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SwiftFuel Alternative To Alternative Fuels
TheDawgLives writes "PBS has an article by Bob Cringely about the best route to end our dependence on oil and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of replacing all our expensive cars with even more expensive hybrids or electric cars, his suggestion is to use a cheap drop-in replacement for gasoline called Swift Fuel. It is derived from Ethanol, but doesn't require any modification to older cars to prevent corrosion. It can be mixed with gasoline in any amount and can even be distributed using the same network as gasoline, including being pumped in the same pipes and shipped in the same trucks. It is truly a drop-in replacement for gas, and it is real. It is being tested by the FAA for certification in propeller aircraft. It also happens to be about $2 a gallon cheaper than gasoline."
Where does the ethanol come from?
Isnt the problem with ethanol the shortage of food we already have I could be wrong though.
It also happens to be about $2 a gallon cheaper than gasoline for the next five minutes."
There. Fixed it for ya.
My blog
Even if they use ethanol from algae, hemp, switchgrass, or sugar cane, this might reduce our need for oil, but it can't replace oil used for other things like plastic.
If this is made using ethanol from corn, then diesel is used in the production of this, and it causes food prices to increase.
What is wrong with using a vegetable oil in a diesel engine? That is a bio-fuel with low processing requirements.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Ethanol will eventually come from switchgrass and be very cheap.
I am a name troll of Westlake. Visit my homepage to learn why.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If as the article states this is a drop in equivalent and has more positive environmental aspects wouldn't any marketing guru say charge the same or more ? It's a like saying, I have a perfect drop in replacement widget that is better and Im going to sell it for less!!, any marketing guru would think you are on drugs, you charge MORE!!
Couldn't you say the same thing for electricity? Or batteries, or fuel cells? Hydrogen production is not exactly booming.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I don't know if it's the same in other countries, but our government exacts an extra tax called "fuel excise", which at the moment makes up about 25 or 30 cents in each liter, I think. If this "Swift Fuel" actually works well, and is broadly adopted, our government will just swallow any saving up in more fuel excise. Probably not to the tune of the almost $2 a Liter we pay in this city, but probably quite a bit.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
It's not a religion. Religions are based on faith. This is based on hysteria.
I don't care how little tetraethyl lead is in it. It sounds like a horrible idea. tetraethyl lead is a known carcinigen and is most definetly a poison that accumulates in the body overtime. http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/leadtet/leadj.htm
This is for aviation fuel, not automotive fuel. TFA specifically talks about this Swift Fuel replacing 100LL (low lead) in small piston-engined aircraft.
I expect that there is far less avgas consumed in the world versus mogas, so it's not like this is a magic solution for our energy needs.
I know we can't expect submitters or "editors" to RTFA, but furrfu.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea. Why? The process is totally inefficient.
Grow sawgrass -> harvest sawgress -> haul sawgrass -> process sawgrass -> haul SwiftFuel -> store SwiftFuel
OR
solar power -> through existing electric infrastructure -> to the battery of your electric car/mower/series of tubes
This is not hard to understand. Why it continues to elude everyone gives me a headache every time I read about "alternative energy." Gasoline combustion or any similar idea involving controlled explosions are highly unreliable and expensive to maintain. It may be necessary for air travel but has no place powering anything with wheels.
Furthermore, there's no such thing as alternative energy. There are three choices when it comes to energy given our current technology: thermal, nuclear, and solar. Sawgrass biofuel is yet another pathetically short sighted delivery system for solar energy. Thermal energy is viable in only a few places in the world like Iceland. Nuclear uses finite resources and requires a lot of investment and still presents many, many environmental concerns.
Solar energy, whether directly converted to electricity with panels or used in a novel solar-powered plants, is decentralized, clean, uses existing infrastructure, and uses electricity as it's delivery medium which is the only transmission system which doesn't move even a single atom after the line is in place.
It uses recyclable materials. We've been working with it for well over a hundred years. We have the engine technology. Am I missing something?
My guess: Ethanol can easily be turned into aromatic chemicals like benzene, toluene, xylene. These have very high octane when burned as fuel in a gasoline engine. (Both web pages state that this technology will first be used to replace aviation gasoline, which is higher octane than automotive gas and still uses lead.)
On the other hand, there also aren't any large refineries pumping the stuff out. Provided the raw materials aren't limited, the price should DROP if it catches on and economies of scale take over.
Copper and steel have gone up while everything else has gone down. Silly me. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the poor valuation of the dollar.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
I'm sorry to yell. But where exactly do you think coal and oil and natural gas come from?
Here's a hint: it's all dead organic material, which originally gathered energy from something that gathered energy from what original source? Yes, that's right kids! It's the sun! Revered for millenniums for a reason...
Wind generation? Another form of solar energy. No sun, no wind. Lakes and rivers? No sun, no rain, no fresh water, no lakes and rivers! Not to say you can't harness these different manifestations of the sun's energy...
Passive solar plants are already in use all over the world, and even store energy using gravity or other passive methods that waste very little energy. Many small power plants can decentralize the grid, improve efficiency since the grid is smaller, and are much more viable than millions of little ICEs.
Imagine, Wal-Mart borrows ten billion dollars to install solar panels to cover their parking lots, which stop local heating effects, decrease A/C usage in all customer cars, and provide them with another revenue stream all in one master stroke.
This is based on an economic consequence. The infrastructure of America is built around the car, and not just any car, but a car that had 60 years of dirt cheap fuel. Our cities and towns are modeled around this. More importantly salaries are also adjusted for a much cheaper transportation cost. You have several options and none of them are particularly appetizing, and none of them have anything to do with global warming. You can produce your own fuel through biofuels, switch to electric cars, or produce more oil from costly hard to access oil reseviors which represent the last of your domestic supply. Nothing else is feasible despite all the fairy farts, adament denials, and heartfelt praying that might be offered. If you don't want to live where public transportation can be possible, then do not expect people to cry for you when something clearly predictable damages your ONLY source of personal transportation.
I thought my electricity was generated about thirty miles away where they burn coal. I wonder how they get a ship on the highway?
Sure, power lines don't work when I want to send energy across a continent or an ocean. But I have this wild idea where smaller solar plants dotting the landscape can decentralize the grid, improve transmission efficiency, and use existing infrastructure and proven technology.
There's that headache again... perhaps my brain is warning me that you're a dumb douchebag who will miss everything cool and die angry.
With apologies to Patton Oswalt.
He talks EXACTLY WHY the solar power->electric->battery WON'T WORK! Because it will take over a decade for electric cars make it to most households even if we outlawed all non-electric car sales today! Cars have a life expectancy of 10 years or more, which means you will see that same 2007 car that was bought last year on the road until 2017 or later. The government could even outright outlaw all gas powered cars today and still you would not see a full uptake of electric or hybrid cars for several years because people can't afford to make the purchase. Again, it is usually every 3-4 years for someone to get a different car, but not necessarily a brand new car (usually a used one), and most cars will see at least 10 years and 3 owners. This means people expect to have 10 years to save up to purchase a brand new vehicle, or 3 years to save up for a several year old used one. Any change that would be significant would need to be able to affect ALL cars at the same time, not after 10 years. This is why a fuel change that can be used in existing cars is the method of choice to change our energy usage. Yes, keep the hybrids and electrics coming, but do the thing right now which can affect ALL cars right now! And let the 10+ year solution continue to work as well.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
There is no simple solution. Any solution that involves combustion is the wrong direction, because you will use up whatever resource it depends on in a heartbeat. That even goes for solar energy, but there are millions of square miles in deserts that could be used for power generation, since it produces no other benefit for human civilization.
In Kathmandu, they already have a fleet of operating electric vehicles, because they're cheaper, more reliable, and cleaner than oil-propelled vehicles. They are run by private businesses, not the government.
