Harness flatulence.
as long as they’re talking about switchgrass, algae, sewage, sawdust or grassclippings—biofuels is ok. Soybeans and corn are not so nice.
The law of entropy suggests that its not a matter of balance of the carbon ledger. There is no carbon ledger.
The amoount of carbon in the environment is always the same, it just takes on different forms.During the cretaceous period, Carbon Dioxide made up more tha 20% of the atmosphere, but life thrived even more than today.
Global warming is driven by the sun. Anyone who does not use that for aa departure point, is basically not a scientist, but a politician.
Biomass is a myth, simply because it cannot be accurately measured or quantified.
Interesting article except for the fact that th author seems to have bought into the global warming bull shit, hook, line and sinker.
Should stick to writing about animals and etc, because he doesn't know jack about this subject.
exporting corn at 3.80 when wholesale
gasoline is 2.30, is insane.
if the US does not convert the corn into alcohol,
some other country will.
“One other problem with the rush to “greener” fuels is that, despite the biodiversity happy talk, wildlife is already prominent among biofuel victims. Last year, for instance, farmers were protecting about 36 million acres through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which works to restore degraded lands, reduce soil erosion and maintain wildlife habitat. CRP land is what biofuel proponents often have their eyes on when they talk about producing biofuels and biodiversity by growing switchgrass. But farmers look at the bottom line, sizing up the $21 per acre they net with the CRP payment (to take a representative example from southwest Minnesota) against the $174 they can now earn growing corn. And they have begun pulling land out of CRP and putting it back into production.”
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Get ready for the next Dust Bowl.
Wonder what the social and economic cosequences would be if they found out marijuana plants made biofuel?
Biofuel subsidies might make sense, other critics say, if they favored “cellulosic” ethanol instead—fuel that comes from breaking down the cellulose in the fibrous parts of the plant, such as the corn stalk instead of the kernel. That wouldn’t put direct pressure on food prices, and might even reduce them by providing a market for agricultural waste products. Cellulosic technology is also the key to exploiting such nonfood plants as switchgrass,...........
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Uhhh. *knock knock* Capitalist noobs.
Growing switchgrass uses land just like growing corn. Switching from corn to switchgrass will have exactly the same effect on the price of food.
YIKES!
Don't even begin to TRY and figure out how much energy it takes to produce a pound of that stuff.
I'll bet it makes corn to ethanol seem like a perpetual energy source.
We will talk about this topic, after that most important event happens....
Little backyard operations with WVO and a bio-diesel “still” are worthy for the individual as the fuel is pretty much ....near free short a few more minutes of ones day to tend too the operation.
I have a frybrid.com system in my older diesel truck. I have a 100 gallon bed tank that has heaters in it that lets me use straight WVO I get from a local Mom & Pop Burger Joint. A series of pre filters I use get tossed in the dishwasher after a tank full or two and I drag em out before the heat /dry cycle melts em.......reinstall clean and fresh !
The 100 gallon bed tank negates the time spent filling the tank and I keep the OEM tank for regular diesel that I start and flush the WVO from the lines with before parking overnight or in cold temps.
I don;t make my own Bio-diesel with the little after market stills .....I just use the frybrid.com system .
The ethanol empires will never fly........it’s crap as is the idea !
........just my opinion of course.
Tell Conniff the magic code word is INSULATION...
I repeat: the quickest, cheapest and most efficient way to lessen our need for oil is to allow everyone who can and wants to to telecommute.
BioFuels in the form of corn stoves offers 60% savings with a payback on investment in 3 mos.
http://www.americanenergysystems.com/HeatCalculator/index.cfm
Good morning, there...
Thought this thread would be interesting. My guest this week wouldn't go as far as to condemn all and future bio-fuels, but he did sum up the current drive as farcical. His company produced copious amounts of ethyl alcohol for industrial purposes and he oversaw global distribution by the tankerload.
We were on our third bottle of "Conundrum" by then or I'd summarize his words. I just haven't had nearly enough coffee yet...
And no one wants to talk about drilling new wells, ANWR, offshore, places like that where there are proven reserves. How idiotic is that. When 85% of our offshore areas are now ‘protected’, burning food seems like a really nutty idea. Something only a weirdo or a liberal would understand. Maybe making biofuels from liberals is not a bad idea ...
How about we build some nuclear power plants and some coal gasification plants?
I wonder when the atmosphere was over 10% CO2 who cleaned it up? Did it need cleaning?
~~ AGW™ ping~~