USMCmech said:
I stand corrected, but my point is still valid. At best you are getting a very small reduction in fossil fuel consumption.
What would 100% biofuel retail at the pump for?
Bigger question, where are we supposed to grow all these soybeans? Farmland has been disapearing the US for the last century, and there are 6 billion hungery people in on this planet.
In a nutshell, we will keep burining oil and fossil fuels untill they become too expensive to continue useing. Then we will have to find a new source of energy, especially for transportation. Nuclear power is really the only viable prospect.
Right now nuclear powerplants are too expensive to use unless there is no other option (submarines, ect), while everything else burns oil. I belive the situation will be reversed over the next century. All large transportation vehicles (trains & ships) will be nuclear powered, while cars and other smaller vehicles will run off electricity.
I have no clue what will happen to airplanes. Maybe somebody will figure out how to make engines that burn hydrogen?
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/060224.html
The difference between a surplus and a crisis shortage can be as little as
5%. a 10% reduction could be helpful.
BioDiesel in California runs about $5.00-$5.50/gal. But cars specifically
designed for it can get well over 100mpg (I've see modern VW's get
250mpg on biodiesel) so the price is more than worth it.
The USA actually has excess capacity. Using it for fuel is a great idea for
job retention and can easily be converted back to food production in event
of crisis.
I would like to see more info on "clean" burning coal plants. Coal has a huge
supply, but I am still worried on pollution.
Nukes should be built. Alot of them. New tech like fast neutron reactors
could easily use or 'burn' waste uranium/plutonium from normal slow neutron
reactors. At present consumption of waste, it would take well over 100
years to exhaust uranium waste fuel inventories (and clean out waste).
Trains and ships with nukes? I can only hope it's a non-fission reactor...
Frak Daddy's link shows experiments of bio-diesel in Jet-A situations. Keep
in mind, there many factors, like mixing Jet-A with Bio, effects of Prist,
deposits, filters, etc. My lack of faith with the certification of alternative
fuels is due to the no lead Av-Gas debacle. Were still waiting for that one.
As for hydrogen, don't expect it for aviation anytime soon. The power
density is still too low.
CE
P.S. BioDiesel is not necessarily a 20%/80% mix. It (supposedly) can be mixed at
any level. If true, it would be a wonderful supplement and be used to hedge either
fuel as market value demands.