The Solution to Our Energy Crisis

[gene]

Cow Dung!

 

[jaxvon]

That sounds like a load of BS.

 

[racquetman]

1.2% recovery. Very efficient!!

 

[mtrycrafts]

1.2% recovery. Very efficient!!

That might depend on how much it costs, in large scale operation to recover and use or sell compared to the cost of other fuels. After all, it has to be disposed of somehow. What does that cost? An economic choice, for now.

 

[Sheep]

That sounds like a load of BS.

This post is PA certified.

SheepStar

 

[furrycute]

There is no foreseeable solution to our upcoming energy crisis.

Simply put, humans have not discovered another energy source, that is as concentrated, as transportable, as petroleum.

Unless we achieve a breakthrough in controlled fusion, modern human civilization is doomed.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

Unless we achieve a breakthrough in controlled fusion, modern human civilization is doomed.

Not doomed, but a major restructuring of property will be in order. Without gas/diesel there will be no cars/trucks/motorcycles. If you want to get from A to B you will have to walk, bicycle, or take an (electric)train. 100 years ago consumer goods made it from city to city this way and they can do it again. Sure you won't get fresh Fuji apples or orangejuice at the Wal*Mart supercenter in january anymore, but there will be food.

And even with electric battery cars, we could still use the roads like we do now, just not travel mor ethan 150 miles a day. And there will be lots of wind turbines everywhere.

And global polution will get so bad we'll be able to smell Beijing on a windy day.

 

[Johnd]

There are plenty of viable alternatives to fossil fuels RIGHT NOW! Hydrogen, solar, bio-diesel...especially the latter for the proximate future. Funding justs needs to be allocated for further r&d to make it cheaper than gasoline.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

There are plenty of viable alternatives to fossil fuels RIGHT NOW! Hydrogen, solar, bio-diesel...especially the latter for the proximate future. Funding justs needs to be allocated for further r&d to make it cheaper than gasoline.

The problem isn't cheap/free energy. Hydropower and wind turbines (for example) have a moderate initial investment and a very low maintenence fee attached to unlimited energy gathering potential. This is well & good for, lets say, houses. If the world ran-out of home heating oil tomorrow there would be 'mount your own turbines' in Isle 4 of every Home Depot by next tuesday. Milton Hershey (the chocolate billionaire) ran his mansion off a single turbine/basement battery for 20 years before 'grid power' became a viable solution. If a wooden windmill can light a 49 room mansion, it can easily heat a double-wide.

The real energy crisis is gasoline. So far there are no easily portable energy sources that can completely replace petroleum (electric-hybrids, biodiesel, gasoline-ethanol blends, etc all require petroleum fuels in part). Liquid hydrogen requires gallons of petroleum to produce the equivolent fuel, and still have the same problem as compressed air for cars, to get a "useful" 400 miles on a "tank" of gas, the tank would be the size of an 18 wheeler! Can you imagine the Wal*Mart parkinglot with 1000 of those on black friday?!?!

So what we really need is: a fuel that cars/trucks/motorcycles can run on, is cheap, safe to transport, and easily installed in tens of thousands of fuel stations across the country. If you can retrofit existing vehicles to use the new fuel (like older cars have been modified to use modern unleaded gasoline) that would be super, because otherwise the nations landfills would burst with tens of millions of worthless cars.

 

[sts9fan]

If you like that one!!

Check this out. Heat + Pressure = oil from anything organic.
I think its something like 90% efficent.

http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2003/Anything-Into-Oil1may03.htm

 

[furrycute]

Check this out. Heat + Pressure = oil from anything organic.
I think its something like 90% efficent.

http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2003/Anything-Into-Oil1may03.htm

Sure, just where are you going to get all that heat and pressure? Remember, you need energy to generate that much heat and pressure.

