alt.energy.renewable

On Feb 25, 11:55=A0pm, "Ivan" wrote:
> wrote in message
>
> news:975c0bd4-e049-4aa9-a509-a172386cd114@72g2000hsu.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > The technology to do this has evolved tremendously. You can make just
> > about any fuel out of plant matter, from Natural gas to methanol to
> > diesel =A0 to DME (for plastics). =A0Synthetic biofuels from crop waste,=

> > timber waste and garbage =A0is definitely a smarter way to go than grain=

> > alcohols. If done intelligently and done at sufficient scale can
> > certainly compete with $2. to $3. a gallon at the pump.
>
> However whatever way one looks at it I honestly can't see any alternative =
as
> cheap and simple as sticking a pipe in the ground and pumping out decades
> worth of dirt cheap, incredibly versatile and relatively secure energy
> supplies.
>

The assumption is based on all else being equal, but of course, all
else isn't equal or going to stay equal. One of the costs of crude oil
is the overhead of keeping troops in the middle east and more boradly,
the so called 'war on terror'. That's not in the fuel price, but it
shows up in morbidity, in the cost in injuries and shattered lives, in
the health and rehab services, the lost productivity, the damage to
familes and so forth. And of course, it cost a bundle to train and
equip all those people. It costs a fortune to tap everyone's phones
and analyse all that data and to run other high tech surveillance. And
of course if all that lazy money wasn't going into the hands of the
Saudis and similar, things might get a little tighter in the arms and
bomb-making trade.

When people fill up at the pump, they are really paying to fund both
sides of a war, including one against themselves. In the long run of
course, they are also paying to pollute the planet, and when, as it
surely must, the cost of recovering oil starts rising steeply because
it has to be recovered from places where the qulaity is lower or where
it's more costly to get at, they will pay even more.

That's why something has to be done to reduce dependence on crude oil,
especially since the same stuff is essential for a great deal else we
do -- packaging and refrigeration for example. If the true cost of the
oil economy were dumped on the motorist, it would be a hell of a lot
more expensive than $3 per gallon.

In order of feasibility ...

1. Radically reduce the usage of fossil fuel powered motor vehicles by
encouraging car pooling, building better public transport, having
better designed cities
2. Radically improve fuel efficiency
3. Increase output of biofuels from waste biomass, grass crops on
marginal land, algae
4. Encourage use of PHEVs

> I have to confess to not knowing very much about the subject, but looking =
at
> the figures in the OP it would appear that when the oil rich Middle East w=
as
> opened up in 1908 the world boasted 1.7 billion people and 'compared to
> today' a minuscule demand for oil based products.
>
> If there is any truth in the predictions that we have about reached the
> halfway mark in recoverable oil resources, then where would we be now if s=
ay
> 100 years ago we had started pumping Middle East oil from a base of world
> demand standing at its present level and a global population of 6.6 billio=
n
> (expected to grow to around 10 billion within the next 50 years) with many=

> of them expecting their governments to deliver our Western style standard =
of
> living?
>
> Lastly I would hazard a guess that it's very unlikely that given the ever
> increasing global demand whatever we do with bio, coal, oil shale and
> remaining sources of oil and gas that we're ever going to go back to the
> halcyon dirt cheap energy that even I can remember.
>

It's unlikely, but in many ways, that's undesirable. Morbidity, injury
and crime associated with private motor vehicle usage is enormous. If
private motor vehicle usage were far smaller, the costs on the health
system would decline, and you'd get a boost in productivity. Cheap
fuel and the ICE made urban sprawl possible, but the result ended up
being that a huge chunk is taken out of everyone's lives sitting in a
traffic jam for 10-15 hours per week. People who piss and moan about
'taxes' and the 'government taking my freedom' think nothing about
spending 10% of their week sitting in a car breathing in particulates
and VOCs while getting aggro at some anonymous person in front of them
who is doing the same thing.

It's a funny old world.

Fran

>
>
> > On Feb 24, 3:24 pm, "calderh...@yahoo.com"
> > wrote:
> > The world is running out of wheat because so many farmers have
> > Christopher Calder- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -