Biofuel Production to Cause Water Shortages? 413
WED Fan writes "Scientists meeting in Stockholm are reporting that increased food and biofuel production will place higher demand upon irrigation and water resources." From the article: "Demand for irrigation -- which absorbs about 74 percent of all water used by people against 18 percent for hydro-power and other industrial uses and just 8 percent for households -- was likely to surge by 2050. Many nations are also shifting to produce biofuels -- from sugarcane, corn or wood -- as a less polluting alternative to fossil fuels. Oil prices at $75 a barrel and worries about global warming are driving the shift."
Re:Thermal depolymerisation? (Score:5, Informative)
I think a lot of the reason it hasn't caught on is cited in your Wiki link. Its a classic case of NIMBY.
Its a town in the middle of a big farming state, its residents should be used to the smell of animal processing. All of a sudden theres sometihng new, and almost too good to be true, and they start smelling 'new' smells and begin pointing fingers.
The biggest hurdle to any new energy source is public acceptance. This is getting even harder in the States with a public that is rejecting science and accepting of short-term politically driven decisions.
Re:Not an issue... (Score:1, Informative)
I have noted that in every nuclear intensive country the level of awareness against nuclear power is way higher than in the US.
Lies about nuclear energy are well seen through.
It is not cheap [bbc.co.uk] although it sometimes appears to be through heavy governemental subventions.
It is not safe [google.com], and without even touching the waste problem, warnings come on a regular basis to remind us this fact. And of course it won't last forever.
To the problem of energy and the closely linked water consumption, there is but one solution : to lower [mondediplo.com] and rationalize.
Re:biofuel != no CO2 (Score:4, Informative)
biofuel != no CO2
True but it is also true that biofuel != NET increase CO2.
A biofueled economy would put CO2 in the atmosphere at the consumer end of the cycle but it takes it out of the atmosphere at the production end of the cycle. Over time, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will not increase due to biofuels.
Re:biofuel != no CO2 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not an issue... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Priority Management (Score:3, Informative)
Well, many of the more fundamental environmentalists see humankind as a a plague that is scrourging an otherwise perfect earth (mother nature). It is a modern version of the old Gnosis, where the whole creation was evil, and only the Sophia was perfect.
Re:Not an issue... (Score:3, Informative)
Consider: Desalination could be primarily powered by solar (ie: direct heating of the water by the infrared portion of the spectrum, while solar panels collect the visible spectra), with additional power being generated by tides, wind, etc. If a LOT of fresh water is needed, you can have the electrical generators as a grid-share system (plug 'em into the wall), so that production can be ramped up as needed, and excess during low-demand times can be sold back to the grid.
Meanwhile, the plants themselves act as solar collectors, storing their energy as complex carbohydrates, which can then be processed into ethanol, biodiesel, or gasoline (techniques exist for all of these).
Though, I'm unsure of the reasons for using corn and sugarcane; jerusalem artichokes have the best potential for ethanol production. They have the greatest energy yield per acre per year, are pretty hard to kill (for food production, you wouldn't want the second-seasonal tubers, but they're fine for fuel production), and require little in the way of water (natural rainfall in less arid deserts is sufficient). Besides, they're pretty (they're a sunflower), and most of the plant is fermentable (and you can use the nonfermentables in thermal conversion to get gasoline. The mix would be something like 80% ethanol, 20% gasoline, but definately sufficient for a slightly modified modern vehicle.
Meanwhile, having ethanol at the pump would pave the way for production of vehicles using Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell technology - something that's about twice as efficient per gallon of ethanol as your standard ICE.
This is a problem... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not an issue... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:biofuel != no CO2 (Score:3, Informative)
I see you are missing a very important piece of information, which is misleading your entire judgement. I'll explain.
Petroleum is a fossil fuel (and coal, for that matter). When fossil fuels are uses the carbon which was stored and trapped beneath the soil is again being released into the atmosphere. So in the end when someone uses fossil fuels that person is adding more carbon to the atmosphere and in effect contributing to global warming.
That isn't the case when using biofuels. They are produced by storing carbon already available from the atmosphere. So instead of releasing more carbon into the air we are recycling the carbon already present. When using biofuels no one is introducing more carbon into the atmosphere. The carbon produced by using biofuels is in fact reclycled from the carbon which is already present. In the end there is no CO2 production in the sense that the overall quantity of carbon present in the atmosphere stays exactly the same.
So in the end burning biofuels doesn't contribute to global warming. It doesn't have any effect watsoever. The carbon being release to the atmosphere was extracted from the atmosphere in the first place. Moreover, producing biofuel can also help reduce the carbon levels presented in the air because not every quantity of carbon which is extracted from the atmosphere is again released into it.
Your figures (Score:4, Informative)
cooling the fractional distillation towers and this is entirely recirculated. Most of the mashing water is also recovered in holding ponds. So your figure is nothing more than a little interesting not a indication of a problem as you suggest.
Re:Not an issue... (Score:5, Informative)
Nuclear is safe. You're touting Chernobyl as an example of how unsafe nuclear power is? Get real. Chernobyl is an example of stuidity of mankind in its most extreme. Your argument makes as much sense as saying dynamite (the basis of most modern techonological infrastructure) should be banned because some idiot terrorist strapped it to himself and blew some people up. Simple fact is, dynamite is one of the safest explosives we have. And yes, idiots do blow themselves up with it. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
Fact, Chernobyl would have never been allowed to be built in the US (even in the 50s, or any other country in the world) as it failed to meet the most basic of safety standards. Fact, Russia suffers from penis envy (compared to te US) and considers its people to be disposible; thusly they knowingly created a very, very dangerous reactor. Fact, Russia has a long history of ignoring safety at the expense of their population (comparisons to civil terrorism would not be unwarrented). Fact, it had little to no containment shielding to begin with. Fact, what failsafes they had in place had been disabled. Fact, with a skeleton crew, making them unable to react to any emergency, they decided to operate their reactor outside known safe parameters to observe what happens. Guess what, they acted like terrorists strapping dynamite to themselves and the world is shocked. Gasp! Chernobyl is an condemnation of Russia, Russian politics, and Russia's complete disreguard for humanity; however, it is not a statement about nuclear power.