Mass transit ridership is the highest since the mid-50s (when GM was tearing down mass transit to sell more cars). Cars are as good as dead in towns and cities.
Whenever possible, build electric propulsion systems. Regardless of what becomes our solution beyond the dead-organic storage we've been using, we can have an infrastructure that uses it.
The biggest issue with transportation is storage of energy. Gasoline and diesel have pretty decent energy densities - roughly 35MJ/kg. From both a mass and volume perspective, liquid fuels are compatible with the needs of vehicles. Batteries need at least a 10x increase in capacity to become viable for traction applications. The best LiFePO4 and NiZn batteries just don't store enough energy. The bleeding-edge EV guys are struggling to get 50 miles on a full charge. You can do about 10x that in your car, right?
If you want a better interim solution, grow the biodiesel algae and refine the fuel into butanol. Butanol is compatible with gasoline distribution methods, though you'll suffer a slight reduction in range due to the lower energy density. Long term - adopt the Army's One Fuel Forward attitude, and make it a national priority. Get rid of gasoline as a motor fuel, and drive everyone toward diesel. Algae-based biodiesel is the only viable contender for fuel production, and it's not tethered to a feedstock that's also food. Using food as motor fuel is criminally stupid.
A person needs very little energy to move around. In fact, a burrito can get you at least fifteen miles on foot. As a civilization, we have to recognize that as the goal, and give up on the idea of cars as we know them. They're just not viable in the long run.
You're right - we'll never see a battery powered Hummer. But electric vehicles that serve the needs of 90% of the population have been in mass production (even if subsequently shut down) since 1996. All because the government of California demanded that car companies deliver them.
Now consumer demand and energy awareness are at an all time high. They're backordering SmartCars and Apteras and even high-performance Tesla Motors sports cars into two and three year waits.
And I have to say, I hope gas goes to it's true cost where it covers our involvement in the middle east. Anyone who wants to stick with their 6 liter engine after gas hits $12 a gallon is getting exactly what they deserve.
I'm sorry, hauling 3500 pounds of steel to carry one person and groceries using controlled explosions is monumentally stupid.
We need to conserve energy dense fuels for situations where they are are truly needed (emergency vehicles, long-haul transportation through sparse landscapes, aviation).
What people are upset about is that life is much less convenient when we're all not driving powerful vehicles than can carry 10 folks and tow a boat on a whim. Well, tough shit. You may have to carpool or take the bus. You may not be able to keep your own jetski in a garage a hundred miles from your lake house. These are privileges, not rights.
Algae based biodiesel is interesting, but again, we need to get away from ICEs except where they are absolutely necessary. An electric car can receive power from any source - nuclear, coal, and even biodiesel through small on-board generators. ICEs will always be addicted to one type of depletable resource - that derived from dead organic material.
Are you actually advocating that brazil not mechanize the nearly 500 yearold process of sugar cane harvest? Are you nuts? Was industrialization something you found "quaint"?
prior to the biofuels initiative or that you are against agriculture in the midwest that produces huge amounts of untreated runoff every year and has been since probably the mid 50s if not before. Remember at one point in time, before gasoline was discovered to be perfect for the combustion engine, ford considered ethenol. As it happens he chose gasoline because it was dirt cheap and they were dumping it straight into the Mississippi (I honestly cannot fathom how that must have smelled) since it was a by product. Mind you I'm not trying to justify this as a perfect circle or some other kind of historical asshatery but I find your most compelling arguement not only contrary to your final statement about global warming but also tangential to the issue.ãã Additionally, while oil will always be sold and burned off by someone else, decreasing the demand will decrease the price and also reduce the incentive for people to tap costlier reseviors.
solar power -> through existing electric infrastructure -> to the battery of your electric car/mower/series of tubes
So I worked out the math on this one time. The limiting factor is the amount of light that falls on the earth.
If you assume 40% efficiency (the best we're hoping for) and start building with a year 2050 goal, you'll need enough solar panels to cover 1/4 of New Mexico with nothing but panels. And that's with no room for maintenance or cabling infrastructure - if you include that you're covering 1/3 of New Mexico. If you factor in clouds, it's about half of New Mexico, and I didn't even deal with breakage from all those damn cacti growing up through the panels.
And that just accounts for our electricity needs, it doesn't account for our automotive needs.
Kurzweil is expecting a 2^5 increase in efficiency over the next 5 years, but for the life of me I can't figure out how he's going to get more sunshine in.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Sue me, I hit Submit early...
So, the point is, we've never managed to build anything on that scale in the course of human history. It would be dangerous to bet on it, if you think anthropomorphic global warming is a real problem.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Wanna bet? ; )
(FYI: the point of this is not efficiency, but rather that an electric motor is quieter than a diesel engine so they can sneak up on enemies more easily.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
There's been so many articles on what fuel, or what car is going to be big in the next few years. Seems to me we have had the answer around for a number of years.
I usually cycle to work in the summer, in Stockholm its quicker than driving or taking the subway, and parking is not a problem. It's easy to stay fit cycling and, provided you find a good route, probably a lot safer than driving.
There's bound to be a bunch of excuses about not having a great route to work, or living too far from work etc. But it's something to think about if you re-locate or change jobs. I have not owned a car for over 10 years, and for 9 of them i have commuted on an old city bike a got for $60. I've probably spent another $50 on maintainance in that time. Add in all the health benifits, and money saved, and it does seem to be a pretty sane option to consider.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
Everything we make Ethanol from is based on soil.
All mass agriculture is based on petrochemical fertilizers. The tomatoes that you buy at the local supermarket are fertilized with oil! Oh sure, not directly...
Here's the biggest lie, though: "It also happens to be about $2 a gallon cheaper than gasoline." In reality, the true cost of both this fuel and gasoline are much much higher than what you see (or would see, in this case of this fuel) at the pump.
See, the cost of gasoline is human lives. Whatever you think about the reasons for our current military activities, we have definitely gone to war for oil. Not to steal oil, of course, but simply to increase its value. See, when oil goes up anywhere in the world, it goes up everywhere in the world, because it's a global commodity.
Interestingly, so is corn, which is where we get most of our Ethanol. While in theory we can produce cellulosic ethanol from things we would normally burn, releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere for no reason and without benefit, it really hasn't turned out to be that profitable and so it has gone largely unexplored. Of course, that corn is fertilized with oil, so when it comes right down to it, Ethanol as we use it in America today is a fossil fuel.
Really, this is the ultimate rub with all topsoil-based fuels: while through careful management it is possible to fertilize fields simply through rotation and the use of your own shit, we actually waste our humanure instead of growing plants with it. Consequently the plants must be fertilized with non-human byproducts (e.g. blood meal, bone meal, animal shit, et cetera) in the case of organic farming, or with petroleum-based products (typically, anyway) in the case of mass factory farming (the so-called "Green Revolution".) Taking this thought a step further, as we're currently not feeding the soil that our food comes from, how do we plan to feed the soil that we're going to feed our cars from? I don't know if you've noticed, but they have rapacious appetites. It might be because they weigh an order of magnitude more than a human, and have an engine under 25% efficient, but what do I know? I'm not a physicist. I could be wrong.
I found your comment unrefreshingly naive when you said "Or is it just some evil price fixing conspiracy to make their 5% profits worth more?" The oil companies are making record profits right now, vastly more than 5%. On top of that, yes, yes it is just an evil conspiracy. Keep in mind that any time two or more people get together to screw at least one other person, it's a conspiracy. Conspiracies to fuck you out of money really are everywhere. This should not be a revelation by now, either.
Anyway, one more time: The only liquid fuel technology which does not have some horrible defect that makes it at least as bad as what we're already doing is algae-based biodiesel. It still has nasty emissions compared to anything you actually want to breathe (so does vegetable oil, honestly - though it's different) but it is actually potentially better than carbon neutral.
