It's pretty obvious to anybody paying attention that biofuels are a dead end technology. They're an energy sink, not an energy producer, and they create more ground pollution than fossil fuels do air pollution, but because of corn farming lobbyists and government subsidies we're stuck with a product that not only sucks but robs us of our ability to produce more valuable products as well. Maradon! fucked around with this message on 10-29-2007 at 01:16 PM.
The two best bets for biofuels, sadly, are not commercially viable yet. The first is a modified algae which manufactures biodiesel at a rate of 5000 gallons per acre per year. That's pretty good, but it's unclear at this point how commercially viable such algae ponds are.
The other one is celluloistic ethanol, where you can turn cellulose (the stuff in every single plant ever) into ethanol. Supposedly, the energy ROI for this method can be as high as 16:1, which is mind-bogglingly good (current ROI for oil is somewhere around 5:1 and is gradually worsening). Problem with this is that no one's exactly figured out how to break down cellulose with any kind of efficiency. If, however, (and that's a big if) someone figures it out, we'll have a biofuel that can use just about anything: grass clippings, leaves, trees, corn husks, you name it.
Sadly, both the algae and the celluloistic ethanol methods have been aggressively researched for a long time now, and neither has produced that magic solution yet. There's hope still, as there's a much more pronounced interest in it now than there was even five years ago, but it may wind up that there's no substitute for oil...for the U.S., anyway. Countries like Brazil can make cheap ethanol from sugar and, with the right infrastructure, power their nation's vehicles on it. The U.S. sits at too high a latitude for sugar to be viable. This is why I advocate electrification, with uranium and plutonium being the preferred way of generating juice. This has the benefit of being more environmentally sound than coal, too.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
Check out national geographic for October of this year, they had a huge, highly informative section on the many different biofuel technologies and their various advantages and disadvantages.
I thought this was cool. Check out the energy balance tab.
Read the whole article here Blindy. fucked around with this message on 10-29-2007 at 03:03 PM.
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Channeling the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, Blindy. absently fondled Watson and proclaimed:
Don't just say "Biofuel" when you are railing specifically against corn sourced ethanol. Corn sourced Ethanol is currently is a waste, yes, but biofuel as a whole is not.
Actually, it is. The sugar cane-based biofuels are almost as bad, and require more energy to produce than they provide, and are even in the negative for the ever-popular carbon footprint stat, IIRC.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Bloodsage's got nothing.Actually, it is. The sugar cane-based biofuels are almost as bad, and require more energy to produce than they provide, and are even in the negative for the ever-popular carbon footprint stat, IIRC.
Not saying that national geographic is the end all of sources, but it was saying that sugarcane is a 8:1 ratio (energy out to energy in) and produces 56% less emissions than gasoline. (Compared to Corn's pathetic 1.3:1 ratio) Blindy. fucked around with this message on 10-29-2007 at 03:09 PM.
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Blindy. startled the peaceful upland Gorillas, blurting:
Not saying that national geographic is the end all of sources, but it was saying that sugarcane is a 8:1 ratio (energy out to energy in) and produces 54% less emissions than gasoline. (Compared to Corn's pathetic 1.3:1 ratio)
Doesn't match with the report I saw, but it's hard to tell. Bottom line, though, is that biofuels are a stupidly inefficient waste of arable land while representing only an intermediate step towards a real solution to the problem. They are, if you will, the Laserdisk option.
We need people to be researching nuclear and fuel cell technologies.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Did someone say Bloodsage:
Doesn't match with the report I saw, but it's hard to tell. Bottom line, though, is that biofuels are a stupidly inefficient waste of arable land while representing only an intermediate step towards a real solution to the problem. They are, if you will, the Laserdisk option.We need people to be researching nuclear and fuel cell technologies.
The report you saw may have been on the potential for sugarcane as a US based biofuel source, which would fall right in line with what I've heard about it. Brazil, however, grows the stuff without even trying.
