What is Digg?109 Comments
- goostoff, on 03/14/2008, -3/+22Going green isn't going to solve any energy problems. Going nuclear will.
- inactive, on 03/14/2008, -3/+14Legalize HEMP! It has a high yield for fuel and it is a great rotational crop. It can be used to make ethanol with a much higher yield than corn and will not cause food prices to rise. This debate is just stupid.
http://www.hempevolution.org/energy/energy.htm - tafdc, on 03/14/2008, -1/+12Read my lips - "more nuclear power"...
NO OTHER SOLUTION is environmentally practical - NONE! - stinkypyper, on 03/14/2008, -0/+10***** corn. It is wasteful. If you want to see the right way to produce fuel from plants look into algae. Here is a video of a company leading the way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DHjg9l-hQA
The yields are so high it is disturbing. Makes sense though, it is an efficient closed system, using what is probably the first form of live ever on earth, and thus probably the most efficient, and by it's very single cell nature, easy to grow and process. - br0ck, on 03/14/2008, -1/+11"it's a massive subsidy that raises food costs and energy costs substantially"
That's only for corn. Remember that switchgrass could still be a sensible source for huge portion of our fuel needs. The US can sustainably grow 1 billion tons of switchgrass on the worst 1/6th of US soil. It needs much less water and fertilizer than corn and grows in places corn won't so it does not directly compete with food crops nearly as much as corn-based ethanol does. Also, switchgrass yeilds 80 percent MORE energy than required to grow and convert it, unlike the 1 to 1 ratio of corn, according to http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/ ...
Switchgrass produces 76 gallons per ton per http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switgrs.html so that 1 billion tons would cheaply produce 76 billion gallons of ethanol each year, which is more than half of the annual US consumption of 146 billion gallons of gasoline. Moving up to 1/3 of the arable land in the US would yield enough ethanol for all driving, but obviously that would start using up some major croplands. I wonder if there are any waste materials left after refinement that could feed all those cattle? - Eivo, on 03/14/2008, -1/+10I agree. Electricity is the answer. There are many ways to produce it, and with more research into high efficiency wind turbines, solar panels, and safe nuclear power stations, electricity is the greenest option that I see atm.
- zarex, on 03/14/2008, -5/+12Fossil fuels are NOT "running out", they're just getting a bit more expensive as the costs of recovering them increase. Biofuels are definitely not the solution; it's a massive subsidy that raises food costs and energy costs substantially. And guess where the energy comes from to MAKE biofuels in the first place? :)
- regeya, on 03/14/2008, -1/+7Bah. As br0ck says, switchgrass; also, some researchers have been making ethanol with a biological process that can process just about ANY plant matter at a substantially lower cost, and biodiesel can be made in areas not traditionally used for agriculture; indeed, saltwater algae beds could be grown in places that traditionally suffer from runoff of traditional farming operations. In other words, win-win. Dismissing "biofuel" as "taking food out of peoples' mouths" because corn growers have convinced some, and critics have convinced everyone else, that "biofuel" is synonymous with glorified white lightning. That's not the case at all.
While we're at it, if foodsource-derived alcohol in your fuel tank is a crime against humanity, are we going to bring the heads of Jack Daniels, Stolichnaya, Jim Beam, and hell, since Budweiser is the #1 nobody-even-close consumer of rice, even the Anheuser-Bush people to the Hague to answer for their crimes against humanity?
Look, any solution we come up with will likely not be nearly as cheap as fossil fuels, will likely not be as attractive, and will require even more encroachment into natural habitats. But on that last point, so would drilling for oil in Alaska; and really, let's get real: American society is set up to be an automobile culture. Mass transit may ultimately be the answer, and before Ford it looked like it would be, but you're more likely to move to alternative fuels next, THEN mass transit. If environmentalist groups were truly interested in the environment, they'd get on board with a switchover, instead of blocking things as a "crime against humanity." Things are bad, may get worse, but we have to do SOMETHING to wean ourselves. The tech to for an easy switch already largely here, but has been blocked by both more extreme environmentalists and by big oil, and the bigger issues can and will be tackled later.
I for one would love to be able to take an electric train to work. It could happen! Turns out three of the local towns had such a thing about a century ago. And these are small towns! Now, to get between the towns, you have to drive. Things are just set up that way.