See, essentially all the carbon plants are made of (and it is their primary building block of course) is harvested from the air. Once you separate the lipids from the rest of the algae, the remainder is useful as fertilizer, high in nitrogen. You know, so you don't need ANFO, which makes a better bomb than a soil food. Oh, it's an OK plant food, but it's no good for the soil. Without healthy soil (soil is not just some mineral dust, it is a community of living organisms AND mineral dust AND the organic but decomposing remnants of organisms past, and should be at least 60% organic material) you cannot grow a proper plant.
The Amazon is on the verge of collapse, Brazil is about to become an incredibly shitty place to live (aside from the Favelas, which are already incredibly shitty.) Topsoil-based fuels
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Slap a $2 a gallon tax on it!
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Hydrogen production isn't up, but it is the most abundant resource in the universe. It also burns completely clean, leaving pure water as its exhaust. I think that if we could get the efficiency of solar panels up a good bit, we'll have all the energy we need for electrolysis to harvest H2.
The real problem is transportation, distribution, and storage (picture a 20 car pile up with the excitement of compressed hydrogen tanks mixed in) of a pressurized flammable gas, and all that entails. I've heard stories of CO2 canisters for soda systems getting the nozzle snapped off, turning them in to missiles that take out a concrete wall or two before coming to a stop. I don't know if it's true, but I could imagine 3000 PSI of gas being exhausted through a small opening in a metal container within a matter of a few seconds enough to put the thing to flight. Come to think of it, I'm fairly sure it's law in the US that those containers have to be chained to keep them from falling over when they're pressurized.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Does it fix air pollution?
Gasoline emits a lot of dangerous particles, we'd also like those out of the air too...
These guys are promising a biofuel that is exactly like fossil crude oil. It could be mixed in with the petro crude and refined into any currently available fuel.
Maybe
i created a wikipedia article with some basic info from the pbs article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiftfuel please add and improve it if you have any further information on this elusive SwiftFuel (i say elusive, because the "inventors" have no patents, there is practically no information i can find on it other than the pbs article, and practically none of the comments i saw in this thread had any useful information, just the usually bickering about biofuels and food...)
i also can't access the swiftenterprises page though (it's slashdot affected), and as i said there isn't much useful info in google that i could find. the pbs article practically reads like an ad...not objective enough for my tastes (what about all the trade-offs? cost of refining? etc etc etc!)
Somebody mentioned Perdue, but you forgot about the other development there. Turn sunlight into electricity, use the electricity to smelt Aluminum. Mix the aluminum with gaollium, ship the aluminum mixture to where ever it's needed. When it gets there, drop it in a bucket of water, (available everywhere on Earth) and, bada-bing! you have H2 to burn. Now that's efficient! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070518163146.htm
Social Credit would solve everything...
Wait 'til the demand for ethanol is 20 billion barrels/day, see how cheap it is then...
No sig today...
There is a great deal of opposition to biofuels in Europe at present, not just because of the inefficiencies outlined in other comments, but because of the effect on biodiversity. See the RSPB's website for example. Ripping up rainforest to plant palm oil to create biofuels is ridiculous on so many levels, and this Swift stuff seems no better. The fact that it can grow on land not suitable for crops sets my alarm bells ringing. That land is often the last refuge for so many of the species that nature conservationists are worried about already.
Maybe, just maybe... people need to realise that the private car is a doomed commodity and basically a shit idea, at least in urban areas. Really, think about it - does it have any place in our towns and cities?
The consequences of car dependency are far greater than the pollution - the pollution, methinks, is really just the scapegoat and the tip of the iceberg: there's traffic congestion, increased cost of living because land is badly zoned, underdeveloped, low density and encroaches on natural habits (hello bear) There's the loss of community, the proliferation of malls, the fatalities from careless/drunk driving, crime associated the car, morbid obesity.... the list is endless.
Basically, the car needs to be kicked out of cities. For people who live further afield, there's always "park and ride". Trains and trams will suffice in large cities (as they did before, it's nothing new) and smaller cities, say 100,000 will do nicely with buses, bikes and god forbid - legs. (the latter no doubt terrifies many American readers). Cleaner air, less lard asses. Win-win.
And before you say - hey, what about my shopping. In need to go to Tesco/Walmart once a week and buy 20 gallons of milk... well, local shops are the solution. Or failing that, what about using that there Internet thing to order goods.
How does all my "stuff" get to the shops? A nice fleet of electric trucks in a city could handle all the deliveries. I've seen tram-trucks in Germany, they run like little trains, powered by overhead cables... If that's powered by solar/geothermal/giant hamster wheel then even better.
Well, there are a million solutions. But the car is still our number one problem...
Piston aero engines have a much easier life than car engines so theirs absolutely no reason they can't have a minor redesign to use unleaded fuel. At the end of the day all they do is turn a prop usually at a constant RPM. This quite literally is not rocket science.
And what about quitting using oil? Do you ever think about that?
The more and longer we'll find 'alternatives' or 'drop-in replacements' for oil, the harder it will be when it effectively exhausts...
Don't forget we have to keep a bit of it for plastic manufacturing.
Apologies if this is obvious. The use of ethanol isn't about reducing the cost of gasoline to the consumer. For western governments it's about reducing dependency on external oil supplies, and in that respect it's something that is at least impossible to do, and at most incredibly dangerous. The model that everyone (including Cringely) points to is Brazil, which has had reasonable success in supplanting its oil supply with ethanol. China is being shown as a similar success story. However, what is rarely pointed out in pro-ethanol stories is that both Brazil and China are enormous countries with a surplus of arable land and relatively low car usage. Brazil in particular can build catalytic crackers in situ in land growing maize or sorghum, and no doubt the Chinese can do the same. There is also a low level tradition of ethanol distillation which is overlooked or taxed minimally by government in Brazil - backyard distillers are relatively common in rural parts of the country.
Western countries don't have this capacity, and no doubt Big Oil will start a programme of building huge industrial distilleries in Iowa and on the Prussian plain, switching local economies from food crops to fuel crops, while the people of Des Moines import potatoes using the fuel that has replaced their staple business.
The green arguments for this are thin and specious. The only real answer is to get away from our dependency on the internal combustion engine. This certainly won't happen tomorrow, but the power of the oil business and of the roads lobbies in most western countries means at the moment that it won't happen any time soon either, and if it doesn't, and governments keep selling the lie of environmental benefits, we could all be starving for our cars.
Ideally, you wouldn't want to store hydrogen. You would want to find a way to make it on the fly. We have problems with long term Hydrogen storage because it is so thin of a molecule, it tends to evaporate or seep through the storage containers as well as the evaporation causes the pressure to builf to a point it needs to be vented if it isn't kept cool. With long term storage, you will reach a point where energy use in keeping it cool will outplay any benefits or savings in using it.
Here are a couple of links talking about the issues.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/dlnl-lph060408.php
http://www.fuelfromthewater.com/storage.htm
Yea, I didn't mess with a proper link so you might have to copy and paste them. I don't know why I didn't link them properly, it seems that this little explanation uses more key strokes then I could possibly save by not including a href= and a couple of anchors. But that's where I'm at tonight.
How much of that $2/gallon margin is government subsidies, I wonder? Or, how much of that $2/gallon margin is taxes added to gasoline that aren't yet added to this fuel?
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Which is already biosynthesisable (from a bunch of different sources), which will already work in all sorts of different engines, for which there's already a massive distribution and support infrastructure, and which is more efficient than petrol anyway?
In Brazil we mix Alcohol with gasoline since 1985.