But hey, on the upshot, there are going to be a lot less traffic to deal with in ten years, one way or another.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
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Karnaj likes to scream this out during sex:
We don't even need research into nuclear tech; we need the political will to implement it. Five hundred nuclear power plants at $2 billion a pop is a massive financial undertaking, but we understand how to do it. The research needs to be done on the side of building, as you said, a better battery.But hey, on the upshot, there are going to be a lot less traffic to deal with in ten years, one way or another.
Or people will start getting smart, living close to work, and shopping close to home instead of living 45 minutes away from the office and driving an hour to get to mega-mart instead of walking to the corner store (which might just become viable as a business model again).
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Peanut butter ass Shaq Blindy. booooze lime pole over bench lick:
Or people will start getting smart, living close to work, and shopping close to home instead of living 45 minutes away from the office and driving an hour to get to mega-mart instead of walking to the corner store (which might just become viable as a business model again).
And then the unicorns will come back and King Arthur's second reign will bring a golden era of prosperity to all the world!
I'm all for living close to your job if you can (which is rare for anyone but the super-wealthy), but the opposite - getting a job close to home - is pretty absurdly limiting. Job mobility is a core function of capitalism, your labor is a product you sell, and if you're limited to a certain number of buyers you are essentially locked into an anti-competetive atmosphere.
Also, I didn't blast biofuels collectively, Ziegler did, but I am inclined to agree. Biofuels of any currently existing type - most notably the types currently receiving huge subsidies of our money on behalf of the government - just are not viable on a large scale.
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Blindy. got served! Blindy. got served!
Or people will start getting smart, living close to work, and shopping close to home instead of living 45 minutes away from the office and driving an hour to get to mega-mart instead of walking to the corner store (which might just become viable as a business model again).
Perhaps if you build it, they will come, but our entire society is designed to operate around the car. Sure, there are exceptions in cases of extremely high population density, like East-coast cities, Chicago, etc., but most people live in neighborhoods completely segregated from work and shopping, and they have no choice in the matter. A handy example of this would be my where my wife works; it's a massive industrial park, completely isolated from housing and shopping, with no access to mass transit. There's just no way we could live anywhere inside five miles of the place.
Furthermore, even when said realignment occurs and people do start living closer to work and shopping, to whom are they going to sell their homes? Who the hell's going to want to live in an exurb where there's no shopping, no access to mass transit, and no sidewalks? Such places won't even be worth the land they're built on. It's already happened in certain places, although for different reasons. That's a massive amount of wealth which is going to simply evaporate, and that sucks for millions of families.
Personally, I get along fine without a car, but there are tens of millions of Americans for whom that is not possible. And perhaps the asskicker is that a great many of those people simply don't care, because there's no reason to. They won't care until there are gasoline shortages, and what gas that can be found is $20 per gallon.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
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Verily, the chocolate bunny rabbits doth run and play while Karnaj gently hums:
We don't even need research into nuclear tech; we need the political will to implement it. Five hundred nuclear power plants at $2 billion a pop is a massive financial undertaking, but we understand how to do it. The research needs to be done on the side of building, as you said, a better battery.But hey, on the upshot, there are going to be a lot less traffic to deal with in ten years, one way or another.
Unless I missed the part where we got fusion working conveniently, we still need to research nuclear. 
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:Urban areas aren't as well off in this regard as some may believe. While it's true that a lot of resources are close together (work, shopping, etc), that doesn't actually leave enough open space for people to live.
See, your Karnaj means your hair. So technically it's true.
Sure, there are exceptions in cases of extremely high population density, like East-coast cities, Chicago, etc.
Take NYC as an example (since it's the one with which I'm familiar). A studio apartment within walking distance of most major businesses (i.e. midtown or downtown Manhattan) costs upwards of $2k/month. That's now, with the only motivation for living there being convenience (or maybe bragging rights). Make it a necessity, and Harlem would suddenly become prime real estate for apartment buildings. The mass transit system is already severely overcrowded at peak times, which means that some of the surface roads would need to be replaced with rail systems to handle the commuter traffic. Then there's the folks stuck in the subburbs, where mass transit is not only severely insufficient, but consists mainly of busses. Making the areas outside the isle of Manhattan viable would require massive expansion of the rail system.