Heat and pressure was what formed petroleum all those hundreds of millions of years ago. Suppose you bury half of the Amazon rainforest underground subjecting them to the rigors of geothermal heat and pressure, you will need to wait a couple hundred million years before that rainforest will turn into petroleum.

We still have plenty of coal lying around. I guess that's partly responsible for the boom in coal mining right now. You can liquify coal, turning it into gasoline. But still, the amount of coal reserves is limited. Plus you get more carbon dioxide production from burning coal.



Well, modern civilization may not be doomed if we ran out of petroleum. Maybe we'll revert back to an early industrial age civilization. Man, we'll live in a Dicken's world all over again...

But I guess that'll be kind of nostalgically romatic, transatlantic steamships, railroads criss-crossing the entire country, horse and buggies anyone?

 

[sts9fan]

Sure, just where are you going to get all that heat and pressure? Remember, you need energy to generate that much heat and pressure.

Right I understand that. This process is 85% energy efficent. That means that you only need to use 15 gallons of fuel to make 85. That is more efficent the drilling for oil. Its pretty esay to understand. Plus once it gets going you can use oil from the process to fuel it. This is where the energy comes from Sun>Plant>animal>oil. Hypotheticlly no dead dinos needed. Its not perfected yet but it has the backing of Warren Buffet's son so I feel thats a good sign.

Haters?

 

[furrycute]

http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/2005/Changing-World-Technologies-Palmer9apr05.htm


I just read that article. Did you read that link to a chemist's rebuttal of this claim? Quite an eye opening read.

 

[racquetman]

Right I understand that. This process is 85% energy efficent. That means that you only need to use 15 gallons of fuel to make 85. That is more efficent the drilling for oil. Its pretty esay to understand. Plus once it gets going you can use oil from the process to fuel it. This is where the energy comes from Sun>Plant>animal>oil. Hypotheticlly no dead dinos needed. Its not perfected yet but it has the backing of Warren Buffet's son so I feel thats a good sign.

Haters?

Come on, sts9fan, you are supposedly a chemist, right? Did you get a chemistry degree or did you become a chemist right out of high school? Did you take any organic chemistry?

You can break down organic material to it's basic components (carbon and hydrogen), but that takes a lot of energy to break those bonds. Now these idiots come along and tell you they can magically rearrange these elements into oil for energy consumption?! That is one neat trick!!

This is nothing but another internet urban legend that spreads through gullibility. I hope you don't need that phD chemist's article to convince you that this is nothing but wishful thinking.

 

[Buckle-meister]

This process is 85% energy efficent. That means that you only need to use 15 gallons of fuel to make 85.

Am I missing something here? You only need use 15 gallons of fuel to make 85?

Law of conservation of energy anyone?

 

[mtrycrafts]

http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/2005/Changing-World-Technologies-Palmer9apr05.htm


I just read that article. Did you read that link to a chemist's rebuttal of this claim? Quite an eye opening read.

wild claims

Now where did I see that before

Oh, audio is not alone in the marketplace

 

[jaxvon]

Am I missing something here? You only need use 15 gallons of fuel to make 85?

Law of conservation of energy anyone?

I thought about bringing that up, but I thought I'd let someone else be a hero. Sometimes I wish magic ruled instead of science (then those $30k cables really would make your system sound like Nirvana!).

 

[ht_addict]

Conserving energy begins with we the consumer. How much electricity would be saved if we replaced every light in the house with florescents? How about the reduction in pollution that would come from the decreased demand. How about getting more people to commute? Ever take a look at the other cars during your daily commute? How many have one person in them? Forget about big business or gov't to do it for us. To much money involved.

 

[awawadad]

This is a retared thread. Make some cool ones please noobs. Like Lost: Season 2! On DVD

 

[racquetman]

This is a retared thread. Make some cool ones please noobs. Like Lost: Season 2! On DVD

. . . and on behalf of the regulars here, we would like to thank you for your great contribution to this retared (must be a new science term - first you tare, then you retare) thread . . .