bio fuels are not limitless. Quite the opposite. They compete with things like ...er, food, for growing space. They are no replacement for solar and other renewables. Nor are they 'green'. This is junk science.
Solar uses up space, too. But corn-based ethanol is the stupidest idea for a fuel source, ever. Soybean-based biodiesel at least produces significantly more energy than is put into making it, but ideally biofuels should be made using waste material and specialized crops on marginal land unsuitable for growing food.
So stupid! This is a step backwards as far as I'm concerned, and converting more farmland away from food production, and more towards energy production is not going to help food costs. And how the heck would you charge the stupid thing? You'd have to buy fuel for it, which seems far less convenient than simply plugging it into a wall. I think that hydrogen fuel cells are much more advantageous in this respect: They don't use biofuels, they can simply be plugged in to be recharged, and they're clean energy assuming that the power supplied through your wall outlet is clean energy. No nasty byproducts either like battery acid.
What I simply meant was that the means to produce such a fuel was made via plants, which are grown. The last time I checked, that's pretty much the definition of a renewable energy source: "any naturally occurring, theoretically inexhaustible source of energy, as biomass, solar, wind, tidal, wave, and hydroelectric power, that is not derived from fossil or nuclear fuel."
I'm talking from a realistic point of view here. Sure you'd be taking some land away from farming, but guess what? You wouldn't be relying on oil companies to serve you your daily amount of tectonic byproduct!
Solar power?????? Seriously? You don't get much more solar than plants! They use the sun's energy to produce sugar, which we can refine into certain fuels (be it bio-diesel or ethanol or methanol; pick the one which has the most theoretical output of course). And while the plants are growing, they absorb the carbon being outputted from the machines that burn their fuel!
And as for hydrogen, while it may be the most abundant element in the universe, almost none of it exists naturally on Earth. Practically all of it is chemically combined with other elements (e.g. H2O). Guess where they get the hydrogen from? Water. Guess how they do it? They use electricity to separate Hydrogen from Oxygen. Due to the chemical makeup of water, you get about twice as much hydrogen as oxygen from the process, but it takes energy to separate them. And guess where that energy comes from? Fossil fuels.
I don't disagree with everything. I do agree that it would be awesome to put these plots on land unsuitable for food production. And use some of the methane from waste sites to help fertilize the plants.
I hope this clears some things up. I'm sure you won't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong.
Hydrogen fuel cells can be designed to convert water into hydrogen themselves, thus becoming "recharged" which would, of course, take energy from an outlet to do. You wouldn't need to actually purchase hydrogen to charge your phone or laptop. You might have to top it off with water on occasion, which is handily available at your faucet.
These biofuel solutions, as you state, are at best, carbon-neutral. This is, obviously, better than fossil fuel burning, but its not really feasible at all to clear cut enough forest on the planet to power our needs. You'd be destroying a huge chunk of biodiversity.
With hydrogen fuel cells, presently they would not be carbon neutral, since most places are powered by some form of fossil fuels, however the technology, to me, seems a bit more advanced, less crude, and has the ability, with the development of more clean energy sources, to have no carbon footprint at all.
I watched an interesting article on wind power a week or two ago, and from what I saw, it would be a much more feasible option than biofuels as a fix for the oil addiction.
Hydrogen's energy density sucks. Remember, it's a gas while methanol is a liquid. Liquid methanol at ambient conditions has about 3 times the energy density of hydrogen, and that's with hydrogen stored at around 10,000 psi. I would like to see the "charger" for a hydrogen fuel cell phone that electrolyzes water to produce hydrogen, then pressurizes it to 10,000 psi! Crazy.
By the way, cow dung has a higher energy density than hydrogen. If you don't like methanol, I propose you run your phone off of crap as the more feasible alternative to hydrogen.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike10010100 @ May 4th 2008 11:35AM
Cool! Almost limitless renewable energy powering our mobile gadgets!
(If they use bio-methanol)
ScooterDe @ May 4th 2008 3:40PM
bio fuels are not limitless. Quite the opposite. They compete with things like ...er, food, for growing space. They are no replacement for solar and other renewables. Nor are they 'green'. This is junk science.
Rob @ May 4th 2008 6:19PM
Solar uses up space, too. But corn-based ethanol is the stupidest idea for a fuel source, ever. Soybean-based biodiesel at least produces significantly more energy than is put into making it, but ideally biofuels should be made using waste material and specialized crops on marginal land unsuitable for growing food.
Adrian @ May 4th 2008 7:31PM
So stupid! This is a step backwards as far as I'm concerned, and converting more farmland away from food production, and more towards energy production is not going to help food costs. And how the heck would you charge the stupid thing? You'd have to buy fuel for it, which seems far less convenient than simply plugging it into a wall. I think that hydrogen fuel cells are much more advantageous in this respect: They don't use biofuels, they can simply be plugged in to be recharged, and they're clean energy assuming that the power supplied through your wall outlet is clean energy. No nasty byproducts either like battery acid.
Correct me if I'm wrong, please!
Jonathan @ May 4th 2008 8:04PM
Hydrogen fuel cells need to be recharged with... hydrogen. Last time I checked power outlets don't usually supply hydrogen either.
Mike10010100 @ May 4th 2008 8:23PM
Woa there.
What I simply meant was that the means to produce such a fuel was made via plants, which are grown. The last time I checked, that's pretty much the definition of a renewable energy source: "any naturally occurring, theoretically inexhaustible source of energy, as biomass, solar, wind, tidal, wave, and hydroelectric power, that is not derived from fossil or nuclear fuel."
I'm talking from a realistic point of view here. Sure you'd be taking some land away from farming, but guess what? You wouldn't be relying on oil companies to serve you your daily amount of tectonic byproduct!
Solar power?????? Seriously? You don't get much more solar than plants! They use the sun's energy to produce sugar, which we can refine into certain fuels (be it bio-diesel or ethanol or methanol; pick the one which has the most theoretical output of course). And while the plants are growing, they absorb the carbon being outputted from the machines that burn their fuel!
And as for hydrogen, while it may be the most abundant element in the universe, almost none of it exists naturally on Earth. Practically all of it is chemically combined with other elements (e.g. H2O). Guess where they get the hydrogen from? Water. Guess how they do it? They use electricity to separate Hydrogen from Oxygen. Due to the chemical makeup of water, you get about twice as much hydrogen as oxygen from the process, but it takes energy to separate them. And guess where that energy comes from? Fossil fuels.
I don't disagree with everything. I do agree that it would be awesome to put these plots on land unsuitable for food production. And use some of the methane from waste sites to help fertilize the plants.
I hope this clears some things up.
I'm sure you won't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong.
Adrian @ May 4th 2008 11:29PM
Hydrogen fuel cells can be designed to convert water into hydrogen themselves, thus becoming "recharged" which would, of course, take energy from an outlet to do. You wouldn't need to actually purchase hydrogen to charge your phone or laptop. You might have to top it off with water on occasion, which is handily available at your faucet.
These biofuel solutions, as you state, are at best, carbon-neutral. This is, obviously, better than fossil fuel burning, but its not really feasible at all to clear cut enough forest on the planet to power our needs. You'd be destroying a huge chunk of biodiversity.
With hydrogen fuel cells, presently they would not be carbon neutral, since most places are powered by some form of fossil fuels, however the technology, to me, seems a bit more advanced, less crude, and has the ability, with the development of more clean energy sources, to have no carbon footprint at all.
I watched an interesting article on wind power a week or two ago, and from what I saw, it would be a much more feasible option than biofuels as a fix for the oil addiction.
mrpoo @ May 5th 2008 1:53PM
Hydrogen's energy density sucks. Remember, it's a gas while methanol is a liquid. Liquid methanol at ambient conditions has about 3 times the energy density of hydrogen, and that's with hydrogen stored at around 10,000 psi. I would like to see the "charger" for a hydrogen fuel cell phone that electrolyzes water to produce hydrogen, then pressurizes it to 10,000 psi! Crazy.
By the way, cow dung has a higher energy density than hydrogen. If you don't like methanol, I propose you run your phone off of crap as the more feasible alternative to hydrogen.