There's also the problem of transporting merchandise and other imported goods. Most local deliveries are made by trucks. No other method of transportation can move sufficient quantities of goods into the area (or trash out, for that matter), and electrified transportation doesn't actually go to most buildings. Public utilities (electricity, water, heat, phone, and recently broadband) are the only resources configured for mass distribution.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but it'd be such a costly project that the people living in or anywhere near the city couldn't actually afford to live there anymore. It'd be more viable to build new cities from scratch with mass transit in mind. `Doc fucked around with this message on 10-29-2007 at 04:19 PM.
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Check out the big brain on Blindy.!
Or people will start getting smart, living close to work, and shopping close to home instead of living 45 minutes away from the office and driving an hour to get to mega-mart instead of walking to the corner store (which might just become viable as a business model again).
Gee whiz, Wally, maybe after we get a couple of sodies from old man Hooper's corner mart, we can compose our anti-capitalist manifestos down by the lake while we enjoy our Aryan neighborhoods and authentic down-home feel.
Go to hell.
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Mr. Parcelan isn't in Kansas anymore:
Gee whiz, Wally, maybe after we get a couple of sodies from old man Hooper's corner mart, we can compose our anti-capitalist manifestos down by the lake while we enjoy our Aryan neighborhoods and authentic down-home feel.Go to hell.
Yeah because observing that rising fuel costs will make people inclined to live closer to their job and shop closer to their house is the same thing as this.
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And I was like "wha" and Maradon! was like:
And then the unicorns will come back and King Arthur's second reign will bring a golden era of prosperity to all the world!I'm all for living close to your job if you can (which is rare for anyone but the super-wealthy), but the opposite - getting a job close to home - is pretty absurdly limiting. Job mobility is a core function of capitalism, your labor is a product you sell, and if you're limited to a certain number of buyers you are essentially locked into an anti-competetive atmosphere.
This is entirely true. Population mobility was more effective in breaking the back of exploitative employment models than a billion unions, and I don't see mobility going away. But transportation costs are going to go up, and people are eventually going to change their lifestyles to deal with that.
Maybe that means the rebirth of the city as the standard of living instead of the suburb. Maybe that means telecommuting for knowledge workers becomes the norm. I don't know. What I do know is that people will adapt, and smart people will adapt quicker.
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Also, I didn't blast biofuels collectively, Ziegler did, but I am inclined to agree. Biofuels of any currently existing type - most notably the types currently receiving huge subsidies of our money on behalf of the government - just are not viable on a large scale.
I'll take your word for what your intention was. Blindy. fucked around with this message on 10-29-2007 at 04:33 PM.
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Reynar impressed everyone with:
I'm eagerly awaiting this: http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/
Convert to snake oil!
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Over the mountain, in between the ups and downs, I ran into Blindy. who doth quote:
I'll take your word for what your intention was.
Thanks for not flipping out even though my post contained a smart ass remark that I probably shouldn't have made!
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Alaaning:
I just found the solution to our energy problem.Convert to snake oil!
Ah, Robert Mugabe, the man responsible for starving thousands of people to death and Hillary's ideological african counterpart Maradon! fucked around with this message on 10-29-2007 at 06:13 PM.
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Karnaj says ta-ma-to, I say to-ma-to:
Perhaps if you build it, they will come, but our entire society is designed to operate around the car. Sure, there are exceptions in cases of extremely high population density, like East-coast cities, Chicago, etc., but most people live in neighborhoods completely segregated from work and shopping, and they have no choice in the matter. A handy example of this would be my where my wife works; it's a massive industrial park, completely isolated from housing and shopping, with no access to mass transit. There's just no way we could live anywhere inside five miles of the place.Furthermore, even when said realignment occurs and people do start living closer to work and shopping, to whom are they going to sell their homes? Who the hell's going to want to live in an exurb where there's no shopping, no access to mass transit, and no sidewalks? Such places won't even be worth the land they're built on. It's already happened in certain places, although for different reasons. That's a massive amount of wealth which is going to simply evaporate, and that sucks for millions of families.
