fuels have short term ease of implementation, but the very low solar conversion efficiency, cost of processing plants and availability and logistics of input media as well as the low efficiency of internal combustion engines don't make them a long term scalable solution. Nuclear suffers from NIMBY and uranium has availability constraints (and just took a 40% price jump). New hydroelectric is very limited in North America. Any of the biomass ideas are useful if the input media is being discarded, but there isn't a scalable biomass source that comes anywhere close to meeting energy demands.
Reliable, IP free, Location Independent Solar Thermal Power Generation.
The problem with LED lights is that there IS waste heat but no way of getting it out: the solid diode only lets the heat out slowly.
Heat buildup shortens the lifespan of the LED so you have a severe limit on how much light output you can get.
Ethanol from corn takes approximately as much fossil fuels to produce as is produced. It's irrelevent whether it's break even or not - it's a major waste - best described as Insustainable Subsidized Food Burning or the synonymous Government Subsidized Food Burning.
I thought that it was primarily due to Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) - the folks that used to advertise with the distorted map of the US east coast merging with the Soviet Union border line.
Farming is a form of solar energy use. Sunlight biologically captured and processed into energy forms suitable for food and transportation. It depends up lots of factors such as rain - or in some cases irrigation as well as chemical raw materials such as fertilizers. It's not as efficient as the best PVs however.
What's amazing about those articles presented is their alarmism and assumptions that biofuels will cause the jungles to be reclaimed for use in agriculture and that is the fault of biofuels. It sounds like the authors are being subsidized by the arabs protecting their oil industry to influence public opinion against biofuels to protect their turf. Considering some biofuels are being produced (maybe even commercially) in new zealand using sewage or waste water reclaimation processes, it should be obvious - since this wasn't mentioned in any of the stories - that it was an attack on biofuels in general and not something created to inform readers about the nature of 'good' and 'bad' methods of creating biofuels.
There was even the notion presented that the jungle was a genuine carbon sink with some sort of long term capability of absorbing carbon. Like deserts, jungles encroach on areas that didn't used to be part of them. It is a continual effort to beat back the encroachment. The assumption that the jungle is a great carbon sink is malarky. The plants absorb and hold carbon as long as they survive. When they're dead, they decay rather quickly - releasing co2 in the process. When fires happen, they release co2 very quickly. There are estimates that around 2000 pounds of termites exist for every person on the planet - many residing in the jungle. These small creatures have significantly higher metobolic rate per pound than people do - and very few people have a carbon foot print that could equal 2000 pounds of termites - other than maybe algore.
Note too, these termites convert some carbon into methane rather than co2 - much more so than would normally be released by decaying trees and plants. While the supposed environmentalists claim methane isn't important because it does stay as long in the atmosphere - over 20 years the effect by weight (mass) is a factor of 63 times more in potentcy of methane over co2.
I thought cheney was into halliburton - that engineering construction and oil service company that builds nuclear power plants and big civic projects like sewage treatment plants and provides large equipment transportation, geophysical prospecting and all that rot. Oh, and they invented and make those tough aluminum equipment cases like I have for my laptop. They're pretty much a can do organization that isn't staffed to the gills by a buncha college life retentive geeks or empty suits from eastern law schools and business schools.
The willingness to use stopgap measures depends on the level of urgency. If fleet conversion takes about 12 years and production conversion takes about 5 years then we might expect plug in hybrids to dominate the fleet in about 15 years. If we actually need to reduce emissions by 80% in ten years, to avoid releasing too much carbon that is currently held in frozen ground, then making the current fleet closer to carbon neutral becomes a priority.
s .html.
t .html.
So, at the same time that we convert to solar and wind, it may be needful, during the transition, to supply the current fleet with biofuels produced from the flu gas of existing power plants.
No matter what, we do need to transition and so the steps of the transition need to be thought through. Portions of the transition are unlikely to look like the desirable relatively stable end point no matter how we aproach it. So, the question is how much desperation to include. Setting up a competition between food and fuel looks too desperate to me, but making some use of biofuels does not http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesi
On the relative costs of wind and PV, I think you need to look at both the savings available from large scale production and the cradle-to-cradle aspects of both. The labor and return on energy in involved in recycling PV verses wind together with the improved heat management at scale for PV may bring the two into cost parity.
I've added to my blog on the subject of what a relatively stable endpoint of a transition might look like. If you have the time, I'd appreciate your thoughts: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/03/coast-to-coas
Using waste veggie oil and a weed like rapeseed doesn't impact food crop and uses things that would otherwise go to waste.
