04-28-2008, 04:29 PM
Still burning cane on Maui? You got me there [B)]
The smoke, the ashes, and such like are not healthy to have in the air. The real downer is the destruction to the soil -- burns up the nitrogen and potassium, and destroys microbial life. Plus, it is not necessary, just convenient for passing the cost on to other places and other generations.
There is no panacea fuel or machine or any other gizmo gimmick that is going to address the security, environmental, and economic shortcomings of this petroleum-dependent situation.
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Alber Einsten
As for biofuels: look at joules (energy) per land area. Oil palm will always win out. Food? Yes, it is edible; which is an advantage, not a disadvantage. Inedible crops (e.g., jatropha) still take up land space, but have fewer potential uses and lower efficiency in terms of land area. In addition to oil for fuel, oil palm (as well as other cotton crops such as soybean and sunflower) also yields a high protein meal that is a good livestock feed, or, if preferred, an excellent fertilizer. Except, that is the fruit flesh of oil palm where fuel or cooking oil is extracted, where as it is the seed of other crops that is used for oil extraction. With the oil palm, that seed or 'kernel' also yields a useful oil, generally for non-fuel industrial purposes. And, the kernel meal is also useful for feed or fertilizer.
Jatropha's potential is greatest is harsher growing environments. Is it likely to go weedy?
As a general matter, with existing technologies, biodiesel is much more energy efficient than ethanol -- amount of energy out for the total amount of energy in. A promising, but not-yet-if-ever commercialized technology is cellulose alcohol for ethanol.
For power, diesel engines are used because it does better in tractors, backhoe diggers, etc.
for the low-speed, high rpm, workload under a strain.
Conservation is very well developed, convenient, and readily accessible. We just need to do more of it.
James Weatherford, Ph.D.
15-1888 Hialoa
Hawaiian Paradise Park
The smoke, the ashes, and such like are not healthy to have in the air. The real downer is the destruction to the soil -- burns up the nitrogen and potassium, and destroys microbial life. Plus, it is not necessary, just convenient for passing the cost on to other places and other generations.
There is no panacea fuel or machine or any other gizmo gimmick that is going to address the security, environmental, and economic shortcomings of this petroleum-dependent situation.
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Alber Einsten
As for biofuels: look at joules (energy) per land area. Oil palm will always win out. Food? Yes, it is edible; which is an advantage, not a disadvantage. Inedible crops (e.g., jatropha) still take up land space, but have fewer potential uses and lower efficiency in terms of land area. In addition to oil for fuel, oil palm (as well as other cotton crops such as soybean and sunflower) also yields a high protein meal that is a good livestock feed, or, if preferred, an excellent fertilizer. Except, that is the fruit flesh of oil palm where fuel or cooking oil is extracted, where as it is the seed of other crops that is used for oil extraction. With the oil palm, that seed or 'kernel' also yields a useful oil, generally for non-fuel industrial purposes. And, the kernel meal is also useful for feed or fertilizer.
Jatropha's potential is greatest is harsher growing environments. Is it likely to go weedy?
As a general matter, with existing technologies, biodiesel is much more energy efficient than ethanol -- amount of energy out for the total amount of energy in. A promising, but not-yet-if-ever commercialized technology is cellulose alcohol for ethanol.
For power, diesel engines are used because it does better in tractors, backhoe diggers, etc.
for the low-speed, high rpm, workload under a strain.
Conservation is very well developed, convenient, and readily accessible. We just need to do more of it.
James Weatherford, Ph.D.
15-1888 Hialoa
Hawaiian Paradise Park