Re: Re: [biofuel] Question - efficiency of sunlight conversion
yeah, efficiency versus cost. It really is all about the economy, environment be damned, when we want energy. Another thing to remember is that hydrogen is the transport molecule for energy, not carbon. So going directly from wind or sun to electricity or energy is wicked efficient. That's right, I said wicked. Right now we nd to focus on fuels that work in the present infrastructure, keep talking about and using biodiesel/other mid/high distillates. And conservation. And less stuff in our lives. And cogeneration. And responsibility. And technology transfer, especially to china/india. We are a microbe on a flea on that elephant. Would be nice to kick some butt now before the lights go out... Jonathan From: Patrick Hayes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2004/09/18 Sat PM 12:39:10 CDT To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [biofuel] Question - efficiency of sunlight conversion Regarding efficiency: For solar hydrogen success, the overall cost is more important than efficiency. Depending on one's approach, a more efficient system can be significantly more expensive. For an interesting way of producing hydrogen from solar energy that doesn't get a lot of attention yet, check out the Solar Hydrogen Energy Corporation, at www.sheclabs.com. Regarding spending resources on solar generated hydrogen research and development versus promoting the use of biofuels: My belief is that both should be done heartily. We probably should not yet put all our eggs in a hydrogen basket yet, but it is wise to explore and continually attempt to innovate and develop many different potential solutions to our emissions problems. Also I would like to remind folks that hydrogen doesn't need a fuel cell to be used. Internal combustion engines in cars on the road today can be modified to burn hydrogen, and I would guess the new hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius and the hybrid Honda Civic could also. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Ski until you die ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] Hydrogen Economy (was Question - efficiency of sunlight
Hey Darryl, I agree with you, why aren't biofuels as sexy as fuel cells? Where's hollyood when you need them? I have always thought that if people could understand the idea of carbon neutrality, biodiesel and other distillates would be a no brainer. I'll take some fresh atmospheric carbon with that please, hold the petroleum. Or maybe Pamela Anderson with rapeseed oil all over her breasts. Or maybe the fast food industry instigating fatty foods ingestion to fuel our energy economy. sounds econogical Jonathan From: Darryl McMahon [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2004/09/18 Sat AM 10:18:11 CDT To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Biofuel] Hydrogen Economy (was Question - efficiency of sunlight conversion) Hi Donald, you pressed my HE button. Response in-line below. Donald Allwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip PV vs biofuel text (available at http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/38355/) As an aside, I am puzzled as to why there is so much emphasis being placed on the Hydrogen Economy at the moment, especially by the US government. Hydogen is just a way of storing and transporting energy, just as are biofuels. OK, I realise that fuel cells can theoretically deliver a greater whole-cycle efficiency than biofuels, but it seems to me that a lot of money is being spent on something that probably won't give us a cost-effective solution for at least 20 years - given that there are still a large number of technical hurdles without totally satisfactory solutions. On the other hand, biofuel technology is pretty mature - most of it is at least 100 years old - and is available now. Biofuels could be used on a very wide scale without making any major changes to the infrastructure, such as the supply chain. While it does make sense to fund research into technology that one day may be even better, it seems that this is a poor excuse for not promoting technologies that can provide real benefits today. I do sometimes wonder whether it's more about 'image' - in other words, talking about Hydrogen is trendy, in a way that for example biodiesel is not. Donald Why would a government with ties to the oil and coal industries be promoting the Hydrogen Economy? Could it be because the primary source for hydrogen today is natural gas? Or because the next source being promoted is from gasification of coal? Or because the Hydrogen Economy provides a convenient screen to hide behind for at least 20 years so the oil and automotive sectors can continue to operate in a business as usual mode in relative peace and quiet? Deflecting criticism for not developing electric (advanced battery) vehicles or electric-(bio)diesel hybrids (per PNGV) vehicles that would upset their current operations and investment? (Look how green we are! We're spending the taxpayer's money on hydrogen cars.) Or because if the Hydrogen Economy, if it actually comes to fruition, would actually increase demand for fossil fuels for the next 25-50 years? It's not because the hydrogen will be produced from sustainable energy sources - the current U.S. government is cutting support for renewables. I don't think the motivation is nearly as benign as image. As for cycle efficiency for hydrogen fuel cells, it's not nearly as rosy as advertised. Probably in the order of 5%. See slide 17 from my presentation at http://www.econogics.com/en/hydrogen.doc . Or my article at http://www.econogics.com/ev/fcevreal.htm . Or just start in at my webpage on the hydrogen economy at http://www.econogics.com/en/heconomy.htm to get the whole story. snip earlier PV vs biofuel conversation text (available at http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/38355/) -- Darryl McMahon http://www.econogics.com/ It's your planet. If you won't look after it, who will? ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Ski until you die ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] Slogan
Hey Biofuelers, Wow, lots of emails!! I saw this one and wanted to remove some misperceptions, though the exercise is quite valid if you think of coal rather than gasoline. there are two theories on the origin of petroleum, biological and abiotic. The biological origin would explain that most oil came from diatoms in the primordial sea. The diatoms (phytoplankters with a silicon shell) bloom close to the surface, die and sink to the bottom with a small drop of hydrocarbon which is their storage molecule. As these little things accumulate on the ocean floor, these hydrocarbons are heated and forced out into submarine caverns. Over billions of years present oil stores are accumulated. The reason for thinking that oil is biological in nature is because of optical qualities that petroleum right out of the ground exhibits. Since most oil exists 300 meters or deeper, where little life as we know it exists, one might assume that a biological origin such as this could explain its existence The abiotic theory postulates that petroleum is mostly a result of deep earth chemistry. In other words, our oil stores came with earth as a package deal, a result of so much hydrogen around, and other geochemical forces we know more about today. We also know that there are things that live out of the photic zone both in the ocean (hydrothermal vents) and even at crust depths of 300 meters or more. So an optic biological signature in the existing petroleum can also be explained. Near surface coal is probably a result of plant matter compaction over the billenia. Since we are measureable increasing the amount of CO2 and other damaging gases in out atmosphere, the best way to talk about the future of the carbon economy is to keep our use in the closed carbon cycle, where we use only atmospheric carbon for energy storage. This would all be oleaginous plant generated. Time to open up some organic jatropha tree orchards in the south, and lots of annual high oil producing crops in fallow land of the north. No need to continue subsidizing farmers to not grow stuff--we can use all of the closed cycle oil we can get. Jonathan From: Jeff [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2004/09/16 Thu AM 04:29:14 CDT To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Biofuel] Slogan Ski until you die I was thinking of some new slogans the other day. How does Stop our dependence on prehistoric plant matter: Use earth friendly fuels like biodiesel sound to the group. I thought of this after reading a blog in the discover magazine. I find 196,000 lbs of prehistoric plant matter yields 13 lbs of crude oil yields 6.2 lbs of gas, or one gallon very sobering. btw, After heating up my biodiesel and after it cooled down, it didn't get cloudy anymore. I think that I had homogenized some air in it and heating it up release the trapped air. Jeff http://www.discover.com/issues/apr-04/rd/discover-data/ Discover Data: What's in a Gallon of Gas? By Susan Kruglinski DISCOVER Vol. 25 No. 04 | April 2004 | Environment What's in a Gallon of Gas? Everyone knows fossil fuels come from long-dead plants, but Jeffrey Dukes wanted real numbers: How much plant matter does it take to make a gallon of gasoline? Dukes, a biologist, ecologist, and dabbler in biogeochemistry at the University of Massachusetts, discovered that such statistics are hard to find. So he decided to figure them out for himself and was surprised by the answers. A gallon of gas represents roughly 100 tons of plant matter, the amount that exists in 40 acres of wheat. Burning that gallon puts 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air. The annual consumption of gasoline in the United States, about 131 billion gallons of gas, is equivalent to 25 quadrillion pounds of prehistoric biomass and releases some 2.6 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide. The numbers are even more sobering when you consider all the fossil fuels-coal, natural gas, and oil-that people consume. Since 1751, roughly the start of the Industrial Revolution, humans have burned the amount of fossil fuel that would have come from all the plants on Earth for 13,300 years. We know that fossil-fuel use is not sustainable in the long run, Dukes says. This study will, I hope, encourage people to face up to the energy problem now. ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable):
