Biodiesel is the sort of stuff you can make in your backyard in old bathtubs, if you really want to get into it.
Which you can't do when it comes to fractional distilation of crude oil. There are also plenty of places in the world where this kind of level of production would be fairly unremarkable.
Get hydrogen's energy density(volumetric) to the same order of magnatude, and then youll be right. Until then, it can't be concidered to be a viable energy transport mechanism for vehicles.
Even if you can there is still the issue of compressed gas vs liquid. The latter is simply easier to handle and store within the vehicle. The energy density of the compressed gas probably needs to be even higher, to compensate for the phase change as it leaves the tank.
Diesel engines aren't significantly less efficient than gas engines, and that small difference is more a fault of the technology not having the focus that gasoline engines have had than a problem with the concept itself.
IIRC diesel engines are potentially more efficent.
Diesel engines don't use spark plugs (In fact, they can be made with no electrical components at all)
This can make diesel engines well suited to being a standby source of power no electrical ignition system to fail just when it is needed.
Regenerative breaking is great, but the only part that really needs the power is the fuel injection system, and even then not so much. UNLESS you're building a hybrid, which is a vastly different animal.
That means that biodiesel does not incur the massive costs of outfiting the world with batteries, electric motors, and solar cells. So if you include those retooling costs and the costs of the material needed to make all that. The efficiency of solar power goes down sharply if you include those facts.
You need to also factor in scrapping perfectly good diesel engines in quite a few cases entire vehicles (since there is no way the new stuff can be retrofitted). It wouldn't be cheap for a bus company to replace their entire fleet.
Biodiesal *IS* solar power. Where do you think the energy present in the plant matter comes from? Not only that but it is probably more efficient on a $/watt basis. I'm all for photovoltaics
Plants win out over photovoltaic cells in terms of not requiring any form of high tech infrastructure. Especially if you want a photovoltaic array which automatically tracks the sun.
Biodiesel can be taken from refineries to the consumer using the current delivery systems, which are all designed around volatile liquid fuels. (Actually they'd be overkill for biodiesel, which isn't really even very volatile.) The only thing you'd need to do is keep it from getting cold, since the gel-point is much higher than gasoline or conventional diesel.
Maybe there is something you can add as an "anti-freeze". e.g. petro-diesel or an alcohol.
And the production lines which make gasoline engines now could easily be changed over to making diesel ones with far more ease than they could make fuel cells or electric motors.
Car manufacturers already make diesel cars so their engine suppliers undoubtedly already made diesel engines. As for any concerns about performance the solution is to get the likes of FIA involved.
The production of petrleum is different. It is truly producing energy: you pump it out of the ground and you've got tremendous energy for almost no energy spent.
Actually you have quite a bit of energy involved in extracting oil. Including finding the stuff in the first place, building the machines used (which include some of the largest structures ever built), drilling holes in the ground, etc.
However, in the case of biodiesel, there is more work involved: you have to grow the crops, you have to process them into oil, and you have to convert the oil into a more useful substance, like biodiesel.
Hence there being quite a lot of interest in using waste oil. Typically frying oil from commercial kitchens.
You could always make Hydrogen by electrolyzing water with solar, wind (or nuclear) generated electricity.
Or you could take the same water add waste plant or animal material together with bacteria. Thus producing methane. By having this reaction occur in sealed reactor, rather than in a landfill, the result is a useful fuel as opposed to a polluting "greenhouse gas".
Why focus on biodiesel when theres hydrogen fuel cells?
Because we already have lots of diesel engines around. As well as the infrastructure to fuel diesel vehicles. Bio-diesel is a subsitute for petro-diesel, regardless of the size or type of vehicle involved. Whilst it might be possible build (from scratch) a hydrogen fuel cell car, subject to the same problem that Frau Berta Benz encountered. There's rather a lack of fuel cell trucks, rail locomotives, buses, let alone container ships.
Microwaves (the frequency which heat water) are only absorbed by water.. If any germs die it's because you're heating the water up enough to denature them, which you would do if you heated up the water by any other means.