Remember when diesel fuel was dirt cheap compared to regular gas? Only truckers used diesel. Then cars and light trucks started using diesel, the demand increased, and now diesel is more expensive than gas. Remember when natural gas was cheap? It was mostly just used for heating homes. But then public transit buses started burning clean natural gas, and factories and power plants started using natural gas to produce electricity because it was cheaper and cleaner than using coal or oil. Now people can barely afford to heat their homes in winter. Sure it's cheap to use recycled vegatable oil to power your car, that is until everyone else starts driving around in oil powered cars. Just like farmers can't rely on one crop, in the case of disaster they lose it all, we can't rely on one source of energy. As soon as we put all our eggs in one basket we find the basket has a hole in it. There is no magic pill to solve our energy problem. The argument that drilling for more oil won't solve our energy problem is specious. If we hadn't already been using our own oil gas would be $10 a gallon. Look at countries in Europe that have to buy all of their oil. The people there would be glad to pay only $4 a gallon. They already pay $8 to $9 a gallon. If we had been using more of our own oil instead of putting a ban on drilling we might be complaining about $2 a gallon. Instead of limiting our choices for fuel while waiting around for that perfect solution that's cheap and clean and mass produced we need to continue to use what's available and what works today. The research for that perfect fuel will continue because the demand will always be there.
re: Ethanol - when you start burning your food as fuel, you're in trouble.
It may be half the cost per gallon, but is it as efficient? If my MPG gets cut in half by using this new fuel, then I'll still end up paying the same costs. The end consumer ultimately cares about Dollars per Mile, not Dollars per Gallon. (Yes, yes, I'm ignoring the environmental and foreign policy issues with oil.)
(P.S. In metric countries do they say KPL (Kilometers per Liter) instead of MPG (Miles per Gallon)?)
Problem: We're running out of cheap oil.
Solution: Kill more dinosaurs.
That was easy.
I live in Brazil. Although I am seeing the rise of food prices, I am not seeing a proper shortage of food. Everybody blame the biofuel for this rise in food prices, but anybody is talking about the rise of the OIL price. It almost doubled in one year. And oil is used for everything in agriculture. Then, is natural for the food prices to rise. This rise come just after a world wide crisis caused by that subprime problems. In my opinion, all the investors turned their investments to commodities (like oil and even seeds) to avoid risks. This caused all this chain of price rises. So, in my opinion, the rise of food prices is caused by speculators in the market and not by biofuel.
Electricity != Combustion Fuels
Th reason why we use combustion fuels is because the energy density is amazing. OK, so we use gasoline very inefficiently, and could double our efficiency without altering the shape and size of vehicles, but it is still a very efficient power to weight ratio.
Batteries are inefficient and costly as well as an environmental disaster to produce and recycle.
Maybe if we can make giant low leak capacitors, that would be better, but battery or capacitor, gasoline is still more stable than shorted high current wires in a car crash.
Even with a hybrid, you still got gasoline.
The answer, I think, has to be a clean burning fuel, maybe some form of alcohol. Seriously, in new england at least, we loose every leaf on most of our trees every year. If we were to rake that all up, press the oil out of it and ferment the available sugars, that may be some real energy for combustion.
Wind turbines in every house. Solar panels on the roofs. DC appliances. LED lighting. solid state refrigeration. symbiotic appliances, i.e. refrigerators that extract heat and aid the the devices that produce heat. Like a water heater that is aided by the hot side of the peltier device of the fridge.
Towards the Singularity.
If the workers don't deserve more of the profits, why don't you try getting on without them.
The energy density of ethanol: 30MJ/kg
The energy density of gasoline: 46MK/kg
All of your arguments are pointless- "drop-in" ethanol is absolutely not a good deal, or even a replacement, at two dollars less than gasoline.
Let's think about how nasty (more nasty?) any larger city would be if every vehicle ran off of hydrogen. All of that water vapor from all of those vehicle raising the relative humidity...sometimes close to the dew point, sometimes jacking the heat index (when hot already)...a sticky, humid, cesspool...using more electricity to run massive de-humidifiers...making The Poor even more uncomfortable causing violent crimes to rise (as hot summers have done in the past in the slums of London!)...A really uncomfortable world to live in!
I hate humidity! Could you imagine a soggy world? Whether hot or cold (damp cold goes to the bones!)? THAT WOULD SUCK!
Hate to break it to you, but a lot of the exhaust of hydrocarbon-burning vehicles is water, too.
Not going to work. Whereas ethanol and biodiesel can be produced without infringing on patents, apparently Swift Fuel cannot. So, to this, I say that if Swift Enterprises were truly concerned about our dependence on oil, environment, etc. - they'd offer up the patent w/o licensing fees. I don't see that happening.
will take over a decade != WON'T WORK
So, how long do you reckon it'll take to get this SwiftFuel approved by the government, get it into mass industrial-scale production, get farmers all growing sorghum to feed it, and get everyone started using it? I'm guessing if our government launched an Apollo-style crash program to make it happen, and there were no unexpected snags, maybe five years. Since that is not going to happen, politically speaking, I think 10-15 years is more likely. And by your logic, anything that takes over a decade "WON'T WORK". Too bad.
Oil production in the USA peaked in the 1970s. The USA became a net oil importer in the 1970s. This problem has been brewing for 30 years while industry and government ignored it. There is not going to be any overnight solution. The scale of the problem is simply too huge.
My own feeling is that electric cars and plug-in hybrids are a better solution than biofuels. But you know, it could go either way. It's really all about who can bring their costs down and ramp up their production the fastest, not about which solution is more intellectually appealing.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Land is for growing FOOD and materials for SHELTER. That already covers the two greatest and ever increasing needs we humans have. If we triple book the land so that we depend on its surface area for energy as well, we are ALL SCREWED! Its just not going to work in the long term. Period. If we want to expand our populations, economies and/or quality of life we will either need to get one of our top three needs (Food, Shelter, Energy) from below ground such as oil, coal or uranium, or from a renewable energy source such as solar. Haven't we already learned what happens when we try to use corn as a panacea? And switchgrass is no silver bullet either. Currently switchgrass based ethanol is much more expensive to produce than oil, we don't know how well it will scale, and sooner or later, food producing lands will be in strong contention for ethanol producing ones. Thus biofuels are a BAD idea unless of course you are talking about the resuse of excess biomatter (e.g. garbage, waiste oil and the like). But even in this scenario, we won't be able to scale it up because the earth's future biomass (like you and me, the cow and the grass she eats) is dependent on its own recycle of bio matter. So, lets be a little more creative eh.
Be More, Be Manly, The Manly Geek Ubergeek Extraordinaire Blogger: www.manlygeek.com/blog Podcaster: podcast.man
As seems typical in discussions about ethanol or like fuels many are missing the point.
bio-fuel technology in the current state of the art is NOT a replacement for fossils fuels nor can it be. The reason is simple , it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol then you get by burning it.
However, if you view it as a storage mechanism, ( like a battery ) and realize that it can be easily substituted into our existing infrastructure it starts to make sense.
Energy problems come in two flavors. Energy supply and energy storage/delivery
ethanol is a good solution to a storage/ delivery problem. It is not even remotely a solution to the supply problem.
However, it is impractical and costly to retrofit most vehicles with a replacement energy source ( geo thermal? Solar? Wood? ). Not that cars can't use any of these thing, but they currently don't and the work needed to make them do so is years away.
However, if we use solar, wind, geo-thermal what have you to produce ethanol we can power our cars indirectly from wind/solar rather then fossil flues.
This process is highly inefficient, but it is better then nothing and could reduce or eliminate the use of fossil fuels in a much shorter time then any other option.
As such I think it makes a nice intermediate step even if it isn't the final solution.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
If this fuel is sold for anywhere near the price of gasoline, they will make profits that will make the oil cartels jealous...I would be shocked if they did not build farm towers (like a giant multi-story parking garage, but with more space between floors, and filled knee deep in dirt). In the middle of nowhere, out at sea, wherever you like.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Must...not...joke...about...spelling...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
What about in the far north, where it is dark for several weeks every winter? You'd need MASSIVE electrical storage that won't leak its charge over time.
