BioGass: you won't have to give up the car!

[Richter]

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/biogasoline-virent.php

Promising idea, I hope this works out.
Basically a non fossil fuel, gassoline substitute.  A good idea, given how many existing internal combusiton engines are out there.

[Jasper]

Mmmmm, tasty greenhouse gases.  This is great, now we'll never run out!

[B_M_W]

Switchgrass (Panicum sp.) is actually something I've talked about before in relation to this. It grows everywhere, and I do mean that. Line the highway medians with it, hell, you don't even really need to, its already there.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It would be nice to have a viable alternative to fossil fuels, but right now the leading cause of deforestation is FUCKING BIOFUEL. There's big money to be made in biofuel, and corporations are razing forests at an absolutely astonishing rate to plant fields with crops destined for biofuel. Utterly fucked-up.

What really needs to happen is a viable alternative to combustion engines.

[Jasper]

26000% Troof, Nigel.  This sort of thing is about as progressive as a way to keep producing cow farts even if they all died.

[Idem]

Hooray, we're finding newer ways to fuck up the environment just as much!

[B_M_W]

It would be nice to have a viable alternative to fossil fuels, but right now the leading cause of deforestation is FUCKING BIOFUEL. There's big money to be made in biofuel, and corporations are razing forests at an absolutely astonishing rate to plant fields with crops destined for biofuel. Utterly fucked-up.

What really needs to happen is a viable alternative to combustion engines.

Hm. You don't really need to raze forests to plant Panicum. That being said, an alternative to combustion? I believe we tried this with solar cars, didn't quite work well enough to be viable. Electric vehicles would simply be using another form of combustion (largely) to supply the go-go; Most electric generator power plants are coal powered. Hydrogen fuel cells seem to me to be unenergy efficient to the point where its not even worth investigating anymore, except to find something else that would work better, especially because the hydrogen being used for these cells are taken from fossil fuels. Not exactly viable.

So, what do we have then? We could power vehicles with electricity using alternative sources, for example, battery cars charged by wind turbines, which falls into the same trap as solar power, being unefficient and not working all the time. The /most/ efficient way to get electrical energy (besides peddling a bike with an electric generator, in other words, making it ourself) is hydropower, which is 90% efficient. Compare that to coal power, which is 50% efficient, or wind and solar which is around 5%. Nuclear power...not even gonna go into that. Essentially if you have that sort of waste, its not viable over the long term. Plus, uranium isn't exactly a common element.

What its going to come down to? People will have to change their life styles. Seriously. No, I'm not kidding. We had this whole discussion in a class and everyone just realized that people are going to keep increasing, and as they learn more about pollution and land degredation and use, urban sprawl, etc, they are going to be opposing big power projects (NIMBY, anyone?) more and more, thus leading to increased brownouts and blackouts. People will have to start changing their lifestyles to compensate. Thats the /only/ long term viable solution.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

We don't have an alternative to combustion engines yet.

We have alternatives to combustion energy sources, but nuclear energy is still far from perfect, hydroelectric continues to damage the everloving fuck out of the environment, and windpower is woefully underutilized partly due to planted misinformation hysteria about turbines destroying wildlife habitat.

However, the fact that we don't have a viable alternative to combustion energy yet doesn't mean we won't develop one. Combustion is OLD technology... really old. I feel like we are at a technological plateau, as a species, until we make the next energy breakthrough, which could take one of three forms: an efficient way to harvest energy, and efficient way to store energy, or an efficient way to use energy. Any of those three things would change everything about our relationship with energy sources.

[Cainad (dec.)]

What if we hijack chlorophyll?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

GO NUTS MAN.

[Cainad (dec.)]

[Triple Zero]

and windpower is woefully underutilized partly due to planted misinformation hysteria about turbines destroying wildlife habitat.

planted by who?

i agree about the hysteria btw, just wondering about its plantedness.

over here we have, apart from a lot of wind turbines, the story that today's turbines aren't actually energy-efficient. the reasoning is that if you factor in the energy needed to build such a turbine and the amount of time it functions before it needs to be replaced, it doesn't quite produce that amount of energy in that period. and that the windmills mostly run on being heavily government-subsidized.

apart from whether if this is true or made up or planted, there's the problem that it's incredibly hard to check. because, as you always see with environmental energy balances, the outcome can change wildly depending on how far back you're willing to look.

come to that, there's other stories that say it's only the old models of wind turbines that have this problem, but they were needed because building them gave the research experience needed for building the newer generation wind turbines that are more efficient.

further, i tried looking this up, you know i really want wind turbines to be a reliable energy source, cause that would be great, but if they dont work, then we shouldnt spend our energy (lol) on this. but it's nearly impossible to find out, every expert says something different and both sides make arguments with very big holes in them.

and if i'm being really honest, the only reason why i'm inclined to think that wind turbines are in fact energy efficient, is mostly because i really want them to be. so if i'm really really honest, i dont know

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

No one is too sure who is behind the anti-wind-power activists. They're pretty well documented, but why they're spreading disinformation and who's funding them is kind of a mystery.

[East Coast Hustle]

nobody who is in favor of wind farms lives within 30 miles of one.

ECH,
has seen an entire town go all "John Brown" over those things

[B_M_W]

We don't have an alternative to combustion engines yet.

We have alternatives to combustion energy sources, but nuclear energy is still far from perfect, hydroelectric continues to damage the everloving fuck out of the environment, and windpower is woefully underutilized partly due to planted misinformation hysteria about turbines destroying wildlife habitat.

However, the fact that we don't have a viable alternative to combustion energy yet doesn't mean we won't develop one. Combustion is OLD technology... really old. I feel like we are at a technological plateau, as a species, until we make the next energy breakthrough, which could take one of three forms: an efficient way to harvest energy, and efficient way to store energy, or an efficient way to use energy. Any of those three things would change everything about our relationship with energy sources.

You're second paragraph summs up the reasons why people will oppose new power developments, and to offset growing population, power use is going to have to change. The technological revolution needed is not going to come fast enough.