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So was this reasonable?
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 1:53 am
by cgray45
A few people sent me some nasty private emails, claiming I want to destroy farmers-- does it look that way?
https://fusionfuture.wordpress.com/2011 ... -concepts/
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 9:07 pm
by GIThruster
It looks to me like you're a realist. Lets just take your conclusion:
"The Rand study opens questions for its military use– but let’s be honest– in the long run, crop based biofuels are a bad idea, for any use, civilian or military and need to be discarded in favor of systems such as algae conversion, which will have far less of an impact on the environment, and be far less problematic in questions of sustainability."
What I'd much more like to see, is a sensible comparison between renewable and non-renewable resources. Ultimately, what we'd like to see is a form of energy production that is renewable, but that is actually cheaper than the non-renewable sources we use now. Without that option, we're looking at impoverishment. People simply do not understand how much it matters that our energy be cheap. Even algae is not cheap enough, IMHO.
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 9:10 pm
by MSimon
Re: So was this reasonable?
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 10:46 pm
by Roger
What dont they get? I thought at this point its clear on the science. Maybe they see the subsidies vanishing over time, and they want to blame you?
I think Corn based ethanol and veggie oil bio diesel might be well placed as a transition liquid fuel, if we had another type of liquid fuel to transition to, which isnt yet on the near term horizon.
The only really good thing I see is that Corn based ethanol and veggie oil bio diesel expand our energy portfolio, just a hair, but so would more solar, wind and fission nukes.
Re: So was this reasonable?
Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 4:14 am
by IntLibber
Roger wrote:
What dont they get? I thought at this point its clear on the science. Maybe they see the subsidies vanishing over time, and they want to blame you?
I think Corn based ethanol and veggie oil bio diesel might be well placed as a transition liquid fuel, if we had another type of liquid fuel to transition to, which isnt yet on the near term horizon.
The only really good thing I see is that Corn based ethanol and veggie oil bio diesel expand our energy portfolio, just a hair, but so would more solar, wind and fission nukes.
The problem with this is that by making our corn more scarce and thus higher priced due to greater demand for it by biofuel producers, this makes food more expensive elsewhere in the world and increases malnutrition and starvation.
Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 5:55 am
by MSimon
I love AE. I built my first solar cell project in '62. Wind is great.
But until storage costs get low enough all this eqpt. is a waste for the first world. It is one big boondoggle.
Where it would make sense: charging batteries and pumping water where there is no grid.
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