The Pub Discussion Board

...thats, a good question

but won't the water vapor amount drop off w out the co2/carbon(i forget which it is) in the air to cling to?

but i agree better safe than sorry

Solar or wind (why does everyone forget wind, which is more efficient than solar?), or geothermal...

And Neitherspace:  Water vapor in the atmosphere is always there.  It doesn't form *clouds* until it has particulate matter (which CO2 is not) to cling to.  There isn't nearly enough CO2 in comparison to the amount of H2O(g) (is that how you indicate state of matter?  I forget...) to really have any effect on what the water vapor's doing.

Eric.

tsk, tsk, tsk.  You're not keeping up with the technology.

They have invented a wind turbine that is perhaps 8 feet tall, and about 3 feet in diameter.  (Or it could be 3' tall and 8' long, since it can be laid on its side...)  It isn't a "fan" design, it's a helical design.  It was created to take advantage of the highly variable wind in cities.  This wind turbine also reacts to very small amounts of wind, as well as making use of stiff breezes.  It's also, I must admit, really damned cool looking. 

And it is my belief that in the future, people will make the choice to produce their own power, rather than to depend on an increasingly shaky electric power grid.  It is cheaper and more reliable, at this point, to just do it yourself.

Eric

I think that one of the big issues about alternative energy sources is how to store the 'excess' you generate (geo-, wind, tidal, et al) so that you can use it to even our the supply to meet the demand.

I just heard on the radio the other day that someone (Toyota with its Prius) is looking to make it into a plug-in vehicle (I also heard over a year ago that garage mechanics have been doing this with a switch 'off line' as it were for a while).  The only problem with the current technology (Li-ion bats) is that it will last 10 years at 15k/year but then will cost you about 10k$ to replace.

I used to drive a Geo Metro.  It got an honest 53 mpg on my commute (~90 miles/day).  They quit making it (or GM when they bought the tooling decided in 2000 to only sell it to fleet sales (5+ cars/sale)).  Now they're selling 8+ year old Geo's for 7 or 8 grand!  Did GM ever screw the pooch on that one!

I think that wind using the 8x3' wind turbine that Eric spoke of or tidal-electric would be good (coupled with bats or maybe used to heat sodium to molten state then recover the energy by going from liquid to solid to run a generator) but we'll have to see.

Greetings

The fusion breakthrough would be game changing and maybe if they run at it hard even before 50 years but as you say, what until then?

I'd like to see a mix of technology to get us there with wind and solar getting a decent push into the mainstream.  Oil has passed the peak and we are pumping out of a declining reserve that means we need to be moving into other fuels quickly and frankly I'm tired of having my energy controlled by foreign powers who don't like me much. That's one reason I like ethanol...

What I've seen of the Chevy Volt gives me a thought that they've got a good idea for that fill-in transport  Heres a fascinating article about GM attempting to turn on a dime

I could see larger and larger pools of people falling off the grid as energy gets expensive and alternatives get cheaper.  Won't be long before neighborhoods start buying wind turbines and setting up solar farms...

Enjoy the journey

Just have to add one quick thing;

Ethanol is not just raising the price of corn-based foods, it's raising the price of almost ALL Food.

One of the main ingredients in the stuff farmers feed to cows, pigs, chickens, and yes, the stuff we feed to dogs and cats is CORN. So the rise in cost for meat, milk, cheese, eggs as well as pet food can all be traced back to the shortage of corn.

Put simply, ethanol does not use the same kind of corn we eat. But the people who make ethanol pay better than the super market does. A farmer can make more money raising corn for ethanol than he can by growing corn for eating. Why wouldn't they switch?

Jefferson wrote:

Ethanol is not just raising the price of corn-based foods, it's raising the price of almost ALL Food.

Greetings

Certain amount of oil company "fibbing" in the ethanol discusion. 

I spent part of my miss-spent yoputh on a farm in SD where they raised corn, soybeans, and oats marketed some and fed the rest to beef and pigs. This was long ago and the economies were different but the "science" is the same -

A bushel of Corn weighs about 55-60 lbs, that means at $7 a bushel about $0.13 lb.  It takes 2 lbs of corn to add 1 lb weight to a chicken, 4 lbs of corn to add a pund to a pig and 9 lbs to convert to a pound of beef. 

Now how much of the FINAL COST TO YOU is farmer and how much is Tyson is a debate all its own...

I don't think ethanol is as big a factor as "high fructose corn syrup"  (see can of soda pop label) and of course the exports to places like China and India where consumer are becoming rich enough to add to their diets plus of course the costs of things used in production like fertilizer and all those tractors and harvesters that burn that expensive fuel.

So to me the indictment of ethanol is still unproven and likely more excuses by folks with a vested interest in the status quo.

Enjoy the journey

Eric Storm wrote:

And the science of how much energy it takes to produce ethanol is very straightforward.  It is almost a 1:1 ratio of energy put in versus energy taken out.Eric

Greetings

I'm oK with a trade of one BTU of coal or nuke generated power for one BTU of ethanol

We have much COAL in the US and every gallon of imported oil left on the boat is a win but again with cogeneration and other terchnology those efficiencies are rising and its not one to one...

But even so food export is big cost factor and belive it or not HFC is also a big buyer that competes with beef farmers and ethanol plants for that corn.

Brazil has switched almost entirely to sugar based ethanol with excess ethanol to export cheap but its not available in the US!  That fact alone makes it clear that there is much about the oil v. ethanol market that is not transparent nor simply a matter of supply/demand and price

Enjoy the journey

Eric Storm wrote:

WarLord wrote:

I'm oK with a trade of one BTU of coal or nuke generated power for one BTU of ethanol

This statement just proves you are completely ideologically driven, rather than concerned with the economics of the issue.

I don't bother debating ideologues.

Eric

Greetings

But you missed the science part of the discussion!

That bushel of Corn weighs about 55-60 lbs, that means at $7 a bushel about $0.13 lb.  It takes 2 lbs of corn to add 1 lb weight to a chicken, 4 lbs of corn to add a pund to a pig and 9 lbs to convert to a pound of beef

If corn was FREE before (it wasn't) the cost of ethanol represents twenty six cents of every pound of weight added to chicken,  But if we even assume more realisticaly corn doubled in price since the age of ethanol, your order of chicken McNuggets has added about a DIME worth of high value corn!  Your McD quarter pounder increased in cost about a QUARTER!

I'm not seeing the  cost as exorbitant when taken against the ills of imported oil

Idealogue, not so much

Enjoy the journey

Eric Storm wrote:

Yeah, once you lumped coal and nuclear power together to compare them to ethanol, you labeled yourself an ideologue.

Eric

Greetings

Half the power for this 'puter is generated by NUKE the other half by coal from Montana with peaking by Nat Gas.  And before i retired I worked in all of them plus the refinery;)

Enjoy the journey

All the grid does is guarantee that when something bad happens, EVERYONE is out of power.  I imagine that "power generation insurance" would become a popular item, to cover the cost of repairs and maintenance.

Any form of electrical grid entails an infrastructure that will always be playing catch-up.  You're just asking for trouble.

Eric

I've often asked that question.  Especially now that they're talking about underwater turbines in the Gulf Stream.

Eric