Bacteria are mostly made of water anyway. Even though the microwaves are tuned to heat up water that dosn't mean that they will only heat water.
Here in East Texas we run the AC 7-8 months a year. We, typically, have the hot water heater in the garage so as not to run up the AC bill. What makes the most sense, here, is a solar hot water system.
At least computer geeks have some kind of "mystique" about them. Imagine being one of those geeks into explosives, or trainspotting, or bird watching. (All wonderful things, by the way.) Those hobbies, you *must* hide!
Yet a "geek" who is a spectator fan of certain team sports can flaunt it. However daft he or she looks, only when things go to complete extremes (e.g. attaching more than one full sized flag to a car) does any form of unrine extraction become remotly politically correct.
Well that's the downside of having nothing but computers in your life, isn't it? Get a non-computing hobby
Unless you are actually interested in whatever you won't get very far with it as a hobby. Probably worst case senario would be something which you have a casual interest in, but cannot where you cannot stand anyone fanatical about it.
Also about Yahoo...I noticed when they made their personals a pay service years ago, the number of new ads really ballooned. I would expect the opposite to happen. Most of the new ads were too slick to be believed, even after several beers. Some of the pics involved I'd seen online before. It was an obvious attempt to seed the pot while the real ads faded away.
If the fakes are that obvious and numerous it's quite likely that this "seeding" will serve to drive away genuine ads. However if one needs to subscribe to see the ads they will get a lot of minimum period subscriptions until word gets around.
The difference here is that peoples' emotions are being played with and that's why some people are upset to the point of getting legal. Online dating services sell themselves as providing an alternative to the usual ways of meeting new people.
Also they tend to promote themselves as able to help anyone, regardless of who they are, the kind of people they want to meet, etc. Some people simply are going to be easier to match than others. With the existing client base being as much a factor as any potential client. Yet how many of these companies would reject anyone...
When paying, sincere customers (who have not yet been successful) find out that a scam is being orchestrated in order to keep the money flowing they can be understandably pissed-off.
If they were only finding a few people who were mutually compatable in the first place finding out that even one is fake is going to be a major disappointment.
And not all people go on dates with the sole purpose of trying to locate their "soulmate". A lot of people, esp. young professionals who are very focused on their career, are simply looking for someone to have a good time with. e.g., the dates are about having fun, not interviewing perspective spouses.
You'd expect a lot of companies to actually seek such customers, at least from a business model POV. Operating as a "marriage bureau" means constantly having to find new members to cover your "sucessful" ones.
I fear them making political changes. In the orginal you had no idea if the bad guys were the Brits or the Russians or someone else.
A way of updating this would be to address the "who are Al-Quada" question, actually far more possibilities here than Brits/Russians. But far too politically incorrect for the mainstream media to touch except to push the OBL conspiracy theory.
The proper thing to remake is the mediocre. Take the good parts, flush the bad parts, and you get something that is equal or better than the original. If I were a movie maker looking to do a remake, I would be scouring IMDB for things rated between around 5 to 6 1/2.
The actual bods in charge of TV do not think that way. Especially with commercial TV where the "customers" are more likely to be considered advertising agencies than viewers.
The important difference is that the original Battlestar Galactica was very, very, very, very bad. Not good. Terrible, in fact. Unwatchable. Occasionally downright embarrassing.
Compared with Galactica '80, with it's flying saucers, flying bikes, dodgy time travel (with dodgy Hollywood history), the "super scouts", etc the original Battlestar Galactica isn't that bad:)
I still don't understand what people see in the remake of Galactica.
Complex characters and strong continuity. Both on which you don't tend to find often in US productions. Probably at least partly due to US broadcasters wanting to frequently show episodes out of order, hence the dreaded "reset button".
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Biodiesel is the sort of stuff you can make in your backyard in old bathtubs, if you really want to get into it.
Which you can't do when it comes to fractional distilation of crude oil. There are also plenty of places in the world where this kind of level of production would be fairly unremarkable.
Get hydrogen's energy density(volumetric) to the same order of magnatude, and then youll be right. Until then, it can't be concidered to be a viable energy transport mechanism for vehicles.