Considering the price increases power companies have been indulging in the past few years, I fully expect for municipalities to get interested in those tiny, safe nuclear reactors, as well as solar and wind...but that's a little ways off. :-)
So yeah, biofuels would be a temporary solution to a bigger problem, but no, it wouldn't necessarily REQUIRE fossil fuels to process then, and wouldn't REQUIRE dipping into food stores to make. It won't be cheap as fossil fuels, either, but I don't think anything will. And it's not a matter of should we do it, but how soon can and will we do it. My hope is soon; I've been scoping out diesel cars of late. - inurb, on 03/14/2008, -0/+5Say it with me... ALGAE
- Ninnux, on 03/14/2008, -2/+7How would biofuel from algae or switchgrass make food more expensive? I don't understand this argument. Net energy from large scale switchgrass plots is like 5 to 1. Algae net energy is forecasted to be much higher... and we can pump as much CO2 at it as we care to try. Algae metabolism has a voracious appetite for CO2. Just add sunlight. I just don't understand where all this latent pessimism and fear about biofuels comes from.
- ricksite, on 03/14/2008, -0/+5From the article: "If we burn corn instead of eating it, food prices go up."
Most of the corn grown is field corn. While it is used to make some food products, you wouldn't want it eat it directly. Field corn is also used as livestock feed. One byproduct of ethanol is a high protein livestock feed. So you can have your corn and eat it too. - Nerys, on 03/14/2008, -0/+4Biofuels are just another CON literally a criminal con on the population of the world to get us to keep "paying at the pump" Electric cars ARE the answer. NO they will not increase the load on the electric grid they will DECREASE the load. (it takes more electricity to get the gasoline into your car to go 100 miles than the amount of electricity needed to drive a battery electric car 100 miles. SO the net Electric usage DROPS not RISES. Add in Affordable Solar from companies like Nano Solar and now the car is 100% clean too. There simply is NO downside to Battery Electric Cars for 95% of all our driving needs RIGHT NOW with CURRENT (although illegal thanks to chevron patent) battery technology.
- blast_flame, on 03/15/2008, -0/+4To be honest he's probably right in a way as we won't be bothered by the radiation as we'll all of uploaded our minds into robotic bodies.
- jasen, on 03/14/2008, -0/+4The only solution in my mind is cars that can be recharged at home like the chevy volt. The power that will recharge these cars will have to come from sun, wind and nuclear. Other than that major cities will have to increase transit systems and countries will have to add more taxes on cars to encourage people to use transit, or gas will end up costing so much money that people will be forced to use transit.
- SilverBlade2k, on 03/14/2008, -1/+4Sorry, electrification of vehicles will solve the problem. I truly believe that the only things that oil/biofuels should be used for are the long-distance semi-trucks are the larger vehicles like construction vehicles (cement mixers). For the regular every-day car, truck, or van, they should all run on batteries.
- dattaway, on 03/14/2008, -2/+5Now that the price of groceries have doubled, I believe we have another problem.
- apeweek, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3Solar, wind, even efficient coal power plants (new designs are up to 85% efficient.)
- PopcornDave, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3Bio-fuels in their present form are a joke. Why not try to develop a system for making fuel from farm waste instead of growing a crop for fuel? With corn you've got the hull and the stocks that could be utilized I would think. As it stands, it's just another payoff to Archer Daniels Midland and a few farmers. Not the brightest move.
- thallium205, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3Yea and what happens if we go into a drought and have a massive crop failure?? Hmm??
Nuclear FTW - ricksite, on 03/14/2008, -1/+4How are you proposing the batteries get charged?
- toxicshok, on 03/14/2008, -1/+4Nuclear power
- unpolloloco, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3exactly
filling up your car with ethanol essentially makes people starve in the third world, not to mention the impact it has on first world pocketbooks - br0ck, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3That article is several years old. They are now saying on that site that, "Switchgrass grown for biofuel production produced 540 percent more energy than needed to grow, harvest and process it into cellulosic ethanol, according to estimates from a large on-farm study by researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/08010 ...
- 0crabby0, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3Biofuels is a big label.
Lots of fuels can be made from waste material like waste wood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSgL0Ie4zrI
Since waste wood is basically free in lots of rural areas(like mine) - You're not going to get a lot of news about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas - CaptMonkey, on 03/14/2008, -2/+5How else are you going to produce the 1.21 jigawatts?
- KyleRayner, on 03/14/2008, -3/+5Simple. Cultivating the basic ingredients for biofuel requires space, space now occupied by food crops. Imagine how many acres would have to be devoted to biofuel if every car in America burned it.
- blast_flame, on 03/15/2008, -0/+2So you suggest we cap off our energy usage forever and don't move forwards towards new sources of energy? What you are suggesting my friend is stagnation, an end of progress.
- WatchDragon, on 03/14/2008, -2/+4Dust off the old bicycle.
- garryw, on 03/14/2008, -0/+2half life is a good thing.. nuff said
- ricksite, on 03/14/2008, -0/+2On the contrary. Livestock feed is a byproduct of ethanol production.
- inactive, on 03/14/2008, -0/+2Terrible article. Fossil fuels running out? huh? Not true - not even close to true. Green fuels like ethanol made from Corn I suppose - environmentally a disaster and forces food prices up. This is garbage and from the BBC too...