I burn biodiesel in my Benz 300CD Turbodiesel without any modification. It's available on the pump here at several locations in Asheville NC.
A defense contractor in Antarctica is a bad idea. Get Raytheon OUT of Antarctica.
There're more ethical problem that ecofriendly ones. Is more for high food prices and the need of more food.
ghostbar page.
The implication was that I am asking for a cite from a reputeable source. Scientific American is coasting on it's reputation of decades past, and to me no longer constitutes such a source. If being told the truth about your source increases your confidence in it, when the opposite is warranted... Well, that doesn't say much about you.
How many times do I have to tell you? The root problem behind all theses resource issues is the global population explosion. If you're a guilthead you can blame it on advanced societies but even if you were to tear them down, the popexp-driven resource consumption is only going to continue.
For example, everyone is up in arms over the corn usage for bio-fuels. Okay, so corn goes up in price, and the claim is people are starving and we're using food for oil. First off, the issue of starvation has never been one of lack of food. The real issue has always been distributing that food to those who need it. (Often impaired by geo-political issues.)
So let's use our brains and consider alternatives. There was an article, I think it was even posted on Slashdot regarding the use of algae/pondscum to create ethanol. Why not use one environmental problem to resolve another?
One of the major environmental issues of our day is sewage waste. Much money has been expended on waste water treatment facilities in the western world. And they're pretty effective. The main issue with these facilities is that the waste water is high in nutrients. When dumped into the natural waterway systems (rivers, lakes, oceans) it often causes algae blooms from the over-fertilization. So let's combine all of this...
We can build large mile square "ponds" designed to encourage algae growth. Fill them with our nutrient rich wastewater. The algae will consume the nutrients of the water, be harvested for conversion of biomass to fuel. Now, not only do we have a renewable energy source, (without causing starvation)...we also have a means to eliminate even further our biological waste.
So with a little thought and a lot less PANIC and fear-mongering, we can achieve much. The worst thing for the environment, is a brainless environmentalist running around like a chicken with it's head cut-off screaming the "sky is falling, the sky is falling". The best solution for the environment is a rational, thoughtful, open process that encourages innovation and ingenuity.
- Saj
Biodiesel can be made from waste vegetable oil (cooking oil that has been used for frying) so there shouldn't really be an impact on the availability of food from making it. We throw away millions of gallons of the stuff in to our dumps or mixing it in to the feed for our cattle (when we shouldn't) we should be using that to lessen our dependency on foreign oil.
Specks
Batteries not included
Don't assume that the people who have the time and wherewithal to burn some rainforest and plant a crop will stop just because bio-fuels go out of fashion and crops grown specifically for them are no longer the most profitable crop.
They will still burn down some rainforest and plant some other crop. It's not the need for a particular crop that drives them to burn rainforest land, its the need for ANY crop that will net them the money to live.
So don't blame bio-fuels for the burning of rainforests. That's going to happen anyway and is its own problem looking for a solution.
I still prefer nuclear for our primary energy source. People tend to dwell on the chance of something negative coming from nuclear power while ignoring the certainty of the harm that comes from most other forms of energy production.
Not that some people aren't willing to make stuff up to taint an energy source that isn't their favorite. You know, like implying that the rainforests are being burned down because of it...
I notice a the parent poster has a UK email address.
In the UK, one can drive from the very north of Scotland, and basically make it all the way to the south of Britain in the span of a day. According to Google Maps, it's about 580 miles between Aberdeen in the northeast of Scotland, down to Exeter in the southwest of Britain. That route spans the majority of the east-west and north-south distances in the UK. London to Edinburg, by contrast, is just a little over 400 miles.
I live in Virginia Beach, the east coast of Virginia, USA. I can drive to Abingdon, VA (in the mountains to west) in that 400 miles. I AM STILL IN VIRGINIA -- a *single* state whose width is roughly equal to the London -> Edinburg route.
In Florida, the trip between Jacksonville in the north to Miami in the south, is also about 350 miles. These are just minor examples in the USA. There are 50 states and a great many of them contain distances that are as great or greater than the whole size of the UK.
Traveling from New York, NY to Miami, FL is almost 1300 miles! And those aren't the extremes. New York to Los Angeles, CA is 2800 miles!
So tell me again how a huge fuel tax will force thousands and thousands of rural to semi-rural communities to suddenly clump onto cities?
To save repeating myself, check this link and my replies to the responses:9 &cid=18542607
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22868
If you think biofuels are about protecting the environment, you are sadly mistaken.
First, I'm going to state that I'm an environmentalist, and that everything you've said makes good sense. But there's another side of things you should think about.
