Stick With Fossil Fuels:

[Rob]

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/146621/20110516/biofuels-may-pollute-heavily-if-made-the-wrong-way.htm

Rob

[Mike]

Rob,

Ya can't believe anything ya read anymore and more than half of what ya hear. I'd just stay with what you've known all these years. Ya haven't messed up too much since ya been living. I pay more for the things I know are good stuff and I haven't messed up doing the same.

mike

[RowdyRebel]

Charge a car 8 hours to drive 40 miles.

How much coal was burned at the power plant in order to produce enough electricity to charge that car for 8 hours?

How many gallons of diesel fuel were burned digging the coal out of the ground, and transporting the coal to the power plant?

How many gallons of diesel fuel were burned mining, processing, and transporting the limestone used in the scrubbers at the power plants?

...all to save the 1 gallon or so of gasoline that would have been burned by a 4-cylinder engine in that same car.

Never has made much sense to me. Neither has turning food into fuel, which in turn links food prices to the price of fuel...because if a farmer can get $5/bushel selling his corn to be eaten...but fuel prices are increasing to the point where ethanol producers are willing to pay $7/bushel in order to meet their customer's demands....that farmer is going to be selling his corn to the ethanol producers for $7/bushel. If the grocery stores want to have corn on their shelves, they'll have to match the $7/bushel....which means you pay more when you buy corn.

[Gambi80]

Charge a car 8 hours to drive 40 miles.

How much coal was burned at the power plant in order to produce enough electricity to charge that car for 8 hours?

How many gallons of diesel fuel were burned digging the coal out of the ground, and transporting the coal to the power plant?

How many gallons of diesel fuel were burned mining, processing, and transporting the limestone used in the scrubbers at the power plants?

...all to save the 1 gallon or so of gasoline that would have been burned by a 4-cylinder engine in that same car.

Never has made much sense to me. Neither has turning food into fuel, which in turn links food prices to the price of fuel...because if a farmer can get $5/bushel selling his corn to be eaten...but fuel prices are increasing to the point where ethanol producers are willing to pay $7/bushel in order to meet their customer's demands....that farmer is going to be selling his corn to the ethanol producers for $7/bushel. If the grocery stores want to have corn on their shelves, they'll have to match the $7/bushel....which means you pay more when you buy corn.

High commodity prices are driven mainly by speculation. Corn is pretty well tied in with oil. Look back over the past 10 years and see that the spikes in oil are closely followed by a spike in grain. Keep in mind that only a fraction of the corn crop actually makes it to store shelves, most is either used as livestock feed or fuel and the remainder is exported.

But if you produced a product you'd choose to sell it to the highest bidder...I'd hope anyway.

And...a pretty good portion of the starving people throughout the world will remain starving until there's a regime change in their gov't no matter the price of food...

[cgallamore]

i know its a free market, but when big oil,the railroad and toyota have enough money to buy up the futures of a commodity, and control the price of it. and has nothing to do with supply and demand.

i don't see the difference between that and insider trading

if the price is being controled by a small group. then its not a free market.

[ThaddeusW]

The article is of very poor quality, its very vague and has no links to the original report that article is based on.

"Biofuels derived from palm oil emitted 55 times more carbon dioxide if the palm oil came from a plantation located in a converted rainforest rather than a previously cleared area, according to the report."

Huh? 55 times more? Why is previously cleared land less polluting then cleared land? Are they factoring in the CO2 released from the machinery used to clear the land? If so that is a one time release that is not repeated. Sounds a bit more like scare propaganda to me.

"Biofuels could ultimately emit 10 times more carbon dioxide than conventional fuel, the report found."

Again, WHY! Can we have a link to this report?

Clearly this is probably sensationalism that the author used to gain attention. He probably skimmed through the report, hand picked the scary parts and wrote about those. I bet you any money the report concluded that bio fuels are cleaner but there will be an initial high release of CO2 emitted to bootstrap the process.

Roudy,

The electric cars only use as much power as they consume. The bad part about batteries is you cant charge them as fast as you discharge them because you either destroy the battery OR you need more power then can be practically delivered.

Think about it like this:

A car has a 100HP electric motor, 1HP = 746 electrical watts not counting efficiency losses. To power that motor you need to constantly draw AT LEAST 74,600 watts (amps times volts equals watts)! A typical home has a 100 amp main circuit breaker and split phase 120/240 volts. 100 amps at 240 volts is only 24,000 watts, a third of the power consumed by that cars motor. Lets say the motor drains the battery in about an hour and a half. So for 1.5 hours that battery pack is supplying 74,600 watts (you aren't using the 100HP constantly but for the sake of argument we are). So to recharge the battery in the same amount of time it was discharged you need to pump that much juice back into it. No home has that much power available. So you have a smaller 30-50 amp breaker powering a charger and deliver the same amount of power over a longer period of time. 74,600 watts consumed for 1.5 hours equals 111,900 kilowatt hours. So if we have a 240V 30 Amp charger we can deliver 7200 watts, which for every hour of charging is delivering 7200 kilowatt hours. So we divide 111,900 by 7200 which gives us 15 hours minimum charge time for that car. Of course electric cars don't have 100HP motors running at maximum draw but that is our example. You have to spread out the charge time because you can only deliver as much power as you can draw from the utility.

