alt.energy.renewable

On Apr 4, 11:07 am, "Bob Eld" wrote:
> "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.

Please. Biofuels will never "compete" with exxon. Look at the total
production numbers of ethanol for the world. *world* ethanol
production is less than 1 mb/d *gross* including nonfuel ethanol
(BEER!) and industrial ethanol. Factor EROEI into that (let us be
*very* optimistic and call it 2:1), and you'll see that the world
produces less ethanol net than the annual production decline rate from
cantarrell field alone.

So, tell me something, What do *you* think is causing worldwide
massive inflation in food prices along with falling food stocks in
years with record harvests? Little green fucking men stealing the
grain? How do you think those who were borderline starving before will
respond to 30% increases in the world price of *all* grains? WTF is
the upward limit of cognitive dissonance anyway?

I know that for the nuclear future, we're behind the curve, but
consider this, nuclear after 30 years of *not* building it *still*
provides 10x as high a share of world energy as does ethanol after a
massive rampup. France built over 100 nuclear power plants in 17
years from decision to completion, Those plants provide more net
energy than the gross world production of ethanol. This shows exactly
how limited the validity of your objection truly is.