Alternatives to fossil fuels (science discussion)

[swiss powda]

Fission: Is here. That's the process that runs your neighborhood new-kular reactor. It's also what makes big bombs go boom.

Cold Fusion is still hypothetical.

"Hot" Fusion (Hydrogen filled glass spheres heated by lasers) is only being sustained for about a few milli-seconds, right now, but that's a huge increase since they started working on it decades ago. They'll get there.

Disclaimer: My Dad's a plasma physicist for the Dept. of Energy. They're doing their darndest - really they are.

good deal, but if you've got access to a library with science type journals, go check out IEEE's September issue of Spectrum. Interesting article about advances in cold fusion research. Probably won't be a solve-all, but there are some good applications. Though once we get fission under control on a large scale, I think it'll solve most of our energy problems. Good luck to your dad.

edit: yay for 100 posts from a mostly lurker!

[sea2ski]

I don't, not in this country. Most American cities, and particularly the suburbs where millions live, were built around the automobile and the premise that you can get anywhere in ten minutes ... going 35-50 MPH. Cities in Holland were built, presumably, for foot traffic or horse and buggy--certainly closer to bike speed.

Plus it's tough to carry two kids and four bags of groceries on your bike. That's the practicality of the masses I was talking about.

I have to disagree with you on this point. The 40 largest cities in the US all exsisted prior to the invention of the automobile and in fact most of them developed around the major transportation methods of the past, boats, trains and horse/carriage. It is the way the cities have been developed since then which is the problem.

There are always three factors which effect the means by which someone will travel. Cost, time and ease of use/availability. Americans have made a choice to utilize the car as the major source transportation and we have continued to support the infrastructure that continues this trend. For example, when roads become overcrowded effecting the time factor of this equation we add more lanes to the road or make new roads. Look at how much government money goes to build roads versus alternative means of transportation and you will see that how we spend our community money(tax dollars) is how we want to live.

There is a car culture in America. The only thing that I see that will change that culture is increased world demand for the resources necessary to support the car culture or population growth within the United States. Till it gets to a point where most Americans are priced out of the car culture or get tired of gridlock/traffic delays, I don't see things changing.

[Schmear]

Excellent points, but I would go even further than stating that there is a car culture in America: America and the automobile are synonymous. It's the American dream to own a car, not just a house. I doubt that will change even if gas prices soar to ridiculous levels like those in Roo's country.

Anyway, I'm not at all anti-bike, I'm just trying to imagine the average American (overweight, weather-wussie) switching to pedal power, and I can't see it.

Summit, what changes have been made at nuclear plants today to make them safer/more efficient than 20 years ago? And I agree that nuclear power gets a worse rap than it deserves.

[char]

HEMP!

No seriously, off the top of my head:

Solar
Wind (solar and wind both have the same problem, inconsistant supply, which neccessitates massive storage capacity and a redesign of the power grid -globally)

Nuclear (not a whole lot of easily accesible fuel left if we ramp up use)

Hydrogen (not really an alternative to fossil fuels since so far since the current proposals are to make hydrogen out of fossil fuels.)


China is actively researching using Hydopower to produce "clean" hydrogen and start a move towards that sort of energy system which will allow them to break free of fossil fuels.

I've got a really good article that I'll try and link to if anyone really wants to read a prospectus of future energy supply.


Edit- Roo has the best idea so far, the best move the US can make is to start pushing people out of their cars and onto mass transit.

[Schmear]

the best move the US can make is to start pushing people out of their cars and onto mass transit.

What if the busses and trains run off the same fuel the cars do? Are busses than run off of natural gas really that cleaner?

[lemon boy]

DJSapp-

I'm going to take just a few moments to atempt to disabuse you of some preconceptions that you have.

1. Bio-Diesel does not require distillation (but ethanol does) instead BioD is made by chemically cracking veggie oils (you end up basically with three end products, BioD, Glyceryne (sp?) and methanol (which is added to effect the cracking and is recoverable). It is easy and efficient, you can make it at home (safely)

2. BioD does not require corn based manufacture, instead most BioD is made from soy (currently in the US) and the industry is moving to oil-seed plants instead for their superior oil yield/acre.

3. Diesel engines will, with very little modification, run happily on filtered veggie oil (it just has to be brought up to engine operating temp aka: straight vegtable oil or "SVO").

4. We already have all of the tech to transition a fair part of the national infrastructure.

5. As petro based fuel costs continue to spiral upwards we will move to a point where Bio-D/SVO becomes economically feasable (as a straight first use of the veggie matter) weaning the ag industry of the govt. teat.