Even if you can there is still the issue of compressed gas vs liquid. The latter is simply easier to handle and store within the vehicle. The energy density of the compressed gas probably needs to be even higher, to compensate for the phase change as it leaves the tank.
Diesel engines aren't significantly less efficient than gas engines, and that small difference is more a fault of the technology not having the focus that gasoline engines have had than a problem with the concept itself.
IIRC diesel engines are potentially more efficent.
Diesel engines don't use spark plugs (In fact, they can be made with no electrical components at all)
This can make diesel engines well suited to being a standby source of power no electrical ignition system to fail just when it is needed.
Regenerative breaking is great, but the only part that really needs the power is the fuel injection system, and even then not so much. UNLESS you're building a hybrid, which is a vastly different animal.
Or a diesel-electric locomotive...
Hydrogen is a better storage mechanism than vegetable oil.
Howcome? You can keep and transport vegetable oil using a bucket. With hydrogen you need rather more elaborate systems.
That means that biodiesel does not incur the massive costs of outfiting the world with batteries, electric motors, and solar cells. So if you include those retooling costs and the costs of the material needed to make all that. The efficiency of solar power goes down sharply if you include those facts.
You need to also factor in scrapping perfectly good diesel engines in quite a few cases entire vehicles (since there is no way the new stuff can be retrofitted). It wouldn't be cheap for a bus company to replace their entire fleet.
Biodiesal *IS* solar power. Where do you think the energy present in the plant matter comes from? Not only that but it is probably more efficient on a $/watt basis. I'm all for photovoltaics
Plants win out over photovoltaic cells in terms of not requiring any form of high tech infrastructure. Especially if you want a photovoltaic array which automatically tracks the sun.
Biodiesel can be taken from refineries to the consumer using the current delivery systems, which are all designed around volatile liquid fuels. (Actually they'd be overkill for biodiesel, which isn't really even very volatile.) The only thing you'd need to do is keep it from getting cold, since the gel-point is much higher than gasoline or conventional diesel.
Maybe there is something you can add as an "anti-freeze". e.g. petro-diesel or an alcohol.
And the production lines which make gasoline engines now could easily be changed over to making diesel ones with far more ease than they could make fuel cells or electric motors.
Car manufacturers already make diesel cars so their engine suppliers undoubtedly already made diesel engines. As for any concerns about performance the solution is to get the likes of FIA involved.
The production of petrleum is different. It is truly producing energy: you pump it out of the ground and you've got tremendous energy for almost no energy spent.
Actually you have quite a bit of energy involved in extracting oil. Including finding the stuff in the first place, building the machines used (which include some of the largest structures ever built), drilling holes in the ground, etc.
However, in the case of biodiesel, there is more work involved: you have to grow the crops, you have to process them into oil, and you have to convert the oil into a more useful substance, like biodiesel.
Hence there being quite a lot of interest in using waste oil. Typically frying oil from commercial kitchens.
You could always make Hydrogen by electrolyzing water with solar, wind (or nuclear) generated electricity.
Or you could take the same water add waste plant or animal material together with bacteria. Thus producing methane. By having this reaction occur in sealed reactor, rather than in a landfill, the result is a useful fuel as opposed to a polluting "greenhouse gas".
Why focus on biodiesel when theres hydrogen fuel cells?
Because we already have lots of diesel engines around. As well as the infrastructure to fuel diesel vehicles.
Bio-diesel is a subsitute for petro-diesel, regardless of the size or type of vehicle involved. Whilst it might be possible build (from scratch) a hydrogen fuel cell car, subject to the same problem that Frau Berta Benz encountered. There's rather a lack of fuel cell trucks, rail locomotives, buses, let alone container ships.
Microwaves (the frequency which heat water) are only absorbed by water.. If any germs die it's because you're heating the water up enough to denature them, which you would do if you heated up the water by any other means.
Bacteria are mostly made of water anyway. Even though the microwaves are tuned to heat up water that dosn't mean that they will only heat water.
Here in East Texas we run the AC 7-8 months a year. We, typically, have the hot water heater in the garage so as not to run up the AC bill. What makes the most sense, here, is a solar hot water system.
