Name your favourite BioFuel Technology

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Its clear now that BioFuel is the most promising Fuel technology available today. So tell your favourite BioFuel Technology with credible links. Gone are the days when we thought dangerous polluting Battery powered cars will be the future. Its time to move ahead.

I get the first chance.

My favourite is Coconut Oil, its already available today. And has been tried and tested. Can be easily used in Combustion engines.
http://www.islandsbusiness.com/isla...ID=4976/overideSkinName=issueArticle-full.tpl

http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=2596
 
My favourite is reclaimed vegetable oil. A guy I know runs a business cleaning out deep fat fryers for hotels and canteens etc. He takes away old cooking oil, and it can be made into fuel. He hasn't yet converted his van to run on it, I wish he would, it would be a rather neat system, and almost free fuel (apart from paying duty, despite making it yourself).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/3959977.stm
 
I'd say palm oil. Due to it's EROEI it makes it one of the best biofuels available to us.

It's good, but it's not 250 million automobiles good. On a smaller, more sustainable scale it's definately workable though.
 
Strains of algae that are high producers of oil. The technology is simple, fertilization and harvesting are also simple and easy as is processing.

It can be grown anywhere there is a supply of water and sunshine, does not involve heavy machinery - like tractors - and has a MUCH higher return of BTU output per BTU input of energy. In fact more than ANY other bio-approach. That includes soy, rape, corn, cane, or sugar beets. Nothing else even come close in efficiency.

It does require initial (one-time) land leveling but so do most of the other alternatives. There are no erosion problems at all and fertilizer run-off and leaching are completely eliminated.
 
Avatar said:
sounds wonderful, Light
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I agree. And unlike alcohol, there's no fermentation or hydrolization prior to fermenting required.

There's also no waste material that has to be hauled away or burned, as is the case with alcohol produced from corn or beets. There's only two products coming out. One is the oil, the other is pressed "algae cake" which can be fed to animals and the resulting manure can be injected directly back into the system as a source of nitrogen fertilizer.

So not only is a good, efficient system for industrial nations, but it can be readily used in developing countries as well.
 
Its clear now that BioFuel is the most promising Fuel technology available today.
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don't jump on the band wagon that quick. the algae approach is about the only one that has a chance of working on a large scale. basically, the best biofuels can hope for is to put a dent in our energy consumption, no way it can fix our problems.

on the other hand, maybe whole stretches of dessert could be flooded and used to grow algae (good luck getting environmentalists nutjobs' support in destroying some useless creature's habitat though). even still, not a solution by any means.

if we want sustainable energy sources, the best way to do it, is to control population growth because it can solve many problems simultaneously.
 
Below is the list of techs that were without credible links

Mosheh Thezion : solar powered black body collectors....

duendy : H E M P!!!!!!!!

Light : Strains of algae that are high producers of oil.


We need the details to scilence people like CATO
 
Hempseed oil is quite credible and hemp is very, very easy to grow. It only alters the land for the better. The leaves it sheds help build real soil and regenerate desertified areas.

I don't know why anyone would even call it a "superplant" to ridicule the truth about its properties. What you have is a big effing plant that produces a natural oil in seeds that are soft and easy to squeeze. It's been with us forever.
 
Below is the list of techs that were without credible links

Mosheh Thezion : solar powered black body collectors....

duendy : H E M P!!!!!!!!

Light : Strains of algae that are high producers of oil.


We need the details to scilence people like CATO
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www.google.com is a good place to start =]

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
that is also a start, but they are a bit too optimistic IMO.

cornell said:
...corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; [...] soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced [...]

...corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; [...] soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced [...]

In assessing inputs, the researchers considered such factors as the energy used in producing the crop (including production of pesticides and fertilizer, running farm machinery and irrigating, grinding and transporting the crop) and in fermenting/distilling the ethanol from the water mix.
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And useful quantities of wood can be gathered and used with essentially zero expenditure of fossil fuel after some has been expended buy a good saw at the hardware store. It takes little to no fossil fuel to produce hempseed oil, and no ponds.

Whoever thinks that algae makes a viable fuel source doesn't seem to understand what it takes to build and maintain such large ponds. It's also desparate compared to the idea of simply growing a common plant.
 
And useful quantities of wood can be gathered and used with essentially zero expenditure of fossil fuel after some has been expended buy a good saw at the hardware store. It takes little to no fossil fuel to produce hempseed oil, and no ponds.

Whoever thinks that algae makes a viable fuel source doesn't seem to understand what it takes to build and maintain such large ponds. It's also desparate compared to the idea of simply growing a common plant.
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you think it's easy to gather enough wood to make any kind of dent in energy use? little to no fossil fuels to produce hempseed oil? how on earth do you plan to do that large scale?
 
MetaKron said:
And useful quantities of wood can be gathered and used with essentially zero expenditure of fossil fuel after some has been expended buy a good saw at the hardware store. It takes little to no fossil fuel to produce hempseed oil, and no ponds.

Whoever thinks that algae makes a viable fuel source doesn't seem to understand what it takes to build and maintain such large ponds. It's also desparate compared to the idea of simply growing a common plant.
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Just as you've shown so many times before, your lack of knowledge and understanding is quite clear.

Wood? Get real, kid! Wood is slow to reproduce (we've nearly stripped the planet already) and expensive in terms of energy costs to harvest and transport. It's also VERY heavy compared to the amount of energy it contains, partly because it contains so much water even after being air-dried. Want to reduce that moisture content some? Then expend even more energy doing so.

"...wood can be gathered and used with essentially zero expenditure of fossil fuel ..." Really????? And how do you intend to move it - use Captain Kirk's transporter?

Same old dummy, eh? :bugeye:
 
cato said:
you think it's easy to gather enough wood to make any kind of dent in energy use? little to no fossil fuels to produce hempseed oil? how on earth do you plan to do that large scale?
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Many thousands of homes in the U.S. get all of their heat from the burning of wood that is still essentially gathered by hand, and many thousands live in places where there is more wood than they can ever use. A homeowner chops up enough for the winter in a couple of weekends, depending on how fast he works and whether he uses a chainsaw. I have lived on small acreages where the BTU value was more than enough for any given winter out of trees that I had to cut down and cut up just to maintain the property. There could easily be more than a hundred trees on one such property and the homeowner would only need to cut down one or two and save branches from trimming those that need trimmed, and it's quite possible to do this without cutting down one. There are numerous fast-growing species of trees that produce many tons of cellulose per tree in a single generation.

What exactly IS a large scale here? If you have enough to heat your own home and enough to sell to ten other homeowners, is that large enough? Anyone who lives on a small acreage and is competent can have this. Half the reason people can't afford this is because they take abuse from those who think that humans naturally live in cities and they screw over the farmer to make that possible. Why do we think we even have to be on the grid to have electricity and heat? Why do we let them treat us all like we are totally incompetent?
 
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