6. Instead of millenia to convert solar energy into a portable fuel only a few months are required

7. Emissions from bio-d combustion are in fact very different from dino-d, specifically it is carbon negative (the plants take in more carbon than is eventually released during its combustion) and there is none of the traditional diesel soot associated with bio-d (the soot is actually a carcinogen). About the only pollutant that bio-d is equivalent to its dino cousin is NOx.

8. Spills of bio-d/SVO are environmentally much less dangerous than their dino counterparts

9. The biggest problem IMVHO with a genuine conversion to veg based combustion engines is the probable demise of what little natural grasslands/wetlands we have left as even marginally productive land is converted to energy production.

For my part, I am a Nukular, PV, Veg combustion proponent until fusion becomes a reality (and a proponent of using the existing petrochemicals up as fast as we can)

[sea2ski]

[QUOTE=Schmear]Excellent points, but I would go even further than stating that there is a car culture in America: America and the automobile are synonymous. It's the American dream to own a car, not just a house. I doubt that will change even if gas prices soar to ridiculous levels like those in Roo's country.

Anyway, I'm not at all anti-bike, I'm just trying to imagine the average American (overweight, weather-wussie) switching to pedal power, and I can't see it.
QUOTE]

I hear what your saying but there is a tipping point at which the current American automobile culture can't sustain itself. If the average household earns a pre tax income of $45,000 which is about where average HH income is these days. Bye bye taxes, social security and you're probably in the neighborhood of $35,000 after taxes depending on where you live. Figure 60% of that after goes to cover housing costs(I believe this is what landlords use as a percentage when approving renters). So now your down to less than half that figure, $21,000. If the cost of owning a car and maintaining it is currently around $6000 annually ($300 monthly car payment, $100 monthly in insurance, $100 gas/repairs per month). This is pretty inexpensive where I live. You now have $1250 with which to cloth, feed, entertain and cover medical expenses for that household for a month.

This may not seem so bad but if you take the fuel part of the equation and make it triple, five times or ten times what it currently is, things become very different. Not only because the cost of the car becomes more expensive but because the cost of your clothing, food etc. is going to go up as well because the additional transportation costs are generally passed on to the consumer. Maybe Americans don't mind a lower standard of living more than they enjoy their cars but markets forces of supply and demand will take over at some point.

I think I've gotten off the topic a little but I think there will always be a point where supply and demand start dictating what public policy needs to be whether we like it or not. As the saying goes "Necessity is the mother of invention."

[Gregbo]

Couple of thoughts -
First - Fuel Cell technology - the puppies burn hydrogen - create electricity and the by-product is water!

Second: Bio Fuels

How much does the government pay farmers every year to NOT Grow corn etc. It all can be converted to alchohol and either blended with diesel or gas - it requires some engine work but it's not difficult.

By-product - you can drink it too.....

[DJSapp]

DJSapp-

I'm going to take just a few moments to atempt to disabuse you of some preconceptions that you have.

1. Bio-Diesel does not require distillation (but ethanol does) instead BioD is made by chemically cracking veggie oils (you end up basically with three end products, BioD, Glyceryne (sp?) and methanol (which is added to effect the cracking and is recoverable). It is easy and efficient, you can make it at home (safely)

You are correct sir. In my haste to post like a ninja at work, I rolled ethanol into bio-d without noting that. Thank you for correcting me.

2. BioD does not require corn based manufacture, instead most BioD is made from soy (currently in the US) and the industry is moving to oil-seed plants instead for their superior oil yield/acre.

And how many acres of farmland will it take to make a sizeable and sustainable dent into the US oil demand? What happens when we have a drought?

3. Diesel engines will, with very little modification, run happily on filtered veggie oil (it just has to be brought up to engine operating temp aka: straight vegtable oil or "SVO").

4. We already have all of the tech to transition a fair part of the national infrastructure.

True. I wasn't arguing that the technology didn't exist.

5. As petro based fuel costs continue to spiral upwards we will move to a point where Bio-D/SVO becomes economically feasable (as a straight first use of the veggie matter) weaning the ag industry of the govt. teat.

Or we could begin to extract fuel from the oil shale in Utah, using the infrastructure that was built up and later abandoned in the late 70's and early 80's during the oil crisis. There are many options once the price starts going up.

6. Instead of millenia to convert solar energy into a portable fuel only a few months are required

Ok.

