what do geeks think about bio fuels?

Thats kinda patronising My use of the word Battery is in a broad sense not literally,hydrogen 'acts' like a battery by storing energy for us,the first concept is that we extract the hydrogen from hydrocarbons which is fine we wouldnt get half as much energy and we're still reliant on fossil fuels in that respect it is a fuel as we get the energy for free

The second is that we use electrolysis to remove the hydrogen from water,our wind turbine solar panel ect is used to generate the electricity, we remove the hydrogen, our potential energy is now in the hydrogen, this is what I mean by battery the hydrogen does the same job as if we we had just charged a battery directly from our wind turbine,if it does prove that hydrogen is better at storing energy than current battery technology then fine hydrogen is the way to go

These are two seperate systems that cant be confused when speaking of hydrogen,if we take the hydrogen from nature burn it we simply change it into water THIS is a closed enviromentally friendly system

When we use hydrogen to store our potential energy as in electrolysis then burn it yes the only polution that is given off is water but it isnt a closed system in terms of the enviroment,it is acting mearley a non polluting battery

 

Where does the heat go?
abri

 

Ideally into space as it has always done, the point being not to stop the heat transfer by greenhouse gasses like CO2. A cloudy night is usually warmer than than a clear one though that's not because of CO2, just an analogy.

 

The problem with your reasoning is one size fits all. The USA and the world is bigger than that. There is no one big solution, there is a bunch of little ones, all different. It is interesting to note that in the one area in the USA that parking lots are a problem and public transportation works is New York. Any high density area can have good public transportation, but I don't want to live there. Trying to dictate a life style that you think is good isn't utopian, quite the opposite.

I've been some old houseing build before 1900's, they weren't insulated better (worse in most cases, some cases not at all). Most cases the old houses depended on lot of windows and prayed for a breeze. People just lived with the heat and died young from numerous causes. The good old days are a myth brought on by bad memories and wishful thinking.

I don't know if you've been in North Texas, but trees are few, and stunted from lack of water. Good shade exists, but to walk in? We don't have forests here, we have brush. You keep making assumtions that are local, and don't work everywhere. Go west a few hundred miles and it is nothing but grass and flat land. I agree we could use some major rethinks on achitecture, but that isn't the focus of this thread.

I don't think I've seen methane mentioned from manure? There is a perfect biofuel, it will be generated whether we want it or no, and is a pollutent if released unused.

 

Sorry if I came across as pratronizing. I agree we have to distinguish between hydrogen generated from fossil fuels and hydrogen made from water.

I've noticed you keep refering to it as a battery, it's not. Bad analogy through and through. It is a energy transport, a fuel. Even when coverted directly to electricty it is done in a fuel cell. More than likely it will be burned in a combustion engine, either internal or external, probably modified from burning gasoline. If it is more dangerous to handle than gasoline this is a technoligical issue. There is work with bucky tubes to allow safer storage and use that might help.

Another posiblility is to use energy rich areas, like GreenLand's volcanic vents, to create hydrogen.

Slight change of subject, I remember a story about a couple who planned on touring Mexico using used cooking oil, like french fry vegtable oil in the states. Their plan failed for one simple reason. Folks south of our boarder eat all their cooking oil one way or another. Sometimes the calories go better inside than out. Make me wonder about some of the reciepes used though...

Even plants converted to biofuel are just a transport, from the solar energy they recieved to an engine.

 

Ah, but a large part (majority? I don't know) of the Green movement thinks it IS utopian, and is pushing for just that, under the two innocuous titles of "greenbelts" and "sustainable living" Green belts are huge tracts of land that will be forbidden to human habitation, and mostly even to human travel. Return to nature and all that, except they plan to exclude us from nature. End game is to connect all the green belts, forcing people to live in massive urban islands. "Sustainable living" is a movement to herd us all in close together, like multiple New York Cities, where we can all live and work a$$holes to elbows, mostly in massive high-rise buildings to minimize land usage, and make personal transportation unnecessary. Both LONG term plans, and very much step-by-step, as it would basically involve recreating the entire country and abandoning most of it to the deer and bunny rabits. The two plans go hand-in-hand. Watch out for those buzz words. They're about as anti-American as anything ever dreamed up, even though the CURRENT level of control is very small scale and localized. But it's already started. Partly with "zoning laws".

And the jury is STILL very much out on exactly how much "global warming" we're due to get, and what, if any, significant amount of it is due to Man. Did you know that "global warming" is being observed on other planets, with THEIR overall average temperatures rising some? Which points to solar activity as the cause, not cow farts or CO2, or man made polution.

Now, hopefully, back to the original topic of alternative fuel sources. We do need them, but not particularly to "save the planet".

 

With something as important as survival, you have to err on the side of caution and assume it will happen.

Better than waiting till you have conclusive proof, but it's too late to do anything about it.

This is a bit more important than the Y2K bug.


Regardless, even if the greenhouse effect has nothing to do with man, developing other fuels is beneficial and a no-brainer.


China and India are consuming huge amounts, and the best oil fields have already been found and have peaked.

The stuff that's left is harder and more expensive to retrieve.


If Brazil can produce Ethanol on a huge scale, and use 50% blends and more, I don't see why other more technically advanced countries can't.

Germany and other European countries are also using various alternatives.

Most politicians though only have short vision. All they care about is getting re-elected.

Their vision is 1-4 years, not 10-40 years.


I hope I live long enough to see other fuels rival oil, if only to put the Arab countries in their place.