Personally, I get along fine without a car, but there are tens of millions of Americans for whom that is not possible. And perhaps the asskicker is that a great many of those people simply don't care, because there's no reason to. They won't care until there are gasoline shortages, and what gas that can be found is $20 per gallon.
So property values drop, areas get re-zoned, businesses get built, property values go back up. Yeah, it's going to suck in the interim but it's the price these municipalities will have to pay for being short-sighted when they laid out the city. It's not that I don't agree with you that it will be a problem, it's just that I don't see any way around it. We can either continue paying subsidies to keep gas costs down until we are really boned or we can take that money and get investing it in correcting these societal oversights.
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Alaan wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
I just found the solution to our energy problem.Convert to snake oil!
I just love it wasn't her magically conjuring the crude, black blood of the earth from the stone... oh no, it was refined diesel!
Heck, you could build a mall and grocery section right into the building.
The only real issue I can see is that, no matter how close to their daily needs people are, you're not going to be able to have everything within walking distance no matter where you live, and so you'll still need a car occasionally.
quote:You're still forgetting about supply delivery systems. No matter how compactly a city builds its infrastructure, it would still need cargo rail lines going to every building. Commuter transit lines would also require dramatic expansion. In many cases, the only way to pull it off would be to run rail along every existing roadway. Massive switching stations and cargo bays would consume all ground-level space in high-traffic areas. Existing buildings would need cargo elevators added, most likely by attaching them to the outer walls (and kissing your sidewalks goodbye). Retrofitting existing cities with these services could cost as much as building new cities from scratch, particularly in places where access is difficult (such as NYC or San Fran; bridges ain't cheap).
100% USDA grade-A Maradon!
The solution is residential skyscrapers and lots of them. Ironclad zoning is the only reason they haven't already been built - urban residency is a luxury in tremendous demand, and people would buy it up like lightning if cities would allow it. Some are beginning to.Heck, you could build a mall and grocery section right into the building.
The only real issue I can see is that, no matter how close to their daily needs people are, you're not going to be able to have everything within walking distance no matter where you live, and so you'll still need a car occasionally.
Of course, no matter what you do to provide new living space, this means the old residential areas will become virtually worthless. For people who rent their homes, it isn't such a big deal. But for anyone who owns a home (or any other building) in those areas, it means giving up their life's savings. Remember, if a homeowner fails to pay off a mortgage and the bank repossesses the house, the bank sends the house to auction. Any part of the former owner's mortgage that isn't recovered by selling the house, the former owner still owes. Add that to the cost of acquiring a new home in the city, and most home-owning families would be forced to declare bankruptcy.
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Over the mountain, in between the ups and downs, I ran into `Doc who doth quote:
You're still forgetting about supply delivery systems. No matter how compactly a city builds its infrastructure, it would still need cargo rail lines going to every building.
What the hell are you talking about? No they wouldn't. There are plenty of residential skyscrapers already in existence that are supplied fine without a train running into them. Hell, sports stadiums hold even more people than the average urban residential tower, and they don't even need a radical infrastructure change to keep the toilets flushing and hotdogs in everbody's hand.
You've been reading too much steampunk. We're talking about ten thousand people in a building, not ten million.
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Of course, no matter what you do to provide new living space, this means the old residential areas will become virtually worthless.
They'd become virtually worthless... over the course of decades as gas prices slowly rise commensurate with the demand for urban living. You say this as if there's something that needs to be done about it.
During that same time span, land prices bottoming out in the suburbs but rising in the city would invite out new business development and in time a whole new residential area along with it.
You've done two things here that are really silly:
1) You've exaggerated the logistical problems of inner city living a thousandfold.
2) You've assumed that all these changes would happen overnight, with no possibility for anybody to take reasonable economic action.
quote:You're thinking of utilities. I'm talking about supplies. You can't move food and clothing through a pipeline. Right now most of it arrives in trucks. Waste is carted away by trucks. If they continue to depend on diesel trucks for supplies, then moving to the city hasn't solved anything. The only viable alternative is railway shipping.
Maradon! is attacking the darkness!