7. Emissions from bio-d combustion are in fact very different from dino-d, specifically it is carbon negative (the plants take in more carbon than is eventually released during its combustion) and there is none of the traditional diesel soot associated with bio-d (the soot is actually a carcinogen). About the only pollutant that bio-d is equivalent to its dino cousin is NOx.

The entire supply chain might be negative, but COx and NOx are still emmited from the tailpipe, and into our lungs. As for the leftovers from the chemical cracking, can they be composted, treated, or taken to a HazMat facility? Where does that carbon go? Are we just trading COx in the air for COx in a landfill?

8. Spills of bio-d/SVO are environmentally much less dangerous than their dino counterparts

No argument.

9. The biggest problem IMVHO with a genuine conversion to veg based combustion engines is the probable demise of what little natural grasslands/wetlands we have left as even marginally productive land is converted to energy production.

BINGO! To supply the US with enough bio-d we'd have to devote shitloads (read: all) of our land to soy and veg oil production on top of what we need to feed our overweight nation. And not to mention the water and pesticides required to keep the plants alive. Keep in mind in most midwestern states (where the bulk of this fuel would grow), farmlands drain into aquifers and rivers, thus making their pollution everyone's problem. In CA, water is hard enough to come by, if we had to devote more to grow our fuel the state might go into civil war.

Bio-d is a great idea on a small scale, but when you look at the big picture, it gets ugly reeeeeeeal fast. We'd be better off covering the entire US with solar farms and driving electric cars than covering the land with veg oil farms.

For my part, I am a Nukular, PV, Veg combustion proponent until fusion becomes a reality (and a proponent of using the existing petrochemicals up as fast as we can)

And for the record, I am a Nuke, Wind, Solar, fuel cell proponent. I can't wait until gas hits $7.00 a gallon in the US.

[13]

I think I've gotten off the topic a little but I think there will always be a point where supply and demand start dictating what public policy needs to be whether we like it or not. As the saying goes "Necessity is the mother of invention."

Oil supplies are finite it is being consumed at an astonishing rate, so the necessity will be upon us sooner than we think.

Within my lifetime, maybe?

[summit]

Oil supplies going so fast... what will certain contries that rely on oil production do when their wells are dry or the world no longer wants their black gold?

cold fusion:

not just science fiction anymore, but nobody's paying attention except for the Navy.

edit: but in the mean time, let's stop being ignorant eco-pussies and build more nuclear reactors

People are watchign "cold fission research." Something odd seems to be happening in those expiriments... but Fusion? Highly highly doubtfull...

Disclaimer: My Dad's a plasma physicist for the Dept. of Energy. They're doing their darndest - really they are.

Tell him the taxpayers are expecting the NIF to do cool things!!! (stick a cockroach in it... take pics!)

Summit, what changes have been made at nuclear plants today to make them safer/more efficient than 20 years ago? And I agree that nuclear power gets a worse rap than it deserves.

In the last 20 years? New regulations, new SOPs, new requirements for redundancies in water systems, new pressure valve requirements, fire control and chemical detection systems, new training and personell reliability requirements, larger NRC inspection programs and more frequent and stringent inspections... that kind of stuff.

For new reactors? Newer designs are more inherently fail safe and require less external machinery to be fail safe. Some newer designs allow for smaller efficient reactors that can be distributed for a more efficient grid. Some newer designs are faster, easier, and safer when it comes to refueling. Etc...

HEMP!
Nuclear (not a whole lot of easily accesible fuel left if we ramp up use)

Hydrogen (not really an alternative to fossil fuels since so far since the current proposals are to make hydrogen out of fossil fuels.)

Actually there are massive amounts of usable fuel that is currently classified as "nuclear waste." This would allow massive amoutns of nuclear power generation before we ever considered expanding mining operations. The methods involve fuel reprocessing and breeder reactors.

A normal BWR or PWR LEU reactor only uses about 15% of the U-235 in its fuel during a fuel cycle. If that "spent fuel" is reprocessed to remove fission product poisons, it can easily be reenriched for reuse! This drastically decreases the amount of actual nuclear waste that must be stored (or shot into the sun with a maglev launcher). (incidently we have enough Am-242m in our current "waste" to power a whole fleeet of thin film fission reactor powered space vessels that could travel between planets in our solar system relatively quickly (can you say astroid mining?))

