Are ethanol and biodiesel viable alternatives?
According to this study, producing ethanol or biodiesel is not worth it.
It is interesting because it shows that when you think in terms of how much energy comes out compared to how much you have to put in, ethanol and biodiesel perform poorly.
Which means that we should be very careful about how much hope and development we pour into these solutions.
Moreover, they seem to be really really demanding in terms of surface they need to be produced. We can't remove all the forest on Earth just to produce a tenth of the ethanol we would need to power our cars, can we?!
Posted in: _Sciences , _PeakOil
It is interesting because it shows that when you think in terms of how much energy comes out compared to how much you have to put in, ethanol and biodiesel perform poorly.
Which means that we should be very careful about how much hope and development we pour into these solutions.
Moreover, they seem to be really really demanding in terms of surface they need to be produced. We can't remove all the forest on Earth just to produce a tenth of the ethanol we would need to power our cars, can we?!
Posted in: _Sciences , _PeakOil
posted by Bambitroll at
13:56
4 Comments:
For those connected on EcoNews and who can read French
http://www.manicore.com/documentation/carb_agri.html
The energy solution is not in how to produce ecologically same yearly increasing amount of energy, but how to use same energy better (read without waste, without useless comfort).
By
Anonymous, at 20/12/05 23:51
The good thing is that with time, we (especially the USA who uses twice as much energy as Europe for approximately the same living standard) won't have another solution that being very efficient with our energy use. Because when the oil production will start to decline, renewables won't be able to replace the lost output.
Frightening but exiting time ahead :)
By
Bambitroll, at 21/12/05 08:52
You're Candid ..
Shortage of supply is WAR (between USA and China)
By
Anonymous, at 23/12/05 23:18
Well... a war between the USA and China is unfortunately far from impossible, I agree indeed.
But it is not incompatible with the fact that scarcity of ressources will force efficiency onto the USA.
By
Bambitroll, at 24/12/05 09:29
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