alt.energy.renewable

"bill" wrote in message
news:998052c2-fd6f-4b20-a66c-31426d5fc54a@u36g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
Cut.....

> Bob, "alternative" fuels ARE going to need to make up an increasing
> share of the energy profile. However, crop fuels never will. The
> EROEI is not there nor is the available quantity of energy.
>
> What we need to do, and I can show you the numbers to back this, is
> build nuclear power plants HELL FOR LEATHER! This will free up a
> whole lot of coal, which can then be converted to a liquid fuel for
> running cars for a while. This plan buys us 30 years minimum in which
> to develop and deploy both battery technology AND solar/wind/nuclear
> electric production. What we are doing now (ethanol) legitimately IS
> killing people, and more will die.... probably tens of thousands,
> before it can be undone. In the meantime, the far east demand is in
> fact skyrocketing (to almost 1/4 of european per-capita demand!!) and
> there's no new oil production coming online to offset the increasing
> demand. This whole thing has nothing to do with "big oil", "greedy
> americans", or george fucking bush, it's got to do with hard numbers
> in the real world, not political ravings regardless of who is on the
> soapbox.
>
> The biggest mistake that has ever been made by humanity is letting
> energy become a political issue rather than an engineering one.

Nuclear power may be part of the solution, but unfortunately, there is very
little activity in the design, planning and licensing of new plants. They
are very expensive and take at least 10 years to approve and build. Nobody
is planning or building nuclear power "HELL FOR LEATHER." Maybe they should
be, but they are not at the present time. To go beyond that of producing
hydrogen, liquid fuels and so on with nuclear power is nice to talk about
but there are NO plans, no designs or serious proposals to accomplish it. At
this point it is pie in the sky and would be at least 20 years before any
such plants are on line.

Crop biofuels are here and now. They are producing today and are making a
dent in the energy equation and will continue to do so. Yes, they are not
the best solution for the longer term but cellulostic plants, algae plants
and others are being researched and planned. Pilot operations are in
existence and in a few years full scale operations that do not use food or
valuable crop land will be on line and making a difference.

Be careful to not buy into the Exxon propaganda that biofuels are bad,
people are starving and the sky is falling. There are many factors affecting
food, most notably drought and also American exports and the value of the
dollar and the price of oil. Biofuels are a small percentage. The statement
that biofuels are killing thousands of people is absurd and pure propaganda
from the naysayers. You know you can't name ONE person who was killed by
biofuels nor can you prove a link to some alleged starvation somewhere. The
Exxons of the world are trying to kill biofuels because they don't want the
competition. Don't be a shill for them.