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The EU target of ensuring 10% of petrol and diesel comes from renewable sources by 2020 is not an effective way to curb carbon emissions, researchers say.

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Originally posted by Sue N:

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The EU target of ensuring 10% of petrol and diesel comes from renewable sources by 2020 is not an effective way to curb carbon emissions, researchers say.

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I heard an interesting report on PBS last night on bio-buels. Takes 450 lbs. of corn to fill up one gas tank with ethanol. Enough to provide one person with minimum caloric intake for a year.

Price of corn torillas in Mexico has risen 60% and we've just begun the conversion process. The choice here seems to be more starvation/malnutrition world-wide or driving automobiles.

Second generation bio-fuels rather than food crops seems the way to go. Food crop bio-fuels should be discouraged.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

Well, we should use the result of liposuction to power our SUVs and Hummers. People eat 10 times more than they need anyway, so we would at least see some resource from our overconsumption...

Europe is very involved in Hydrogen. I have not heard anyone in Europe talking about corn or grain. Maybe I missed it. But Holland has used LP gas for cars for over 40 years. Every gas station has a pumpt for it. Its very low on emission and Hydrogen has none.

I think corn is a very poor choice of feedstock for biofuels. The best source is suitable wastes from agriculture or manufacturing. If you must grow crops for the purpose, then choose ones that do the job better or grow well on land that is marginal for agriculture.

Hydrogen is a great way of storing energy, and is a pollution free fuel, but it is only as clean as as energy efficient as the method used to produce it. There are several ways of producing it without producing CO2:

- electolysis of water using clean processes such as solar power

- gassification of biomass, provided that the biomass is sustainably regrown so that the carbon released is reabsorbed (and it is pure enough to use commercially in between)

- thermal disassociation of water into hydrogen and oxygen at high temperatures using highly concentrating solar collectors, probably in deserts

- using photochemical cells to produce hydrogen directly from water

Not all of these are comercially viable, yet.

Fermentation is used to convert sugars into ethanol (distillation is used to separate the 10% that is ethanol out from the rest of the products), so sources such as sugar cane, which Brazil uses, are best. The main carbohydrate of plants like maize, or corn, which the USA uses, are in the form of starch, so there has to be an extra step to convert the starch to sugars, first.

Harvested stalks of sugar cane produce 400 to a theoretical maximum of 12,000 litres per hectare per year, whereas maize produces 250 to 2,000, wood 160 to 4,000, and sweet potato roots 1,000 to 4,500.

Fermentation is very inefficient, but relatively cheap, and the heat for the process can be provided by crop residues, which can make it worth doing. A lot depends on the prices of oil and sugar or corn, which can vary considerably.

Sorghum should be better than maize, as it requires much less water, and can produce 2 crops a year.

Sugar is a better resource than crops grown in the U.S. And the U.S. imposes a 51% tarrif on ethanol made from sugar.

Cuba could provide enormous amounts of the stuff. The island is ideal for sugar...then there are the ideological considerations to contend with.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

quote:

Originally posted by Sue N:
I think corn is a very poor choice of feedstock for biofuels. The best source is suitable wastes from agriculture or manufacturing. If you must grow crops for the purpose, then choose ones that do the job better or grow well on land that is marginal for agriculture.

Dutch people do not eat corn. It is grown in very limited quantities for feed. It imports all its feed corn from the U.S., which is why they never bring up the subject, and why the article is faulty in having a picture of a wheat field implying something that was in fact never considered.

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Dutch people do not eat corn.

A few years ago my friends from Gent came and stayed with us. They brought another couple with them. Dutch people don't eat with their hands either. If it can be done with a knife and fork, it gets done, other than that, forget about it.

The first dinner we all had together my wife made fajitas and corn on the cob. If you could only have seen the confusion on the faces of our European friends. Animal feed and finger food. It was great.

My friend Paul refused to eat the animal feed. In the years after, he's tried it and now likes it. Apparently they do grow some sweet corn in France.

quote:

Originally posted by Sue N:
Hydrogen is a great way of storing energy, and is a pollution free fuel, but it is only as clean as as energy efficient as the method used to produce it. There are several ways of producing it without producing CO2:

- electolysis of water using clean processes such as solar power

- gassification of biomass, provided that the biomass is sustainably regrown so that the carbon released is reabsorbed (and it is pure enough to use commercially in between)

- thermal disassociation of water into hydrogen and oxygen at high temperatures using highly concentrating solar collectors, probably in deserts

- using photochemical cells to produce hydrogen directly from water

Not all of these are comercially viable, yet.

