WHAT? Bio-ethanol and other biofuels NOT CO2 free?

[Hylander_1314]

I'm going to put money on the future and ion propulsion. But then again, I thought that by the year 2,000, technology would give man the ability to corner God, and take a photo of him in technicolor. Was I way off on that idea.

[Blacklight]

I'm going to put money on the future and ion propulsion. But then again, I thought that by the year 2,000, technology would give man the ability to corner God, and take a photo of him in technicolor. Was I way off on that idea.

Well... the WMAP satelite has taken pretty detailed pictures of the cosmic background radiation all around us in the universe which is actually light from The Big Bang (Specifically it's a picture of the universe when it was only 300000 years old when it was just barely starting to cool off enough for single particles to form).
That's pretty damn close to a picture of GOD right there.

Also there's going to be three space probes that are going to be launched in another few years that will use lasers aimed at each other over millions of miles to detect gravity waves that are basically the vibrations from the big bang (Yes.. the big bang was so powerful that the universe is still vibrating from it)

We're getting pretty damn close to that picture.

I will now stop hijacking the thread and return you to your regularly scheduled argument about alternative fuels.

[donut]

Originally Posted by Trex

Seafarer - That's the most succinct and sensible note on the subject I've ever seen. Ever thought of running for office?

Why are not engines useing water ? Tech exists to seperate the two,& Oxygen would help the Hydrogen burn clean. Dangers ?

[bookworm_020]

They are using the methane from landfill here in Australia as a power source

There is also a interesting project going on at a coal power station that has some potential

http://www.macgen.com.au/News/2006Ne...ectUpdate.aspx

There is some good work on solar power happening here in Australia that would help overcome some of the biggest problems with solar power (what happens at night!)

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1698520.htm

[Herr_Pete]

why dont we just do what brazilians do and run our cars of the sugar cane plant! which causes zero polution. Im pretty sure america and other countrys can use up the vast amounts of land to grow it! problem solved! the food prices will come down, all sorts of other prices will come down. Wae hey!

[seafarer]

Originally Posted by Herr_Pete

why dont we just do what brazilians do and run our cars of the sugar cane plant! which causes zero polution. Im pretty sure america and other countrys can use up the vast amounts of land to grow it! problem solved! the food prices will come down, all sorts of other prices will come down. Wae hey!

Well, back to the no free lunch. Current crops for ethanol generally mean taking agricultural land out of food production and using it for energy production. In South America, it also means clear cutting and burning virgin forested regions to plant ethanol crops (as the news media is just waking up to that fact). The amount of CO2 released from the burning is not trivial, and the agricultural plants cannot even begin to make up for the loss of the valuable CO2 sink that the forests provided in the first place (mid-latitude forests are the second largest source of uptake of CO2, second only to the oceans - they are also a huge source of oxygen, much more so then the agricultural or fuel crops that are replacing them).

It also takes a lot of energy to make ethanol - distillation uses nearly as much energy to make the product as you get back out of it in the end. Currently, most of the energy to make ethanol comes from natural gas, or electricity (in many areas, primarily from goal, gas or oil fired power stations).

So, while ethanol may be part of the solution, it is not THE solution, nor is it entirely environmentally friendly nor without costs. (aside: I'd also point out that it does not combust worth a dang in a cold engine, so much of the world's climate makes it necessary to still initially run the vehicle on petroleum, then switch fuels after warming up).

[seafarer]

Originally Posted by Trex

Seafarer - That's the most succinct and sensible note on the subject I've ever seen. Ever thought of running for office?

:p Well, as you might imagine from my post, I think I'd have a hard time keeping a civil tongue when talking with fellow elected officials, so probably not a good idea for me.

Plus, I've already had a heart attack, so I don't need the stress of that kind of daily grind :rotfl:

[Trex]

Originally Posted by donut

Why are not engines useing water ? Tech exists to seperate the two,& Oxygen would help the Hydrogen burn clean. Dangers ?

Well, asides from the obvious (Hindenberg) dangers of carrying hydrogen gas around, there are not many - if it is properly managed.

It again goes back to TNSTAFL; the energy has to come from somewhere. To break water into its components of gaseous oxygen and gaseous hydrogen requires energy - more than you get burning the two and winding up with water again. The energy has to enter the loop at another place. (The same thing happens with automotive fuel, remember. Your car cannot burn the black goo that comes from the wells. A great deal of effort and energy must be expended in advance before you pull up to the pump. As a simpler analogy, you can get a lot of energy out of rocks rolling down a hill, but somebody has to expend energy getting those rocks to the top in the first place.) So burning straight water (absent a major and unforeseen leap in technology) is a non-starter.

Too many proposals to use hydrogen have been based on fresh water (an increasingly scarce commodity) being broken down using electricity produced by, eg. coal-fired plants. That's no improvement. Using sewage or seawater as a water source would be an improvement (not a perfect solution), but the key is where the water-splitting energy comes from. There are some suggestions, eg solar power, which would not carry a carbon bill. Right now, they look like the best answer. Ultimately, with the exceptions of nuclear and geothermal power, every other power source here on Earth is based on energy coming from (or which came from) the sun. The amount of energy released by old Sol is incredible and costs nothing beyond the method of capturing it (which is of course the rub as we have not been all that efficient at that to date).

One of the major barriers to changing from the petrol-based internal combustion engine to something else is the infrastructure. In the case of hydrogen, we are talking about massive cracking plants and equally big power generation stations to make it economically viable on a large scale, not to mention the problems associated with transporting the fuel. Then there is the distribution problem - even the most remote places these days have gas stations. If we did a radical switch to ... Fuel X... we would need to make sure that vehicles using that could be refuelled on a reasonably convenient basis.

The bottom line is that there are no simple solutions, just intelligent decisions.

[August]

Originally Posted by Etienne

So what do we do? Same as the Chinese?

We have to do something. The Chinese solution of limiting couples to two children seems like the least draconian.

[Trex]

I regret that I cannot find the link now, but within the past month or so, there was a news item saying that the PRC govt was considering relaxing that one-child rule as they were concerned about their work force. Did anybody else see that?