Well well well, I was right AGAIN!!!
Can we drill now? (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080704/ts_afp/climateenvironmentbiofuelsworldbankusbritain)
Brazil's only well off because their land space is massive and they can grow high-energy-density sugarcane.
As I said from the beginning, grains are a poor choice for fuel.
But I love how they only blame Bush! Uhm, hello morons. Liberals were the ones who pushed harder than anyone else for biofuels. Bush gave in (he's too soft, I'd tell them to go f$%# themselves, which they like to do anyway) and now he's getting the blame.
I'll stick with my solution: Free gas for life to whoever can kill the most people! I'll go hide in Antarctica while the slaughter commences, and return to a newly depopulated land ready and waiting for my clone army to begin building my galactic empire!! :mwaha
You realize though that if we had cars that consumed less gasoline (thank you, SUV era) and carried less weight, this wouldn't be such a problem?
(hell, the average family could afford to lose about 100 lbs between 'em, and it'd make a HUGE impact on fuel efficiency...)
Quote from: Jigsaw Forte on July 04, 2008, 12:23:10 PM
You realize though that if we had cars that consumed less gasoline (thank you, SUV era) and carried less weight, this wouldn't be such a problem?
(hell, the average family could afford to lose about 100 lbs between 'em, and it'd make a HUGE impact on fuel efficiency...)
Heck, people could learn to not drive like butt holes, and it would save a LOT fo gas.
Every time you put yourself in a position where you have to hit the brakes, that's pennies coming out your exhaust pipe. It adds up. :<
Eh. Just use people as fuel.
I believe Charline had first stated it...
I am entirely with Jigsaw here. Not to mention that simple rationalization in logistics and management could reduce worldwide fuel consumption by huge amounts. And then there are such measures as simply building more and better railways rather than relying on flight or trailer transports, minimizing container shipping, generally having some initiative and investing in new technology... or, rather, actually in the technology that already exists, but which is not being put to good use.
Want some examples? European railways, the Toyota Prius, Dick Rutan...
Personally, I couldn't give less about the damn food prices here. Because it's not the biofuels that are the problem. Biofuels are, simply put, superior, technologically and economically. It's just that the smartasses at the head of management haven't come up with the brilliant ideas of synchronizing efforts and pooling resources yet. Or even of looking past the convenient facts they want to see, and viewing the real problems...
We need the oil for synthetic materials. We need America to lose some weight and flight tonnage. We need China to stop munching down everything it can without pause. And we need Brazil to go fuck itself. Because seriously, those people are... Do you read National Geographic? I swear to all that is unholy, if you ever read more than five issues of that magazine, you'll begin to develop a hatred for all of South America too.
Quote from: Alondro on July 04, 2008, 10:42:11 AM
Well well well, I was right AGAIN!!!
Can we drill now? (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080704/ts_afp/climateenvironmentbiofuelsworldbankusbritain)
Brazil's only well off because their land space is massive and they can grow high-energy-density sugarcane.
As I said from the beginning, grains are a poor choice for fuel.
But I love how they only blame Bush! Uhm, hello morons. Liberals were the ones who pushed harder than anyone else for biofuels. Bush gave in (he's too soft, I'd tell them to go f$%# themselves, which they like to do anyway) and now he's getting the blame.
I'll stick with my solution: Free gas for life to whoever can kill the most people! I'll go hide in Antarctica while the slaughter commences, and return to a newly depopulated land ready and waiting for my clone army to begin building my galactic empire!! :mwaha
Alondro, we know you're a conservative. That has been made very clear over the course of your stay here. However, the way you phrase your political posts come across as all out attacks on liberals. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the liberals were the same way, but no one on the "other side" is nearly as nasty as you are (and if they were, I'd put a stop to it, trust me).
This is a mild, but official, warning. Civility is required here, and if you can't make political posts for the sake of discussion without making it a slam on anyone that doesn't think like you, then don't make these kinds of threads.
Quote from: Stygian on July 04, 2008, 12:48:13 PM
I am entirely with Jigsaw here. Not to mention that simple rationalization in logistics and management could reduce worldwide fuel consumption by huge amounts. And then there are such measures as simply building more and better railways rather than relying on flight or trailer transports, minimizing container shipping, generally having some initiative and investing in new technology... or, rather, actually in the technology that already exists, but which is not being put to good use.
Want some examples? European railways, the Toyota Prius, Dick Rutan...
Personally, I couldn't give less about the damn food prices here. Because it's not the biofuels that are the problem. Biofuels are, simply put, superior, technologically and economically. It's just that the smartasses at the head of management haven't come up with the brilliant ideas of synchronizing efforts and pooling resources yet. Or even of looking past the convenient facts they want to see, and viewing the real problems...
We need the oil for synthetic materials. We need America to lose some weight and flight tonnage. We need China to stop munching down everything it can without pause. And we need Brazil to go fuck itself. Because seriously, those people are... Do you read National Geographic? I swear to all that is unholy, if you ever read more than five issues of that magazine, you'll begin to develop a hatred for all of South America too.
Has anyone done a proper study of the TCO of a prius? I imagine the increased manufacturing costs, regular maintainance fees, and battery replacement costs mitigate a lot of the fuel savings. And, what, 45-50 MPG? My mom owns one, and says she gets about 47 MPG on winter gas. My regular old gas burning Civic does a fine 37 MPG on winter gas, so that's a 27% increase over a good regular car.
If you figure my commute as being an average commute (about 70 miles daily) that's 1.9gallons vs. 1.49 * roughly 250 = 475 vs. 372.5 = 102.5 gallons saved = (at older gas prices, say $3.50/g) = $359 saved each year, and you paid an extra(22,000 - 16,500 = )$5,500 you make back your initial cost in about fifteen years. That doesn't cover extra maintainance involving the electronics and battery, which you can't take to your local garage to have fixed.
(I'm still not sure if your examples are supposed to be good examples of bad examples, because I'm not familiar with europe's rail ssytem or whoever that eprson you mentioned is.)
And, how exactly do you figure that biofuels are superior?
AFAIK, they are less energy dense
and require more energy to produce than oil based fuels. The requirements of growing food to turn into fuel is an added penalty that IS very important, and can not be lightly brushed aside. We are already over extending our capacity to grow, over using our water supplies, overusing our soil, and growing more to satisfy fuel demand will only further tax the land we grow food on.
many experts are now coming to the conclusion that biofuels were little more then a valiant effort to bridge the gap before we simply do away with internal combustion.
the two new ideas that require no burning whatsoever are the aircar and they hydrogen car.
its simple, a hydrogen car has been kicked around for so long and in places like Norway they're already setting up roads equipped with enough stations capable of supplying hydrogen that you could easily just 'gas' up and go. the only emission is water, and all you really need is a reliable source of electricity and clean water.
the aircar is an ingenious idea i cant figure out why nobody thought of it either- your 'gas tank' is actually three large compressed air tanks under the car, and the car runs on compressed air being released into the engine. due to not having internal combustion the engine is very small, made of very light materials, is barely warm to the touch, and some concepts are virtually frictionless and don't require motor oil. the distance traveled on a 'tank' is about what you could do with a normal car, it can reach speeds of 100 miles per hour, and if you cant find compressed air you can plug it into the wall and an onboard compressor will refill your tank for 4$. as an extra emergency theres a very small gas engine hooked up to the compressor which can refill your tank if your empty- its so efficent that the designers said on a full tank of air and a full tank of gas you could drive from new york to san francisco without refueling. from what i heard you may see them on the roads in about a year from now, but for 4$ a refill i am so in.
but until those catch on and can be bought commercially- buy a damned scooter, they get 100 miles per the gallon and are dirt cheap anyways.