- garryw, on 03/14/2008, -0/+2Nuclear energy is da bomb. Go nuclear!
- ricksite, on 03/14/2008, -1/+3People only eat a tiny percentage of the corn grown today anyway. Most corn is used for livestock feed and corn based products.
- toxicshok, on 03/14/2008, -3/+5fission in a car.... REALLY
- marc123, on 03/14/2008, -0/+2zero-point energy thats the future! tapping energy from the void (aka dark matter), as envisioned by tesla. google "zero point energy"
- bincoder, on 03/14/2008, -0/+2There is no 'the solution' unless cheap fusion is in place tommorow or the value of the US dollar rises by a factor of 5. (which would be an illusion of a solution). A quick way to increase fuel economy is to not drive like an idiot. Even with gas over $3/gallon, I still see the drones, er, masses, driving their SUVs as if gas were 10 cents a gallon. They accelerate a half block at wide open throttle, just to get to the stoplight faster, then brake hard to a sudden stop at the light, assuming they can make up their minds that soon, many will do that and race you to the light changing lanes as if they have no idea where their going and disrupting the flow for the dozen or so cars around them wasting their gas too. Get these fools off the road and the gas supply will double.
Another is to redesign vehicles to use regen braking, which doesn't have to be a brand new hybrid. You can compress air to slow the car, then use the energy again when you go again in other ways than generator to batterys to electric motor. Vehicles that are shaped like an overgrown ass or a big rolling box could be streamlined and cut through the air much easier, using less fuel. I went from 21 mpg on my truck to 30 mpg. Just by driving carefully, watching the traffic flow and trying to keep as much momentum as possible while minimizing use of the brakes. It doesn't require driving 'slow' either. I still speed more often than not, I just don't try to get to my speed in under one microsecond, thats all. No magic new fuels, multi-thousand dollar technology, new overpriced cars, or government help needed. 40 mpg would be nicer, but the idea for me now is just to get as much as possible without any cost or busted knuckles. - thomoore, on 03/14/2008, -9/+11biofuels are NOT the solution. http://www.scragged.com/articles/biofuels-the-non- ... explains that they aren't renewable because all plants take something from the soil.
- kd1s, on 03/14/2008, -0/+2The real solution is electric. Be it by hydrogen fuel cells, solar generated or what have you it's the only practical solution that doesn't take away from food sources.
- floorman56, on 03/15/2008, -0/+1But don't we PAY framers to NOT grow some food crops? we could that land
- floorman56, on 03/15/2008, -0/+1South Dakota , North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana. Every tobacco farm in the east. and every square foot we pay a farmer to not grow anything.
- omegaredIX, on 03/15/2008, -0/+1Got to love those lobbyists.
- omegaredIX, on 03/15/2008, -0/+1Solar, wind and magnetic trains much? They are all very very very environmentally practical.
- kenbiz, on 03/15/2008, -0/+1if bio fuel can be applied then it may reduce air polution and that happened badly at now, but I doubt this could be the best solution
- omegaredIX, on 03/15/2008, -0/+1How much energy does it take to harvest hemp? Meaning, how many barrels of oil or hours of labor is it going to take to harvest the mass amounts of hemp needed. From the farmers I have spoke with hemp is a pain in the ass to harvest.
- apeweek, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1Lots of exciting new battery tech is coming.
10-minute recharge EV batteries: http://www.b2i.us/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView ... - Kreigster, on 03/14/2008, -1/+2More nuclear is only part of the solution.
- sylvanis, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1yeah....like the huge mistake of ethanol. People in the US should start looking more to clean diesel, even bio-diesel......ethanol is just stupid. It's just a way to line the pockets of the corn farmers. If that weren't the case, why would we ban the import of sugar cane fuels from Brazil?
- apeweek, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1I agree, the air car is an electric car (that's what powers the pump), but without the battery problems.
The whole 'electricity from coal' thing is stupid. Power plants, and electric power distribution and usage ( in air cars) is far, far more efficient than refining and burning gasoline. Greater efficiency = more miles on less fuel = less pollution and less fuel used. - nicksoni, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1fossil fuels are not running out, it is just a matter of peaking in production. we consume too much oil than we can find and extract to keep up with growing needs. reducing our dependence and finding other sources of energy are what countries should concentrate on now, not fighting over the limited resources we have like spoiled children.
- burningmanstan, on 03/14/2008, -1/+2For both Duffblue and Kyle. How many square miles or this planet are currently strip mine due to coal mining? How many square miles of perfectly good farmland is currently consumed by poorly planned subdivisions? We currently consume thousands of miles of land for all sorts of reasons and many don't seem to have a problem with it. Then when someone mentions biofuels or solar power everyone has a problem with consuming land area.
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