From pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com Mon Mar 5 17:07:43 2007 From: pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com (Tem Tarriktar) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 17:07:43 -0800 Subject: [Energy] local re-use -- web service Message-ID: <174F3040-F365-4C1C-85DD-A7B3BE31CB8D@mountainastrologer.com> Original message New site allows you to donate/find free items near you ? What do you guys think about this? Like craigslist, but easier to use. Here is the press release from the company: (ST. LOUIS, MO) ? You?ve heard the saying ?one person?s trash is another person?s treasure.? On January 1, 2007 this adage will come to life on the Internet. That date marks the launch for Gigoit.org, a free online service designed to help people get rid of reusable items by putting them in the hands of people who want them. The end result: keeping usable items out of the landfills. This new service is called ?Gigoit? (g?'g?'?t) ? an acronym for ?garbage in, garbage out.? It is the brainchild of Peter Schmalfeldt and John Kramlich, two St. Louis entrepreneurs who together envision what could potentially become the largest donation center on the Internet. ?Our goal is to provide communities with a free venue where people donate their unwanted items to folks who want them -- right in their own communities,? Schmalfeldt said. It?s a common problem in this era of ?disposable everything? ? individuals and organizations are regularly faced with the problem of deciding what to do with items that are still useable but that they no longer need. What do you do with the old refrigerator when you get a new one? What to do with perfectly good hand-me-downs but no one to hand them down to? On the other side of the equation are individuals and organizations that suddenly find they need something, but either can?t afford a new one or don?t have the time or patience to navigate the shopper classifieds or rummage sales. Gigoit to the rescue! With Gigoit - http://www.Gigoit.org - it?s simple to use your zip code to acquire or unload an item. New users may register for an individual or organization account. Instead of heavy-handed moderators, the site employs a unique user-run rating system which promotes user trust and responsibility. ?We believe our site should be grown by the people who will be using it, and the users will heavily impact the direction and services Gigoit will provide,? Kramlich said. ?We expect this to be a great way for people to get their reusable items to people in their community who want and need them. It?s a win-win situation for everyone.? Gigoit is a non-profit organization and is funded by donations and ad revenue. Proceeds will not only go to operating expenses for Gigoit.org, but also to other non-profit organizations as determined by the users of the web site. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070305/cabc1d69/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: transparent.gif Type: image/gif Size: 43 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070305/cabc1d69/attachment.gif From pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com Sat Mar 10 16:07:06 2007 From: pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com (Tem Tarriktar) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:07:06 -0800 Subject: [Energy] The EU bans incandescent bulbs by 2009 Message-ID: Two years to change EU light bulbs (27 countries ban incandescent bulbs) ? Ordinary light bulbs are to be banned across the European Union within two years in the fight against climate change. The 490 million citizens of the 27 member states will be expected to switch to energy-efficient bulbs after a summit of EU leaders yesterday told the European Commission to "rapidly submit proposals" to that effect. Environmentalists said the change would save the public up to ?5.4 billion a year in fuel bills and also about 20 million tonnes of carbon emissions every year. The energy that would be saved in the UK is equivalent to one medium- sized power station. The announcement came as EU leaders agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels and pledged to increase this to 30 per cent if other developed countries followed suit. http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=380442007 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070310/92a6dd3f/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: transparent.gif Type: image/gif Size: 43 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070310/92a6dd3f/attachment.gif From aperdat at starband.net Fri Mar 23 22:41:40 2007 From: aperdat at starband.net (Mary Nelson) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 22:41:40 -0700 Subject: [Energy] No Free Lunch Message-ID: <009901c76dd7$1965b2c0$d79b3f94@Aperdat> Published on Thursday, March 22, 2007 by Inter Press Service Biofuels Boom Spurring Deforestation by Stephen Leahy Nearly 40,000 hectares of forest vanish every day, driven by the world's growing hunger for timber, pulp and paper, and ironically, new biofuels and carbon credits designed to protect the environment. Read at.... http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0322-01.htm And, as with any major change in the economics of energy, or global warming, or whatever is next, the poorest will suffer first. MaryN "Society is seriously handicapped because its two most important intellectual underpinnings, the science of matter-energy and the historic system of finance, are incompatible." -- M. King Hubbert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070323/2a1e3364/attachment.html From thinkingman at sbcglobal.net Fri Mar 23 22:59:17 2007 From: thinkingman at sbcglobal.net (M Schultz) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 22:59:17 -0700 Subject: [Energy] No Free Lunch In-Reply-To: <009901c76dd7$1965b2c0$d79b3f94@Aperdat> References: <009901c76dd7$1965b2c0$d79b3f94@Aperdat> Message-ID: <96601FDC-14A4-4791-8EB1-CD56FD303DF0@sbcglobal.net> There is Biofuels and then there are other Biofuels. Marston January 26, 2007 Making Biofuel from Pond Scum by Shelley Schlender Oil-rich plants such as soy may offer a cleaner energy alternative to diesel fuel, but Jim Sears says these food crops can't meet all our diesel needs. The Colorado-based entrepreneur says, even in America's bountiful croplands, farmers couldn't grow enough oilseed crops to meet demand. "Right now," [Sears] points out, "if we were to use all the normal sources we know about, such as canola oil, soy, things like this to make biodiesel, the industry thinks they could make 3.7 billion liters a year. That sounds like a lot, but Americans currently use 227 billion liters of diesel a year." Fortunately, Sears says, an unconventional crop could produce 100 times more biodiesel per hectare than either canola or soy. It can thrive in places where other crops can't grow at all, and it only requires the equivalent of 5 centimeters of rain a year. It's algae, a small but familiar plant, usually seen as a green scum that forms on ponds or aquarium glass. To demonstrate his crop's potential, Sears leads the way inside a former coal-fired electric power plant, now the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory at Colorado State University (CSU). CSU and Sears' small company, Solix Biofuels, have teamed up for this research. Sears passes a two-story tall engine that may soon be running on his biodiesel, and heads to a quieter room where test batches of algae grow in glass beakers. The water ranges from pale yellow to soft Irish green, thanks to millions of microscopic algae. Biologist Nick Rancis lifts a favorite specimen. "Here we have a species of green algae that grows in fresh water. As you can see, it grows very high density. You can't even see through it when you hold it up to the light." He says this strain produces enormous amounts of fat: up to 50 percent of its body weight. And while producing oil from soy or canola generally requires a three to five-month growing season, some algae are so prolific, over half a batch can be harvested for oil production every day. "They can double or triple overnight," Rancis says. For industrial production, the researchers are designing enormous growing troughs, wider than two trucks side by side, as long as a football field, and grouped by the thousands around processing plants. In this way, Sears says, algae could supply all the U.S. diesel power on a fraction of the nation's farmland, just one percent of the 400 million hectares now under cultivation. "Actually we wouldn't have to convert any of our arable land," [Sears] observes. "We could use desert land to grow this algae. It doesn't require good soil. Just flat land, carbon dioxide and sunlight." Carbon dioxide helps algae grow fast and fat, so the team plans to siphon it from fossil fuel power plant exhaust, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And Sears says there are other ways to get the gas. "It would actually start with biomass such as switch grass or wood, where in some countries are the only type of fuel that they have anyway. In that case, the grass, the trees, the wood is pulling the carbon dioxide out of the air, then we burn it as fuel and feed the carbon dioxide to the algae." He stresses that no carbon will be added to the atmosphere during all these energy conversion steps, making biofuel from algae is a truly carbon-neutral technology. "It's essentially solar powered