Bio-Fuels Bite the Dust

I dunno. I come from at least 4 generations of farmers/ranchers and considered doing that myself. Rural folk working for themselves are generally really good "Save a buck / Make a buck" people. I wouldn't count them out.

-- Mark

you know there is a surplus of sugar in cuba that is ideal for bio fuels?

...and if they smoked enough of it, eventually, their heads would start to spin from breathing in all that carbon monoxide from the burning, while the smoke would probably start clogging up their lungs.

The stuff that is grown for fiber and oil these days, is selected for production of "other" than THC content.

Cheers Trevor Jones

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:35:15 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, "Pete C." quickly quoth:

Agreed, x3.

Bird kills are minimal with taller towers, but your regular everyday buildings with regular everyday windows kill more birds than wind farms by about a 10:1 (or was it 100:1?) margin.

Blame the power-hungry media for that. (no, headline-power ;)

Interesting articles.

IMHO, more cost effective lighting needs to be installed wherever possible first (or too?) We see all these high-power sodium and halogen lights, etc., burning -all- the time -everywhere-.

Lower power requirements for everything electrical should be addressed as well. More efficient, full-room low-voltage power supplies would replace the ten warts in each room we have now.

Hybrid vehicles are making a nice surge, as well they should.

I see Soccer Moms everywhere, by themselves, in SUBURBANS (8mpg?) etc. when they could be using electric vehicles for town driving 4x a day. I hope more convert.

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:11:25 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed Huntress" quickly quoth:

See the section on "tidal stream power".

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:31:59 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, "Pete C." quickly quoth:

about 140 lines snipped, ya turkeys.

Replacing the flexible power transmission cabling for these bouncy things gets expensive.

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:24:41 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, "Pete C." quickly quoth:

I'm curious to see the outcome of the FedEX solar experiment in Oakland. 904kW of solar covering 81k feet of roof.

tributed PV generation on everyone's roof and utility scale tidal

Good idea.

Yeah, I carry all my tools daily and need a truck for that and the materials I work with. (handyman)

I've always tried to double/tripletask my trips. Whenever I'm in town, I shop on the way to or from home, saving at least one trip if not more each time. Keeping a running list of items I need with me in the truck helps. I add to and scratch off items each time.

I'm pleasantly surprised that my new truck will cost only $250 more in insurance per year than my old '90 F-150. The value difference is about $25k.

I'm not sold on organics just yet. I prefer ingesting fewer chemicals, but as someone on a newsgroup pointed out, organics are self-policed in most cases. Too much of a "safe" organic pesticide can be as bad or worse than a smaller amount of a less safe chemical one.

Good question. Look at the "leadership" we have and the corruption of our gov't., yet people still vote for the same thugs every year.

It bothers me that some people are not looking at the overall picture. I thin every landfill in canada should be tapped for methane generation and there should be at least a SMALL methane powerplant in every landfill.

I'd like to see there be large incentives for diesel powerplants over gas, they do burn stuff the gas cant touch and do so with more thermal efficiency. I'd like to see stuff like mandatory recyclin of oil products since once again rather than being wasted then can be burned.

If its wasted anyhow at this point and it can be converted to do something useful before it would become a greenhouse gas then thats a step forward there too. if you can make combustible plant oil out of compost and reuse or sell it then that is a "free gain" it would have become greenhouse gases anyhow but instead we reclaimed it and got a fuel cycle out of it before it become greenhouse gas. to me that a positive step.

I'd love to see a LOT of money donated to projects fitting under the category of "we would have wasted it anyway so how can we use the waste before it becomes greenhouse gas" I'd love to see a bunch of small powerplants running on "waste" material or industrial plants adjusting to use waste form other industries instead of "new" oil reserves. I saw a concrete plant that was powered by old tires instead of coal. Its still polluting as much as ever but its reusing other pollutats that are going to landfills or to tire dumps to sit there that to me is STILL an overall saving, the tire would have rotted out instead of being used for fuel or blasting mats

Is Biodiesel perfect, not even close. But can it amke better use of energy that is otherwise Wasted, absolutely especially when the tolerance of lower fuel qualities is taken into account

I'd take biodiesel over any E85 solution that way

Brent Ottawa Canada

It bothers me that some people are not looking at the overall picture. I thin every landfill in canada should be tapped for methane generation and there should be at least a SMALL methane powerplant in every landfill.

I'd like to see there be large incentives for diesel powerplants over gas, they do burn stuff the gas cant touch and do so with more thermal efficiency. I'd like to see stuff like mandatory recyclin of oil products since once again rather than being wasted then can be burned.

If its wasted anyhow at this point and it can be converted to do something useful before it would become a greenhouse gas then thats a step forward there too. if you can make combustible plant oil out of compost and reuse or sell it then that is a "free gain" it would have become greenhouse gases anyhow but instead we reclaimed it and got a fuel cycle out of it before it become greenhouse gas. to me that a positive step.

I'd love to see a LOT of money donated to projects fitting under the category of "we would have wasted it anyway so how can we use the waste before it becomes greenhouse gas" I'd love to see a bunch of small powerplants running on "waste" material or industrial plants adjusting to use waste form other industries instead of "new" oil reserves. I saw a concrete plant that was powered by old tires instead of coal. Its still polluting as much as ever but its reusing other pollutats that are going to landfills or to tire dumps to sit there that to me is STILL an overall saving, the tire would have rotted out instead of being used for fuel or blasting mats

Is Biodiesel perfect, not even close. But can it amke better use of energy that is otherwise Wasted, absolutely especially when the tolerance of lower fuel qualities is taken into account

I'd take biodiesel over any E85 solution that way

Brent Ottawa Canada

Yes, agreed. Didn't mean to come across like these new developments are the answer for utility scale projects. However, in some areas those large scale facilities make sense.

I'm looking into an electric truck and solar panels for charging. I work from home, generally make a max of 2 trips to town a day, for maybe 25-30 miles. At least during spring and summer, I can drive nearly for free. And in winter, just plug into the wall.

Me too, but I'm really waiting for prices to come down on white LED's, that will really start to make a difference.

Side note, I live in Grass Valley, up in the foothills, and used to work for a guy that flew to the SF bay area frequently for business. I got to go along several times, and twice we flew back at night. I was amazed seeing from the air, all the huge but empty parking lots in the industrial area, fully lit.... whata waste.

I'm not in the category that says EVERYONE must have a lighter vehicle. I'd love to have a Dodge diesel and a companion heavy duty trailer, but as you note, the costs of the second vehicle are significant.

Maybe in the overall scheme of things it's a small factor, but all these small factors add up...

I have hope. In the past, few people really had any education or access to records. Today, nearly anyone can access an avalanche of data.

But then, I lose hope when I see people driving around town constantly in huge massive 4x4 trucks that are obviously just a testament to someone's ego and pocketbook. The bling on most of these trucks would easily pay for a small economical vehicle. Still, despite the overall lack of long term learning from our mistakes, it would be a big mistake to say "we're all gonna be screwed by our inability to learn from the past, so fuggit, I'm going to grab every luxury I can"

For myself, I drive at the bottom end. Half of my vehicles go to the scrapyard when I've used them up. Nicest car I've ever owned in my current '94 Ford Escort which returns a respectable 32mpg up in the foothills, an '84 Toyota truck for those tasks I can't do with the wagon, and an '81 Honda XL185 trail bike which gets me around 70mpg given I like to wind it out. It'll do close to 90mpg if I want to just putt...

Overall, nobody gives a shit what I think or do, all I can do is try to minimize my consumption of resources, and quietly laugh to myself when I hear monster SUV owners crying about what it just cost them to fill their tank.

Jon

So build it upside down with the generator end on the bottom and stationary.

Interesting, but it doesn't have anything on the type of tidal generator I noted. I believe I've seen a piece on the buoy type on the science channel, including a couple prototypes in testing.

I didn't say they were valid issues, just something for NIMBYs to rant about along with noise, views and lower property values.

Isn't the media at fault for anything the government isn't already at fault for?

Most any commercial building I've been in recently is pretty much all fluorescent and / or metal halide type HID.

Which is why we need to upgrade the electrical grid so we are able to move the electricity required to replace a decent amount of gasoline.

