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Topic: Bio-Fuels  (Read 16832 times)

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Offline DrCMS

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Re: Bio-Fuels
« Reply #15 on: June 17, 2008, 05:53:02 AM »
I have read some of the things on the forum you posted a link to and the people on there are very naive about the world. 

Current biofuels are not the solution to all our problems. 

In fact they cause different problems such food price rises and deforestation.  Also they are not carbon neutral yet either. 

We need to look at the big picture, making biodiesel from waste vegetable oil is better than throwing it away but growing crops to make vegetable oil and converting it into fuel is less efficient than extracting fossil fuels in terms of cost and carbon dioxide emissions.  As oil reserves shrink this may change.

We need to get much higher conversions of plant matter to fuel using low quality land, low/no extra water usage, low/no pesticide usage and low/no fertiliser usage to make it worthwhile.  That needs cellulosic derived fuels from some kind of grass.

Offline Contextion

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Re: Bio-Fuels
« Reply #16 on: April 25, 2009, 08:48:01 AM »
The answer is making renewable diesel fuel from municipal solid waste.

We just need more diesel vehicles now especially small fuel efficient ones.

Offline SelfHelpistheBestHelp

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Re: Bio-Fuels
« Reply #17 on: July 05, 2009, 08:25:13 PM »
I have read some of the things on the forum you posted a link to and the people on there are very naive about the world. 

Current biofuels are not the solution to all our problems. 

In fact they cause different problems such food price rises and deforestation.  Also they are not carbon neutral yet either. 

We need to look at the big picture, making biodiesel from waste vegetable oil is better than throwing it away but growing crops to make vegetable oil and converting it into fuel is less efficient than extracting fossil fuels in terms of cost and carbon dioxide emissions.  As oil reserves shrink this may change.

We need to get much higher conversions of plant matter to fuel using low quality land, low/no extra water usage, low/no pesticide usage and low/no fertiliser usage to make it worthwhile.  That needs cellulosic derived fuels from some kind of grass.


We probably are naive about the world  :-[
Anyways just quoting you where you sayind that biofuels are not carbon neutral at all- How can this be? Would they not be more 'almost' carbon neutral than fossil fuels. Also during my travel to asia, I noticed huge rapeseed plants fields . And definitely saw more scope + empty  land area available for such  type of large scale productions. Especially for countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, other south Asian countries where land and climate permits and encourages this type of agriculture- would this not be a good impetus for  employment- Considering one or more of the above countries rely heavily on agriculture field for employment?


Maybe I am naive and probably just don't know enough about this, but when the first oil well was drilled in Titusville Pennsylvania in 1859, some one probably said that we are too naive  to think of petroleum as one of our primary fuel soources and no way in hell would humans be capable f consuming 3.1 x 10^10 barells of petroleum yearly.

heheh and the bolded bit - yeah we probably are too naive but in upcoming years, I guess beggars wont be able to be choosers.



Well feel free to bash me.. Im just hear to learn :D











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