Name your favourite BioFuel Technology
- Thread starter Singularity
- Start date
And in the quantities it is needed. It's not easy to control the power output. When one needs a lot more heating then you have to worry about the stoves not blowing up, how to shovel enough wood in them, then there is lots of work in cleaning them and getting rid of the ash, keeping the fire alive, not to mention that to get a continious heat output someone has to manually feed the stove now and then, etc.
It's possible in a farm deep in the woods, but not reasonable to do in a modern house at the outskirts of city, etc.
cato said:
The one thing that I was promoting about wood is that it is possible to obtain a lot of useful energy from it without expending much if any fossil fuels. This is one of only two fuels that fill that bill, and biodiesel from hempseeds is the better of the two.
When we are talking about how many trees, it depends on the size. You can't use all of the wood you can get from one mature spreading maple in one season. You can't use all the wood you can get from deadwood and simple maintenance if you have ten well-managed acres. It does have its problems. Those problems can be managed. Petroleum has its problems too. People have even successfully used wood to power vehicles to drive to work in, too.
There are ways around a lot of the inconveniences and difficulties with wood, and to a lot of people wood is very available. An insulated house uses a lot less of it, too, and there are ways to distribute the heat effectively. It takes more effort and attention, but how much effort and attention does it take to earn $500 a month just for heating bills?
While I am never sure about every little bit of every theory, right now I live miles and miles within the the city and I can see many tons of wood right from my window, and a lot of the ground has been stripped of growing trees on purpose to make lawns. I am painfully aware that oil could disappear on us, not absolutely certain, but I know they say it will. Every piece of technology that I own or care to use could be powered by wood-burning technology if I had to, though I would quickly be putting in LED lights and seeing what I could do to reduce consumption, and no, LCD monitors do not use less power than CRT monitors, read the stickers on the backs.
The best thing is to produce oil from hemp, and I give FA about whether the leaves have psychoactive properties, we need our energy and we need to produce it in a responsible manner, which we have failed to do.
put it this a way troll-face. if i was a bum on my arse drinkin cheap hootch out of a broke bottle i'd feel damn sight more fulfilled than if i'd devoted my life to 'psychology' and was as pathetic as u come across....now haveyour last frikin word and lt this thread regain its composureLight said:
Ophiolite
Valued Senior Member
Biomass, traditionally, is a biofuel derived from young plants which are harvested and suitably processed for burning. The heat produced is the form of energy which can be harnessed. Other names commonly associated with the technique are Coppicing and Energy Fuel. Biomass is, strictly, a form of biofuel but we have concentrated attention on biofuels as those mainly applicable to motor vehicles.
The concept becomes attractive only when the plants are replaced at a rate equal to the rate at which they are harvested. It is argued that the carbon sinking effect of the growing plants neutralises the carbon emitted when the the fuel is burnt. Young trees are better sinks than mature trees. Since, by definition, the extraction of energy is accompanied by the release of carbon, it is not such an ideal solution as the generation of solar or wind power, for example. Nevertheless, it provides a renewable source and is much more eco-friendly than burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil.
Biomass methods are basically low tech and they are particularly useful where there is surplus arable land. Therefore the system is appropriate, not only for some undeveloped countries, but also for the UK and other parts of Europe where efficient agricultural techniques frequently lead to over production of food crops. The potential is attractive because it is relatively cheap (eg compared to the radical solar, wind, etc schemes) and could take advantage of the infamous subsidies currently provided simply to get farmers to do nothing with their land. Although the processing requires the input of energy (cutting, chipping, transport etc) it can be quite efficient and especially with a system of CHP, q.v.
If this process was developed fully in the UK, according to the DTI, it could become a major agricultural industry and would be capable of meeting a significant proportion of the current electrical demands. One of the most practical way of generating biofuels is to plant fast-growing trees and cut them back every few years, allowing further growth to occur. This is usually referred to as coppicing and the fuel is solid wood, often chipped. Another method is to grow suitable green plants from which liquid vegetable oil can be extracted.
Biomass implementation is not without its opponents. Apart from the underlying disadvantages that carbon is emitted and there may be toxic products of combustion, some feel that the countryside would be spoiled by the sight of disfigured forests, and there are other legitimate objections. On the other hand the prospect of a new, significant, cleanish, renewable energy source which is cost effective and which will provide employment is likely to appeal to government and farmers alike.
Source: http://www.envocare.co.uk/biomass.htm
Ignorant peasants.