Breeder reactors involve making more usable fuel than you started out with! Politicians are generally scared of these because they tend to produce large amounts of isotopes usable for weapons and if other countries were to buidl breeders then they might have said SMN stolen for weapons (however I'm of the opinion that no government should allow a reactor in its country unless it can keep track of the involved SNM). So our current reactors rely on U-235 which is only ~0.6% of natural Uranium. 99.3%+ of natural U is U-238 which really isn't usefull for fission on it's own. However, you can transmute it into Pu-239 in a breeder reactor through neutron capture: 238U + 1n -> 239U -> 239Np + b- -> 239Pu + b-. Wow! Now you have new fissile material from a stray neutron from your original fission reaction! We can all thank Jimmy Carter for killing the US breeder reactor program.

Even with mining and expanded nuclear power plants, there are still very large amounts of economically viable Uranium deposits (I have a book with the figures but its in a box right now).

Re Hydrogen... hyrdogen production using nuclear/wind/tidal seems like agood idea...

[/bored on a saturday night]

[swiss powda]

People are watchign "cold fission research." Something odd seems to be happening in those expiriments... but Fusion? Highly highly doubtfull...

found the article on the IEEE Spectrum website....

Cold Fusion Back From the Dead

also bored on a Friday night, and now I'm going to bed.

[powpig]

Technology is not the problem. It's all about control and the perpetuation of the status quo. The internal combustion engine has been obsolete for 50 years. There are people running cars on water. The problem is the powers that be will and are doing anything they can to prevent these technologies from reaching the mainstream. Inventors are plentiful and many better mousetraps have been built. Why do we not hear about them? Imagine what is being used to power the super secret military bases like Area 51. Clean, safe unlimited energy. Nikola Tesla knew how to do it and wanted to share it with the world. He died a poor broken man.

If anyone really wants what we're talking about in this thread, prove it and vote that way. We're talking about change, and we'll never get the change we desire by perpetuating the status quo. That means no Democrats or Republicans. Support change, vote for qualified 3rd party candidates.
Put up or shut up!

[lemon boy]

dj-

A couple of follow up points:

Check out a thing called Hubbert's curve (or peak). Oil production is soon to peak, this takes into account the oil shale (very expensive and destructive to mine/process) ANWR and shale mining are just a matter of time.

The US has a lot of surplus ag capacity, when fuel prices reach such a point that ag facilities will be better employed ($) in fuel production than food it will happen, best to plan for it I say. Also, we can customize the fuel sorce much more with Ag products not grown for human consumption.

Q: Is the removal of the US as a consumptive factor in oil related geopolitics worth our removal from need based grain provider to the world?

Again, at the end of the day I am undecided which set of options presents the most realistic and beneficial solution. There is nothing that has no negative consequences set. I do not (nor do I think anyone else does either) have enough information at this point to choose the least evil.

RE: Carbon cycle.

Petrochemicals have carbon locked in them that has been out of the atmosphere for a LONG time and therefore any combstion of petrochemicals releases "new" CO2.

Plants take CO2 out of the atm (existing CO2) and solidify/liquify it into plant matter. Not all the plant matter is converted and as such some portion remains with the plant (the negative part), the plant matter converted to oil is combusted and the CO2 is released (existing CO2 = the nuetral part). There is only so much carbon (O2) on the planet, the problem is not its existence but the amount of carbon we humans are changing from very old solid/liquids to "new" atmospheric gases.

The NOx is "new" of course and that is no greater a problem than with petrochemical based fuels.

RE: Byproducts

Journey to forever has a much better discussion of what to do with glycerine than I could ever cover: http://www.journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_glycerin.html
that site is a fucking awesome resource for info on alternative fuels/hippie livin

[Idris]

Sorry if I'm aready repeating what others have said (not enough net time to read all the replys)

In europe the jetta diesel is not an economical car...it is a normal car!...The USA had the best electric production car in the world! the GM-EV1...do a search....it was just too good, hence it no longer exists....but as others said, the problem is laziness and greed, I am guilty I only bike if its less thn half an hour, my car at home only does 64mpg and the one I drive here does 26mpg

[maddog]

The thing I like about nuclear power is that we have to contain the waste. We can't just pump it into the air or water like we do with our other energy waste products.

The thing I don't like about nuclear power is that we have to contain the waste. We can't just pump it into the air or water like we do with our other energy waste products.

[peterslovo]

For those of you who have diesel cars or trucks, convert them into a greasecar and run on used vegetable oil. Restaurants are only too willing to give you their grease (since they have to pay to have it picked up and properly disposed of). http://www.greasecar.com/

You still need diesel (or biod) to start your car and get the grease to a running temp, but once that is done, switch to grease and go...

[lemon boy]

IMVHO www.greasel.com has a better conversion than greasecar.

--------------------------

Heard that there are some aussies pushing Synroc solutions:
http://www.uic.com.au/nip21.htm