What the hell are you talking about? No they wouldn't. There are plenty of residential skyscrapers already in existence that are supplied fine without a train running into them. Hell, sports stadiums hold even more people than the average urban residential tower, and they don't even need a radical infrastructure change to keep the toilets flushing and hotdogs in everbody's hand.
The alternative is what people are already doing; each family brings in its own supplies from separate commercial buildings.
quote:You're forgetting that I've seen the mechanics of this in action personally. How else would I know that all the deliveries come in by truck? And for reference, I don't read steampunk, and have no idea what you're talking about. Ten thousand people is a 100-story building at 100 people per floor, presuming you forego the commercial businesses from your earlier description.
You've been reading too much steampunk. We're talking about ten thousand people in a building, not ten million.
quote:Read (or skim) the article Karnaj posted about the recent mortgage fallout. Now picture that happening progressively for the next however many years, until it happens to everyone. All at once or over time, it's still a very ugly picture.
They'd become virtually worthless... over the course of decades as gas prices slowly rise commensurate with the demand for urban living. You say this as if there's something that needs to be done about it.
quote:Except that you can't really do that with highrises. Once you build a building, it's there until you tear it down. This means one of two scenarios: either a continuously rotating population as the shortest buildings are torn down to make room for taller ones (at mounting expense), or the buildings are initially constructed to house as many people as they could possibly handle without collapsing (putting all the expense up front). In either case, the transportation infrastructure needs to be put in simultaneously with the buildings themselves.
During that same time span, land prices bottoming out in the suburbs but rising in the city would invite out new business development and in time a whole new residential area along with it.
quote:I haven't exaggerated nearly as much as you think. "Nobody drives because there's too much traffic," is a frequent description of NYC and similar areas. More than 90% of the road traffic in Manhattan (which is as close to the model you're describing as I can think of) consists of two things: commercial shipping (box trucks) and public transportation (taxis & busses). The existing subway system is already insufficient, and there's no room to expand it without converting surface roads.
You've done two things here that are really silly:
1) You've exaggerated the logistical problems of inner city living a thousandfold.
2) You've assumed that all these changes would happen overnight, with no possibility for anybody to take reasonable economic action.
As for the question of rapid conversion vs slow conversion, most of the consequences are the same. They're just spaced out over a longer period. If it's a question of whether to run better transportation infrastructure out to suburban areas or watch the value of those areas slowly drain away, it's a pretty tough call. The construction costs would be about the same overall; saving the suburbs needs more rails but less walls. While a supercity might promote new commercial ventures, it would cause the collapse of a similar number of existing businesses. Depending mainly on circumstances and luck, this could result in a major decline of the middle class (at whatever rate the conversion takes place), because small business owners have much more difficulty coming up with relocation capital.
One interesting though generally less relevant sidenote is the potential for disaster. If a house burns down, you have one homeless family. If a highrise burns down, you have thousands of homeless families.
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And coming in at #1 is Maradon! with "Reply." I'm Casey Casem.
They'd become virtually worthless... over the course of decades as gas prices slowly rise commensurate with the demand for urban living. You say this as if there's something that needs to be done about it.
I have to contend this point, as we are most likely in the post-Peak plateau right now. Everyone's pumping flat out at or near capacity, and demand keeps going up. I'd wager money that in just a few short years, demand is going to begin rapidly outstripping supply and we'll begin to see actual physical shortages. This is not something that is going to happen decades in the future, but rather at the start of the coming decade. There is no way to quickly or painlessly change our society in such a short time, and as a consequence, lives will be ruined and trillions in wealth will evaporate.
Also, what I'm saying is nothing new. The Hirsch Report is almost three years old, and it states that mitigation will take twenty years, during which there will be significant resource shortfalls and the accompanying economic, social, and political disruption. If Peak Oil was twenty years off, these effects would be negligible. As it stands, however, Peak Oil is either very close or has already occurred, and mitigation has just now begun in earnest. We're in for two decades of shortages and massive economic and social realignment, at minimum. It's going to suck, and it's going to suck for a lot of people all at once for a long time.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
