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Originally Posted by Ahmabeliever  The picture I'm getting is that we have more than enough answers but little to no action. I know many of us here are working on helping the planet/ourselves, I am not talking about individuals.
I believe corporate and Govt interests will not allow too much bio-fuels and alternatives to get in the market till the same people controlling oil can control diesel trees, and TP hydrogen, and anything else they deem a threat to their global monopoly.
We knew about this tree in the 1600's! 
When you look at what is already possible. Diesel Trees. Recycling oils as bio-fuel. Terra Preta with CO2 sequestration and synfuel. Aquaponics - clean aquaculture, clean hydroponics. Extraction plants that filter landfill wastes into valuable commodities. Black Soldier flies - consume 15kg waste (which can include manure and meat scrap) per m2 per day and convert it to 3 kilos high protein feed and 0.75 kilos friable soil amendment/worm bedding. Plus, plus plus!
So many answers are there already. It is our governments and corporations letting us down. imo...  |
It's sad but I think you have hit the nail exactly on the head. I remember back in the 70's (yes I'm old!) There was a furor over using natural gas to power cars. You could convert a truck over to natural gas quite easily and the result was an engine that polluted less, lasted longer (less wear on the engine), and if you lived where natural gas was available, you could fill up from your house using a small compressor system to fill up at night while you slept. I was all over it!
It was a really great idea, win/win for everyone except of course the state. Since they couldn't collect taxes on it like they do gasoline no money was put into research to allow reasonable fill ups at "gas" stations. All, or nearly all, the research was done privately, little or no incentives for auto manufacturers to provide methane powered cars and eventually the idea faded except for a few fleet type vehicles run mostly by cities and large companies. Since you couldn't drive distances that would require a fill up the idea languished.
Now all of a sudden a new look is being given to cars powered by things other than gasoline. We missed out on at least 30 years of research and, more importantly, development into an area that had real promise. Methane has several advantages over refined petroleum but these things were never developed to the utmost due to development directed at gasoline.
Natural gas doesn't require any where near as many steps as Gasoline to make it a viable fuel. The use of methane would cut out way to many middle men and those middle men didn't want an alternative to gasoline to be developed, natural gas is less polluting than gasoline. If a sizable percentage of cars had been switched over to methane no only would we be using much less gasoline, we would be polluting less, using engines for a longer period of time between rebuilds and doing research and development on a fuel that is superior to gasoline in many ways.
At the time natural gas was so cheap and in so little demand that in many cases it was simply burned off as a waste product from other processes. Can I say absolutely that methane would have taken over from gasoline? No, but it would have helped create a new mind set about fuel and allowed for the possibility of more choices than we have now.
Moving to a new fuel because you have a choice is much more comfortable than moving out of desperation because you have no choice. I think we would be much better off if we had several different choices for fuel.
Another thing that is hitting us hard about fuel is the NIMBY idea. Gasoline requires refineries, in the US and in other countries, refineries are not exactly good neighbors. The scarcity of gasoline has more than one reason and the lack of refineries is one of them.
So many choices but have we really capitalized on any of them? No, not even the easy ones. The problem of fuel for vehicles should be looked at on a regional basis. In some area's natural gas might be a viable answer, in others bio-diesel of some sort might be it. Even steam powered cars could be viable in the right places. Too much emphasis and with that too much control has been given to oil and gasoline. So far all we seem to get are ideas instead of hardware!
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Michael
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Re: The diesel tree! 
But really, I'm just a Google junkie and Al's just an organic chemist. 
Chaos favors the prepared imagination. ~ Roger Thelonious George
Al gave us 2 criteria for bio fuel by crop type; the number of gallons per acre, and the iodine number. Furthermore, he rated each criteria by crop, and obviously the more gallons per acre makes sense as 'bigger is better'. So now given that a smaller iodine number is better according to Al's rating, and that a smaller iodine number means fewer unsaturated fatty acid bonds according to Wiki, and since we are burning the oil/fat as fuel, then I conclude that the fewer of these bonds, the more complete, and so efficient, the combustion. 
