Comments Ben Furman has made
alternatives to food-crops-as-fuel
"Nobody makes it from algae, so, why promote using biodiesel from food crops? Why not support funding for research into algae and wait rather than pillage and hope?"
Actually, lots of people are making it from algae, and we should indeed support them with further funding. Algae have the additional benefits of remediating of other waste problems such as water and air contamination (see efforts by MIT spinoff greenfuelonline.com). They even fix their own nitrogen, allowing for the reduction of NOx. The main hurdle is that the high oil-yielding species aren't robust enough to be grown in open ponds. Rather, they need to be grown and harvested in a closed system.
I'd like to see permacultures all over the place for both food and non-food uses. I have the utmost respect for the work of the Land Institute. It's also good to have some clarity against quick-fix schemes. Nevertheless, I think butanol from cellulose is really very promising. It also takes money from major corporations to get things accomplished, so I'm glad that DuPont and BP are at least willing to get their feet wet. The return on energy invested for any biofuel will max out at around 3:1, which pales in comparison to petroleum's 50:1. Still, that's a net positive, and we need to look forward with hope rather than despair.On Find out which cars can run on ethanol and biodiesel posted 2 years, 10 months ago 13 Responses
alternatives to food-crops-as-fuel
"Nobody makes it from algae, so, why promote using biodiesel from food crops? Why not support funding for research into algae and wait rather than pillage and hope?"
Actually, lots of people are making it from algae, and we should indeed support them with further funding. Algae have the additional benefits of remediating of other waste problems such as water and air contamination (see efforts by MIT spinoff greenfuelonline.com). They even fix their own nitrogen, allowing for the reduction of NOx. The main hurdle is that the high oil-yielding species aren't robust enough to be grown in open ponds. Rather, they need to be grown and harvested in a closed system.
I'd like to see permacultures all over the place for both food and non-food uses. I have the utmost respect for the work of the Land Institute. It's also good to have some clarity against quick-fix schemes. Nevertheless, I think butanol from cellulose is really very promising. It also takes money from major corporations to get things accomplished, so I'm glad that DuPont and BP are at least willing to get their feet wet. The return on energy invested for any biofuel will max out at around 3:1, which pales in comparison to petroleum's 50:1. Still, that's a net positive, and we need to look forward with hope rather than despair.On A look at the impacts of biofuels production, in the U.S. and the world posted 2 years, 10 months ago 13 Responses