Also, do you KNOW what goes into a battery? Pretty toxic stuff. Most of it is recyclable, but it still takes quite a bit more energy to build a Prius than it does a Hummer (you have to drive the Prius for a few months before you make up the difference and start saving energy over the Hummer--interesting eh?). Also, the engine that runs on "controlled explosions of hydrocarbons" is usable easily 4 times as long as the batteries in current hybrid/electric vehicles.
Also, when I am running out of fuel, I can fill the tank in 5 minutes. If my battery goes flat I have to charge it for an hour or more if I want to get anywhere on the charge.
Solar's a great idea for renewable energy source, but the technology is just not there yet for us to dismiss alternatives, and biomass as an energy source is a pretty attractive alternative to coal and oil, being it is renewable, in many cases requires less energy to process and has a relatively low carbon footprint.
Solar should continue to be developed, but at the moment it is best used in stationary applications. Until more generation is deployed, and storage (battery) technology is drastically improved, we must look at new hydrocarbon technologies to meet our energy demands--and even more than that, we have to reduce our demand by improving efficiency and conserving.
I have seen this happen in Egypt. Farmers used to grow cotton and wheat as cash crops.
However, in the 1980s, while visiting my grandfather in a village east of the delta, he pointed out strange looking plants in the fields, inundated with water. It turns out that this reed looking plant is papyrus, grown for the tourist industry: it is made into sheets and then fake hieroglyphs and paintings are put on it.
Of course, this means that Egypt does not grow enough food for itself and relies on subsidized wheat from the USA and elsewhere.
I am not sure if the high price of wheat in the last 8 months or so will change the minds of some farmers to grow it or not.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yeah, fifteen miles to the nearest bathroom.
Didn't think bout that...true, and thanks!
You sir, are very correct!
i agree with you, oil prices are the main cause of rises in prices in our countries, but on top of that, the monopolistic and protective practices of the agro-industry in countries like the US doesn't help.
This especulators you blame are i the oil market, AND the food market, so all in all, oil shortage, AND eco-fuel mania are to blame. both of them. and since Eco-fuel mania is driven by oil prices, in the end the cause it's always the fucking oil.
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
I'm not trying to argue, because I really can't take exception with much of your post, but...
Generally, you can only no till a corn crop for 4 or 5 years before the ground it too compacted and effects root growth.Just so nobody reading gets the wrong idea.... Compaction is generally a result of tillage, not so much the lack of it. Earthworms and root systems tend to leave the ground pretty well aerated if you leave them alone. Especially in soils with heavy clays, you're generally better off with minimal or no tillage. With tillage, you can get a hard, impenetrable plate just below the plow line. That's particularly detrimental to corn because the root system goes so deep.
At least, that's what I've observed and was taught. But I can see how you could be getting different results with different soils, especially those deep heavily organic loamy soil profiles out there in corn country.
See also:
http://www.agriculturalmanagementsystems.com/ams_research_publications/biomass_w_cellulosic_ethanol_prod_replace_oil.pdf
Since ALL fuels using the exceedingly complex formulae will result in more than 100% energy used to make the fuel, all the Cornell study proved is that with the most common growing and processing techniques used to make ethanol in the US that ethanol is half as efficient as gasoline, but a lot of studies have shown that, and newer technology has brought ethanol production close to the efficiency of gasoline production.
I agree that it isn't the optimal, final solution, but I happen to think that biodiesel technology is a better idea, as crops like canola and soybean can produce oil readily (using only a fractino of energy required for fermentation) that can be poured into the tanks of existing diesel engines with little to no modification. Furthermore, once the oil is extracted the meal left over is still recoverable for feedstock, whereas there is much less left to use as feed when corn is made into fuel.
Australia is not a "despotic regime". But, it is halfway around the world.
Australia is indeed "polite, sharing-and-caring" though.
It certainly dosn't help using only part of the plant, the seeds, to feed to the yeast.
The problem is that yeast only eats sugar. The seeds themselves produce a handy enzyme that converts their starch into sugar for yeast to eat (beermaking 101), but enzymes to break down cellulose are hard to come by, and harder to use effectively.
Believe me, if you could just feed hay to yeast to make beer, humans would have been doing it for millenia.
...seems the site was slashdotted...
You mean the kraut. Not the Kaiser.
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
Ummm, has anyone looked at what this magical fuel is really? It can't be purely ethanol with the claims they are making. I realize you guys are having a good time getting wound up about the bio-fuels debate, but has anyone questioned the actual fuel itself? Their web page is remarkably less than informative.
Solution? Do nothing. It's the same 'solution' offered by the head of NASA and other seemingly intelligent people. I mean, what's the hurry? Where is there any evidence that warming is bad?
Ten years ago, the cult was threatening us with the infamous hockey stick. Computer models were predicting "runaway" global warming. According to the IPCC we were on the cusp of exponential warming. "Oh noes!!11one1! We's all gonna DIES!one1!!"
Then something funny happened... Someone noticed that if you took the model and entered random data, it produced the same hockey stick graph. Gee, do tell... of course, they denied, denied, denied that it was a complete fraud. Yet the most damning evidence is that now, almost ten years later, their predictions simply didn't materialize. 1998 was anomalously hot and temps have not rocketed out of control since then.
Frankly, the only problem I see is global warming cultists preaching fire and brimstone, despite having their alarmist predictions disproven by observation repeatedly.
[And yes, before some global warming cultist chimes in... Griffin did later cede to peer pressure and apologize for making those statement, but to my knowledge he has never rescinded those statements.]
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- A U.N. expert on Friday called the growing practice of converting food crops into biofuel "a crime against humanity, saying it is creating food shortages and price jumps that cause millions of poor people to go hungry.
Jean Ziegler, who has been the United Nations independent expert on the right to food since the position was established in 2000, called for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production to halt what he called a growing "catastrophe for the poor.
Scientific research is progressing very quickly, he said, ''and in five years it will be possible to make biofuel and biodiesel from agricultural waste rather than wheat, corn, sugar cane and other food crops.
Using biofuel instead of gasoline in cars is generally considered to cut carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming, although some scientists say greenhouse gases released during the production of biofuel could offset those gains.
The use of crops for biofuel has being pursued especially in Brazil and the United States.
Last March, President Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an agreement committing their countries to boosting ethanol production. They said increasing use of alternative fuels would lead to more jobs, a cleaner environment and greater independence from the whims of the oil market.
Ziegler called their motives legitimate, but said that ''the effect of transforming hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tons of maize, of wheat, of beans, of palm oil, into agricultural fuel is absolutely catastrophic for the hungry people.
The world price of wheat doubled in one year and the price of corn quadrupled, leaving poor countries, especially in Africa, unable to pay for the imported food needed to feed their people, he said. And poor people in those countries are unable to pay the soaring prices for the food that does come in, he added.
''So its a crime against humanity to devote agricultural land to biofuel production, Ziegler said a news conference. ''What has to be stopped is ... the growing catastrophe of the massacre (by) hunger in the world, he said.
As an example, he said, it takes 510 pounds of corn to produce 13 gallons of ethanol. That much corn could feed a child in Zambia or Mexico for a year, he said.
Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said the Bush administration didnt consider biofuel development a threat to the poor.
''Its clear we have a commitment to the development of biofuels, he said. ''Its also clear that we are committed to combatting poverty and supporting economic development around the world as the leading contributor of overseas development assistance in the world.
Ziegler, a sociology professor at the University of Geneva and the University of the Sorbonne in Paris, presented a report Thursday to the U.N. General Assemblys human rights committee saying a five-year moratorium on biofuel production would allow time for new technologies for using agricultural byproducts instead of food itself.
