Coremodels
Really close to Explorer's Club.
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Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green†fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Andrew Hall
Dennison Place (The Circles)
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There are two seperate, but linked issues:
1) Energy Independence
2) Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Biofuels are an important component of #1.
Without advances in technologies like cellulytic ethanol production, they are less relevant to #2.
An ideal solution will cover both.
A.
Brewmaster
Portland, OR
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I would argue that with corn-based ethanol, we aren't doing anything about #1 either. It takes roughly the same energy in (in the form of diesel fuel, fertilizer, electricity, and natural gas), as you get out.
Tigertree
771 N. High St.
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Energy independence isn't a cut and dry issue.
Say we can find some magical way to make a biofuel that gets about the same mileage as gasoline, and we can put it on the market for 2.10 a gallon. Thats great right? But when you take American out of the international oil game (or at least greatly diminish our role) you suddenly have a huge spike in supply which makes prices drop dramatically giving our worldwide competitors a huge edge over us.
gramarye
In Exile
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Maybe, but on that score, that would really only be a serious problem if it happened all at once; the exact opposite looks like the problem--progress in this field is gradual and fitful.
Also, there are many channels of energy research all open simultaneously. For example, American universities and private labs are already working on ways of synthesizing gasoline from free CO2 in the atmosphere and from bacteria. Both have the advantage of turning gasoline into a renewable resource, which would let us keep our existing distribution infrastructure. They would also have the advantage of giving us not just a supply of energy, but a supply of synthetic petroleum that can be used for other petroleum products (plastics, lubricants, etc.), which we'd still need even if we switched to something else to power our cars, like next-generation capacitors.
Biofuels are a political issue more than anything else--a gift of Iowa's unwarranted, privileged status in the political process.
mightymighty
North Side
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Well, there's always chocolate.
Mercurius
First Avenue
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gramarye wrote free CO2 in the atmosphere and from bacteria.Gramarye, really appreciated the article on LS9, that is a nice publication. If it is true in that they can get yields of 2000 gallon per acre that could really make a dent in our transportation energy problem. I have been meeting with a group called Green Mountain Bio that wants to build a plant in Rio Grande, Ohio to make oil out of switchgrass using Fluidized-Bed Pyrolysis. I was amazed they were talking about yields of 850 gallons per acre. We did a project at OU that we made a facility to turn the waste oil from the dining hall into bio-diesel . It is surprisingly easy to make. The main problem I see is the source for the oil and these methods both look promising.Biofuels are a political issue more than anything else--a gift of Iowa's unwarranted, privileged status in the political process.
Brewmaster
Portland, OR
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gramarye wrote synthesizing gasoline from free CO2 in the atmosphere
Wow...can you say Rube Goldberg?
Why not turn electricity generated from solar cells into...electricity? With a battery array, electricity can be a transportation fuel too.
gramarye
In Exile
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It certainly can be, and the capacitors article I linked shows one way to do that; however, since that solar-catalyst process would also enable CO2 to be turned into an industrial feedstock, it has benefits that just charging batteries doesn't.
Don't forget, even if we go to an all-electric transportation sector, that only eliminates one use of oil, albeit the most important one for America as of this moment in time. Times change, though, and even at this point in time, we need oil for plastics, lubricants, and other products besides gasoline.
SteinbergForCongress
Sugar Land, TX (For Now)
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We need space based power!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071226-AP-space-power.html
gramarye
In Exile
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Except that we're really nowhere close to running out of freshwater or most minerals in our topsoil, and we're getting better at getting deeper into the crust. There is a *lot* more inorganic matter than organic matter in the Earth's crust. (Keep in mind, oil is organic.) There are very few metals that we're actually in danger of exhausting (in the sense of having gotten all of them out of the ground that can be gotten out of the ground). Prices are going up not because we're running out of them, but because even though we're finding more of them, the demand is still going up faster than we can get it to the surface. China's surging appetite for raw materials is like nothing the world has seen since the Industrial Revolution.
With respect to water, we have prodigious amounts of freshwater available ... it's more an issue of transportation than actual availability, because people have chosen to live in warm, dry climates but of course want oodles of water available whenever they want it, too.
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