The concept becomes attractive only when the plants are replaced at a rate equal to the rate at which they are harvested. It is argued that the carbon sinking effect of the growing plants neutralises the carbon emitted when the the fuel is burnt. Young trees are better sinks than mature trees. Since, by definition, the extraction of energy is accompanied by the release of carbon, it is not such an ideal solution as the generation of solar or wind power, for example. Nevertheless, it provides a renewable source and is much more eco-friendly than burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil.
Biomass methods are basically low tech and they are particularly useful where there is surplus arable land. Therefore the system is appropriate, not only for some undeveloped countries, but also for the UK and other parts of Europe where efficient agricultural techniques frequently lead to over production of food crops. The potential is attractive because it is relatively cheap (eg compared to the radical solar, wind, etc schemes) and could take advantage of the infamous subsidies currently provided simply to get farmers to do nothing with their land. Although the processing requires the input of energy (cutting, chipping, transport etc) it can be quite efficient and especially with a system of CHP, q.v.
If this process was developed fully in the UK, according to the DTI, it could become a major agricultural industry and would be capable of meeting a significant proportion of the current electrical demands. One of the most practical way of generating biofuels is to plant fast-growing trees and cut them back every few years, allowing further growth to occur. This is usually referred to as coppicing and the fuel is solid wood, often chipped. Another method is to grow suitable green plants from which liquid vegetable oil can be extracted.
Biomass implementation is not without its opponents. Apart from the underlying disadvantages that carbon is emitted and there may be toxic products of combustion, some feel that the countryside would be spoiled by the sight of disfigured forests, and there are other legitimate objections. On the other hand the prospect of a new, significant, cleanish, renewable energy source which is cost effective and which will provide employment is likely to appeal to government and farmers alike.
Source: http://www.envocare.co.uk/biomass.htm
Ignorant peasants.
Avatar said:
And managing the trees is good for the trees, though I would have to agree that aggressive clearing of underbrush and deadfalls isn't the best thing for some wildlife. They do manage pretty well even then.
To answer one comment, I have made huge piles of firewood before just cutting up any single dead tree that needed to come down because it had died of natural causes. Sometimes I had several and the property still had no shortage of massive trees. It doesn't take a lot of time or effort. So I don't watch every football game or Sci-Fi channel movie.
Ophiolite
Valued Senior Member
I trust it is self evident that my reference to ignorant peasants in my previous post was not an irate attack upon Light, Avatar, Phlogisitician and others for their lack of imagination (foolishness is its own reward), but a suggestion for the labour force that could be used to carry out this coppicing.
Ophiolite said:
There is no reason that we can't have people, even prisoners, clear enough brush in fire-prone areas to make firebreaks, then use the materials as fuel to generate power. I think that this is an effort that needs to be made, provided that it is true that petroleum does not renew itself as quickly as we use it.
I'm a martial arts sportsman and I get lots of exercise, but time spent gathering wood is far from productive if we look at how much I earn from that and not very heatlhy for your backbone too.MetaKron said:
p.s. I have no tv.
-----------
Ophiolite, if you want wood, ok, you can have it, but I've had enough of manual labour keeping the fire burning as a child and I don't see any slaves for sale. Oil or electricity is much more convenient.
I know how to get duendy to join the nuclear front!duendy said:
duendy, you may not know it, but radioactivity causes much bigger mushrooms to grow!
Seriously though, I know you are well aware of the report on the situation of wildlife near Chernobyl, that even where there was a huge disaster, wildlife flourishes and is abundant.
And talk about all the other nuclear power stations where there is next to no leakage.
As Duendy pointed out, radioactive waste is an extreme danger. I personally don't think humanity has the brains to handle it well. This does not outweigh your convenience?
That's one of my gripes. Some people tell us it's safe to create radioactive poisons so we can generate power using somewhat convenient methods. They wave their arms in the air and go woo-woo when people point out that even the supporters of this practice estimate that it causes so many thousands of human deaths per year. Then they tell me that it is too dangerous for me to keep a cougar as a pet even though no pet cougar has ever killed anyone, while the nuclear industry kills thousands of humans each year. Great fucking thinking, people.
That's one of my gripes. Some people tell us it's safe to create radioactive poisons so we can generate power using somewhat convenient methods. They wave their arms in the air and go woo-woo when people point out that even the supporters of this practice estimate that it causes so many thousands of human deaths per year. Then they tell me that it is too dangerous for me to keep a cougar as a pet even though no pet cougar has ever killed anyone, while the nuclear industry kills thousands of humans each year. Great fucking thinking, people.