Bio-Fuels Bite the Dust

I have a both a mercedes and a VW diesel, I have considered refining "Greasel", but even at 300-400 miles a week, it's not worth it to me to mess with a slimy mess of restaurant grease and figure out what to do with the glycerine. I ran 20 gallons of expired-date peanut oil in the Benz, ran fine, but it was free. Vegetable oils still cost more than diesel.

Reply to
Stupendous Man
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On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:14:18 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, "Pete C." quickly quoth:

Yeah, I was surprised at that, too. I have seen the long buoyed section generator types, too, and they weren't mentioned. Well, that's Wiki for ya. Go add yours, eh, Pete?

Reply to
Larry Jaques

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 00:39:42 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "Pete C." quickly quoth:

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Oh, yeah. Whenever I need to go to Medford, I hit the Target, Costco, Harbor Freight, Michaels, the ITEX (my barter group) warehouse, and whatever else I need there while I'm there. It's only a half hour drive, but that's $10 in gas, so I make it count, make a day of it. I sometimes stop in Phoenix and Ashland on those trips, too. Home Depot finally put a store nearby (28 miles is closer than the old 100 mile distance. I used to mail order things instead.)

Right. My insurance statement was more of an aside than an addition to the thread context. I was very happy to hear it.

100%, minimum.
Reply to
Larry Jaques

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According to this: Ethonal accounts for 3.5 percent of our gas consumption currently, And uses 20 percent of the Corn Crop.

They don't cite where they got their numbers though.

Reply to
marc.britten

I'm glad to see that confirmed. After discussing it today I tried some numbers from the other end. With 6-ft. tides, a float the size of a 55-gal drum would generate roughly 2 Watt-hours per day. Sheesh. It would take a float equivalent to almost 1,000 barrels to power one house.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

The Japanese did some experiments in both this application and wave powered bouy generators some forty years ago. Nothing was heard after the opening announcements so it probably wasn't effective.

Given that the Japanese import essentially all of their energy I believe that if a simple method of producing electricity was available they would use it.

By the way, the most productive tidal generating plant is on the Rance river in France. Built in the 1960s and producing 240 MWs.

Bruce in Bangkok (brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)

Reply to
brucedpaige

Some times in the 1960's there was a Maine state referendum to build a tidal powered power station. Was all the local newspapers talked about for nearly a month.

There were hordes of people ranging from lobster fishermen to collage professors arguing pros and cons for weeks.

The motion was defeated and my impression, as an outsider, was that whether tidal power is really practical, or not, is a far from simple question.

Bruce in Bangkok (brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)

Reply to
brucedpaige

If I have 2 vehicles why should I have to pay extra taxes & insurance on both since I can only drive one at a time?

Free men own guns - www(dot)geocities(dot)com/CapitolHill/5357/

Reply to
nick hull

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According to this: Ethonal accounts for 3.5 percent of our gas

Of which year's? The nice thing about crops, is they can change proportions of one to the other year to year. And, if the price gets attractive enough to grow, lots of folks who have land in CRP programs will decide to take 'em out - which is what CRP is for in the first place.

Of course they don't. But pretending that the corn supply is inelastic, or that corn is the only/best way to make methanol, are two problems with that particular point of view.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

As a quick aside to this...

Do you US Americans still have blanket coverage laws against the growing of hemp on the books, or have those been relaxed at all?

I recall reading somewhere that the law would have to be changed to grow hemp at all. Could be wrong.

In Canada, there are a pile of regulatory hoops to jump through to grow Hemp, but it can be done. There is much monitoring and analysis of product, and getting it to market is a bit of a challenge, as there are few users on an industrial footing. But it can be done. Legally.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Reply to
Trevor Jones

Or more to the point, it would take 1000 floating barrels, all hooked up to some means of converting mechanical, low speed input, into a useful or transportable form, in order to get it to the grid.

Add to that, the propensity for weed growth on any fixed object in the water, and it becomes a money sink to maintain.

The energy is there, sorta like a herd of teenagers. Extracting it in a usefull manner is the puzzler.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Reply to
Trevor Jones

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And what is the portion of the corn crop used for ethanol, that is grown for ethanol?

The statistic is meaningless, but looks important.

Sorta along the lines of wailing "Fifty percent of graduating students have below average marks!"

Cheers Trevor Jones

Reply to
Trevor Jones

There is currently research happening that use the enzymes found in termite intestine that break down cellulose into simple sugars which are then fermented into alcohols.

Good use for grass clippings, leaves, waster paper etc.

Reply to
Modat22

The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.