QuoteComplaining is good for you as long as you're not complaining to the person you're complaining about.
There wouldn't be such an issue with biofuels if something other than corn was used.
Theoretically, you can make ethanol out of any kind of grain. Corn is a HORRIBLE choice. It zaps the topsoil, its a bitch to grow, and it raises prices everywhere. Not to mention, the ethanol that corn produces is not as good of a biofuel as other ethanols.
Why ethanol made of weeds and such isn't being pursued more is beyond me... I do know now though that ethanol is definitely getting its name smeared. Gasoline around here is now comprised of 10 percent ethanol, and because of this, you get less miles to the gallon. Gas prices are ridiculous. Food prices are going up. It'd be easy for people to put the blame on alternative fuel..
If you want my opinion, I'd say oil profiteers are behind it.
I expected your response, Reese, and I will address the points quickly and efficiently.
Firstly, the TCO of a Prius is less than optimal, but Toyota knew that when they built it. They actually lost quite a lot of funds over the Prius. But they built it anyway, mainly as a testing platform, to see how hybrid technology would work in production cars. And, using that info, they have advanced the technology and understanding that both they and others employ quite a bit, in the ten years that the Prius has been around. It also greatly improved their worldwide image...
Secondly, I am talking pure application when it comes to the fuels. Yes, ethanol and methanol both are significantly less energy dense than gasoline. And really, no fuels have anything on diesel when it comes to economy. However, alcohols like methanol and ethanol burn better at higher compression and higher temperatures, and develop more power than gasoline nonetheless. This increases fuel efficiency considerably. All you have to do is modify the engines so that they can cope with the stress of the higher compression and optimize them toward the newer fuel. In production, this is so easy that it's nearly shameful; the main problem is material corrosion and constraint, actually, not engine block tolerance. And there are cars from Saab, for example, that easily take both types of fuel, simply by varying compression.
Also, mixing methanol with gasoline can even further increase the power of an engine, due to the self-oxygenization within the fuel rising significantly, allowing the more energy-dense gasoline, which requires about... oh, eight to ten times the amount of oxygen to burn as efficiently, to provide significantly more power. Mud racer cars, most notably, take this even further by throwing nitrous oxide into the mixture as well.
And, yes, corn is an absolutely horrible choice. Sugarcane, as grown in Brazil, on the other hand seems the optimal choice, providing about eight times as much fuel by the acre. The plants themselves grow better as well, and provide a good amount of spill biomass that can be burned and used to power refineries.
Quote from: Esnel Pla on July 04, 2008, 03:27:10 PMGasoline around here is now comprised of 10 percent ethanol, and because of this, you get less miles to the gallon. Gas prices are ridiculous. Food prices are going up. It'd be easy for people to put the blame on alternative fuel..
If you want my opinion, I'd say oil profiteers are behind it.
Or maybe consumers are just good at putting 2 and 2 together.
Quote from: Stygian on July 04, 2008, 03:39:29 PM
I expected your response, Reese, and I will address the points quickly and efficiently.
Firstly, the TCO of a Prius is less than optimal, but Toyota knew that when they built it. They actually lost quite a lot of funds over the Prius. But they built it anyway, mainly as a testing platform, to see how hybrid technology would work in production cars. And, using that info, they have advanced the technology and understanding that both they and others employ quite a bit, in the ten years that the Prius has been around. It also greatly improved their worldwide image...
Right, but how much of that extra TCO translates to use of palstics, fuel for transport, and fuel for electricity? Toyota's image be damned, what's the net impact on oil use? I don't know what it is, but it's not the green and happy image that is being projected.
Quote
Secondly, I am talking pure application when it comes to the fuels. Yes, ethanol and methanol both are significantly less energy dense than gasoline. And really, no fuels have anything on diesel when it comes to economy. However, alcohols like methanol and ethanol burn better at higher compression and higher temperatures, and develop more power than gasoline nonetheless. This increases fuel efficiency considerably. All you have to do is modify the engines so that they can cope with the stress of the higher compression and optimize them toward the newer fuel. In production, this is so easy that it's nearly shameful; the main problem is material corrosion and constraint, actually, not engine block tolerance. And there are cars from Saab, for example, that easily take both types of fuel, simply by varying compression.
Also, mixing methanol with gasoline can even further increase the power of an engine, due to the self-oxygenization within the fuel rising significantly, allowing the more energy-dense gasoline, which requires about... oh, eight to ten times the amount of oxygen to burn as efficiently, to provide significantly more power. Mud racer cars, most notably, take this even further by throwing nitrous oxide into the mixture as well.
And, yes, corn is an absolutely horrible choice. Sugarcane, as grown in Brazil, on the other hand seems the optimal choice, providing about eight times as much fuel by the acre, and better quality fuel at that. The plants themselves grow better as well, and provide a good amount of spill biomass that can be burned and used to power refineries.
If the efficiency is increased, why does gas milage decrease?
Quote from: Esnel Pla on July 04, 2008, 03:27:10 PM
Not to mention, the ethanol that corn produces is not as good of a biofuel as other ethanols.
Could you please elaborate on this? Having recently taken a chemistry course, my (albeit limited) understanding is that ethanol itself is a uniform product. Now, I agree with you that corn may not be the best source to derive ethanol from...but I don't see that any other source would produce a different derivative that you could still call ethanol.
Quote from: modelincard on July 04, 2008, 04:18:37 PM
Quote from: Esnel Pla on July 04, 2008, 03:27:10 PM
Not to mention, the ethanol that corn produces is not as good of a biofuel as other ethanols.
Could you please elaborate on this? Having recently taken a chemistry course, my (albeit limited) understanding is that ethanol itself is a uniform product. Now, I agree with you that corn may not be the best source to derive ethanol from...but I don't see that any other source would produce a different derivative that you could still call ethanol.
The problem isn't that ethanol isn't ethanol, it's that corn ethanol has a different Cost Per Whatever compared to other sources of ethanol (cane, algae, hemp...)
Corn is not, shall we say... efficient because we're only harvesting a small amount of the plant (the seeds) for fuel. Sugarcane produces a much higher percentage of the plant that is harvested, but the energy needed to break it down may not be efficient enough to counter this. Hemp is debatable, but since so much of the plant has SOME sort of use, it shouldn't be ruled out without some consideration. Algae is almost 100% harvestable, but the equipment needed to yield the highest amount of algae per acre means there's a high cost of entry.
A huge consideration of using ethanol over ordinary gasoline is that the majority of our cars aren't BUILT to take ethanol. So whatever benefit it has is lost on the wear-and-tear ethanol incurs.
In other news, I saw a small fleet of zapcars in today's 4th of July parade. The ostrich-egg SmartCar seemed to be a bigger crowd pleaser than the ZapCars, though I chalk that up to the whole "Having four wheels" thing.