Maybe in the future when our homes are covered in solar panels with large beefy battery banks we could draw the required power to charge the car in the same amount of time it took to discharge it. Although that future is closer to a pipe dream than reality. The above example also shows you why an electric truck is also a pipe dream without some really high density almost magical batteries and a huge power source to practically charge them. a 400HP diesel engine develops about 300,000 watts. Thats over a quarter million watts. if that motor killed the batteries in 1 hour you would need a 1000 amp 208V three phase circuit to charge them back up in about an hour or so. Imagine the batteries you would need to supply that much power, half your trucks payload would be batteries, something no trucker would ever consider sane. Imagine having 10000 pounds+ of batteries on your dump truck that only allow it to run for a few hours and taking hours upon hours to charge it back up.

Electric vehicles are currently only good for very light weight short hauls. Commuter vehicles or banging around town to run a few errands. I do believe we will solve the battery problem but it will take lots of time, money and research to get there.

[RowdyRebel]

Maybe in the future when our homes are covered in solar panels with large beefy battery banks we could draw the required power to charge the car in the same amount of time it took to discharge it. Although that future is closer to a pipe dream than reality. The above example also shows you why an electric truck is also a pipe dream without some really high density almost magical batteries and a huge power source to practically charge them. a 400HP diesel engine develops about 300,000 watts. Thats over a quarter million watts. if that motor killed the batteries in 1 hour you would need a 1000 amp 208V three phase circuit to charge them back up in about an hour or so. Imagine the batteries you would need to supply that much power, half your trucks payload would be batteries, something no trucker would ever consider sane. Imagine having 10000 pounds+ of batteries on your dump truck that only allow it to run for a few hours and taking hours upon hours to charge it back up.

Electric vehicles are currently only good for very light weight short hauls. Commuter vehicles or banging around town to run a few errands. I do believe we will solve the battery problem but it will take lots of time, money and research to get there.

Even if you COULD recharge the batteries in the time it took to discharge them, it still would be far from practical. Doesn't take but 5 minutes to refuel a traditional car....and until the "alternative" fuel source is capable of that, I just don't see it catching on. Can you imagine the lines at the "recharging stations" if you were on a road trip? ...and people complain about them drivers parked at the fuel island NOW!

[rhasler]

I saw a story not too long back where a company was working on setting up some kind of an exchange program for battery cells. The general idea was that you would drive in with a depleted battery pack and an automated system (like an automated car wash) would take over and switch out the battery pack in a minute or two. Don't recall where I saw the story.

[ThaddeusW]

Even if you COULD recharge the batteries in the time it took to discharge them, it still would be far from practical. Doesn't take but 5 minutes to refuel a traditional car....and until the "alternative" fuel source is capable of that, I just don't see it catching on. Can you imagine the lines at the "recharging stations" if you were on a road trip? ...and people complain about them drivers parked at the fuel island NOW!

Yup. The recharge time is the biggest down fall. Electric cars cant fill the gap an internal combustion engine currently fills. A few minutes and you have enough fuel to go hundreds of miles. One idea for electric cars is there will be no gas stations but instead parking spots at malls, hotels, businesses and rest stops would have a charge station at each parking space. An incredibly costly infrastructure to setup and maintain (i can also imagine vandalism and theft a big problem as well).

I doubt that we will see electric cars take over for long distance trips. Current batteries are only practical for trips less than 100 miles. If you think about it, you have to plan your trips to ensure you have enough charge to get you to your destination and then home again. Kinda pointless to own one unless you live in a high density city where trips to multiple stores are short. And running the heat or AC will take away from your range.

Fossil fuels wont last forever but we have technology to make fuel from a variety of sources. Bio-diesel derived from algae is the best bet. Also coal to fuel plants could also become economical.

[Rob]

What about dialithium crystals like the starship Enterprise used in the mid 1960's? Five years and no need to refuel on a single mission. Sounds like a plan.

Rob

[ThaddeusW]

What about dialithium crystals like the starship Enterprise used in the mid 1960's? Five years and no need to refuel on a single mission. Sounds like a plan.

Rob

Mr. Archer, set a course for the Macungie system. Warp 9. Engage.

[randyp]

I saw a story not too long back where a company was working on setting up some kind of an exchange program for battery cells. The general idea was that you would drive in with a depleted battery pack and an automated system (like an automated car wash) would take over and switch out the battery pack in a minute or two. Don't recall where I saw the story.

heh heh Rhasler, you dont need no automated system to change batteries, theres a couple lil thieving bastards round here that can relieve you of a battery in bout 8.3 seconds. I will be glad to send them your way. We need a break anyway,,,,randyp

[vision386]

heh heh Rhasler, you dont need no automated system to change batteries, theres a couple lil thieving bastards round here that can relieve you of a battery in bout 8.3 seconds. I will be glad to send them your way. We need a break anyway,,,,randyp

I know just what you mean,they've taken to stealing license plates around here! (for the inspection sticker) pisses me off the lazy,shiftless,no-good S.O.B's don't have to play by the same rules all the rest of us have to!.............Mark

[rhasler]

heh heh Rhasler, you dont need no automated system to change batteries, theres a couple lil thieving bastards round here that can relieve you of a battery in bout 8.3 seconds. I will be glad to send them your way. We need a break anyway,,,,randyp

Randy, I don't remember if it was the Mack PDC/Training center or the dealership in Dallas, but a few years back they had ALL of the tires stolen off of one of the new trucks one night. The truck was found the next morning sitting flat on the ground. The sneaky SOB's figured out a way to get all the tires and wheels off without leaving behind any jacks or blocks.