Some will eventually, when the economics become reasonable. As I noted in another post, taxes and insurance currently make having a second high MPG / electric vehicle a money pit, even with purchase subsidies.

Haven't seen anything about that. Sounds interesting. Key thing being utilizing existing roof space to avoid the environmental impact of the attempts at utility scale solar.

Same here for the longer trips. When I visit the office about about 60 miles away about once a month I schedule that to coincide with a number of other activities in the area.

My point was the additional cost for a second vehicle in taxes and insurance, which in my case would substantially exceed the potential gas savings.

Yes, the same thugs of either party. They may be at opposite ends of the spectrum, but they both still suck.

Nope, and utility scale isn't the whole answer anyway due to the insufficient grid capacity. Distributed generation helps overcome the grid deficiencies quite a bit.

Not the way they are built currently. Covering 50 acres of wild area, be it desert or forest with a reflector array around a collector tower is a big environmental impact. Build the same facility in an urban area on the roof of a really big mall and you've solved the environmental problem. The generator and control facilities can be underground under the parking lot. Indeed many of the reflectors can be over the parking lot as well providing nice shading for the cars.

I work from home as well, and part of our energy policy needs to be encouraging that since it will put a huge dent in gasoline demand and road congestion and wear.

My typical trip into town is a 6 mile RT to the grocery store once a week, and perhaps one 20 mile RT per week to a larger shopping area.

I'm not convinced LEDs will really be viable for residential lighting any time soon. Poor light distribution, heat dissipation issues, color temperature issues and of course the cost issue. I have a 6W LED dive light which is bright as hell, but I'd never consider it acceptable for home lighting. I expect the CFs to remain the best option for quite a while.

Yep, wasted night lighting and light pollution is a big issue. Big malls have their parking too free form at present to be able to shut down sections at night when unoccupied. Go with gated, monitored parking areas and you can gradually shutdown sections at night.

Right, but much of that cost is due to tax and insurance issues that could be resolved. If I could get a hybrid without any additional property tax or insurance cost (I'm the only driver and household member anyway), I'd get one. There wouldn't be much in the way of gas savings most of the time, but occasionally there would be, and it would also reduce wear on the truck.

Start manufacturing stuff in the US again and you can eliminate a whole lot of container ship trips from China... Still need to bring in those cheap fireworks though :)

Except for the people in some of the most overpopulated, violence steeped third world countries...

Hey, I drive one of those huge massive 4x4 trucks :( I even take it off road with substantial cargo regularly. I'm also 100% ego (and self esteem) free.

No bling on my 10yr old truck. Didn't even fix the dually fender a city bus that wasn't paying attention to clipped. All function, not cosmetics.

I'll certainly try to conserve where practical, but I'm not very hopeful for the future. Once my birth certificate expires around 2035-2040 I won't care anyway.

I certainly don't turn over vehicles every other year like some ego-loons do. I buy new, maintain properly myself and keep a vehicle indefinitely.

Yep. I don't cry about the cost to fuel my truck, but when I take it on weekend trips I sure try to get folks car(truck)pooling with me.

I think there's a bit more to it than that. Here on the Gulf of Maine we're probably positioned better than the vast majority of the rest of the world to take advantage of such a scheme - tides of approx 10 ft amplitude, deep water close to shore and only rare tropical storms. With two daily tides there's about 20 ft of rise available per day. In our house we use a modest 10 kwh of electricity per day which equals

2.7 x 10^7 ft*lb. Divide by 20 ft and you need 680 tons of force to generate that much power. That translates to buoy of 22000 ft^3. If the water's deep enough, that's a buoy 100 ft tall x 17 ft in diameter.

Another way to look at it is the displacement of one of the Aegis destroyers, built in the next town, would be enough to power about 4 small homes.

If the tides are the more typical 2 or 3 feet, 100 foot deep water is far from shore and hurricanes are a regular occurrence, the problems are compounded

Have you ever driven through Nevada?

50 acres of solar collection wouldn't make the slightest dent.

Nevada, no. West Texas and south eastern New Mexico, yes. Much difference?

They are testing tidal flow generation in NYC's East River, which connects New York Harbor to the Long Island Sound, and has very powerful tidal currents.

the last I read was they were having some sort of technical difficulty.