Natural Gas and Solar

[TZ250]

This is an interesting video. It's five minutes well spent.

http://tinyurl.com/6mz9ml

[ibstrokin]

The only question I have is, How expensive are the wind power generators, and how long would it take to recover the cost of those? From what I understand, they haven't been the miracle cure they were supposed to be where they are in use now. California, and other parts of the country are in dire need of more power(blackouts/brownouts) so something needs to be done, maybe these would help. Regardless of how we remedy the situation, I can see energy costs really rising in the near future. And from what little I understand of nuclear, it seems to be a great energy source, that is much safer than most people think.

Great link though. Obviously something will need to be done, and soon.

[TZ250]

The only question I have is, How expensive are the wind power generators, and how long would it take to recover the cost of those? From what I understand, they haven't been the miracle cure they were supposed to be where they are in use now.

I do not know the cost of the windmills. The newer versions are use more sensors and higher technology for improved efficiency. They read the direction of the wind, then the head rotates into the wind, in real time. Also, the pitch of the blades can be changed, just like in airplanes.

[Mista Bone]

From what I've read, 9-12 year cost recovery on the windmills. Which is about the same for most solar panels setups as well.

Learn to monitor your useage and you can cut that by 1/3.

For example, my puter and other things connected to it.

Two external drives, printer scanner, cell phone charger, radio, old 4" B&W TV, etc. all run off transformers. Those transformers are ALWAYS on and creating heat. This time of year it a double killer. You waste $$$ running them even though they are not in use, then pay to chill the room temp back down.

In the next week I'm having a TV cable ran to the puter for the old TV and maybe adding a video recorder card to DVR some shows. When I do that I plan on adding the very little used items onto it's own power strip so I can kill the power when not in use, which is about 90% of the time. Today Newegg has a deal on a kill-a-watt unit, 13.99 after using the code, I'll likely get one to monitor.

I'm not a treehugger, just wanting to monitor power useage. I'm not even paying for the electricty right now since I'm at home. But I'm frugal and looking to save money once I'm back out on my own.

[cstreu1026]

I beleive the smaller windmill setups run in the neighborhood of $15-20K.

[Ric54]

This is an excellent video even though it doesn't solve all of our problems.
I agree with moving away from natural gas for electric generation. However lets heat our homes with the gas. Lets run our vehicles on renewable fuels such as alcohol. We can grow corn (etc) to make alcohol. It will run our current vehicles with little change to convert them.

I think that we should be going to hydrogen (fuel cells) in the future but it will take awhile to get that all up and running.

[TZ250]

Lets run our vehicles on renewable fuels such as alcohol. We can grow corn (etc) to make alcohol. It will run our current vehicles with little change to convert them.
It's not that simple. There are changes to be made to existing vehicles. Alchohol eats at rubber seals in existing (old) gasoline and diesels fuel systems. There are seals designed to resist that are made for alchohol, but ALL old systems would have to be retrofitted to use E85. The other problems are weather. I don't like the idea of keeping the price of fuel and food tied to one crop. If there is a flood, food and fuel prices soar. If there is a drought, food and fuel prices soar.

Another problem is price. Alchohol is expensive to produce. Before you start quoting cheap prices, make sure to add the amount that we pay in taxes to subsidize corn farms. :rolleyes: E85 is designed to get elected, not to solve problems.

[Rick93coupe]

From what I've been reading and hearing, sugar cane is a much better solution for alchohol production and it wouldn't effect food sources like corn does. Think Brazil! Here's an interesting read on it.
http://www.treepower.org/news/nytethanol2006.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

On the nuclear front, I'm 50/50. Its obviously a great energy source, but the spent fuel is a bit scary. Currently we're burying it under a mountain in an area that doesn't have a history of seismic activity. My only question is, what if there was a huge earthquake and things change? I think the life of the spent fuel is in the thousands of yrs before it returns to a stable state and stops putting off radiation.

[Ric54]

Corn is not the only answer to producing alcohol. What is drinking alcohol made from?? Rice,corn,sugar cane and much more. Actually about anything that grows.

Check out how long Brazil has been running on alcohol. They have been doing it for decades.