Thing is that the only reason that corn was even considered was that corn is heavily subsidized. That is why, in the US, you get everything using corn syrup to replace sugar. Farmers grow so much and dump it on the market because the government guarantees a minimum price for corn and cuts the farmers a check. Meanwhile all the corn on the market drops prices to almost nothing. The extremely cheap corn seemed attractive because it was so damn cheap. Then when biofuels came in that changed.
Not that it will mater before long anyways. The real show stopper is going to be the ridiculous amounts of water the whole affair will take. There isn't enough water and it will start cutting into the price for tap water and all crops and anything else that uses water (aka, everything). Really, there is/was a corn ethanol plant planned in Florida in a county where there are already drought conditions and last I heard they were having a fit because if/when it opens it would be the 3rd largest consumer of water. Mind you this is in an area where there are already water shortages. I've not checked on the situation lately but I'm pretty sure that the ridiculous water situation in the world (and yes, this is a global problem) has not been resolved. This will ALSO continue to be a problem even if you get into other weird types of ethanol like the cellulosic type.
The real solution is to let gas prices get high so that people will stop being jackasses about driving and learn how to walk, or bike, or carpool.
Here's a solution to the water problem: take salt-water. Then distill the water from the salt in the same way we distill alcohol from water. Ta-da!
Quote from: Reese Tora on July 04, 2008, 03:50:06 PM
If the efficiency is increased, why does gas milage decrease?
Because shit fuck argh puke bloody Rumsfeld grease bricks.
...
I feel like facepalming. Either he's not telling the truth, or it's as simple as the fact that a regular car engine is not optimized, compression- and injection-wise, to deal with that kind of fuel. So, the burn becomes less efficient. Most probably it's because the ethanol offsets the optimal mix by letting the gas burn too fast to start with, and then 'choking' it before it's burned through all the fuel. If you want the process to be as efficient as possible, you need more oxygen. And that just might be the very reason that mud racer cars apply the nitrous oxide in the first place. I don't know how well those engines work when it comes to air intake, but I imagine that they use neither superchargers nor turbo, so...
Quote from: ShadesFox on July 04, 2008, 08:41:52 PMThe real solution is to let gas prices get high so that people will stop being jackasses about driving and learn how to walk, or bike, or carpool.
The problem is that you can't let this happen without it having huge economic impacts due to the cost of transportation of goods, let alone people. (It'd be even worse without the internet offsetting some of the transportation/shipping issues, but it's far from eliminating it because of the inefficiencies of any given shipping system... No matter what the payload is for any given day, the mailman still comes by your house.)
If it were to get high enough that we could suddenly switch to a new combustion source, that'd be one thing, but since our only real option now is to find non-combustible sources, we're effectively fucked and overdue for some major economic drama.
Quote from: Stygian on July 04, 2008, 09:14:28 PM
Quote from: Reese Tora on July 04, 2008, 03:50:06 PM
If the efficiency is increased, why does gas milage decrease?
Because shit fuck argh puke bloody Rumsfeld grease bricks.
...
I feel like facepalming. Either he's not telling the truth, or it's as simple as the fact that a regular car engine is not optimized, compression- and injection-wise, to deal with that kind of fuel. So, the burn becomes less efficient. Most probably it's because the ethanol offsets the optimal mix by letting the gas burn too fast to start with, and then 'choking' it before it's burned through all the fuel. If you want the process to be as efficient as possible, you need more oxygen. And that just might be the very reason that mud racer cars apply the nitrous oxide in the first place. I don't know how well those engines work when it comes to air intake, but I imagine that they use neither superchargers nor turbo, so...
Well, I don't think he's lying, because I've gotten the 'lower gas milage' thing from multiple people. Possibly they've all been mislead (it would not be the first time that a large body of people were misled by a minority intending to profit from it.), but... wikipedia has a figure of about 3% milage drop with E10 fuel, but notes that ethanol is a higher octane than standard gas(it has E85 as 104 octane where regular gas, here in CA, is 87 octane).
Energy density is energy density, it's the maximum amount of work you can extract from the fuel at best efficiency. Modern engines are designed to be as efficient as possible, gas milage is a function of the engine efficiency, the gear train efficiency, and the weight of your vehicle. If you use ethanol, you reduce the average energy density, and you change what is the most efficient concentrations and timings to extract work from your fuel. Modern engines, notably on flex fuel cars, can conpensate for these changes, but you are still putting less energy per gallon into your car. you carry more fuel capable of doing less work, and that has an effect on your milage.
Yes, we need to reduce our dependance on oil, yes we need to switch to alternative power supplies, no none of them will be as good as gasoline for power or convenience, but it's a
sacrifice that needs to be made before it becomes a mandated choice, and a
sacrifice that needs to be made if we are going to cut down on the polution we put in to the air daily. It's a sacrifice, and we have to make it, and it is NOT better, and telling me that "oh, it's better, that's why" pisses me off because I feel it cheapens the sacrifice to call it anything else.
If you can show me where you got the information that ethanol somehow magically boosts the energy density of gasoline when you mix the two, I'll concede the point, but simple math says that you're going to ahve a lower energy density... 90% of 1 plus 10% of .64 is not going to be greater than 1.
Quote from: Reese Tora on July 04, 2008, 11:56:26 PM
Yes, we need to reduce our dependance on oil, yes we need to switch to alternative power supplies, no none of them will be as good as gasoline for power or convenience, but it's a sacrifice that needs to be made before it becomes a mandated choice, and a sacrifice that needs to be made if we are going to cut down on the polution we put in to the air daily. It's a sacrifice, and we have to make it, and it is NOT better, and telling me that "oh, it's better, that's why" pisses me off because I feel it cheapens the sacrifice to call it anything else.
CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2, infact, keeps our plants alive.
If anything, using the underground sources actually PREVENTS an even larger environmental disaster. As I've pointed out time and again, underground oil is constantly sinking. Once it sinks far enough, all that oil decays into methane. This methane then gets released into the atmosphere. Given that methane is about 6-8 times more powerful of a green house gas than CO2 is, I've got to say it's actually better for humans to turn the oil into CO2 and face a slow warming of the earth rather than the sudden massive eruption of methane that will occur once the oil pockets sink far enough.
Oh, and currently our entire solar system is experiencing a heat wave of about the same or greater percentage change than the earth has faced. Kinda odd that, it's almost as if we're giving ourselves too much credit.
I never said CO2, there are other polutants.
I never said we need to stop using oil, just that we need to stop depending on it as a fuel; it can run out, maybe it will begin to in my life time. Oil is what modern technology breeds on.
Quote from: Esnel Pla on July 04, 2008, 03:27:10 PM
Why ethanol made of weeds and such isn't being pursued more is beyond me... I do know now though that ethanol is definitely getting its name smeared. Gasoline around here is now comprised of 10 percent ethanol, and because of this, you get less miles to the gallon. Gas prices are ridiculous. Food prices are going up. It'd be easy for people to put the blame on alternative fuel..
people have been tinkering with using algae, an ingenious solution as algae can be harvested every day, bags of it can absorb emissions from industry and use it to grow, and done correctly can double its biomass with frightening efficiency.
the problems are as follows
1- up until recently algae study has been at the ass end of science, and thus people who know how to grow algae in hi density concentrations like we would need can be counted on one hand. they're like rockstars now, in the science community.