In the final analysis, only an absolute idiot would use Chernobyl as a posterboy for how unsafe nuclear power is. Why do I sound so harsh? Simple, because anyone that attempts to use Chernobyl for anti-nuclear reasons obviously doesn't know anything about the details and are running scared. If you insist on attempting to make an anti-nuclear, fear mongering position, please build a case based on facts rather than ignorance and stupidity. If you're using Chernobyl, obviously you have no facts and come off sounding like an absolute, raving, tree-hugging, loon. At best, you're simply ignorant, parroting fear.
Simple fact is, nuclear power, based on current designs, is very, very safe. Simple fact is, newer, modern nuclear designs are safer yet. One can certainly argue the economic merits and the finite duration nuclear power is an option. Nonetheless, nuclear is one of the safest sources of power on earth. Anyone with the slightest inkling of knowledge of the subject matter is forced to conclude, nuclear is safe. Period.
Re:Not an issue... (Score:3, Informative)
If all Iran wanted was nuclear power, A, B, and C, would not even be on the table for discussion. And frankly, the would wouldn't care nearly as much.
Re:Canola, Sugar, etc (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not an issue... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sorry, but there's no logical reason to believe that because the energy requirements of desalination for irrigation are indirect that they are significantly less than the energy output of the biofuel. All the indirect nature of the energy input implies is the thermodynamic possibility of a net energy profit.
Assuming the most favorable processes (sugar beets used for ethanol at 714 gal/acre, 5 kwh per cubic meter of desalinated water), 80% efficiency from a center pivot irrigation system, 60% efficiency from the original energy stock, and 30"/season of net water consumption, such a system would require 3855 cubic meters of fresh water at the cost of 19275 kwh of energy at the desalination plant or 32125 kwh of fuel stock. Ethanol yields 23 kwh per gallon, so a salination-supported sugar beet ethanol facility under ideal conditions would yield approximately 16422 kwh per acre at a per acre cost of approximately 32125 kwh of energy stock, ignoring the energy costs associated with delivering the water, powering farm equipment, &etc. That's a net loss of approximately 15703 kwh per acre per season, essentially converting your original fuel stock to ethanol at an efficiency of 51%. As ethanol-powered vehicles have an efficiency between 30 and 35%, this would yield a total efficiency (original fuel stock to end use as transportation energy) of around 15%. Electric vehicles charge at an efficiency between 80 and 90% and then use that stored energy at an efficiency between 80% and 90%. Assuming the low end on both of those scales, an electric vehicle would yield an energy stock to transportation efficiency of 38%.
Now, 60% at the power plant is using a state of the art combined cycle LNG system. In the US, mean efficiency is probably around half of that, but in this back-of-the-envelope comparison both systems scale linearly with the efficiency of the original power source. That means that under ideal conditions for biofuel vehicles (and worst case scenario conditions for electric vehicles), electric vehicles are about 2.5 times more efficient than desalination-irrigated biofuel vehicles. Under more realistic conditions, electric vehicles should fare even better. If you're using desalination to grow biofuel stock you're just throwing energy away.
safe nuclear designs (Score:4, Informative)
Simple fact is, nuclear power, based on current designs, is very, very safe. Simple fact is, newer, modern nuclear designs are safer yet. One can certainly argue the economic merits and the finite duration nuclear power is an option. Nonetheless, nuclear is one of the safest sources of power on earth. Anyone with the slightest inkling of knowledge of the subject matter is forced to conclude, nuclear is safe. Period.
Yes, the design of nuclear power plants are such better, safer, today than they were before. However there's still the problem of where to store the wastes for the period of tyme needed to become harmless. In the US the only place being looked at for this is Yucca Mountain in Utah. Two problems come to mind here, one is that it is within ancient Shoshone lands and the Shoshone have been fighting to prevent nuclear from beeing stored there. A second problem, which as far more reaching ramifications is that Yucca Mountain is a siesmically active region with a number of earthquake faultlines and a volcano in the area. In the 1970s a government building at Yucca was damaged in an earthquake, with another one in 2002, Quake reported near Yucca Mountain [cnn.com]. And Bush wants to store nuclear waste there?
At one tyme I was against nuclear power but with today's designs if a way to safety store long term the wastes, and they were operated in a true freemarket then I would support them. However I doubt anyone would want one if they had to operate it in a freemarket, there are laws that protect the nuclear industry from lawsuits and the industry gets subsidies.
FalconNuclear reactor shutdown (Score:1, Informative)
This happened in Sweden a few weeks ago:
From http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/
Re:Well, assuming that's true. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html [unh.edu]
Re:Not an issue... (Score:3, Informative)
B) Riiight.
c) "...with objects that loop around our globe, and with others anchored on its surface, the astronomers have found other worlds orbiting other suns." -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
"Over the last five years astronomers have discovered 31 other planetary systems around other suns and this number is rising fast." -- Kevin Apps, studying astropysics at Sussex University and co-discoverer of five extra-solar planets
"Other Suns. Other Worlds?: The Search for Extra Solar Planetary Systems" -- title of a book co-authored by Donald McCarthy Jr., professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona
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