Perhaps you're right that in North America, we consume too much.
But there are a good many countries that don't have this sort of development. Now, these countries are advancing, and they're going through many of the same pains that industrial and cultural revolutions with cost dramatic amounts of energy and resources. Without these, the quality of life will remain appallingly low (by who's standards right?)
So while you're standing on your high horse preaching consumption reduction, realize that there are countries that can not do so. In my opinion it is vital that these countries increase their consumption until their level of education naturally limits population growth.
So while conservation is important, and necessary, a more complete solution is to establish high limit energy sources which have a minimal tax on the environment. (did I mention that I'm a graduate student in Nuclear Fusion...)
So let me get this straight. The environmental impact of biofuels is that people cut down trees? Isn't that like blaming the car for the drunk driving accident? I'm not an expert, but it seems this articles main complaint is that it'll make food more expensive because of more demand and that plants give off more co2 than petroluem. And somehow... because we don't/haven't the technology to compensate for that, that we should go back to a nonrenewable resource. I agree that conservation is the way to ultimately go. But I also believe that most the population needs some way to transition to something that's more conservative. Some incentive to get out of that Minivan or SUV and get a smaller car. Or to stop driving that hummer by your self and taking up 2 parking spots and take a public transit. (which, almost in all of america, needs to be revamped) Anyways, that's just my 2 cents
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
>We commute hours a day to/from work to live in huge cookie
>cutter developments that waste heat/cooling/electricity while
>letting the urban centers decay.
I take it by "waste" you mean that having your own home
uses more energy than living in apartments?
If so, then just forget it. Packing people in like lemmings
is not the answer. I suppose if we all slept in Japanese-style
coffin hotels right at our place of work, it would be more
energy efficient too.
You aren't going to force us all into apartment blocks in
cities, so long as we still have democracy. I guess you
could do it soviet style, though the party officials still
had country estates (like, ah, Al Gore and John Edwards).
Relative to fossil fuels, biofuels don't improve the greenhouse gas situation at all. In many regards they make it worse once the energy inputs for the agriculture and processing are taken into account. The only advantages of biofuels are political (pork for agricultural states) and economic in the narrow sense of helping with the balance of trade with oil producing countries.
Improving cars' gas mileage is a way of mitigating an environmental disaster, but it's in no way a long-term solution. Real transportation-related energy savings will be achieved only by driving up the cost of personal transportation to the point at which public transportation becomes the better choice. Since the existing pricing structures don't in any way reflect the social or environmental costs of the use of carbon fuels, this needs to happen. And it doesn't need to have a negative impact on the economy either. The US has a very poor rate of GDP creation per unit of energy input compared to most developed countries, so we're just doing a lousy job of making efficient use of resources. Little wonder once you consider all the subsidies and distortions that encourage wasteful use of energy.
The consequences of such a change will include greater urbanization and a differential impact on suburbs depending on their structure. "Sprawl" suburbs (those with grid-type road systems and relatively uniform population density) will become less desirable than suburbs consisting of dense towns surrounded by low-density housing, since the towns can connect to the city by public transportation and local shopping is possible if you live near the town center.
I've lived in big cities (Seattle, London and SF) and both kinds of suburbs (LA, outer London, SF bay area). "Sprawl" suburbs (Dallas, Denver, LA/Orange County/San Diego, new towns in Outer London) have by far the worst quality of life. I'm currently living in a small, dense town not far from San Francisco and it's nothing at all like the featureless burbs of (for example) Orange County. There's a thriving downtown and a sense of community. And the arguments in some posts about urban crowding are far from the mark too: in a non-decaying city, you don't spend as much time in your home as you're forced to in the suburbs, since there's more to do outside. You don't need huge amounts of space. My flat in London was tiny by US standards, but we never felt claustrophobic in it. And it didn't have the sterile feel of McMansions in the US: square footage makes a poor substitute for connectedness.
So if we're going to focus on changing the energy economy in the US, the aims should be to reduce consumption radically, and to quit feeding the carbon monkey. And when looking at alternatives, we should look at life cycle costs. That probably will mean that nuclear still comes out a poor option relative to solar, wind, tidal power, and (despite is environmental problems) hydropower. And this will drive oil, coal and biofuel off the agenda entirely.
So what I want to see are carbon taxes, congestion charges, and a lot more buses (which should be more fuel-efficient, and which should not be diesel, since the particulate emissions are another environmental disaster). Buses are a good choice since rail-based public transportation solutions tend to provide poor rates of return, are inflexible, and become single points of failure. You'll need the flexibility since the impact of higher energy pricing on suburbs will cause population shifts that will alter commuting patterns.