Here are three links to converting Mustangs on E85.

http://www.e85mustangs.com/tuning.html

http://www.mustang50magazine.com/techarticles/m5lp_0709_e85_terminator/index.html

http://blogs.musclemustangfastfords.com/6236746/editorials/e85-procharger-hellion-mustang/index.html

[cstreu1026]

From what I've been reading and hearing, sugar cane is a much better solution for alchohol production and it wouldn't effect food sources like corn does. Think Brazil! Here's an interesting read on it.
http://www.treepower.org/news/nytethanol2006.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

On the nuclear front, I'm 50/50. Its obviously a great energy source, but the spent fuel is a bit scary. Currently we're burying it under a mountain in an area that doesn't have a history of seismic activity. My only question is, what if there was a huge earthquake and things change? I think the life of the spent fuel is in the thousands of yrs before it returns to a stable state and stops putting off radiation.


Actually most spent fuel is still being stored on-site at the reactor facilities.

[Jeff88coupe]

The principle of E85 (being a renewable fuel source) is sound...but we need to get away from producing it from corn. We need to switch to a different feed stock that is more efficent..like sugar beets/switchgrass/sugar cane for ethanol production. The reason they are using corn as a feed stock is typical politics and $$. Brazil's E85+ production is all from sugar cane.

[ibstrokin]

Just steal the Mr. Fusion from Doc's Delorian in Back to the future 3.

[IWRBB]

From what I've been reading and hearing, sugar cane is a much better solution for alchohol production and it wouldn't effect food sources like corn does.

We pretty much cannot grow sugar cane anywhere in this country, so that is out. I just don't see the big deal about using corn for now, everyone says food prices this, corn prices that- but I can still buy a 12 pack of Coke for $2.00 on sale at Kroger. Same as 5 years ago.

No, corn into ethanol isn't pefect and it certainly won't be the long term solution for biomass, but I just don't get the HUGE backlash against it. Who here is actually noticed any substanital increase in the price of anything based upon this perceived lack of corn? We are still paying farmers to NOT grow corn. So yea, I'm not buying the whole corn shortage thing. I think any recent increases in food prices are nearly 100% attributable to the rise in price of diesel.

[TZ250]

I don't have all the answers, but I do have a funny link: :)
http://www.nozzlerage.com/

[02mingryGT]

Corn is not the only answer to producing alcohol. What is drinking alcohol made from?? Rice,corn,sugar cane and much more. Actually about anything that grows.

Check out how long Brazil has been running on alcohol. They have been doing it for decades.

Here are three links to converting Mustangs on E85.

http://www.e85mustangs.com/tuning.html

http://www.mustang50magazine.com/techarticles/m5lp_0709_e85_terminator/index.html

http://blogs.musclemustangfastfords.com/6236746/editorials/e85-procharger-hellion-mustang/index.html


And everyone of those expends more energy to make than it produces. E85 is a LOSER.

[Ric54]

We pretty much cannot grow sugar cane anywhere in this country, so that is out. I just don't see the big deal about using corn for now, everyone says food prices this, corn prices that- but I can still buy a 12 pack of Coke for $2.00 on sale at Kroger. Same as 5 years ago.

No, corn into ethanol isn't pefect and it certainly won't be the long term solution for biomass, but I just don't get the HUGE backlash against it. Who here is actually noticed any substanital increase in the price of anything based upon this perceived lack of corn? We are still paying farmers to NOT grow corn. So yea, I'm not buying the whole corn shortage thing. I think any recent increases in food prices are nearly 100% attributable to the rise in price of diesel.

They use to grow sugar cane in Louisiana before sugar fell out of favor. It grows just fine down there. BTW Coke doesn't have real sugar in it any more.

I agree with the poop that we are paying farmers not to grow corn. That is the same government that is lead by two oil men??? Hmmmmm. Kind of makes you wonder.

Here is some info :

Ethanol fuel is ethanol (ethyl alcohol), the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. It can be used as a fuel, mainly as a biofuel alternative to gasoline, and is widely used in cars in Brazil. Because it is easy to manufacture and process, and can be made from very common crops, such as sugar cane and maize (corn), it is an increasingly common alternative to gasoline in some parts of the world. Ethanol produced from cellulose is known as cellulosic ethanol or ceetol.

