Friday, November 16, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Ethanol Education
First off, we can not replace oil with ethanol. (Unless Algae magically solves itself)
We just don't have enough land or water to accomplish it.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol.pnghttp://greyfalcon.net/ethanol6
Second off, Ethanol is not compatible with any existing infrastructure or vehicles.
Politicians demand we build vast new infrastructure to support it. (Which is weird since Butanol doesn't need any of that)
Makes one wonder if they are ignorant of this, or what their motivations are.
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Butanol
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/butanol/index.html
Third off, the only reason car companies even built FlexFuel vehicles in the first place is to LOWER their Fuel Economy requirements.
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/09/cafe-loophole.html
Fourth off, globalized biofuel production causes more global warming overall than Oil.
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Solar panels are 100x more effecient than Sugarcane.And the maximum theoretical limit of photosynthesis is 11% solar efficiency. (Which is pathetic)
http://greyfalcon.net/sugarsolar
The only reason why Switchgrass looks good is that they cook the books.
They make the titantic assumption that the entire production infrastructure uses renewable energy.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol4.png
The only reason corn looks at all good is because they inflate the dubious value of animal feed additive as a coproduct.
http://greyfalcon.net/corn
Incidentally cattle have a huge impact on global warming.
(Half of it comes from land use practices. Like deforrestation to create pasture.)
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/12/un_report_globa.html
http://www.greyfalcon.net/soy
Cattle Ranchers have been revolting over the price hike of corn, since ethanol coproduct can only supply a small portion of an animals diet.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17706399/
Brazil is not "independant from oil". Merely foreign oil. Most of their fuel comes from domestically drilled Oil.
http://greyfalcon.net/brazil.png
Ethanol does not help farmers. It runs them out of business.
http://greyfalcon.net/farmers
http://greyfalcon.net/farmers2
Meanwhile MegaAgrobusiness takes the porkbarrel.
http://greyfalcon.net/farmers3
High blend Ethanol actually increase Ozone and Smog.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol2
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol3
Ozone is perhaps responsible for as much as 50% of the Artic melting effect.Which is a huge issue since it's removing gigantic reflective surfaces from the earth.And replacing it with heat absorbing land and ocean. (In an area which gets 24/7 sunlight half the year)
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/troposphere_ozone.html
Ethanol production plants emit 2.5x the ammount of air polution as a chemical plant.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol5
Fertilizers and Pesticides nearly all comes from Natural Gas.
http://energy.seekingalpha.com/article/33925
The Natural Gas market volitility makes Oil look tame.
http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh80041_2007-05-11_19-44-08_n11452609_newsml
Natural gas is also needed to provide the electricity to refine ethanol, or something cleaner.Ethanol created using Coal electricity, which is common, yields no reduction in CO2 emmisions. Infact it's worse than gasoline.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol4
BioDiesel planted in the tropics causes rainforrest deforrestation, which is 10x worse than petroleum in CO2 emmisions.
http://greyfalcon.net/palmoilhttp://greyfalcon.net/soy
Gigantic plantings of ethanol crops in the US has reduced our soybean crop.This has causes Brazil to be the largest exporter of soy bean. (Where by more deforrestation happens, canceling out any benefit from the ethanol)
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0516-ethanol_amazon.html
Rainforrests in particular are an issue since they also REFLECT the sunlight equator with evaporated water.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/planting_trees.php
There is the blind hope that Algae might be able to solve ALL of these vast problems associated with Ethanol production. But according to NREL experts, we're better off waiting for successful cold fusion. (i.e. Don't hold your breathe)
http://greyfalcon.net/algaehttp://greyfalcon.net/algae2
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More or less, Ethanol, BioFuels, and Hydrogen are all there to provide a false sense of accomplishment.
They are dragged out to show you "evidence" that politicians, car companies, and oil companies are socialy responsible. (When they aren't)
And they are pushed as a way to distract the public away from real solutions.
Those real solutions being,
PARTIALLY: Compressed Natural Gas, Ultra Clean Diesels
PRIMARILY: Hybrids, Plugin Hybrids, and Fully Electric Vehicles.
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And on that front.Toyota has backed down on upgrading their Prius.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/30/toyota-to-delay-introduction-of-lithium-ion-batteries-in-the-pri/
And GM won't have a realistic Plugin Hybrid on the market until 4 years from now.
(i.e. Too long, and easy to delay it even further.)
http://www.greyfalcon.net/volt
Don't trust oil companies, and car companies to self incriminate their current business model.
They will continue to overpromise and underdeliver.
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It's up to new companies to break the mold, and give us revolutionary electric cars.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/electriccars.pnghttp://www.greyfalcon.net/phoenixsuv.png
Ones which even if driven on the dirtiest coal electricity availible would be like a Prius in emmisions.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/plugins3
We have MORE than enough existing electrical capacity to support electric cars for the next decade without even building 1 new power plant.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/plugins4
And driving on electric "fuel" is dirt cheap. 50-70 cents to the the gallon (equivalent).
http://www.greyfalcon.net/pluginshttp://www.greyfalcon.net/volt
Hell, virtually every major car manufacturer already uses quickcharge electric forklifts to build our cars.
http://www.posicharge.com/ford.html
http://www.posicharge.com/5-0.html
http://www.towerautomotive.com/02.htm
And we can already charge electric cars up for hours of driving in 1 minute.