Researchers are looking at crop residues such as corn cobs, rice husks and banana leaves, he said. ''The cultivation of Jatropha Curcas, a shrub that produces large oil-bearing seeds, appears to offer a good solution as it can be grown in arid lands that are not normally suitable for food crops, he said.
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
There are other alternatives for biofuel production
So, what are they waiting for? Start selling it to gas stations near the production points. They can start with a 50/50 blend on one pump and see how that goes. The fuel would be cheaper so they will have plenty of customers. The stations will be glad to sell fuel for less than the competition. Everyone is happy. They don't need to have a nationwide or worldwide plan, just start selling the stuff now in any quantity available.
burrito can get you at least fifteen miles on foot
By the time you fertilize, cook, and transport that burrito you've spent 10X the energy in it. By some analyses you're better off driving.
Also, with burritos, you have to worry not just about C02 but about the more powerful global warming gas, methane....
I see so many comparisons to oil. But it is really just a form of capturing solar energy. What is more efficient, plowing under the farmland and putting a solar plant on it, or planting crops and burning them to extract power? We shouldn't be tailoring the "fix" to match our current needs. We should find out what is the most efficient, and steer our needs toward that. Our needs are not fixed. We need energy, whether that's a flammable liquid or electricity is a question of storage, not generation. We can always convert later (at a loss), but should be generating that which is best. The other thing to keep in mind, is that there isn't going to be one solution. Perhaps on the best farmland, the choice should be to raise corn. For the questionable lands, raise switchgrass. And for the areas where nothing useful can grow, put the large power plants. Sprinkle wind farms over all of it. Hydro (rivers, damed lakes, and tidal) and geothermal where appropriate, and nuclear to make up the difference. Get some mass energy storage (temporary hydro in the form of high-altitude lakes, flywheels, electrolysis at off times to burn the H2 in peak times, or whatever works) to even out the variabilities in solar and wind, and all our problems are solved. Coming up with the solution is easy. It's just implementing it that is hard (and expensive).
Learn to love Alaska
They're still ecologically irresponsible and unsafe. They still need to be totally banned.
Absolutely correct. Farmers here in the midwest of America are faxing a five-fold increase in the cost of producing food. Of course, farmers don't set the prices, the monopolistic grain companies and speculators on the Chicago Board of Trade do that. There is a drought in Australia that has radically reduced the availability of rice in the world. Ethanol production in the US is from dent corn, and that portion (about 8%) that used to rot on the ground due to a lack of market (due to Brazil's increase in agriculture(!)). It doesn't come from rice or wheat, or even the kinds of corn that people eat. Still, the oil companies are scared and have their shills blaming ethanol production. In Brazil, ethanol is made from sugar cane, which works better, but doesn't grow at our lattitudes in the upper midwest. Meanwhile cellulosic ethanol production is coming on-line, and that will use the entire maize plant, or any other highly productive plant material (in Iowa, when the corn is growing, the increase in biomass is similar to that of the Amazon), this will be much more efficient per acre, and make the fuel rather less expensive.
Silly, Ethanol comes from Ethels. I have a neighbor named Ethel. Hmmmmmm.
As to sawgrass, what is the tonnage per acre of usable biomass compared to modern maize hybrids? What climate zones does it grow well in? What are its water and fertilizer requirements compared to maize or sorghum?
If you provide the market and the profitability, the farmers will be happy to plant it.
solar is still considerably less efficient and manufacture is still very poisonously pollutant. That may be changing, but it isn't here, yet.
Nuclear isn't really all that finite (especially if you include the Sun) Carter issued a decree that makes us waste the majority of the usable fuel in fuel rods. We aren't using breeder reactors, which would make more fuel. Thorium breeders are even better, and abundance is similar to lead. The amount of uranium in seawater is astronomical. Then you have fusion. Bussard, shortly before his death, brought the Farnsworth Fusor reactor up to and slightly beyond break-even. It is a far more efficient and scalable (as in small enough for ocean vessels, space craft, and maybe even vehicles). It burns boron and hydrogen. We have extremely vast supplies of boron in Death Valley alone (Borax is made from the boron deposits - 40-mule team to the future!)
We need to see ethanol as a storage mechanism for solar energy that works in existing vehicles. The same goes for biodiesel. Just as petroleum is a storage mechanism for the bacterial metabolisms in the deep, hot biosphere eating methane and rocks in the crust of the Earth.
So we don't have those forms of transportation available to us. Try Google Earth and get a better idea of the size of America and where half the population lives - unable to use any useful form of transportation except for motor vehicles. Do you have the money to -give- us all electric cars, the battery storage and solar power panels? Because most of us can't afford them, and the electrical grid sure can't handle it!
That's just false. You can indeed speculate on oil futures. But those always have a fixed date of delivery. On that date, you need to either physically take the oil, or sell it to someone else at the market price for that day - which is entirely dependent on classic supply and demand on that day, not on what others are willing to bid, speculatively, for oil for future delivery. So you can make money on oil futures only if the supply-demand situation, on the date of delivery, is in fact higher than the price you agreed to pay for it. Otherwise you eat your shirt. This is not at all like real estate or stocks, where you're not obligated to trade on any particular date.
In short, the price of oil futures can be subject to a speculative bubble. But the price of oil for current delivery - the basis of gasoline prices - is not subject to change because of action by speculators (beyond those who want to speculate by storing more of it physically in their tanks - but greater current inventories generally drive oil prices down, not up).
This has been covered time and again at The Oil Drum - a site with many petroleum analysts and traders who understand the market realities well. Believing it's speculators to blame is a convenient way of not facing the real crisis of diminished supply coupled to increased demand.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
In a communist country, ideas other than communism (such as capitalism) are the progressive ones.
All depends on where you're at when you say you're a progressive. All that means is "for change", and what that means depends entirely on where you happen to be at the moment.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Morgan is dead-on! I've seen the same thing happen with the price of biodiesel in Houston. Since biodiesel is totally compatible with diesel, it *has* to trail the price of petro-diesel by 40 to 60 cents, or else the "diesel-sluts" (what we call them) will come around and buy up all the biodiesel. Last time I was in line at Houston Biodiesel, there was a guy with a flatbed trailer with two big honking tanks mounted on it, pumping from two nozzles at once.
That's how it works. You come up with the cheaper alternative, you sell it for a *huge* markup which is still cheaper and get filthy rich in the process. Then everyone else starts making it too and the price goes down.
You can't beat market forces.
...a hospital computer will begin ordering abortions simply because it doesn't like people. The people will rise and revolt against the machines forcing human minds to develop, and then the spice will flow.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I think the confusion is the relationship of vegetable oil and biodiesel. And that it takes methanol, and lie (to correct the acidity of the vegetable oil) to convert from vegetable to bio-diesiel. of course the methanol is a catalyst, so then you can either directly sell the by-product, or add energy to get back your methanol.
Also I don't think all diesel engines are good donors to be converted to the burning of vegetable oils (or even mixes of vegetable oil.)
I know of one person who was mixing just 2-3%, but without correcting PH of the used oil, it burned the valves (I guess the different viscosity is important too.)
my only point is, complete DIY solutions are risky, unless your really though in your research. And professional solutions are expensive, to the point of being barely worth the cost.
(and the DIY solutions for sale, fall in the middle somewhere)
I know you are just trying to defend your religion, but you are mistaken.
The publicity died, but the efforts were only scaled back a little. Some facts for you
Here, (Phoenix Arizona area) there have been small scale tests of Solar Power going on and slowly expanding for the last 20 years. 5 years ago, a utility was installing solar panels with inverters on some folks rooftops. APS, the local Electric Utility currently claims to have around 2% of it's generation solar. The limiting factor is the cost of the panels.
Solar panels cost have continued to go down in cost, year by year since the 1960's. They are still about 1.5 to 2 times the cost of coal/oil based electricity. That's down from more than 100 times. There has been progress.
