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>> Can you expound on this? Biofuels will (hopefully) be used for aircraft (best case, algae produced at airports, converted into biofuels), and we can already
by markbnj 11y ago
>> Can you expound on this? Biofuels will (hopefully) be used for aircraft (best case, algae produced at airports, converted into biofuels), and we can already create plastics from corn and other crops.
The difference in energy density between bio- and fossil fuels is extraordinary. The very simple reason is that fossil fuels represent the concentrated results of millions of years of decaying biological material. I'm not sure there is enough accessible biomass on the planet to totally replace fossil fuels in their current applications.
- marcosdumay 11y agoThe difference in energy density of bio-fuels and the most dense liquid fossil fuels can be none depending on which one you choose. You know, ethanol is not the only bio-fuel.
- markbnj 11y agoI wasn't very clear, I think. Yes, you can make higher density biodiesels and there are even denser biofuels on the horizon. What I mean to say was that you can't compare the accumulated energy of a few millions of years of biomass with what you can extract from what is growing on the planet right now, even if you could turn it all into fuel. The world is currently consuming around 100 million barrels of petroleum per day. http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=5&pid=5&aid=2 http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=5&pi...
- marcosdumay 11y agoThat's not really a valid concern in a thread about niche applications. Yes, we have a scale problem, and it must be fixed with renewables that scale, not with bio-fuels. The fact that the ones that scale are not fitted for niches is not reason to claim that we can't fulfill niches, and the fact that some niche fuels do not scale is not reason to claim that we can't get renewables at scale.