(Assuming new "gas station" style infrastructure)
In the long term, 100% electric should be absolutely no problem.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/30/aerovironment-successfully-quick-charges-altair-nanotechnologie/1
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/11/altair_nanotech.html
http://www.altfuels.org/events/otherafv/quikchrg.html
Electric is the future. Anything else is just a distraction brought on by deciet or naivety.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
BioDiesel
Note, this is something I wrote in reply to someone's unyielding support of BioDiesel.
Are you prepared to look at the other side of biodiesel?
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First off,
Is recycling waste vegetable oil good? Yes!
But it's hardly the best way to use it.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/biodiesel.png
http://www.insidegreentech.com/node/376
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18589/
Second, what's your position on using Coal to make diesel?
http://www.sierraclub.org/compass/2007/03/ctl-wtf.asp
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0302/p02s01-ussc.html?page=1
Third, whats your position on using something much worse than Coal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQIKWe-wYTA
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2214
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1659036,00.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/analysis_and_features/article2516619.ece
That said, how about Soy Beans?
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17404
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3900919.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4561189.stm
http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=3016&language=1
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7907725/
A real irony with Brazil?
Biofuels capital of the world, and they have HORRIBLE air pollution.
Their solution? Electric Hybrid Buses, and only allowing people to drive every other day.
At best, even Algae wouldn't be possible to grow in the oceans
(Cause the ocean ecosystem is fragile enough as is)
And on land, you'd need to feed it a concentrated stream of CO2 emmisions
(Something which would only come from fossil carbon. Coal powered biodiesel)
One of the best experts on this subject says bluntly that, much like cold fusion, the claim of practical Algae anytime soon are primarily hype.
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That said, are you aware of where that Seattle BioDiesel would come from? (specifically Imperium Renewables)
20% from Malaysian Palm Oil
79% from Canadian Canola
1% from American Soy/Canola
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And what are the supposed benefits of BioDiesel?
Low Sulfur?
Thats already mandatory in existing diesel fuel since October 2006 to a degree comparable or better than biodiesel.
Reduced Particulates/Carcinogens?
Advanced Particulate filters are already mandatory in all diesel vehicles produced after January 2007.
For which there's plenty of federal grant programs to retrofit in new filters.
Certainly CO2 emissions can't be claimed.
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So what do we have left?
Poor cold weather performance.
Expensive taxpayer subsidies. (Billions of dollars a year)
Nearly all the Methanol comes from fossil fuel Natural Gas (Which is fast becoming more price-volitile than Oil)
http://www.naturalgas.org/overview/uses_industry.asp
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/10/business/wbmarket11.php
And incomplete tranesterification leads to clogging of fuel injectors. (Perhaps the real killer since it's near impossible to test for)
http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=1179
Perhaps the one benefit from biodiesel?
A 1-2% blend is a cost effective additive to restore lubricity to the post October 2006 fuel. (i.e. No need for a subsidy)
http://www3.me.iastate.edu/biodiesel/Pages/biodiesel4.html
For everything else, we're better off not using biodiesel.
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Believe me, I very much wanted to believe in BioDiesel.
But I can't find myself supporting it now that I know better.
Just like hydrogen, it has absolutely nothing to do with creating sustainable alternatives. It's all about creating something which "Sounds Good" but is technically impossible.
Funneling billions of tax dollars into projects which will do nothing to move us forward.
All the while deflecting attention and funding away from real solutions. (Like Electric Cars)
Friday, May 18, 2007
Tobacco versus Climate Change
Clips from the movie "Thank You for Smoking"
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Movie Trailer
The Beauty of Arguement
Cancer Boy
Smoking versus Global Warming
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War on Tobacco science, War on global warming science
CEI gets the first ever formal complaint to a business from the British Royal Society (Oldest Scientific Organization on Earth)
40 minute Documentrary: "The Denial Machine"
20 years of CEI lobbying (Organization bankrolled by ExxonMobil over $2 billion)
"Nicotine is not addictive"
Sunday, April 29, 2007
"Electric Ferrari"
A proof-of-concept that electric cars can be: Powerful, practical, and sexy.
Catch, is it's $90,000 retail.
Way it gets the range is by using a massive array of laptop batteries. (Lithium Ion)
The Prius and the old EV1 use NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride Batteries)
Don't quite offer the punch of Lithium Ion.
Past Lithium, you have NanoLithium Batteries,
and Nano UltraCapacitors being developed that plan to shatter existing limits.
Allowing for recharge speeds in minutes, with driving ranges well above those of conventional cars.
Inbetween there, you have plugin hybrids electric vehicles. (PHEV)
Which are essentially electric cars, with a backup gasoline generator for extended range.
Like the upcoming GM Volt.
If you want to really get into some gritty details on the Tesla for various stuff:
Check their whitepaper.
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All the while, the generating capacity of cars nationwide is 20x larger than our electricity grid.
(About 29,000GWh versus 2,700GWh)
By borrowing some of that capacity, wind and solar could become just as reliable as coal or natural gas.
And help stabalize the electricity grid, saving billions in yearly generation costs.
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Tesla goes over pretty well Why Electric is the superior choice for the future.
Starting off with, that it's 3x more energy effecient than fuel cell cars.
Biomass in an electric power plant, or diesel generator is 2x as effecient than BioFuels.
But I think the best example was that it takes about 32x less land to do solar than ethanol.
Even the very best farm crops are only 1-2% effecient at converting sunlight into energy.
Solar electricity can be anywhere between 10-35% effecient. (And double or triple that in the future)
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Why are we wasting our time with Ethanol and Hydrogen?
Bring on the Electricity :)
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