I use solar here because you thought it was eliminated under Regan. Wrong. They just stopped making political hay with it. The same it true of syn fuels.
Synthetic fuels have been in limited production since before 1900. Ethanol, Methanol, and other more exotic liquids. Methane, ethane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and other exotic gasses have all been tried, boosted, and are all in limited production. Hitler largely ran Germany on synthetic fuels for WWII, because he didn't have access to any large oil reserves.
The research is ongoing. It's not just the Government either. Every large oil company has a research group looking for a workable alternative to oil. They need it for their continued corporate survival. The Government continues to fund research too. There are lots of programs in Colleges. It's out there, it's just not a current hot button issue. You don't often see it on the nightly 'news'.
The limiting factor really is cost. Compared to alternatives, Gas is cheap. Even at $5.00 per gallon for gasoline, Ethanol is more expensive to use. Gasoline has a higher energy capacity, so you need more ethanol to go the same distance. Methanol has an even lower energy density. That's why ethanol is presently preferred. It's the best alternative to oil we can do right now. Remember to factor that into your cost data. The energy needed to produce it factors in too. Energy costs are high for ethanol, somewhat lower for methanol. There is even work on producing wholly synthetic petroleum. That is still ridiculously expensive.
And actually, we are not even close to running out of oil. Just running out of easy to get (read 'CHEAP') oil.
To date, though, nothing we've found will replace oil completely. Too bad, we do need to get off the oil.
As the poster you were criticizing said, we need more research.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
are generally found on Earth.
Drop-in replacements are needed for certain. You can't have a massive method shift without massive headache. Just doesn't work without eliminating freedom and free will and people kind of don't take to that. Organic grown into place in parallel and weaning of the original until it is gone is the way. Like putting in temporary columns up while replacing a foundation, and then permanent new foundation segments and finally finish. One step at a time without dropping the house into the basement.
However, the end result is still the same. We're burning things. The problem with burning things is not the so-called greenhouse effect which is perfectly natural, cyclical, and guaranteed to keep on going and happening no matter what we do and when it reverses and goes cold we won't be able to stop that either.
The problem is that the processes which led to those unburnt materials invested energy of some kind in the process and further energy was invested in making them so compact and dense. Coal and oil and all that don't happen overnight and neither for that matter does corn or grass. All of it goes back to the sun, and the various novae that spat the elements into space that Earth formed from.
Energy was invested. We recoup the energy by burning. But we have no mechanism for taking the burnt results and un-burning them, investing energy back in the process. That's all that chemical fuels are. An energy storage device not different than a non-recyclable chemical battery that we toss away except we toss the results into the air.
Solar? No. Too diffuse and inefficient and not a storage medium. Batteries? Why when we can do what the sun does to make that energy?
From what I've seen, solid state fusion will be the future but in the meantime I fully expect hysterical superstitious defeatists nonsense to mess up most of my days in between.
But the last thing that should be done is to give one bit more power to government. I find it hysterically tragic that many of the same people who are ready to march on congress to secure rights to pirate DVDs, want every kind of porn unregulated and uncensored, who want the government as far away from them as possible every April like clockwork, still reflexively turn to government and taxation to solve the problems of high fuel prices.
Like the same people who sold you nonexistent solutions to misstated problems over and over for the last several thousand years are going to somehow magically come through and fix this. If you believe that, then why don't you believe in Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, the DMCA, and every other idea of theirs you excoriate?
Because you're selfish and hypocritical. You want someone else to fix it, you want someone else to pay the price, you want your way, and you see no problem with wielding the cudgel of government to get your way when it is something you want. Otherwise, you're damn near libertarian anarachists. Hypocrisy thy name is homo sapiens.
Well, the world is not going to go the way you want and it never did and it will be that what happens will do so while you were making other plans. Instead of relying on sleight-of-hand, nonsensical claims, and idiot economics, try relying on your intelligence and cleverness.
You built pyramids with copper saws and wooden mallets. You built rockets to fling yourselves to the moon. I swear, you say you want a Star Trek future of plenty, but you cling to the apron strings of Little House on the Prairie.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Here are the actual "subsidies" that US oil companies get:
Domestic manufacturing tax deduction: business engaged in a qualifying
production activity are eligible to take a tax deduction of 6% of net
income in 2007. The "loophole" is that domestic oil and gas production
was made qualifying in 2004. Obviously plenty of other companies take
this mildly trade protectionist deduction as well.
Five-year amortization of geological and geophysical expenditures:
This amortization period was made available starting in 2006 only to
"major oil companies" that have daily worldwide production of over
500,000 barrels. Evidently there is talk of making this a seven-year
amortization period.
(source)
Royalties "not paid" for drilling on public land: It is a bit
unclear, but there is some evidence that the federal government is not
always properly collecting royalties for gas and oil production on
public land. (FYI, for offshore extraction, the royalty rate varies
between 12%-16%, and total government royalty revenue is ~$11
billion/yr.)
source 1
source 2
source 3
Of course, the Feds just made $3.7 billion on new offshore leases.
Big oil will never let this stuff into the auto market. If they did it would be so levied with taxes that it would cost more than todays gas prices.
While it is true that the Oil Corporations are profiting from the rise in fuel prices, based on a a more-or-less fixed percentage margin on the product that becomes "more money" as the price of fuel goes up (6% of $4 is twice as much money as 6% of $2); the reassuring thing is that by definition, the Corporation is owned by "us", therefore that money is coming back to "the people". What is much more disturbing is that the government is profiting even more significantly from the rise in prices, from taxes on the Energy Companies, Fuel Sales, etc. That $$ will be going who-knows-where.
I know a lot of people who were laid off at Sandia Labs when the alternative energy research budgets were slashed by Reagan. Yes, we have been using PV, but the large scale government research ended in the early 80s. That is the kind of research that is needed, meanwhile the oil companies enjoy subsidized research and development. The fuels you speak of are those that keep the status quo with big oil. When I think of solar I think of the solar steam turbine now being bandied about once again, which was developed in the 70s at Sandia. Germany is making good use of that research.
Your religion attack is funny, but quite untrue. If I have a religion it is transparency, the kind that says you can see the inner workings, not that they are hidden which is what we have now. There are more alternatives than the ethanol, methanol, and synth petroleum, all of which are non starters.
Wow that is an interesting inversion. Private company (perhaps publicly traded) = owned by us, and money goes to people. Government = money goes who-knows-where. I see the point, and with the current Government it is valid. But by the intent of our government, Government = the people. Owned by the government = owned by the people. Now I think as little as possible should be owned by "the people" and that people should be able to privately own what they can afford. But please tell me, in what way are these Corporations owned by "us"?
Sending low cost food to the third world on aid money isn't going to help thme.
The problem the third world has with food is not that it's too expensive, it's that it's too cheap. Food is the one commodity they can easily produce, and as long as it's cheap in world markets, they can't get their economies off the ground.
So, to all those people who say that biofuel is bad because it increases food prices, I say: bullshit. If biofuel increases food prices, that's another benefit for the third world, and it's also a benefit for first world farmers, who currently get huge amounts of public handouts to keep them on the land.
Corporations even elect governance based on a fairly pure "popular-vote" (no Electoral College, no FL).
100% of the shares are owned by people. Theres a difference between people and the people, and that is a big difference.
"The People" is a collective that I cannot opt-out of, who would dictate governance over me.
"People" is not a collective, and is a group that allows me the choice of participation by free-will.
I am confident my error will be corrected though.
LOL. Yeah, I guess the cynical view. But aside from the big brother or other kind of negative connotations, the people is the collective of voters that do govern the US (in this case). People are a subset. Some people own some corporations, but your mentioning of the people owning corporations is not correct. There are plenty of private corporations owned by just a few people. Even publicly traded corporations are not owned by all people, but by relatively few shareholders. So it's more than just semantics and trying to cast corporations as owned by the people of the US is just wrong. And the 401Ks of slashdotters represent a pretty small percentage of the population as a whole.