How about having your AC heat up the water?
Was that on the real planet earth people have had electric showers for decades.
Maybe they are less common in the US due to the use of 115 volt supplies.
At least computer geeks have some kind of "mystique" about them. Imagine being one of those geeks into explosives, or trainspotting, or bird watching. (All wonderful things, by the way.) Those hobbies, you *must* hide!
Yet a "geek" who is a spectator fan of certain team sports can flaunt it. However daft he or she looks, only when things go to complete extremes (e.g. attaching more than one full sized flag to a car) does any form of unrine extraction become remotly politically correct.
Well that's the downside of having nothing but computers in your life, isn't it? Get a non-computing hobby
Unless you are actually interested in whatever you won't get very far with it as a hobby.
Probably worst case senario would be something which you have a casual interest in, but cannot where you cannot stand anyone fanatical about it.
Also about Yahoo...I noticed when they made their personals a pay service years ago, the number of new ads really ballooned. I would expect the opposite to happen. Most of the new ads were too slick to be believed, even after several beers. Some of the pics involved I'd seen online before. It was an obvious attempt to seed the pot while the real ads faded away.
If the fakes are that obvious and numerous it's quite likely that this "seeding" will serve to drive away genuine ads. However if one needs to subscribe to see the ads they will get a lot of minimum period subscriptions until word gets around.
The difference here is that peoples' emotions are being played with and that's why some people are upset to the point of getting legal. Online dating services sell themselves as providing an alternative to the usual ways of meeting new people.
Also they tend to promote themselves as able to help anyone, regardless of who they are, the kind of people they want to meet, etc. Some people simply are going to be easier to match than others. With the existing client base being as much a factor as any potential client. Yet how many of these companies would reject anyone...
When paying, sincere customers (who have not yet been successful) find out that a scam is being orchestrated in order to keep the money flowing they can be understandably pissed-off.
If they were only finding a few people who were mutually compatable in the first place finding out that even one is fake is going to be a major disappointment.
And not all people go on dates with the sole purpose of trying to locate their "soulmate". A lot of people, esp. young professionals who are very focused on their career, are simply looking for someone to have a good time with. e.g., the dates are about having fun, not interviewing perspective spouses.
You'd expect a lot of companies to actually seek such customers, at least from a business model POV. Operating as a "marriage bureau" means constantly having to find new members to cover your "sucessful" ones.
I fear them making political changes. In the orginal you had no idea if the bad guys were the Brits or the Russians or someone else.
A way of updating this would be to address the "who are Al-Quada" question, actually far more possibilities here than Brits/Russians. But far too politically incorrect for the mainstream media to touch except to push the OBL conspiracy theory.
I think it is perfectly valid to remake the series in a current conext though.
It's already been done, by Fox as it happens, when Homer Simpson became "Mr X".
>Guantanemo Bay.
Isn't that where they are setting the next Survivor?
It might work better in Iraq.
The proper thing to remake is the mediocre. Take the good parts, flush the bad parts, and you get something that is equal or better than the original. If I were a movie maker looking to do a remake, I would be scouring IMDB for things rated between around 5 to 6 1/2.
The actual bods in charge of TV do not think that way. Especially with commercial TV where the "customers" are more likely to be considered advertising agencies than viewers.
But not as bad as Space: 1999, quite possibly the most bizarre and humorless sci-fi series ever made.
:)
It's more or less classic Gerry Anderson, except that he probably does puppets better than live actors
The important difference is that the original Battlestar Galactica was very, very, very, very bad. Not good. Terrible, in fact. Unwatchable. Occasionally downright embarrassing.
:)
Compared with Galactica '80, with it's flying saucers, flying bikes, dodgy time travel (with dodgy Hollywood history), the "super scouts", etc the original Battlestar Galactica isn't that bad
I still don't understand what people see in the remake of Galactica.
Complex characters and strong continuity. Both on which you don't tend to find often in US productions. Probably at least partly due to US broadcasters wanting to frequently show episodes out of order, hence the dreaded "reset button".