2- to use straight plant material like algae, corn stalks, or other nonfood portions of plants you must break apart the fiber structure that makes the plant so rigid. talk to anyone in the paper industry- cellulose is a wonderful thing you can make tons of stuff from, but breaking it apart so you can use it in the first place is an arduous and sometimes expensive process.
QuoteInanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories - those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost.
Algae also happen to be a keystone of life on this planet. It is the primary producer of oxygen, outstripping all the forests across the continents, and they are one of the two primary producers (the other being bacteria) upon which a vast majority of ecosystems are based.
We humans always do things in excess, yes we can grow it in isolation from the natural environment, and yes only specific types are optimal for the process. However, it will not be long before we are engineering it to be more optimal for growth, environmental conditions or other such factors. Invariably someone will make a mistake, a mistake that can effect the ecosystems of the entire world. A fundamental change in humanity has to occur before I would ever want to see us chipping away at a building block of the ecology of the Earth.
Quote from: Azlan on July 05, 2008, 06:54:31 PM
What he said.
and somehow we have arrived back to the future predicted in the 60s and 70s- tanks of algae scattered anywhere theres water and sun, all human civilization depends on it for food and fuel now that oil is nonexistent and the collapse of the honey bee has destroyed all of our other crops.
enjoy your bowls of green mush every meal while you can, that genetic engineering thing means that itll get ticked off enough eventually to become a high nutrient blob of angry chlorophyll.
QuoteI look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.
As long as we get our Soylent Green, I'll be happy.
Quote from: Reese Tora on July 04, 2008, 11:56:26 PM
If you can show me where you got the information that ethanol somehow magically boosts the energy density of gasoline when you mix the two, I'll concede the point, but simple math says that you're going to ahve a lower energy density... 90% of 1 plus 10% of .64 is not going to be greater than 1.
There's nothing 'magical' about anything except the way you manage to avoid the parts where I talk about the oxygen richness of the fuel formula. Gasoline requires a significantly higher amount of oxygen to burn. Methanol and ethanol both contain much more oxygen per gram. Mixing the two together in the right amount helps the gasoline burn more efficiently under the right circumstances. But in such a tight space you still need as much air as you can get and the right compression.
Then again, the difference is nothing like what it becomes if you use nitromethane, or use hydrazine... There's an example, once again, of fuels that have a lot lower energy density, but that are simply put more powerful because they are more explosive and have higher explosion velocities.
hmm, that's interesting. Perhaps you could link some materials that show this(the chemical formulas for turning gasoline vs. ethanol, oxygen content of the two liquids, something of that nature), because it just doesn't sound right to me.
Most modern engines adjust fuel mix, oxygen content, etc. to maximize the percentage of fuel burned; if you achieve 99% fuel burn with both fuels, in an engine and transmission that transfers the same percentage of energy to the tires for both ethanol and gasoline, then the oxygen content is irrelevant, the amount of work will be dependant on energy density.
Aside, it looks like the levels of oxygen in gasoline are federally mandated in the US to be no more than 2% in order to reduce pollutants. I think I did find the article that your information is from here (http://www.beyondfossilfuel.com/ethanol/baer.html); an interview with a guy who makes ethanol for a living. I'd consider it suspect without a corroborating source.
There is an EPA report that indicates a drop in fuel efficiency with reformulated fuels
that have been oxygenated, including fuel to which ethanol has been added which indicates a 1-3% drop in fuel efficiency.
Quote from: EPA report, page 3 paragraph 1Note that changing from conventional gasoline to RFG, which is oxygenated,
results in a one to three percent fuel economy loss
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/f99040.pdfI'm sorry, but the idea that you're suggesting just seems so silly to me that I'd like to see some supporting evidence. I'm not going to say it's impossible, or that it couldn't happen, but so far I only have your word for it.
Quote from: Reese Tora on July 07, 2008, 01:52:02 AM
hmm, that's interesting. Perhaps you could link some materials that show this(the chemical formulas for turning gasoline vs. ethanol, oxygen content of the two liquids, something of that nature), because it just doesn't sound right to me.
Gasoline (or at least, octane)=C8H18 or CH3(CH2)6CH3 (all numbers subscript)
H H H H H H H H
| | | | | | | |
H-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-H
| | | | | | | |
H H H H H H H H
Ethanol=CH3CH2OH (all numbers subscript)
H H
| |
H-C-C-O-H
| |
H H
So technically, ethanol does have oxygen in its formula. I *think* that one molecule of octane will require a greater number of O2 molecules to burn, but mainly because it is a larger molecule (8-carbon chain vs. 2-carbon chain).
has anyone ever thought of kinetic energy, besides in the form of energy conservation...imagine a giant round block of steal taking the place of an engine, gain power by going downhill switch gears perfectly to keep speed going up hill, recharge stations that keep it going, or just park on a hill... industrial clutch made of carbon fiber mixed in molten steal. giant gear to gear ratios, and just for aesthetic looks make it look like it came out of a steam punk comic book.
a teenage student at MIT came up with a way to harness the excess energy we use when we walk, dance, or run across a surface with specially designed tiles using some kind of kinetic prioncipal. All I can remember about her is that she was working on a way to make the tiles for exterior use, but for the time being her tiles are being considered for use within malls and shopping centers. I wish I could remember her name.
Quote from: gh0st on July 07, 2008, 10:04:31 PM
has anyone ever thought of kinetic energy, besides in the form of energy conservation...imagine a giant round block of steal taking the place of an engine, gain power by going downhill switch gears perfectly to keep speed going up hill, recharge stations that keep it going, or just park on a hill... industrial clutch made of carbon fiber mixed in molten steal. giant gear to gear ratios, and just for aesthetic looks make it look like it came out of a steam punk comic book.
IIRC they were doing this with buses about 10 years ago as an experiment. I don't remember where, though. Basically it had an enormous flywheel slung under the bus which stored the energy. It stopped at particular bus-stops which had an electric motor in the curb, so that when it 'docked' it would spin the flywheel back up.
**EDIT**
Sorry, that would have been trams:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/1284351.html
...though the bus thing has also been tried: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus
What I find interesting in all of this has little to do with the fuels themselves but rather with the adaptive nature of the human race and it's conscious problem solving. It's really amazing to watch all of you discuss solutions and reshape/discard/integrate them as needed and the same goes for the nature of the problem. Am I alone in enjoying this?
Anyways, continue please and don't mind my interruption and potential thread derailment. I just marvel in the process of weaving solutions and unraveling of problems.
it is impressive to watch- for example NASA has had spaceship parts for decades in storeage, and regularly use degrease rs to maintain them. all the degrease rs leeched into the soil, making it toxic. some of the NASA dudes, sitting on their hands, figured out a way to make a synthetic enzyme out of iron or a reusable one out of a more pricy material which when in contact with hazardous degrease rs would break it apart into harmless chemicals such as water, salt, and whatnot else. they're thinking they could use this technology to treat mass amounts of contaminated groundwater or just sprinkle onto tainted soil to remedy the effects of toxic substances.
