I know. But like farmerman said he is not trying to solve any of the worlds problems he's just putting a couple of trucks on the road and this thread is the"shop talk" about it.
I really don't know what i'm talking about but it seems that you could put a wind farm right on top of the corn field and power a bunch hybrid cars so masses of soccer moms, delivery drivers,metermaids,etc,etc can get to and fro.
Can't we use the same refining equipment? What if their is a worldly event beyond our control well need a source of energy source immediately (yes i know about the reserves). The ease of the switch over seems like a cinch. Compared to the other options.
When I say sign me up I really mean sign me up for the change in a mindset. It starts with a farmer/physicist, some buckets, corn and a couple pickups in a barn.
Which altenergy do you like?
It's like making your own beer and wine.A passing fad.It works on only having one bit of the jigsaw in your head.It's iconoclastic.
I'm in favour of reducing fertility competitions and needing to bounce all over the place to prove to yourself how succesful you are.
The Sancho Panchez option-viz-no work,soft beds,pots of ale and voluptuous women who know how to negate fertilising males.I don't know how to get there I'll admit but as visions go it seems worthy of consideration.
At 20 million barrels a day,and rising,I really can't see corn as anything other than corny.I doubt its capacity to keep up with 3% growth.
I didn't mean anything more when I asked you "what altenergy do you like" other then what altenergy do like. I'm not on offence or defense.
God forbid this conversation go the way of the political/religion threads we've all contributed are own share of bullsh!t their.
20 million barrels a day with a 3% growth.
How many corn cobs makes one barrel?
5000?
Dream on? You mean vision?
No.
If 5000 corncobs made a barrel we would be in clover.
5000 corn cobs won't make one barrel!!!!!!
How big are these damn barrels?????
I got it well just use smaller barrels. :wink: No problem, see.
Sheesh-I never thought of that.
That's brilliant Amigo.
We take biodiesel mix it with other recycled oils and mix it with petroleum to if we have too.
Then we make two seater w/storage carbon fiber highly efficient stylish hip affordable hybrid cars.
Then we market them to conscientious young cool liberals, You know the type.
Then we put the wind farm right on top of the corn fields, stop buying oil from foreigners and put middle America back to work and give them the money picking and growing corn. Thats why willie likes Biodeisel it will give rebirth to the American farmer.
And we use smaller barrels.
spendius wrote:Sheesh-I never thought of that.
That's brilliant Amigo.
You gotta have vision man, vision. You see a windmill? I see a giant.........a giant source of energy that is. Just call me Sancho.
Amigo wrote:You gotta have vision man, vision. You see a windmill? I see a giant.........a giant source of energy that is. Just call me Sancho.
In addition to vision, you will need about 2000 operating windmills to equal the normal power output of one moderate-sized coal fired or nuclear powerplant. With a practical allowance for outages and low wind days, this will require the construction of about 4000 windmills. The replacement of (say) 20% of our electrical generating capacity will require only 400,000 windmills - enough to cover a whole lot of corn.
Then why are people doing it?
That many windmills would require one hell of an environmental impact report, I remember being in the middle of a PG&E windfarm and being surprised at the noise...
IMO this is only part of a many faceted solution to the problem. All potential energy sources should be tapped, nuclear, clean coal, wind, solar, hydro, biofuels (including new fuel crops), geothermal, tidal and those not even thought of yet.
But one must remember energy sources aren't distributed evenly. Wind and solar in the eastern Midwest doesn't exist like they do on the coasts. What they have is arable land that doesn't require irrigation. (I have always wondered about the wisdom of cotton grown in the Arizona desert- cotton is a high water usage crop fercrissakes). Unfortunately for the US, the last POTUS who seriously considered taking any energy port in the storm attitude to the energy problem irrespective of corporate interests and the universal utility grid was Carter. And we all know what sort of dismal POTUS he was.
BTW if you want to look at the ultimate in windmill disaster try googling Grandpa's Knob and windmills. Grandpas Know is not too far from Mt Washington on what is considered the windiest points in the contiguous US. Before WWII there was a windmill there, a really big one. It was quite productive until it suffered a LOBA (loss of blade accident) during a particularly feisty blow.
Rap
we are , we are, we are, we are, we are the engineers
We can design
Whatevers in mind
Just leave us a dozen beers
MIT's "fight" song
Unlike spendius, many of us are not smart enough to know that some idea wont work.
fm wrote-
Quote:Unlike spendius, many of us are not smart enough to know that some idea wont work.
Of course it will "work" in the limited sense of filling up a truck or two for those who have the use of spare acres of arable soil.But to expect it to have any real effect on the "addiction to oil" is way beyond the feeding of the five thousand as the scope of miracles go.I question its capacity to cope with a 3% growth rate to which,as I understand it,you (we) are also addicted.That alone would require the production of about 250 million barrels of biodeisel in the first year not allowing for the use of fuel in the process.
as rap stated, this will be , no doubt, a multifaceted approach at supplying energy by many diverse means.
hamburger started a thread on Canadian Tar sands. (They make tars for ole boys pickups with it)
A headline in this week's Sunday Times says-
Quote: Can you invest in biofuels and not lose sleep over it?
Quote:Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak told the UN food summit last week that biofuels were to blame for the riots and starvation in the developing world.
Biofuel stocks have been hammered. D1 Oils down from 285p last July to 16p.
Quote: Biofuels are neither a viable nor an evironmentally friendly solution to the world's energy requirments.
All predicted by your's truly in the teeth of insults and aspersions.
CBC-TV just had a feature on farmers making their own bio-diesel .
they claimed that after an initial investment of less than $5,000 they are now saving $700 - 800 a month on the fuel bill for their agricultural equipment .
at least one of the farmers has now expanded the operation and is selling excess bio-diesel to other farmers that don't have large requirements and couldn't justify the initial cost .
this may catch on !
hbg
What tax differentials apply between homemade biofuel, and they were making it out of chicken **** at least 40 years ago, and gas bought at the pumps?
Are there dangers with moonshine biofuel?