And co-generation is a great thing for houses, as is improving efficiency of lights, fridges and heating/insulation systems. Also, when there's a need to rewire, reducing the resistance of home wiring is a good idea.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
Over the next fifty years or so the conversion of much northern real estate from arctic tundra to arable land may offset population growth to some degree.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If the US truly wants to become energy independent and as "GREEN" as possible. Here is how you do it in 3 easy steps.
1.) Force all gas stations over a certain size to install the newer on the spot hydrogen generating stations being deployed in Europe. They take electricity and Water and make hydrogen on the spot to fill cars.
2.) Force auto makers to release fuel cell cars. Honda already has one lined up to sell in 2008. If they can do it then there is no reason GM can't.
3.) Continue to put up more wind and wave power generation systems move us off the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity.
So what's so complicated? In three steps you set in motion the migration of the entire country over to Hydrogen. Yes, you then have reliance on fossil fuels for generation of electricity in many areas. However, it is easier to clean up the output of one power plant than the output of thousands of automobiles. Additionally, wind and other renewable energy generation sources become less expensive every day and can be used to phase out these older generation systems.
It's the right way to go and avoids all the obvious problems of biodiesels.
IF YOU BUILD IT! THEY WILL COME! Ok, I know corny quote but it's true. Without remotely located sources of hydrogen there won't be as many adopters of hydrogen cars.
Being really honest, at least half of the fun is the project itself.
Just as long as you aren't kidding yourself. I consider 'fun' as plenty of justification for doing uneconomical things. I've considered making an electric vehicle for much the same reason(part of why I know so much). Still, I need a donor vehicle first, and my minimum range would be around 120 miles, or at least 80 at highway velocities. I know full well that this would double the cost of my battery pack versus yours.
30 minute average for 7 miles? That's only a 14mph average. You have to traverse roads with speeds in excess of 40mph? No redlight?
*scratches head* SoCal is messed up. My commute is 30 minutes, for 30 miles(reason for large range requirement).
Just keep in mind that when I'm evaluating the economy of things like EVs that I'm considering the average educated consumer, one capable of conducting a basic cost/benefit analysis. As it makes more sense, you'll have more adoptors. Especially for large capital cost items like vehicles, I lean towards existing technology. When you look at fast adoption items like MP3 players, their new functionality overwhelms the older equivalents (radios, CD and tape players, in this case). For MP3 players you have shock resistance, user selected playlists, smaller sizes, massive storage, etc...
I don't read AC A human right
Available wind power world-wide is estimated at 72 terawatts continuous. If the world can be supplied to US levels on only 9 GW, there's plenty of room for higher living standards on wind power alone. Throw in nuclear, PV, wave and whatnot, and the biofuel-only doom scenarios look rather silly.
Biofuels have one really important use: buffering lulls in the other sources. This does not have to amount to a large fraction of total energy consumption (and will require even less land if e.g. carbon is recycled through algae instead of relying on higher plants for everything).
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Algae is better for biofuel but even better would be to use the algae to produce hydrogen.
Hydrogen is not easy to store and transport in normal enviromental conditions. Methanol (and methyl esters), ethanol (and ethyl esters), esters of propan-1,2,3-ol, even methane are considerably easier to handle. Including being capable of being fed into existing fuel distribution systems.
True however using algae hydrogen can pretty much be produced anywhere it's needed. Then again so could alcohols, but hydrogen has a higher energy density. Of course an ROI, Return On Investment, analysis should say which would be better to produce.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It is easy to see how mass-produced biofuels will have a large impact on the environment. However, it is difficult to think of any energy source processed and used in mass quantities that does not have a negative impact on something else. It is my belief that in the future a variety of alternative energy sources will be used to power our vehicles and infrastructure. As far as the United States is concerned, we can longer depend on Middle Eastern oil to fuel our nation. The partial use of ethanol in our vehicles will at least be a step toward reducing foreign imports. Years from now we could pull up to a "gas station" and have the choice of bio diesel, ethanol, rapid electricity recharge, compressed natural gas or hydrogen. Fossil fuels will not be around forever. I credit automakers for taking a step in the right direction in researching and producing vehicles that can run on alternative fuels.
The USA could get its base load from biofuels alone. See the link in the sig block.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
I encourage you to consider this solution to the world's energy needs:
http://420africa.org/
Poor people are desperate to feed their families. They don't care about the environment. Once they become more affluent, they have disposable income and extra time to dedicate to things "saving the environment". The sooner we increase the wealth of the world's poor, the sooner they will care about a clean environment. See China, for example.
cpeterso