QuoteIf at first you don't succeed, read the instruction manual, quit, and then watch some TV
Biofuel can mean (at least) two different things: Alcohol and biodiesel. If you start with carbohydrates (sugar, starch and cellulosis) you can make alcohol, if you start with oil/fat you can make diesel. Diesel is a better fuel, but there is a lot more carbohydrates than oils in the plant world.
Making biofuel from foodstuffs is generally not a good idea. Takes an aweful lot of ground and water. However, todays food industry generates a lot of waste material that can be used instead. This waste is free in terms of ground use, since we are growing these food crops anyway. Unfortunately we still need to use a lot of water for process the waste into usable fuel.
What needs to be done is to place these factories in sensible places, where there is no local water shortage. Central Florida ... is not the place for this.
What I think looks most promising is algae. Algae grow insanely fast when you treat them right, so ground use is not a big problem. I am not sure about water use.
In the longer term, I think electric cars is the way to go. Hydrogen makes no sense, since you use more energy making it than you get out of it, and hydrogen has a low energy density, which means large gas tanks. Batteries are also bulky compared to biofuel, but not as bad as hydrogen. Batteries are also getting better year by year thanks to the laptop revolution.
To do this we would need to build more electric power plants. In addition to wind power, solar power and tidal power we can also make power plants that burn some form of biofuel. The nice thing about this is that a power plant doesn't need as clean a fuel as a car does. Heck, you can burn plain wood if you want to. (But you don't want to)
Some people are pessimistic, always predicting imminent disaster of some sort. I prefer to be optimistic. So far humanity has always solved its problems, and often ended up better than before the "disaster of the century". I think we will continue to do so.
For example: A long time ago, human civilization faced serious crisis, they were running out of easily minable copper and tin, the components of bronze. No more bronze! Imminent death of civilization predicted! They recycled the last bronze for as long as they could, but they ran out anyhow.
This was a rough time, empires collapsed. But people survived.
In their desperation, they started using iron, a metal that up until then had been considered too hard to work with and almost useless.
As they got the hang of it, they found that iron wasn't so bad after all. And when they found out how to make steel, they really had turned the disaster into a blessing.
History is full of examples like that. Learn from it.
Yes, but you're comparing a time in history when the total human population was measured in the tens of millions and people still thought the Sun revolved around the Earth. No one at that time could literally move mountains or had the slightest notions of how the simple chemical alterations they could manage actually worked.
Today there are billions of people (~100X more!), vast scientific knowledge, technical innovations beyond imagination less than a century ago, and the Earth's resources are very really stretched to far. This is not a simple lack of knowledge, this is the place where humanity finds out it has over-extended its reach. We're using resources at a rate so exponentially higher than those old-time civilization crises that it's incomparable.
The solution: cut out the dead weight. I'd say at least 5.9 billion, leaving only the select whom I deem worthy. We can use the bodies to make biodiesel and have plenty of oil for the rest of us for untold millenia! :mwaha
Feh, just try and show me something else that'll actually work. :P
how about we go back to using olive oil? it was good enough for a few thousand years, before people ever even figured out you could eat the olives
Quote from: Alondro on July 18, 2008, 07:09:06 PM
Yes, but you're comparing a time in history when the total human population was measured in the tens of millions and people still thought the Sun revolved around the Earth. No one at that time could literally move mountains or had the slightest notions of how the simple chemical alterations they could manage actually worked.
Today there are billions of people (~100X more!), vast scientific knowledge, technical innovations beyond imagination less than a century ago, and the Earth's resources are very really stretched to far. This is not a simple lack of knowledge, this is the place where humanity finds out it has over-extended its reach. We're using resources at a rate so exponentially higher than those old-time civilization crises that it's incomparable.
The solution: cut out the dead weight. I'd say at least 5.9 billion, leaving only the select whom I deem worthy. We can use the bodies to make biodiesel and have plenty of oil for the rest of us for untold millenia! :mwaha
Feh, just try and show me something else that'll actually work. :P
I donated to your booth as AC, I get to live, right? right? :<
At some point, we will reach our limits, and people will starve. This is how population has always been kept in check: the scarcity of food and competition for it. The population boom we have seen in the past few centuries is primarily related to the fact that we have been able to extend our ability to produce food well beyond what nature can provide unaided. The use of oil is very strongly responsible for allowing us to reach the point where we are now, and the loss of that energy source may well leave us with a population far beyond our means to provide for. Unlike Alondro, I do believe that we can discover or develop a replacement for oil fuels that will allow us to avoid the suffering that will come with the loss of oil, but efforts need to be made to produce that replacement
before it becomes necesary, or lots of people
will die.
At some point, humanity will grow to the point where limited resources will cause starvation and death(and probably war... all that's missing is pestilence), but I hope it will be far enough in the future I don't have to live through it.
Quote from: Reese Tora on July 18, 2008, 10:46:54 PM
I donated to your booth as AC, I get to live, right? right? :<
At some point, we will reach our limits, and people will starve. This is how population has always been kept in check: the scarcity of food and competition for it. The population boom we have seen in the past few centuries is primarily related to the fact that we have been able to extend our ability to produce food well beyond what nature can provide unaided. The use of oil is very strongly responsible for allowing us to reach the point where we are now, and the loss of that energy source may well leave us with a population far beyond our means to provide for. Unlike Alondro, I do believe that we can discover or develop a replacement for oil fuels that will allow us to avoid the suffering that will come with the loss of oil, but efforts need to be made to produce that replacement before it becomes necessary, or lots of people will die.
At some point, humanity will grow to the point where limited resources will cause starvation and death(and probably war... all that's missing is pestilence), but I hope it will be far enough in the future I don't have to live through it.
No oil=no plastics.
Hospitals use a hell of a lot of plastics to treat EVERYTHING. Without plastics, hospitals lose their ability to treat diseases as effectively. Pestilence soon follows.
As you see, they're all there. War, however, is simply a constant in Africa/Middle-east. It just depends on how large a conflict you consider a war to be and that'd be splitting hairs.
Quote from: Valynth on July 18, 2008, 11:25:51 PM
No oil=no plastics.
Hospitals use a hell of a lot of plastics to treat EVERYTHING. Without plastics, hospitals lose their ability to treat diseases as effectively. Pestilence soon follows.
As you see, they're all there. War, however, is simply a constant in Africa/Middle-east. It just depends on how large a conflict you consider a war to be and that'd be splitting hairs.
Right, but we recycle plastic (which also uses much less energy than producing it new from oil) and if we stop using oil as fuel then the current supplies will be able to provide plenty of new plastic to replace what can't be recycled and account for population growth for quite a while. (one chart I found had non-fuel uses of oil at 15% of total usage in the US, but I don't know how accurate it was... obviously, some uses, like Jet fuel, will not be so easy to replace as gasoline or diesel.)
also keep in mind a few cunning scientists have devised a way to turn fructose into a petroleum like substance that can be used to make plastics and pharmaceuticals. it cant be done on the scale needed to be fuel, but its a viable way to turn waste foodstuffs that have spoiled into useful materials.
