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Hi, Dennis!
First, a couple of links:
a "biofuels challenges and opportunities " conference, and
a local (to me) bio-diesel cooperative .
So, is the infrastructure for this available where you are? would you want it to be?
Something fun to put that bio-diesel into:
Cool!
Yeah. 800 HP on bio-diesel. Woo-Hoo!
I don't believe there is any biodiesel where I live (Nashville, TN). Unfortunately, I don't think this is too popular in the majority of the U.S., I would love to have an electric car since I don't do much driving away from my house. I believe this would be a great solution to the fuel problem if only we had the infrastructure to support these advances.
I think there are only two stations that are listed statewide. It's along way to drive for bio...
I'd like an electric as well, if there could be one with decent range at highway speeds, say 300KM or so, maybe with a solar array on the roof for a top-up whilst parked at work or shopping centre. Then I could save all that petrol for something fun to drive on the weekends.
I just read a new scientist article saying that bio fuels are a fools gold. That the amount of land clearing that need to takes place to grow fuel for our cars outweighs any other enviro elements
Electric is the way to go http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1
Certainly Ethanol as we currently make it is a sham, using more energy and green house gas to produce as it saves. Making Ethanol from fibre instead of corn makes more sense. Or importing it from Brazil where they make it from cane waste, and have too much capacity. But our government(s) (US & Aus.) slap a high tarriff on imports as a sop to the farm lobby. You can't win.
It is highly unlikely that Ethanol will play a great factor in future alternative fuels, after all how can you justify using land to grow ethanol when there are famines in other parts of the world? What about soil erosion? Habitat Destruction? And as Erik has said it is very inefficient to produce and used ethanol, I just think as an alternative Energy source we should look to electricity for our cars. (Electricity brings up its own problems of creating energy but there are more alternatives to creating electricity than there are to running our cars)
If there are fewer steps in the energy transfer chain then its possible to be more efficient, so power station >> electricity >> car >> movement is probably a better bet than
power station >> electricity >> electrolysis >> hydrogen >> car >> movement
or Sun >> plants >> ethanol >> car >> movement
Biofuels seem to be a big deal, Formula One will be using it in the cars in 2010 I think.
The immediate solution to near carbon neutral automotive fuel will be vegetable oils/ animal fats.
Then will follow structurally lighter and lighter alcohols/ ethonols which should drive aircraft. Different aircraft admittedly.
But of course the best automotive fuel, will be............
.......................parking on a hill.
Did we know that city office blocks leave their lights on over night so as not to crash the power grid. They could be separating HYDROGEN whilst they do that illuminating of the skyline.
Did we know that city office blocks leave their lights on over night so as not to crash the power grid.
I didn't, sounds like a huge waste of power to me - wouldn't a more resilient power grid be a better solution...
I guess if all the offices all over the place were all shutting off their lights at roughly the same time that it would mean a pretty sudden drop-off in electricity demands but there has to be a better solution than leaving them on all night, like a randomised timer that shuts them off any time up to an hour or two after they close up
a friend of mine has opened a biodiesel service station in Prahran, Melbourne, VIC - some info:
http://www.conservo.com.au/
http://www.pigswillfly.com.au/?p=1260
http://www.biofuelsforum.com/using_biodiesel/3333-conservo.html
oooh, just on slashdot - http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/15/2111229&from=rss - supercool cellulose ethanol production plant
I think Biofuels can easily be taken as a provocation for billions of people from all over the world. Not to mention resonant dead zones, where pandemically everything seems to pay for.
We should manage to use everything imaginable to assure a futurable/fair/common base for everyones well being. Without blaming people who die because of hunger, or people who are enforced to ensure a fews standards. Not only do more and more people experience that there seem to be forces to end the world as we maybe liked it to know, they also recognise that most people don't even give a fuck. That's not good. I'd say, developing technology, seeing "work" as an unquestionable sense of life and losing jobs because of being replaced by that technology at the same time, is a not quite bright thing at all. I guess we're used to waste 99% of our time struggling for existence, where evolvement is quite impossible, for nearly everything. We maybe should focus onto the creation of a "liveable" version of the "spirit of open source". Water, Food, and Energy is what most of our struggle is all about. What about cold fusion? Sounds nice, like Teslas ideas do. What about Chemistry, Biology, Automation/Robotics? It seems we've got it all for many years. How ever, I hope someone manages to remember, as well as its humaneness.
Maybe you're interested in this: Zeitgeist (it's getting really interesting after about 10 minutes...)
Or something about the Pangea Day.
Hey dreamer, you might be interested in the Pangea Day group we have