- Albert Einstein

Reply to
Boris Mohar

Ok, I did some digging. USDA states that we harvested 70.6 Million acres of corn (Planting 78.3) in 2006 and averaged 149.1 Bushels Per Acre. That comes out to 10.5 Billion Bushels.

Ethonal industry claimes that it can output 5.6 Billion Gallons per year as of the close of 2006. (It only output 4.9 in 2006, but I'll use the 5.6 as the current number)

Inustry average of 2.7 Gallons per bushel. This is the highest number I could find. Others where between 2.5 and 2.6. Divide and you get 2,074,074,0742,074,074,074 Or 2.1 Billion Bushels used == 20% of the crop.

2007 numbers from the USDA state: 92.8 Billion acres planted, 85.4 Harvested, averaging 155.8 Bushels/ Acre That gives us 13.3 Billion Bushels.

Ethanol is estimated to output 9 billion gallons this year with the addition of 53 new or expanded plants.

Giving some points to the gallon/bushel conversion for improvements, lets say 3 gallons/bushel (just over a 10% improvement which is nothing to scoff at). Easy to divide this time so we get 3 billion bushels. Or 22% of the crop.

We averaged 140 Billion Gallons of gas in 2004. With an outlook of

146 Billion Gallons for 2006. (DOE Website sucks, so I stop the digging there). So lets call 2007 148 Billion gallons just to have a safe number (less increase than the average 3 billion/year between 2004 and 2006, thank god for the Smart car!).

I'm all for alternative energy, and I don't claim that Corn is the only Ethenol source. However thats the current main source for US Ethanol. Hopefully it changes for the better with good research.

Reply to
marc.britten

The only time Americans will get onboard with alternative energy is when they have to hitch oxen to pull their oversized SUV's around, and they have to use candles to light their homes, derived from their liposuctioned obese fat asses.

Crude oil hit a record $80 per bbl today, with not even any major war/crisis interupting oil flow. I can't wait till it goes over $200/bbl, and it costs $10 per gallon for regular gas.

Americans dont want alternative energy (to much hassle, raises the price of doritos), don't want windmills (spoils my view/noise/kills birds), don't want nukes (too dangerous). They do want cheap energy from the all you can eat buffet, and not in their backyard (NIMBY), while they use the atmosphere as the CO2 dumping ground.

In the years to come, as we are on the downhill ride from peak oil & gas production, reality is going to be a cruel surprise, and there will be so much CO2 released that our planet will become Venusian.

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Reply to
Tony

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:01:20 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Tony" quickly quoth:

You forgot to say "Kumbaya" after that silly rant, ya putz.

-- I think this is the crux of the global warming media hype (not some of the science). Gobal warming research and it's ugly step-sister, the media, are a business. They will only feed frenzy that adds to their business. Hence, the lack of talk about your cold and snowy western weather, lack of hurricanes in '06, etc. The only things that will be brought up are those that will "help" their cause and industry. Do something for something we KNOW about, like the kid down the street that needs a home, etc. Don't try to help for something that we are trying (ridiculously) to predict will be a problem

100-200years from now!! Thanks,

A Liberal, Environmentally Friendly, Global Warming, Anti-Hype Lad James, 11Jan07 on Weather Channel's "One Degree" hype site

Reply to
Larry Jaques

I am on board with alternative energy, I don't have an SUV, I don't need candles for my house (I have been replacing incandescants with CF's though), and my ass isn't particularly wobbly. So I'd say that your assumption is dead wrong.

Hurricanes don't exist in your world? Because in _this_ world, 2 of 'em got knocked offline by Humberto or whatever it's called.

Sooner we start subsidizing biofuels the better. Let's get the economies of scale going now, before it's a real crisis.

I question why you feel you're qualified to speak for Americans. This one disagrees with nearly all you claim I believe.

Yawn. Got anything useful? Because you're kind of stuck in a rut here.

See, it's alarmist language like this that makes it impossible to take your type seriously.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

The flip side of the run-up in oil price is the slip in the value of the US dollar v the Euro/Pound/Yen etc.

When the price of oil is charted in terms of the Euro/Pound/Yen and yes gold, there is no spike.

The importance of the oil producers divesting their dollar denominated securities and beginning to price their oil in Euros and Yen should now be apparent.

Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

WRT corn derived ethanol, I think the economies of scale have been going for a while. Archer Daniels Midland is just laughing all the way to the bank with the taxpayer's money, with no net gain to the environment, considering the amount of fossil fuels needed to produce and distill the corn.

Reply to
ATP*

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