Holland is considering building large platforms of windmills in the North Sea to generate electricity. One alread sees large number of windmills accross the country. The countryside is flat, and it always has wind, so that is free energy after the initial investment.

Solar is another one they are looking into. I have in my flat in Leiden green energy. It costs slightly more, but not enough to be objectionable.

They have lots of busses riding on hydrogen and are considering commercial viability, like LP gas on which many cars ride and is widely available in all taking stations.

They spend tons of government monies on research and development.

Good for Holland. And they are more bicyle friendly, too.

Hey All,

I have discovered a way to turn prunnings, and yard debris into Biochar. It is a type of charcoal that stimulates plant growth. Studdies a Cornell show that Biochar increases crop production 880% This is the answer to the corn shortage. Amazonians as far as 2500 years ago added charcoal to the soil and their plots are still fertile today. Charcoal absorbs nutrients like nitrogen and keeps them from being washed away by the rain. We have almost completed a VIDEO called greenjack'S How to Make Garden Biochar. A video trailer is on YouTube along with a vid about ethanol. check it out. {enter} biochar in the search and 9 vids pop up mine are the two that start with Greenjack. I am asking people who want to promote this technology to send emails to all their friends asking them to watch the vids on YouTube. There is a growing community of people studing biochar, I am trying to get people who are not scientificly inclined to get intrested.

Thanks for your support

Greenjack

quote:

Originally posted by Greenjack:
Hey All,

I have discovered a way to turn prunnings, and yard debris into Biochar. It is a type of charcoal that stimulates plant growth. Studdies a Cornell show that Biochar increases crop production 880% This is the answer to the corn shortage. Amazonians as far as 2500 years ago added charcoal to the soil and their plots are still fertile today. Charcoal absorbs nutrients like nitrogen and keeps them from being washed away by the rain. We have almost completed a VIDEO called greenjack'S How to Make Garden Biochar. A video trailer is on YouTube along with a vid about ethanol. check it out. {enter} biochar in the search and 9 vids pop up mine are the two that start with Greenjack. I am asking people who want to promote this technology to send emails to all their friends asking them to watch the vids on YouTube. There is a growing community of people studing biochar, I am trying to get people who are not scientificly inclined to get intrested.

Thanks for your support

Greenjack

Sounds interesting. Any organic material will add fertility to the soil. The tilth of the soil also improves and enables plants to absorb nutrients more readily.

Nitrogen is free. Grow peas, soybeans, etc. They fix atmospheric nitrogen to the soil. Next year, plant corn, tomatoes, etc.

Planting on soils without enough organic structure is like putting a plant on a slow intrevenous drip. Using industrial fertilizer is kind of like having a powerful pump on one end of the tube to force-feed the plant, but the fertility is short-lived.

Natural fertilizers benefit soil. Industrial fertilizers provide the same elements, but in a way that ulimately allows the soil to deteriorate...just through the natural weathering process.

There are many studies on degradation of soils on the Great Plains of the U.S. and Canada. This is one of them. Simple. Concise.
http://www.iisd.org/agri/GPsoil.htm

Your biochar sounds like a "super" organic application. I don't know whether it will add or detract from soil tilth in the form you mnentioned. I'd have to use it myself or see scientific analysis of it over a period of several years.

At the monastery, we used donated horse manure combined with our own tree leaves, garden and kitchen waste. Blend well, place in in a composter, and serve up a feast for your botanical friends in 45-60 days.

After several years of soil management, plants can be grown with less water and handle stresses of heat and bugs more readily. No fertilizer costs required.

We expend tremendous amounts of energy in order to avoid soil management and reduce costs of plant growth on mega-farms. Ultimately, it's destroying our soils. Its more like "mining" than having a renewable resource. Cheap gains now, expensive undoing later. The "natural markets" of economies are immediate things...costs down the line just aren't considered. Things like global warming, unpoisoning the water so we can drink it, etc.

Replenishing top soil already lost would exceed the national budget.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"