fuel." To conserve water, the growing troughs are sealed. The algae grows under a clear plastic lid that allows in plenty of sunlight, but keeps the water the plants are floating in from evaporating. "It is about 1,000 times more efficient to produce fuel from algae than it is from an irrigated crop," Sears says. "There's enough water even in the desert from natural rainfall to support this technology." Affordable biodiesel is an important focus of the research team, and Bryan Willson, who directs this Engines and Energy Conversion Lab, says the projections look promising. "We believe the technology could be cost competitive with $50 a barrel oil, which is basically where we are right now. Even last year, we were up to $70 a barrel." Because building a vast new production system is an enormous undertaking, Sears predicts that it will be five to ten years before biodiesel from algae becomes commonplace. However, Eric Jarvis, a senior scientist at the National Renewable Energy Lab, cautions that it may take longer. "I wouldn't expect it to meet a large demand for diesel in that time frame, but I'm hoping to see some good demonstration projects in the next 5 to 10 years." He adds that in the last two years, interest in developing systems for biodiesel from algae has grown tremendously, and he gets phone calls every week from people trying to get into this area. Whether it takes five years, a decade or a little longer, Jim Sears says he's certain that biodiesel from algae will become commonplace. He calls it "by far the most scalable and reasonable way to make biofuels in the future in an endlessly sustainable method." As he considers that future, a train whistle sounds in the distance. "That train is the train that used to bring the coal to this power plant," he comments, adding "it is one of the future customers." The National Renewable Energy Lab plans to step up their development of biodiesel from algae within the year, and they estimates that along with Colorado State and Solix Biofuels, roughly a dozen other groups around the world are developing similar projects, increasing the likelihood that someday soon, clean-burning algae biodiesel will be the fuel of choice for trucks, boats . . . and trains. Shelley Schlender is a freelance radio journalist whose features have aired nationally on Living on Earth, Making Contact, Free Speech Radio News, and Sprouts. Her radio features have aired internationally on The Voice of America. This article was reprinted from the January 22, 2007 edition of Voice of America, voanews.com. For further Information ? Solix Biofuels ? CSU: Engines & Energy Conversion Laboratory P On Mar 23, 2007, at 10:41 PM, Mary Nelson wrote: > Published on Thursday, March 22, 2007 by Inter Press Service > Biofuels Boom Spurring Deforestation > by Stephen Leahy > > Nearly 40,000 hectares of forest vanish every day, driven by the > world's growing hunger for timber, pulp and paper, and ironically, > new biofuels and carbon credits designed to protect the > environment. Read at.... > > http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0322-01.htm > > And, as with any major change in the economics of energy, or global > warming, or whatever is next, the poorest will suffer first. > > MaryN > > "Society is seriously handicapped because its two most important > intellectual underpinnings, the science of matter-energy and the > historic system of finance, are incompatible." -- M. King Hubbert > > > _______________________________________________ > Energy mailing list > Energy at apple-nc.org > http://lists.apple-nc.org/mailman/listinfo/energy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070323/8ef0816e/attachment.html From pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com Tue Mar 27 16:50:51 2007 From: pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com (Tem Tarriktar) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:50:51 -0700 Subject: [Energy] Matt Simmons slideshow on coal and natural gas Message-ID: <09967572-9664-4E06-9338-8AF4354C3797@mountainastrologer.com> Here is the link: http://www.321energy.com/editorials/simmons/simmons032307.html# From pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com Tue Mar 27 08:33:41 2007 From: pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com (Tem Tarriktar) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 08:33:41 -0700 Subject: [Energy] "Step It Up" April 14 event in GV - announcement References: Message-ID: <6A96D06D-F89C-455C-9806-2ECD4862F1B0@mountainastrologer.com> Hi everyone: Here is the finalized version of the April 14 "Step It Up 2007" Climate Change event description, both attached as a file and also pasted in as text below. We expect 400 people or more and APPLE is one of 14 groups and businesses that has been working on this, Be sure to tell your friends and feel free to e-mail this to your personal lists. --Tem ? ?Step It Up? Event Features Films, Rally, and Solutions to Global Warming Local Non-Profit Groups to Join Forces on April 14 in Grass Valley On Saturday, April 14, a coalition of Nevada County non- profit groups and businesses will show two solution-oriented films on climate change at the Del Oro Theater: "Too Hot Not To Handle" and "Kilowatt Ours." The films run from 10 a.m. until noon, and the public is welcome to attend free of charge and receive a free energy- saving CFL (compact fluorescent light) after the movies. At noon, all are invited to join a sidewalk-parade through town to Condon Park for a brown bag picnic and afternoon rally. Participants are invited to bring their own signs that are solution-focused. Jonathan Hill will donate solar panels for power during the rally. Saul Rayo and Organic Flood will provide ?Jammin? for the Planet? music. This carbon-neutral event is inspired by Bill McKibben?s ?Step It Up 2007? national day of climate action, to send a message to Congress to substantially cut carbon emissions. There are over 1,000 similar events planned around the U.S. for April 14 (see www.stepitup2007.org for updates and a full list of events). The public is encouraged to walk, bike, bus or carpool to the event. There will be a special bike caravan to the Del Oro (organized by Alliance for People Powered Transportation), assembling at the corner of South Pine and Spring Streets in Nevada City at 8:30 a.m., and people can join the bike caravan at any point along the route: Nevada City Highway to East Main on into downtown Grass Valley. Also, all Gold Stage bus routes that operate on weekends arrive near the Del Oro before 10 a.m. Those wishing to support or participate in this unique event can call 470-8642. To date, the local groups/businesses supporting or participating in the event include: APPLE (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy) APPT (Alliance for People Powered Transportation) Clean Power Cooperative of Nevada County Connie Parsons Del Oro Theater Earth Justice Ministries Greg Archbald KVMR Lew Sitzer Local Food Coalition Motherlode Energy Watch Peak Moment Television Plan-It Solar PowerUp-NC Sierra Solar Systems SNDEI (Sierra Nevada Deep Ecology Institute) Social Forum Film Series SYRCL (South Yuba River Citizen?s League) The Sierra Club -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070327/3ae12d10/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: StepItUp2007event.doc Type: application/octet-stream Size: 58880 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070327/3ae12d10/attachment.obj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070327/3ae12d10/attachment-0001.html From pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com Thu Mar 29 10:15:58 2007 From: pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com (Tem Tarriktar) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 10:15:58 -0700 Subject: [Energy] GAO Report on Peak Oil: U.S. Vulnerable & Government Unprepared for Inevitable Oil Supply Shock References: Message-ID: <64745E26-DF95-410B-BC2C-76CF683C0D6F@mountainastrologer.com> New government report on Peak Oil.... Begin forwarded message: > > > New GAO Peak Oil Report Provides Urgent Call to Action : U.S. > Vulnerable and the Government Unprepared for Unacceptably High > Risks of Oil Supply Shock > > Washington, DC - Congressmen Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and Tom Udall > (D-NM), co-chairmen of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus, held a > Capitol Hill news conference with Mark E. Gaffigan of the U.S. > Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Thursday, March 29, 2007 > to discuss the release of an embargoed GAO report that revealed the > United States is particularly vulnerable and the United States > federal government is unprepared to respond to severe consequences > from increasing and unacceptable risks of significant disruptions > to oil supplies from peak oil and other above ground political and > economic factors. "CRUDE OIL - Uncertainty about Future Oil > Supply Makes It Important to Develop a Strategy for Addressing a > Peak and Decline in Oil Production," (GAO-07-283) is now > available for downloading from the GAO website: www.gao.gov. > > Details in the attached release. > > <> > > Lisa Lyons Wright > > Press Secretary/Energy and Stem Cell Legislative Assistant > > Rep. Roscoe Bartlett > > 2412 Rayburn > > office 202-225-2721 > > mobile 202-225-9554 > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Northern California Post Carbon