Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Today, the world relies on gas and oil to run its cities and transportation systems. But tomorrow, with the advancements in current research, society could turn to the land it walks on for its energy source.
According to Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and director of the UC-managed Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, it might be possible one day to grow plants that would provide viable energy for human consumption. This is one resource that humans may turn to temporarily in the future as oil supplies become increasingly scarce. _________________ "The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil" ............ Former Saudi Arabian oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani,
Joined: Jan 16, 2005 Posts: 322 Location: Delft, Netherlands
Posted: Fri May 20, 2005 5:12 pm Post subject: Re: Nobel Winner Discusses Potential Solutions
What I'd like to know is how you can use plants to provide fuel without using fertilizer at the necessary scale? Or is the fertilizer question included in the EROEI equations?
Posted: Fri May 20, 2005 5:41 pm Post subject: Re: Nobel Winner Discusses Potential Solutions
Nano wrote:
What I'd like to know is how you can use plants to provide fuel without using fertilizer at the necessary scale? Or is the fertilizer question included in the EROEI equations?
Right now we grow corn/grain and make Ethanol out of it by using the starch only leaving the protein, minerals, fat and fiber which is concentrated during the production process to produce a highly valued and nutritious livestock feed called Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS).
Besides animal feed and its many other uses like making corn oil, DDGS can be used for great natural Fertilizer along with the corn/grain fields growing a second “cover” crop like winter wheat every year that can be utilized or plowed under for additional fertilizer. My neighbor is a top scientist in organic farming and from what he says we will not be using artificial fertilizers much longer as organic crop is showing larger yields then the ones using fertilizer!
Ethanol byproduct is also used for many other things and zero is wasted! _________________ "The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil" ............ Former Saudi Arabian oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani,
Joined: Jan 16, 2005 Posts: 322 Location: Delft, Netherlands
Posted: Sat May 21, 2005 5:18 am Post subject:
Interesting, so the limiting factor here is really only the available arable land and the energy capturing efficiency of the plants. Still, it leaves the world with much less energy than during the good ol' cheap oil days... Too much less to provide me with much comfort...
Joined: Oct 14, 2004 Posts: 1203 Location: Left the cult
Posted: Sat May 21, 2005 6:26 am Post subject:
lorenzo wrote:
Nobel Laureates are often geniuses. Mr Chu just invented agriculture. Give him another Nobel now.
Yeah, unfortunately you can be a genius in one field and a complete novice in a another. Occasionally, a cross-discipline approach can yield some novel ideas, but more often it is just stating the obvious. _________________ It's all downhill from here
Interesting, so the limiting factor here is really only the available arable land and the energy capturing efficiency of the plants. Still, it leaves the world with much less energy than during the good ol' cheap oil days... Too much less to provide me with much comfort...
“But carbon-neutral energy sources are achievable. A world population of 9 billion, the predicted peak in population, could be fed with less than one third of the planet”s cultivable land area. Some of the rest could be dedicated to growing crops for energy. But the majority of all plant matter is cellulose—a solid, low-grade fuel about as futuristic as burning wood. If scientists can convert cellulose into liquid fuels like ethanol, the world’s energy supply and storage problems could both be solved at a stroke.“ _________________ "The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil" ............ Former Saudi Arabian oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani,
Joined: Jan 16, 2005 Posts: 322 Location: Delft, Netherlands
Posted: Sat May 21, 2005 4:23 pm Post subject:
Yes but this *if* is the crucial factor. At the uni there's this guy working on an ultrasound system for the treatment of dried grasses. He says its the most efficient way to unlock the starch etc. I don't know. Such machines don't gush oil like a wellhead does. However efficient, it will require significant tonnage of apparatus. It certainly could be a bull-market.
I hate to call this another 'science saves the day' idea, but it is. Besides his use of the word temporary, he seemed to convey a distant decline. How can we develop his energy source during the decline? If somebody kicked him in the pants and put a sense of urgency in him, something might get done. Somebody email him with the DoE report from earlier this year that says we need to start mitigation before the decline. His credentials alone might awaken the PO unaware. _________________ remember-we don't inherit the earth from our parents, we lease it from our children
Posted: Sat May 21, 2005 4:56 pm Post subject: Re: Nobel Winner Discusses Potential Solutions
BiGG wrote:
Right now we grow corn/grain and make Ethanol out of it by using the starch only leaving the protein, minerals, fat and fiber which is concentrated during the production process to produce a highly valued and nutritious livestock feed called Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS).
Feed cattle too much protein and the neighbors start getting upset. Something about the farts smelling really awful.
BIGGus Dickus meet your new neighbor: Maximus Flatulus.
Joined: Aug 18, 2004 Posts: 694 Location: SF Bay Area, Calif
Posted: Sat May 21, 2005 9:07 pm Post subject:
Nano wrote:
Interesting, so the limiting factor here is really only the available arable land and the energy capturing efficiency of the plants. Still, it leaves the world with much less energy than during the good ol' cheap oil days... Too much less to provide me with much comfort...
You've gotten to the nub of the issue, Nano. Agriculture can never provide the cheap energy of fossil fuels. Solar energy falling on the land is diffuse and much effort will be required to grow, harvest and process the crops -- so the EROEI will not be high.
Other possible limiting factors besides land and plant efficiency:
water
nutrients (N, P, K, etc.)
soil in good tilth
pests
Intensive farming on a large scale would wreak further havoc on the environment.
So, although Steven Chu is right that we will turn to biofuels, they will not be able to maintain us in the style to which we've become accustomed.
To me, the key is conservation and energy efficiency, not new sources of energy.
Joined: May 24, 2004 Posts: 102 Location: Cornwall, NY
Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 7:28 am Post subject:
bart wrote:
You've gotten to the nub of the issue, Nano. Agriculture can never provide the cheap energy of fossil fuels. Solar energy falling on the land is diffuse and much effort will be required to grow, harvest and process the crops -- so the EROEI will not be high.
Yes but solar energy is the only true renewable source of energy, outside maybe geothermal which derives its energy from radition which leaks from the core of the Earth. The only sustainable high energy forms of societies will have to tap the Sun in some way, and doing it with various crops is our best bet so far. I personally don't see any of these solutions as being enough currently, but it seems to be our only way out over the long term, and I don't think we should just give up.
Joined: Aug 18, 2004 Posts: 694 Location: SF Bay Area, Calif
Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 12:43 pm Post subject:
You're right, Chichis. Ultimately we're going to go back to a solar economy. So, we'd better get good at it!
We need to become more efficient. For example, the following process will no longer fly:
1. Grow sugar cane, grasses, or corn as as biofuels.
2. Transport biofuels to a generating plant.
3. Burn biofuels to produce electricity.
4. Transport electricity to the consumer.
5. Use the electricity for heating (heating the home, drying clothes, cooking food, heating water).
Better to use the solar energy directly or with as few intermediate steps as possible. For example: passive solar construction, solar cookers and clotheslines.
Joined: Jan 16, 2005 Posts: 322 Location: Delft, Netherlands
Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 1:34 pm Post subject:
bart wrote:
I personally don't see any of these solutions as being enough currently, but it seems to be our only way out over the long term, and I don't think we should just give up.
Your right, but the snag with this whole biofuel hype is that you have to convince starving people (about 20% of the world population) to let you harvest crops off their land for export. It could get very unpleasant and messy. Has the cost of paying off - or slaughtering - the natives been factored into the EROEI?
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