Quote from: Reese Tora on July 19, 2008, 12:19:57 AM
Right, but we recycle plastic (which also uses much less energy than producing it new from oil) and if we stop using oil as fuel then the current supplies will be able to provide plenty of new plastic to replace what can't be recycled and account for population growth for quite a while. (one chart I found had non-fuel uses of oil at 15% of total usage in the US, but I don't know how accurate it was... obviously, some uses, like Jet fuel, will not be so easy to replace as gasoline or diesel.)
Actually, plastic recycling isn't as effective as that. The facilities that produce the recycled plastic can only run at a profit with government grants. On it's own, the recycled plastic industry would crumble because the plastic you get from it is an inferior grade, and it takes a significantly greater amount of power to recycle it (assuming you want the same quality) as opposed to producing more from oil. Infact, the only things you can recycle effectively for repeated use and run at a cheaper price are metals like steel, iron, aluminum, etc. And Paper recycling can really only give you those crappy paper cup-holding plates you get at a drive-through resteraunt.
Anyway, the reason plastic recycling isn't as effective is that while yes, you get SOME of the plastic back, you LOSE a lot of it, this is because plastic is a series of molecules and every time you re-work the substance those molecules get shoved around and many of them break into various other compounds. Metal recycling on the other hand is looking for raw elemental components with very few if any molecular bindings, which can be achieved by essentially throwing the metal into the forge. This cuts out the mining since forging is designed to only leave one particular element, not an entire series of molecules as with plastics.
Also, keep in mind that most of our plastics are actually PRODUCED in other countries, so of course the U.S. use of oil for plastics is low.
Quote from: Valynth on July 19, 2008, 01:43:58 AM
Actually, plastic recycling isn't as effective as that. The facilities that produce the recycled plastic can only run at a profit with government grants. On it's own, the recycled plastic industry would crumble because the plastic you get from it is an inferior grade, and it takes a significantly greater amount of power to recycle it (assuming you want the same quality) as opposed to producing more from oil. Infact, the only things you can recycle effectively for repeated use and run at a cheaper price are metals like steel, iron, aluminum, etc. And Paper recycling can really only give you those crappy paper cup-holding plates you get at a drive-through resteraunt.
Anyway, the reason plastic recycling isn't as effective is that while yes, you get SOME of the plastic back, you LOSE a lot of it, this is because plastic is a series of molecules and every time you re-work the substance those molecules get shoved around and many of them break into various other compounds. Metal recycling on the other hand is looking for raw elemental components with very few if any molecular bindings, which can be achieved by essentially throwing the metal into the forge essentially cutting out the mining since forging is designed to only leave one particular element, not an entire series of molecules as with plastics.
If I recall, glass is actually pretty easy to recycle as well, or at least much better than plastic. Can anyone check on this? As for the plastics thing, I recall reading that you actually have to add plastic into the recycling process just to get something good out of it, which just screams inefficient to me.
Quote from: Jairus on July 19, 2008, 01:47:20 AM
If I recall, glass is actually pretty easy to recycle as well, or at least much better than plastic. Can anyone check on this? As for the plastics thing, I recall reading that you actually have to add plastic into the recycling process just to get something good out of it, which just screams inefficient to me.
Clear glass yes, but colored glasses are a different story (since they have other elements in them giving them their color).
More often than not a glass maker will toss out the smalled colored glass shards and keep the larger ones to use in making designs, but the colored glass shards don't typically get melted completely down.
Quote from: Valynth on July 19, 2008, 01:51:55 AM
Quote from: Jairus on July 19, 2008, 01:47:20 AM
If I recall, glass is actually pretty easy to recycle as well, or at least much better than plastic. Can anyone check on this? As for the plastics thing, I recall reading that you actually have to add plastic into the recycling process just to get something good out of it, which just screams inefficient to me.
Clear glass yes, but colored glasses are a different story (since they have other elements in them giving them their color).
More often than not a glass maker will toss out the smalled colored glass shards and keep the larger ones to use in making designs, but the colored glass shards don't typically get melted completely down.
Ah, that does make sense. Thanks for clearing that up.
Quote from: Valynth on July 19, 2008, 01:43:58 AM
Also, keep in mind that most of our plastics are actually PRODUCED in other countries, so of course the U.S. use of oil for plastics is low.
Do you know which stages of production of plastic goods are done in other countries, and which are domestic?
In any case, when you consider that the US uses three or four times more oil per year than the next highest consuming country, and a country producing plastics for the US will most likely be a developed country that will also have a high fuel consumption level, and that (if the numebrs of the chart I found are to be believed) more than 50% of our oil usage is in cars and trucks.
(of course, there's a lot more open space in the US than in other developed countries, and we may well have a higher per capita use of fuel for transportation than other nations due to increased travel distances)
the chart I have referenced these apst two posts is here:
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2008/01/326-detailed-breakdown-of-us-petroleum.html
note that I consider the numbers suspect for being third hand, but lacking any better source, it's what I've got to work with.
note, also, that it lists palstics at only 10.3%; I said 15% because I lumped in asphalt and then rounded up to the nearest 5% to account for limited production through otehr sources and miscelaneous stuff that may well fall under other catagories.
Quote from: Reese Tora on July 19, 2008, 02:13:19 AM
Quote from: Valynth on July 19, 2008, 01:43:58 AM
Also, keep in mind that most of our plastics are actually PRODUCED in other countries, so of course the U.S. use of oil for plastics is low.
Do you know which stages of production of plastic goods are done in other countries, and which are domestic?
In any case, when you consider that the US uses three or four times more oil per year than the next highest consuming country, and a country producing plastics for the US will most likely be a developed country that will also have a high fuel consumption level.
Last I heard, China wasn't exactly a "developed nation." It's getting there, yes, but not quite. Also, China uses more oil than we do now, but people keep throwing "per capita" as if that means jack-squat in the fields of supply-demand (it only counts in, wait for it....MARKETING!).
Also the fact that many of our refineries are aging and shutting down with no replacements in sight (there was a lot of huplah about that when gas prices first went up), seems to suggest that they're outsourcing that too.
Quote from: Valynth on July 19, 2008, 02:38:59 AMLast I heard, China wasn't exactly a "developed nation." It's getting there, yes, but not quite. Also, China uses more oil than we do now, but people keep throwing "per capita" as if that means jack-squat in the fields of supply-demand (it only counts in, wait for it....MARKETING!).
Also the fact that many of our refineries are aging and shutting down with no replacements in sight (there was a lot of huplah about that when gas prices first went up), seems to suggest that they're outsourcing that too.
China is developing, and I would question whether or not they are producing the plastic or simply making products our of 'raw' plastic produced elsewhere. (which would make that plastic no more appear on China's consumption than on the US's consumption, if consumption is measured by where the oil stops being oil.)
as for numebrs, according to the CIA fact book(according to a site I got via google; more suspect numbers, I'm afraid), as of June 14th, 2007:
#1 United States: 20,730,000 bbl/day
#2 China: 6,534,000 bbl/day
#3 Japan: 5,578,000 bbl/day
#4 Germany: 2,650,000 bbl/day
#5 Russia: 2,500,000 bbl/day
This agrees with the numbers that I've been seeing elsewhere on oil consumption.
Yes, the US refineries are at capacity, we aren't allowed to build more, we aren't allowed to expand them, we aren't allowed to drill for more oil.(well, not exactly on taht alst one, but...)
These are problems with governent, though, and won't solve the real problem if we ever can fix them.
I have the perfect solution to this problem.
Rubber-band cars.
Pedal to wind up the rubber band, then let it go and steer to where you wanna go.
-or- do like the Flintstones and run you car manually =3
-or- invent flying cars that run on solar and water power |D
Quote from: Brunhidden on July 04, 2008, 03:04:23 PM
its simple, a hydrogen car has been kicked around for so long and in places like Norway they're already setting up roads equipped with enough stations capable of supplying hydrogen that you could easily just 'gas' up and go. the only emission is water, and all you really need is a reliable source of electricity and clean water.
And don't forget Iceland. They may be small, but they sure are crafty when talking about energy.
Quote from: Mowser on July 09, 2008, 10:32:43 AM
Am I alone in enjoying this?
Oh my, no. The level of this conversation is way above the average and knowledge that people have shown here is really impressive compared to few other places where I've seen this same topic being argued over. Gosh, we're even talking about chemistry in here <3
Now here's my humble acorn:
There's only one substance than is vast enough to cover the lack of oil, that is water. Sadly, the -effective- fusion power is still out from our reach, meaning we
should cut down the consumption of gas. I'm putting more emphasis on the word "should", because there's no way anyone is going to do that. Could you live with out a car for a week?
If we replace oil with ethanol, we need more fields for crops, leading the rise of expenses in food industry. We would probably have to cut down eating meat.
If we replace oil with electricity, the need for power rises. More power plants. More expensive electricity. Same problem.
Methane? uhh.... why not? It's just a greenhouse gas. Not that hard to obtain, really.
Quote from: Omega on July 20, 2008, 03:12:51 PMThere's only one substance than is vast enough to cover the lack of oil, that is water. Sadly, the -effective- fusion power is still out from our reach, meaning we should cut down the consumption of gas. I'm putting more emphasis on the word "should", because there's no way anyone is going to do that. Could you live with out a car for a week?
At best, I can go a week and a half without my car, but that's because A) I live in a place where every store I could need to go to is within about two or three miles (i.e. walking distance) and B) because I like walking. The only times I drive are when I visit my family (about a hundred miles away from where I live) or when I need to do a shopping trip for food and stuff like that. Most of the time it's closer to five days or so (again, family visitation is to blame).
And this really is getting to be an interesting conversation.
Could we cut down those few trips then? Could the food be delivered to you (and to everyone else?) after you'd order it from on-line? Do you have to see your relatives IRL, wouldn't you settle for video phone or text messages? What Alondro said about decreasing the human population isn't so far fetched idea after all. The problem in that is how, who and by what right.
Quote from: Omega on July 20, 2008, 03:51:24 PMCould we cut down those few trips then? Could the food be delivered to you (and to everyone else?) after you'd order it from on-line? Do you have to see your relatives IRL, wouldn't you settle for video phone or text messages? What Alondro said about decreasing the human population isn't so far fetched idea after all. The problem in that is how, who and by what right.
The problem is that the reason I visit my family so much is because I have a job every other weekend down there, and I also go down to visit when my dad has a sound job that he needs help on. Like this weekend where we had to do sound for a big Blues festival.
As for getting the food delivered... well, that is a possibility. I'll think about it.
And decreasing the human population: why don't we try to stabilize the growth instead of actually lowering it. That should be slightly easier, and it'll still buy us some time to fix our problems. Partly because I'm a little worried about the line "decreasing the human population." You're right in asking how, who, and by what right.
I can't force anyone of you to do anything (or I won't force you.)
Still, I'd advice you to use a train for long distances instead of airplanes and your bike for short distances more often. IF you don't want to cut down the use of cars, bear in mind that soon you might have no choice in the matter.
I don't really see the reason why to whine the high gas prices when, people in Europe and Asia pay way more for the gasoline than Americans.
Here's (http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/05.06.28.Gasaconda-X.gif) a picture to cheer the mood for you.
I'm curious Omega, on train vs. plane, for some distances, I think you might do better to take a plane. I'm not sure, but I would think that an airplane might gain an advantage over particularly longer distances. And not that I have anything better than dead reckoning to back that up on, but I'm wondering if you do.
Quote from: modelincard on July 20, 2008, 10:18:31 PM
I'm curious Omega, on train vs. plane, for some distances, I think you might do better to take a plane. I'm not sure, but I would think that an airplane might gain an advantage over particularly longer distances. And not that I have anything better than dead reckoning to back that up on, but I'm wondering if you do.
Planes really only have the advantage of being able to cross almost any sort of terrain in a straight line, where as a train's tracks have to weave around obstacles and can't cross the oceans. Newer "frictionless" trains, however, might be able to make up for that land problem with sheer speed, but the oceans still pose a problem.
Even then, trains are the best choice in terms of fuel efficiency since they don't need the several hundred-thousand pounds of lift that airplanes do and the frictionless train generate their lift by electro-magenitism which relies on energy more than direct fuel usage.
Quote from: modelincard on July 20, 2008, 10:18:31 PM
I'm curious Omega, on train vs. plane, for some distances, I think you might do better to take a plane. I'm not sure, but I would think that an airplane might gain an advantage over particularly longer distances. And not that I have anything better than dead reckoning to back that up on, but I'm wondering if you do.
I live in a land of over a hundred thousand lakes, vast forests and wet swamps. Train traffic is horrible in here. It's expensive and very uncertain. The trains are late every other day even more often in winter, when the tempature drops down belove twenty degrees of celsius. Still, I prefer travel made by train over plane. When flying into another country, things get different. One does not simply travel from Helsinki to Madrid on tracks. I think that an effective range of trains is from 100km to 800km. Longr than that might take too much time to travel to most people.
Quote from: Valynth on July 21, 2008, 02:39:26 AM
Quote from: modelincard on July 20, 2008, 10:18:31 PM
I'm curious Omega, on train vs. plane, for some distances, I think you might do better to take a plane. I'm not sure, but I would think that an airplane might gain an advantage over particularly longer distances. And not that I have anything better than dead reckoning to back that up on, but I'm wondering if you do.
Planes really only have the advantage of being able to cross almost any sort of terrain in a straight line, where as a train's tracks have to weave around obstacles and can't cross the oceans. Newer "frictionless" trains, however, might be able to make up for that land problem with sheer speed, but the oceans still pose a problem.
Even then, trains are the best choice in terms of fuel efficiency since they don't need the several hundred-thousand pounds of lift that airplanes do and the frictionless train generate their lift by electro-magenitism which relies on energy more than direct fuel usage.
Freight trains have a fuel use to cargo ratio orders of magnitude greater than the largest(and therfore most efficient) airplanes. What airplanes have that trains don't is speed, and trains could make up some of that simply by improving the existing network of rails we have in the US on with the current technology. (The system is in disrepair in many places, and efficiency has been let slip and scheduled trip lengths increased rather than fix the problems.)
Electromagnetically lifted trains need to get their lift power from somewhere, whether it comes from a powerplant burning coal, oil, or just gathering sunlight, and they only offer an advantage in speed and the smoothness of the ride; you would likely not use them for mass cargo transport because it would probably be as expensive as flying without being as fast.
