I have a new business plan!

[super8man]

I'm pretty sure that the overwhelming majority of people would agree that we need far less fossil fuel than we currently consume, and that we could easily modify our behaviour without seriously compromising our quality of life.

I merely ask one compound question: Who gets to decide how much is "far less" and I would like the "without seriously compromising our quality if life" quantified.

You see where I am going...

[Angus]

I think that is the nub of the matter. Education aside, most people don't intend to go around polluting their world.

But by and large we enjoy our lifestyles. Most people are willing to "do their bit" for the environment if it isn't too difficult, if it doesn't mean significant chagnes to their lives.

Take recycling for instance. Most people I know want to recycle. In the UK local authorities are responsible for recycling facilities, and while there's a European target of x% of rubbish recycled its up to local governments to decide how to achieve this.

In the town where I live its pretty simple. Garden waste goes into one bin, most plastics, all cardboard, tin cans, tetra-packs, foil containers (rinsed), newspaper go into a 2nd bin. A 3rd for glass. Everything else goes into a 4th. They are all collected from our door, weekly for "everything else", bi-weekly for the others.

OK so it means 4 bins instead of one, but it is relatively easy to do. The Mrs and I probably recycle over 50% of our waste because it is not made difficult. But some other towns have few doorstep collections, you go to a recycling centre or the supermarket to recycle anything other than paper. So you save up your plastics, bottles, cans, foil containers, cardboard etc...and drive them somewhere. Needless to say, such areas have a much lower recycling rate.

In Spain I have often seen bins for recycling plastic, glass and tetra-pack bottles as well as papers on the streets. So you don't have to go far with your rubbish and if you happen to buy a bottle while you are out you can recycle it in the street. I've seen this on a *very* limited scale in London, but we are way behind.

People will generally be greener if its not difficult. What about transport? Well, we all know (especially in winter) how much nicer cars are than busses and trains! And some parts of the world have virtually no public transport infrastructure. When I tell European people that Boise, a city of some 200,000 people does not have a train service they simply don't understand. Even a city like London which is crawling with busses, trains, tubes...many people prefer to drive their own cars. Bus goes from B-C, but you want to go from A-D. Car gets you doorstep to doorstep and it doesn't stop 16 times along the way. Having said that, at least you can get anywhere you want in London by public transport and all on one ticket.

"Europe is set up for trains".....well what I often say is that European cities were often layed out by contemporaries of Julias Ceasar, whereas US cities were layed out by contemporaries of Henry Ford. Cars are not always practical in cities with narrow, winding, hard-to-navitage streets. I used to laugh at people who reckoned Seattle suffered from traffic congestion..."Just visit London on a non-busy day!" I used to say.

But I am rambling now!

[David M. Leugers]

Roger. I don't like the government giving money to ANY business. They have no business doing that. But the money they are giving is ours, our children and grand-kids money. That is what we all should be up in arms about, not focusing in on the auto industry which is peanuts compared to the 8 Trillion the banksters are getting... That was the point I was trying to make.

Ethanol. Please do a web search on David Blume. He is a professor, farmer and visionary. I can't believe all the reasons I am hearing for why we can not eliminate (for the most part) the big oil control over our lives and the pollution it causes. 1/10 of an acre of Cattails can be used to produce 1,000 gals of alcohol. I drive about 3,000 miles a year. Even at 20 MPG (I get more than that) that is only 150 gals of fuel a year. The pseudo math being promoted by the oil companies that ethanol is a dead end is well, you fill in the blank. To not even attempt alternative, renewable fuel is insane.

[super8man]

When the time comes, nuclear power and batteries will be all we need. No conspiracy theory or big oil "control" theories needed (since they are all fake). The problem for most people is they want the end of the world to be now...not when the Sun goes to a red giant/white dwarf...

California currently gets 10% of its light duty vehicle transportation fuel from ethanol. Do you really want to do the math for "just California" to go the other 90% and see what the repercussions are around the world? Ironically, this created a huge boon for the rail industry in the making of tanker cars (many of which "litter" the railways around pretty much every neighborhood near train tracks).

Again, you know it's bunk when the unit of measure is gallons. "Barrels" is the key measurement - some 42 times that of a gallon.

[super8man]

Let's take your math: 1/10 of an acre produces 1,000 gallons...

Well, California currently consumes approximately 7,000,000 BARRELS of gasoline (10% of that is ethanol) per WEEK. Yes, 7 million barrels per week.

Doing the math, that's about 15.3 BILLION GALLONS per year...

Since your example did not have a rate, let's assume an annual harvest of 1,000 gallons of ethanol per year...so, you would need some 153 MILLION acres of land that has zero crop failures...and let's not forget we need the fuel over time, not all at once as an annual harvest would imply...

Now, if someone could let me know the size of 153 million acres....perhaps it's not that big of a space?? Job creation for sure though...

[christoph]

Now, if someone could let me know the size of 153 million acres....

http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/CA.HTM#FC

[super8man]

As Christoph points out...we would need an area the size of 1.5X the entire state of California to get up to 150 million acres. Not sure if this accounts for all the hills and dales though. Perhaps Roger could chip in some of his unused land in Texas to get California off of gasoline and 100% into ethanol?

[MovieStuff]

Perhaps Roger could chip in some of his unused land in Texas to get California off of gasoline and 100% into ethanol?

How did I get roped into this conversation about land usage?

Anyway, I've only got one little acre but I'm gonna use it to plant dental floss. And then I'm movin' to Montana soon...... ;)

Roger

PS: We'll see how many old timers here get this reference.

[timdrage]

I got it but I'm a relatively new-timer

[Scotness]

Well in my humble opinion the future of agriculture and land use is in these things



Vertical Farming

- don't know about fuel though - interestingly James Lovelock the inventor of the Gaia theory is a big supporter of nuclear (not saying I necessarily am though....)




Scot

[S8 Booster]

in not too many years Fusion Power is available, then its all electric and no more concerns...

shoot....

[christoph]

in not too many years Fusion Power is available, then its all electric and no more concerns...

how do you come to this conclusion?
from the very link you posted:

Current status:
Despite optimism dating back to the 1950s about the wide-scale harnessing of fusion power, there are still significant barriers standing between current scientific understanding and technological capabilities and the practical realization of fusion as an energy source. Research, while making steady progress, has also continually thrown up new difficulties. Therefore it remains unclear that an economically viable fusion plant is even possible.[15] An editorial in New Scientist magazine opined that "if commercial fusion is viable, it may well be a century away."[15] Interestingly, a pamphlet printed by General Atomics in 1970s stated that "By the year 2000, several commercial fusion reactors are expected to be on-line."
Several fusion D-T burning tokamak test devices have been built (TFTR, JET), but, by design, none have produced more thermal energy than electrical energy consumed. Despite research having started in the 1950s, no commercial fusion reactor is expected before 2050. The ITER project is currently leading the effort to commercialize fusion power.

and this is coming from a source which is very pro-nuclear power (both, fission and fusion).

personally i think there's no magical solution to our upcoming energy problems. eventually, the rest of the world (specially china, india, but also the rest of asia or africa) want also to have a higher standard, resulting in much higher energy needs, and frankly, we can't blame them as we have wasted our share.

so the best attempts will be to reduce our current energy usage (and try to convince the 3rd world countries to keep theirs low) and build a mix or different energy sources.
coal will still play a big role in our energy supply for the next 50 years, as will fossil fuel and gas. apart from that i think the three main sources will be thermo solar, wind, and nuclear energy.

++ c.

[downix]

Might I point out that it does not have to be an all-or-nothing solution either. Different fuels for different needs. According to Foreign Policy Magazine, Wired magazine, and Gibson Consulting (I like multiple sources for clarification) California consumesd 20 billion gallons of gasoline... for the whole year of 2007. Now, translating that to ethanol, and you're looking at a more modest 1 million acres of land. Now, if you are using a plant that yields in environments that are unsuitable for human consumption (covered over trash dumps or the like) and viola, we have now turned land that was previously non-production land.

[S8 Booster]

christoph, allthough there is still a way to go the progress over the past years are very promising and the Wiki stuff isnt exactly THE facit as we know.
did not do a up to date search on the subject - just took the 1 one popping up to enlighten the possibilities....which coincidentaly was Wiki..

a couple of US wartime budgets into R&D and likly off we go ...

shoot....

[S8 Booster]

there will be multi fuel energy carriers for some time but to really make an impact on fossil fuel only nuke power has the capacity for the time beeing...

shoot...