Links with information on oil. Including information on huge reserves, oil industry market manipulation and evidence that oil is "Abiotic" not a fossil fuel.
http://home.earthlink.net/~root.man/peak.html
Talk by Lindsay Williams on the truth about oil and the real reason for the price of gasoline.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147
http://www.reformation.org/energy-non-crisis.html
The Energy Non-Crisis by Lindsey Williams
Lindsay Williams
About the Author
Lindsey Williams, who has been an ordained Baptist minister for 28 years, went to Alaska in 1971 as a missionary. The Transalaska oil pipeline began its construction phase in 1974, and because of Mr. Williams' love for his country and concern for the spiritual welfare of the "pipeliners," he volunteered to serve as Chaplain on the pipeline, with the subsequent full support of the Alyeska Pipeline Company.
Because of the executive status accorded to him as Chaplain, he was given access to the information that is documented in this book.
After numerous public speaking engagements in the western states, certain government officials and concerned individuals urged Mr. Williams to put into print what he saw and heard, stating that they felt this information was vital to national security. Mr. Williams firmly believes that whoever controls energy controls the economy. Thus, The Energy Non-Crisis.
Because of the outstanding public response that has been generated by this book, Lindsey Williams is in great demand for speaking engagements, radio, and TV shows.
(Addition to the fourth printing of the second edition.)
Please keep in mind when you read this eye-opening book that BAPTIST John D. Rockefeller BOUGHT the U.S. government after the Supreme Court decision to outlaw his monopoly in 1911.
You're talking about eliminating more than cars. You're also talking about eliminating suburbia, housing subdivisions, bedroom communities, etc. The problem is that people LOVE living in suburbia. The house in suburbia with the white picket fence is firmly fixed in the American Dream. You're not going to convince people to give up their backyards and retiring to the country.
For the record, I agree with you. I am against suburbia, sprawl and automobiles in general. But I recognize that I am in a very small minority in the USA (3%, maybe) and it will be impossible to convince most Americans to accept a lower standard of living.
Swift Fuel, eh? The only fuel I know of that replaces gasoline directly and without requiring modification to the automobile is Butanol. Is that what "Swift Fuel" really is?
Heard any good sigs lately?
Typically, when things are this shrouded in mystery, they eventually turn out to be bullshit.
...are we scared yet?
As someone who has existing patent apps for a 100LL replacement, I know a thing or two about the field.
The technology is probably based on something like: http://www.google.com/patents?id=93EWAAAAEBAJ&dq=john+rusek
Yes, this is for rocket fuel to mix with peroxides, but more likely than not the Swift Fuel is an outgrowth of the same thinking.
The important take-aways are: there are nitrogen containing species and a metal in the mixture at several percent each. (e.g. Mn acetate and EDTA)
This is fine for tiny volume avgas and Manganese is better than lead, but there just ain't ever going to be the capacity to make regular gasoline quantities. That and the emissions would suck compared to current gasoline.
Oxygenates are good in moderation. This is why we should be developing e.g. butanol instead of ethanol.
Spending on public transportation is just going to be wasted on defending against imaginary threats.
The Smart car only gets 33/41 mpg (with the new 2008 milage calculation), which seems pretty low for such a small car IMHO. Plus, it takes premium gas.
(Don't get me wrong, I like the small *size* of the Smart car, and if we ever get hybrid and/or electric versions in the US, I would look at them.)
But a Prius, which is a lot bigger, has 48/45/46 mileage (city/highway/combined, that's the way toyota's web site says it). If it's possible to make a much smaller hybrid (maybe it's not), then it would seem like one could beat that mpg.
It took them decades with little urgency. War time and harsh economic climates can speed this up significantly.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The synthetic chemical industry has lobbied the United States government to prohibit growing even those hemp varieties with no significant dronabinol content.
Interesting, what does that interest get out of it? I'll agree it's more sensible than the anti-drug angle, but I thought hemp was mostly good for fiber and snacks?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Let me see... The answer for an alternative fuel is... ?
cooking oil, vegetable oils, uhhh ethanol
Bzzzzzzzzzz Nope. I'm sorry. You are still burning hydrocarbons so you get greenhouse gases. Next Contestant please!
Why can't we just go with electric vehicles and let the power companies or local co-gens figure out the best fuel? Geesh already! Not enough battery capacity yet you say? How about standardized 10-minute swap-time packs? Packs could keep track of their usages internally and you pay a deposit for an upgrade. They get swapped out for you at... Service Stations!
Could we have this up and running in a year? Two at most? Yes. Government subsidy for early adopters.
Am I mistaken or isn't global warming still looming? I don't believe it went away when the "news" quit talking about it.
Be as you would have the world become.
Electric cars are easily 4x more efficient in converting energy to locomotion. 90% of commuters use less than 4 gallons of gas a day.
.540 to .720 MJ/kg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_batteries
44.4 MJ/kg 34.8 Mj/liter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline
34.8*3.79*4 = 528 MJ in 4 gallons of gas * 20% efficient ice = 106 Mj of locomotive energy.
106*1.1 = 116.6 Mj
electric motors are 90% efficient so we need to start with only sligtly more stored energy.
116.6/.72 = 162kg of lithium batteries for a vehicle with a range of about 80-120 miles.
Tesla already has an electric car with a lithium battery pack with a range of 220 miles.
In an electric car(high torque at low speeds) you dont need a transmission(saves 50-100kg) and you wont be hauling around any gas which saves 0-50kg. You also wont need an alternator and might not need a radiator with coolant, electric starter motor etc.
So it is entirely possible to created an electric vehicle that meets the needs of 90% of the population. It wont work for long distance trips - Thats what trains are for.
We have the best government that money can buy.
Law determines how far your liberty reaches until it meets mine. I'm saying that you should pay extra for your inefficient use of resources, which is a well established capitalist ideal.
Go ahead and poll your peers. Ask them if they'd like to live in a neighborhood where they could walk or bike to a park, a city square, and a bus or rail station that had reasonable commute times to the work place, or if they'd like to have a Suburban and a Jetski. Believe it or not, most people don't see sitting in traffic in an SUV as a pinnacle of human achievement.
All I want for you to do is to pay the full cost for your lifestyle, and I'll pay the full cost of mine. If I live in a smaller house, produce less trash, produce less pollution, use less electricity, and drive a smaller car, I'm saving resources, and I should be saving money.
However, gas is subsidized because the taxes don't pay for the cost of our military expenditures in the middle east. Less efficient road systems are subsidized instead of rail because lobbyists from the oil and auto industries want them to be.
You're just another dog feeding at the tit of the SPQR. You just don't know it. Without the corrupt American government, your lifestyle wouldn't exist, because it's wasteful and benefits the greed of corporations. I'd still gladly let you live it, as long as you're paying $12 a gallon and extra taxes for your heavy vehicle's stress on the infrastructure.
Don't be silly. Peak Oil clearly means oil that we "Peek" at. The DOE, under Bush, is simply one of the most alarmist, green-hippie agencies ever to walk the Earth.
Or
You could check out "The End of Suburbia" and really ruin your din din. I'm actually shocked the DOE is confirming the crisis openly. This movie predicted the Peak in 6 years- it was released in 2004, and the DOE is giving us 3 years in 2008. Damned brilliant documentary. Scary stuff though. The sharp timeline makes the space-launchs-are-the-future crowd seem really delusional. As for space, with oil gone, it may be our only hope is some Vulcans warping in about now. (I'm so bummed that there are no anti-grav Mr. Fusion Delorians zipping about- all the important future stuff didn't come true yet. At least we have cellphones!)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446320/