 

Brazil gets away with it because their cash crop is sugar cane. Sugar cane is an awesome source of ethanol. Unfortunatly we can't grow that much sugar cane in the states, but I am not saying that we should abandon ethanol mixed and biodiesil fuels. If nothing else the reason you stated is good enough for me.

I find it really confusing that we by product from the 'Axis of Terror' at $78 USD a barrel. Isn't that kind of like handing a thief the keys to your house and then getting pissed when he steals stuff?

 

We produce almost as much sugar as they do, yet the government is dragging it's heels here.

What's even more annoying, is the cars they drive on the petrol/ethanol blend in Brazil are manufactured here!


The Arab countries have repeatedly said that if a BioFuel or an alternative was on the market, and it was considerably cheaper than a barrel of oil, they would drop their price.

It only costs about $6-$10 to produce each barrel, yet the latest price is $76!


There aren't many commodities that have a similar balance sheet.

Rather than using that money to develop other industries, they all just sit back raking it in.

No country can survive long-term with just the one domestic product.

If they don't diversify, the good times will come to an end sooner or later.

 

But we're not talking about survival here, except for the most extreme radicals and news media that laps up anything sensational. It's been hotter than now in the past, and the world survived, and it's been heaps colder - ice ages ruin more real estate than the high temp peaks that the world sees in the geologically short warm periods between ice ages. Which is what we're in NOW. It's a long term cycle. But we can't even remember that hurricanes run in a 20-40 year cycle, and don't realize that the increase in hurricanes the last couple years is simply the normal cycle upswing, so we SURE can't remember that what we consider "normal" in daily climate it simply part of a very long natural cycle. There is no consensus even on how much warming we're currently getting. Environmentalists tend to monitor ground level temps in areas that tend to get hotter. Nasa monitors global air temps globally, which gives a more accurate overall average, and they're not seeing it. CO2 does have some greenhouse effect, volcanoes have a warming effect, particularly undersea volcanoes which have been very active in recent years and warms sea temps, but so do clouds and other things that are not taken into account by the enviros; they want simple models that they understand, and don't understand the entire picture, so all their dire warnings from the last 30 years have fallen way short of what we've seen. Open ice at the north polls is also a recurrent event, but they play it as the end of the world as we know it. And on and on.

We are quite capable of fouling our nests, locally, ruining the air over and downwind our overcrowded cities which act as heat-sinks to raise temps locally, and for years dumped toxic waste into rivers streams and lakes. We've cleaned much of that up, and that's a good thing. But wrecking and recreating the world as we know it for something that is NOT going to be a survival issue is political and philosophical, not science. And isn't going to happen. The WORST poluters are China and the 3rd world countries where we've moved most of our heavy dirty industries, and where they have no interest whatsoever in cleaning them up. Cheap and dirty go hand in hand, and all we've done is more most of the sources of polution out of our back yards where we don't have to look at them. OUR heavy industries use scrubbers and other expensive tech to minimize environmental impact, and run pretty clean. Not so other parts of the world. That's one of the many reasons our companies are making most of their products over THERE now.

I'll go along with all the rest of that. Particularly not paying the piper to the terrorist backers that hold us hostage for politics.

 

Ahhh not even worth mentioning mate

I can live with that

Back into the enviroment where it mixes with cold air to produe more wind

Tapping volcanic vents is a good idea but of course theres the stability issue,why not go the whole hog we're sitting on all the energy we would ever need just below the earths crust,it would be a monumental acheivement to bore down to it but by no means impossible at some of the thinner parts of the crust

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=567

If we could tap into that heat our problems would be solved,even at the depth the Russians managed they had temps of 180c easily hot enough to boil water and drive a turbine imagine what we could do with our technology and resources ,ofcourse getting the energy to the surface would also be a huge hurdle

 

The worst polluter is actually the United States, and on a per capita basis, it's Australia I'm ashamed to say.

It's estimated the US accounts for 25% of global emissions.

For a country of "only" 300 million, that's more than it's fair share.


Once China and India reach the same living standard and prosperity, imagine how much they'll use with their populations?


Even if it didn't affect the climate, and most respectable scientists say it does, we should still move away from fossil fuels as fast as we can.

Fuel isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. And even if you don't drive, you still rely on it for transport of goods etc.


I don't feel comfortable or reassured having something so critical, in the hands of a few middle east countries.

The North Sea reserves have already peaked, and are a shadow of what they were, and that applies to a lot of once prosperous oil fields.

The only real reserves of any size are in the unstable parts of the world, namely the Middle East, parts of Africa, Nigeria, Venezuela and the Russian Federation.

Western countries can't rely on them for something so vital, and need to be self sufficient for all their energy needs.

 

Something that a lot of doom sayers tend to miss, it is literally raining energy on earth, and it isn't our only source. There have been far out concepts using microwaves beamed from space solar platforms (where the weather is always perfect and sunny) to tapping the earths core. All it really takes is the will to make happen, we have a core of very rich people and other vested interests who are not interested simply because they haven't drained the last drop yet. Multinationalism is actually our best bet, kinda like when Japan made auto manufacturers woke up in the USA during the 80s. The Energy companies are strong, but they can't reach everywhere, and all it will take is one radically better solution to obsolete them. Have you heard where the wind farms are getting slammed because they kill birds. The data I've heard says it isn't likely, but it could be a way of curtailing development in a major new energy industry.

 

Many Vermonters are against windfarms "because they'll spoil the look " of Vermont. What will they do when Quebec won't sign another contract for Hydro power, oh yeah, I forgot, there's all that coal the US has. Let's acidify more lakes as that won't kill the birds. Diversification is what is needed and a change on the way we live or we will crash so hard that the depression will look like a joke!