Quote from: Omega on July 20, 2008, 03:51:24 PM
Could we cut down those few trips then? Could the food be delivered to you (and to everyone else?) after you'd order it from on-line? Do you have to see your relatives IRL, wouldn't you settle for video phone or text messages? What Alondro said about decreasing the human population isn't so far fetched idea after all. The problem in that is how, who and by what right.
Might makes right. Evolution says so. :mwaha
Actually, oil is not the only thing you can make plastic out of. soy can do too.
Here in Brasil, cars that can run on both ethanol and gasoline are becoming a standard, and natural gas is constantly becoming a pretty common fuel as well, wherever city a gas station with natural gas show up, it starts filling up with natural gas-enabled cars relatively quickly.
More efficient means of transportation is a great idea, but the structural requirements are immense. buses will travel just as fast if not slower than cars if there's no specific driveway, trains need a lot of space too or to spend a LOT making a subway, and you just can't make an airport anywhere you want, mountain-filled places will make landing too difficult.
I think the car design needs to change as well. most of the time people drive alone in cars designed to put up to 5 people in it, meaning a huge load of power is used with no need at all. if all people in the world used motorbikes whenever they wanted to go somewhere alone, today we possibly woudn't even be in a enviromental/fuel crisis.
Also in some large cities, the streets are so overcrowded with cars that riding a car is no longer considered an effective mean of going anywhere. In São Paulo, the average car speed is 17km/h - any healthy person runs faster than that on foot. It would be a good idea to start investing in bikes, europe has got positive results by making it easier for people to go around in bikes
Then seriously, they need to stop thinking wheat is even a choice for fuel. too few energy per acre and pollutes more than sugar cane. also if they start using wheat for fuel you run out of wheat for food, which is a major deal, if they use sugar cane for fuel you just don't get sugar, which is in general good for your health. also, not sure if it's valid for wheat as well, but newer techniques allow to process the whole sugar cane plant into fuel
Quote from: Stygian on July 04, 2008, 12:48:13 PMAnd we need Brazil to go fuck itself. Because seriously, those people are...
Do you read National Geographic? I swear to all that is unholy, if you ever read more than five issues of that magazine, you'll begin to develop a hatred for all of South America too.
wow thanks a LOT[/sarcasm] :censored
Quotethe aircar is an ingenious idea i cant figure out why nobody thought of it either- your 'gas tank' is actually three large compressed air tanks under the car, and the car runs on compressed air being released into the engine.
If I remember correctly, mythbusters tried to do so, and managed to move a boat only a few meters with dual 65 litre tanks
thats boat, not car, and mythbusters not a team of highly trained mechanics, engeneers, designers, machinists, metallurgists, and so fourth.
Quote from: Omega on July 21, 2008, 04:10:18 AM
I live in a land of over a hundred thousand lakes, vast forests and wet swamps. Train traffic is horrible in here. It's expensive and very uncertain. The trains are late every other day even more often in winter, when the tempature drops down belove twenty degrees of celsius. Still, I prefer travel made by train over plane. When flying into another country, things get different. One does not simply travel from Helsinki to Madrid on tracks. I think that an effective range of trains is from 100km to 800km. Longr than that might take too much time to travel to most people.
Personally, to me that just sounds like people need to learn to allocate their time, and like we need better trains and railways. Because no one will ever convince me that modern airlines are an efficient means of transportation, no matter how much I like the technology involved. Effective, yeah, but not efficient.
Myself, unless time is very short, I cover any distance below 15 km by bike on principle. And fast. Often I go longer than that in one stretch. And I think that more people should. It would help increase national health too. The problem is just that for lots of people, high-earners in particular, the money they save on driving to work in work hours outweighs the money that fuel and even such things as 'crowding tax' (introduced to the Stockholm area recently to cut down on in-city driving) will cost them.
At least I've managed to get my dad (one of those high-earners) to bicycle to work every so often...
Quote from: Alondro on July 21, 2008, 10:38:55 AM
Might makes right. Evolution says so. :mwaha
*cough* dinosaurs *cough*
Quote from: Jack McSlay on July 21, 2008, 01:05:32 PMQuotethe aircar is an ingenious idea i cant figure out why nobody thought of it either- your 'gas tank' is actually three large compressed air tanks under the car, and the car runs on compressed air being released into the engine.
If I remember correctly, mythbusters tried to do so, and managed to move a boat only a few meters with dual 65 litre tanks
If I remember correctly, the mythbusters were using the air as a jet for propulsion; the air car (they already exist) uses a pneumatically powered engine that translates the energy of the compressed air more efficiently to the drive shaft(think of a jack hammer/air-hammer, as sued in construction/demolition, it uses a carefully designed pistona rangement to slam a bit with enough power to shatter rocks and cement)
Of course, my complaint is that avery venue I've seen examining it makes the mistake of thinking that the air engine could turn an alternator to power a compressor to charge the air tanks and... you see where this is going? yeah, perpetual motion deosn't work, kthxbai.
however the aircar does have a small gas engine on it for emergencies- the gas motor powering a compressor is far more efficent in miles per gallon in the end then a normal gas motor would be.
the numbers i had heard was that one tank of air and one emergency tank of gas could last someone from new york to san francisco, with the motor kicking in just long enough to refill the air.
My two cents: Anything that's powered by steam can be powered by compressed air. Infact in order to get anything from compressed air you'd have to use a steam engine only instead of using the pressure of expanding water vapor as a power source you use the stored pressure in the air tank.
Quote from: Omega on July 21, 2008, 07:01:26 PM
Quote from: Alondro on July 21, 2008, 10:38:55 AM
Might makes right. Evolution says so. :mwaha
*cough* dinosaurs *cough*
The asteroid was stronger. So it won.
>:3
Quote from: Valynth on July 22, 2008, 02:41:52 AM
My two cents: Anything that's powered by steam can be powered by compressed air. Infact in order to get anything from compressed air you'd have to use a steam engine only instead of using the pressure of expanding water vapor as a power source you use the stored pressure in the air tank.
My two irrelevant cents: The steam engine - certain steam turbines more specifically - is the only type of mobile engine developed so far that is capable of rivaling high-tech, high-efficiency common-rail diesel engines in terms of fuel efficiency, both nearing the 50% mark in terms of how much of the fuel's energy is actually used for power and propulsion.
Quote from: Stygian on July 22, 2008, 04:28:17 PM
Quote from: Valynth on July 22, 2008, 02:41:52 AM
My two cents: Anything that's powered by steam can be powered by compressed air. Infact in order to get anything from compressed air you'd have to use a steam engine only instead of using the pressure of expanding water vapor as a power source you use the stored pressure in the air tank.
My two irrelevant cents: The steam engine - certain steam turbines more specifically - is the only type of mobile engine developed so far that is capable of rivaling high-tech, high-efficiency common-rail diesel engines in terms of fuel efficiency, both nearing the 50% mark in terms of how much of the fuel's energy is actually used for power and propulsion.
The steam engine also has the advantage for being able to use anything that generates heat as fuel. Infact all powerplants use the exact same engine, but the only differences are in the the types of fuel they use. Diesel engines, however, can only run on diesel.
Infact, back when tractors were powered by steam most farmers would take the harvested cornstalks and use those for fuel. Unfortunately such tractors are also VERY dangerous.