Network" group. > To post to this group, send email to nocalpcn at googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to nocalpcn- > unsubscribe at googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/ > group/nocalpcn?hl=en > -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- > ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070329/9bd123c1/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: GAOPeakReportBartlettUdallRel032907.doc Type: application/msword Size: 39424 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070329/9bd123c1/attachment.doc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070329/9bd123c1/attachment-0001.html From caver456 at gmail.com Fri Mar 30 09:44:28 2007 From: caver456 at gmail.com (caver456 at gmail.com) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:44:28 UT Subject: [Energy] A story from Grist Magazine Message-ID: <200703301644.l2UGiS70085538@grist2.electricembers.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070330/a1cbf1e5/attachment.pl -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070330/a1cbf1e5/attachment.html From pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com Sat Mar 31 22:16:39 2007 From: pcurrents at mountainastrologer.com (Tem Tarriktar) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2007 22:16:39 -0700 Subject: [Energy] Food vs. fuel -- some calculations Message-ID: Interesting post on food vs. fuel, from: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php? az=view_all&address=115x88378 --Tem GliderGuider Tue Mar-20-07 02:30 PM Response to Reply #15 17. Out of curiosity, what would we get if we turned ALL our food into fuel? ? Edited on Tue Mar-20-07 02:30 PM by GliderGuider I got curious - how much oil-equivalent biofuel could we make if we turned all the world's major grain and oilseed crops into fuel? I looked at ethanol from corn, wheat, rice and sugar beets. I looked at biodiesel from soybeans and rapeseed (canola). In each case I converted the entire world's crop into fuel, discounted the ethanol by 1/3 for its lower energy content, and converted to millions of barrels of oil equivalent per day. Corn: World crop (Million tonnes): 700 Litres per tonne: 400 MBOE/day: 3.2 Wheat: World crop (Million tonnes): 600 Litres per tonne: 370 MBOE/day: 2.5 Rice: World crop (Million tonnes): 600 Litres per tonne: 400 MBOE/day: 2.7 Sugar Beets: World crop (Million tonnes): 250 Litres per tonne: 108 MBOE/day: 0.3 Soybeans: World crop (Million tonnes): 270 Litres per tonne: 140 MBOE/day: 0.5 Rapeseed: World crop (Million tonnes): 55 Litres per tonne: 400 MBOE/day: 0.4 The total from turning most of our food into fuel: 9.6 MBOE/day. This is about 12.5% of the current world oil consumption. This is why crop-sourced biofuels are a bad idea in the context of transportation fuels. Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top jpak Tue Mar-20-07 02:40 PM Response to Reply #17 18. Another ridiculous canard ? No one ever claimed that biofuels could replace petroleum - no one... Energy for transport in the Post Petroleum (no)Future will be based on a variety of "fuels" - human power (bicycles and "feets"), animule power (carts & buggies), electricity, biofuels and hydrogen. ...all from renewable sources... ...and the alternative(s) is/are????? Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top GliderGuider Tue Mar-20-07 02:58 PM Response to Reply #18 19. I'm just pointing out the issues of scale. ? Edited on Tue Mar-20-07 03:24 PM by GliderGuider And yes, there are in fact a lot of people out there thinking that biofuels will save us. My point is that crop-based biofuels have no ability to replace ANY globally significant portion of petroleum, especially as supply and demand begin to diverge. A 2% loss of petroleum supply (one very gentle, early post-peak year's worth of decline) could chew up 15% of the world's food if we let it. We need to recognize that the integration of biofuels into the global transportation system needs to be done very, very cautiously, and only makes sense in quite limited applications. This has nothing to do with net energy, even, though that constrains the situation even more. It's one of those scale problems that tends to get handwaved (or ignored) a lot. If all our food could replace only 12.5% of our oil use (say 20% of our transportation requirements), how many feet, bicycles and batteries would it take to replace the other 80%? The only rational answer is that the system as it stands is not sustainable from any perspective, and that a combination of conservation, demand destruction, system realignment, system collapse and "customer reduction" is the only solution set that will bring it back into balance. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: canadian.gif Type: image/gif Size: 455 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070331/c93050b4/attachment-0002.gif From thinkingman at sbcglobal.net Sat Mar 31 23:39:28 2007 From: thinkingman at sbcglobal.net (M Schultz) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2007 23:39:28 -0700 Subject: [Energy] Food vs. fuel -- some calculations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ?? There may be an alternative biofuel source that is sustainable, that will have no effect on our food supply. Marston On Mar 31, 2007, at 10:16 PM, Tem Tarriktar wrote: > Interesting post on food vs. fuel, from: > http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php? > az=view_all&address=115x88378 > --Tem > > GliderGuider > > Tue Mar-20-07 02:30 PM > Response to Reply #15 > 17. Out of curiosity, what would we get if we turned ALL our food > into fuel? > > > > Edited on Tue Mar-20-07 02:30 PM by GliderGuider > I got curious - how much oil-equivalent biofuel could we make if we > turned all the world's major grain and oilseed crops into fuel? > > I looked at ethanol from corn, wheat, rice and sugar beets. > I looked at biodiesel from soybeans and rapeseed (canola). > > In each case I converted the entire world's crop into fuel, > discounted the ethanol by 1/3 for its lower energy content, and > converted to millions of barrels of oil equivalent per day. > > Corn: > World crop (Million tonnes): 700 > Litres per tonne: 400 > MBOE/day: 3.2 > > Wheat: > World crop (Million tonnes): 600 > Litres per tonne: 370 > MBOE/day: 2.5 > > Rice: > World crop (Million tonnes): 600 > Litres per tonne: 400 > MBOE/day: 2.7 > > Sugar Beets: > World crop (Million tonnes): 250 > Litres per tonne: 108 > MBOE/day: 0.3 > > Soybeans: > World crop (Million tonnes): 270 > Litres per tonne: 140 > MBOE/day: 0.5 > > Rapeseed: > World crop (Million tonnes): 55 > Litres per tonne: 400 > MBOE/day: 0.4 > > The total from turning most of our food into fuel: 9.6 MBOE/day. > This is about 12.5% of the current world oil consumption. > > This is why crop-sourced biofuels are a bad idea in the context of > transportation fuels. > > Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top > > jpak > Tue Mar-20-07 02:40 PM > Response to Reply #17 > 18. Another ridiculous canard > > > > No one ever claimed that biofuels could replace petroleum - no one... > > Energy for transport in the Post Petroleum (no)Future will be based > on a variety of "fuels" - human power (bicycles and "feets"), > animule power (carts & buggies), electricity, biofuels and hydrogen. > > ...all from renewable sources... > > ...and the alternative(s) is/are????? > > Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top > > GliderGuider > Tue Mar-20-07 02:58 PM > Response to Reply #18 > 19. I'm just pointing out the issues of scale. > > > > Edited on Tue Mar-20-07 03:24 PM by GliderGuider > And yes, there are in fact a lot of people out there thinking that > biofuels will save us. > > My point is that crop-based biofuels have no ability to replace ANY > globally significant portion of petroleum, especially as supply and > demand begin to diverge. A 2% loss of petroleum supply (one very > gentle, early post-peak year's worth of decline) could chew up 15% > of the world's food if we let it. > > We need to recognize that the integration of biofuels into the > global transportation system needs to be done very, very > cautiously, and only makes sense in quite limited applications. > This has nothing to do with net energy, even, though that > constrains the situation even more. It's one of those scale > problems that tends to get handwaved (or ignored) a lot. > > If all our food could replace only 12.5% of our oil use (say 20% of > our transportation requirements), how many feet, bicycles and > batteries would it take to replace the other 80%? The only rational > answer is that the system as it stands is not sustainable from any > perspective, and that a combination of conservation, demand > destruction, system realignment, system collapse and "customer > reduction" is the only solution set that will bring it back into > balance. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Energy mailing list > Energy at apple-nc.org > http://lists.apple-nc.org/mailman/listinfo/energy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070331/40548566/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: making biofuel from algae.rtfd.zip Type: application/zip Size: 19955 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.apple-nc.org/pipermail/energy/attachments/20070331/40548566/attachment.zip -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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