Anhydrous ethanol (ethanol with less than 1% water) can be blended with gasoline in varying quantities up to pure ethanol (E100), and most spark-ignited gasoline style engines will operate well with mixtures of 10% ethanol (E10).[1] Most cars on the road today in the U.S. can run on blends of up to 10% ethanol,[2] and the use of 10% ethanol gasoline is mandated in some cities where harmful levels of auto emissions are possible.[3]

Ethanol can be mass-produced by fermentation of sugar or by hydration of ethylene (ethene CH2=CH2) from petroleum and other sources. Current interest in ethanol mainly lies in bio-ethanol, produced from the starch or sugar in a wide variety of crops, but there has been considerable debate about how useful bio-ethanol will be in replacing fossil fuels in vehicles. Concerns relate to the large amount of arable land required for crops,[4] as well as the energy and pollution balance of the whole cycle of ethanol production.[5][6] Recent developments with cellulosic ethanol production and commercialization may allay some of these concerns.[7]

According to the International Energy Agency, cellulosic ethanol could allow ethanol fuels to play a much bigger role in the future than previously thought.[8] Cellulosic ethanol offers promise as resistant cellulose fibers, a major component in plant cells walls, can be used to generate ethanol. Dedicated energy crops, such as switchgrass, are also promising cellulose sources that can be produced in many regions of the United States.

Ethanol is considered "renewable" because it is primarily the result of conversion of the sun's energy into usable energy. Creation of ethanol starts with photosynthesis causing the feedstocks such as switchgrass, sugar cane, or corn to grow. These feedstocks are processed into ethanol.

About 5% of the ethanol produced in the world in 2003 was actually a petroleum product.[10] It is made by the catalytic hydration of ethylene with sulfuric acid as the catalyst. It can also be obtained via ethylene or acetylene, from calcium carbide, coal, oil gas, and other sources. Two million tons of petroleum-derived ethanol are produced annually. The principal suppliers are plants in the United States, Europe, and South Africa.[11] Petroleum derived ethanol (synthetic ethanol) is chemically identical to bio-ethanol and can be differentiated only by radiocarbon dating.[12]

Bio-ethanol is obtained from the conversion of carbon based feedstock. Agricultural feedstocks are considered renewable because they get energy from the sun using photosynthesis, provided that all minerals required for growth (such as nitrogen and phosphorus) are returned to the land. Ethanol can be produced from a variety of feedstocks such as sugar cane, bagasse, miscanthus, sugar beet, sorghum, grain sorghum, switchgrass, barley, hemp, kenaf, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, sunflower, fruit, molasses, corn, stover, grain, wheat, straw, cotton, other biomass, as well as many types of cellulose waste and harvestings, whichever has the best well-to-wheel assessment.

Current, first generation processes for the production of ethanol from corn use only a small part of the corn plant: the corn kernels are taken from the corn plant and only the starch, which represents about 50% of the dry kernel mass, is transformed into ethanol. Two types of second generation processes are under development. The first type uses enzymes and yeast to convert the plant cellulose into ethanol while the second type uses pyrolysis to convert the whole plant to either a liquid bio-oil or a syngas. Second generation processes can also be used with plants such as grasses, wood or agricultural waste material such as straw.

[Ric54]

I don't have all the answers, but I do have a funny link: :)
http://www.nozzlerage.com/


That IS great !!!

[Rick93coupe]

Actually most spent fuel is still being stored on-site at the reactor facilities.

I just saw a map yesterday showing the facilities across the country where we are storing it, cant seem to find it now. I also watched a show on it last weekend. I do remember Idaho, Virginia and Texas as being storage facilities.

[Rick93coupe]

We pretty much cannot grow sugar cane anywhere in this country, so that is out.

Texas is growing it and has been for 30+ yrs.
http://www.sugarcaneleague.org/

Corn is too valuable in the country, do a little search some time of all the products made from corn and corn by products, its actually amazing.:eek:

[e5shea]

This is an excellent video even though it doesn't solve all of our problems.
I agree with moving away from natural gas for electric generation. However lets heat our homes with the gas. Lets run our vehicles on renewable fuels such as alcohol. We can grow corn (etc) to make alcohol. It will run our current vehicles with little change to convert them.

I think that we should be going to hydrogen (fuel cells) in the future but it will take awhile to get that all up and running.

Good point, I think people need to quit expecting a cure all over night. I took years to develope the problem, and it will certainly take years to fix it. Mix in some solar, some wind, natural gas, etc.. and they'll take a chunk of the pie out of the oil market.