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Journal buffer-overflowed's Journal: Screw Oil. Let's use Biotech, Ethanol and Electricity 29

Journal by buffer-overflowed

Ethanol. The wonder substance. It gives a pleasant feeling when imbibed, is relatively cheap to produce, and it can power your car. It is cleaner burning than gasoline, acts as fuel-line antifreeze in the winter, and is incredibly high octane. It requires very few modifications to change your engine over to this fuel source, and it's currently available for about the same cost as Gasoline is now. E85(85% Ethanol 15% Gasoline) requires even less modifications(in some cases none) and is even cheaper(plus gives much better cold start performance). So, WTF aren't we filling up at Jack Daniels stations? That cuts domestic Gasoline consumption by up to 85% and it also reduces the need(*excuse*) for farm subsidies!

Home Heating, a big chunk of our Oil demand. Well, we can replace all of that natural gas and oil heating with electric. Put up a few nuclear(or wind, or hydro) power plants and boom that's solved. Oh, and the air becomes cleaner as a result and the earth is happier in general. Nuclear is cleaner and cheaper than coal and actually doesn't produce much more radioactive waste!

Polymer production, plastics, nothing chains like oil... yet. Many chemical companies have been investing heavily in Biotech as a way to cut costs and be cleaner(yes, the Chemical industry in this country is actually very clean. Read up on responsible care) in the future. It's not viable yet, but it could be.

If we use electric as a standard power source, and crop-based products for everything else, we've mostly solved the problem. Find a cheaper, cleaner, better source of power? Toss it onto the grid. Drag and drop resource replacement. We have plenty of farm land, and it's far easier to get competitive prices on produce than it is on oil.

So why does it seem everyone always asks the question: How do we control oil prices? Rather than the obvious question: How do we remove our dependency on oil?

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Screw Oil. Let's use Biotech, Ethanol and Electricity More

Screw Oil. Let's use Biotech, Ethanol and Electricity

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  • Nucular.... (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by elmegil ( 12001 )
    Nuclear is cleaner and cheaper than coal and actually doesn't produce much more radioactive waste!

    Don't waste your time talking sense to environmentalists. No Nuke is a Good Nuke. Got it?

  • Made from corn. A bit brittle, but the technology is definitely there to replace most of our current packaging with PLA.
  • You are going to pioneer the way by purchasing a farm and expanding this industry yourself, yes?

  • Dependency on oil and Hybrid Electric Sports Cars (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dexterpexter ( 733748 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @03:57PM (#8772524) Journal
    Another poster's comment

    Oh, added bonus, the ethanol cars were not easily convertable to gasoline.

    As someone who has designed and built a hybrid/electric ethanol/gasoline car, I am interested in where you are getting this information.

    The Proxima: the car I was on a design team for

    You can see a picture of the Proxima here [utulsa.edu], and can read more about the hybrid electric/ethanol/gasoline vehicle on which I was a member of the design team in my Journal Entry [slashdot.org].

    Hybrid/Electric
    I am biased toward ethanol/electric cars myself, but must note that part of reducing gasoline dependency in cars through better engineering is that you can go 60 mpg between fill-ups, even with the gasoline/electric hybrids, thus cutting most people's fill ups in half, and some by a third. And with today's electric hybrids, you don't have to charge the car (unlike pure electric cars, which do have to charged for hours just to go short distances). So, even without removing the gasoline element completely, you are reducing gasoline consumption, reducing the damage to the environment (as a part of being a "green friendly" vehicle, we had to meet some very stringent emissions standards.), and driving the ultimate geek car. *grins*

    Biodiesel
    I personally do not care for biodiesel, but lets look at its benefits. You can technically refine and recycle the crud that McDonald's throws away out of its grease bins and use that source, which is otherwise thrown away. In fact, I have known of people who have converted their old trucks into biodiesel and who have worked out a deal with their local fast food resteraunts. The major problem I have with biodiesel is that people in cold weather climates would find it difficult to drive their cars, since biodiesel does not behave well at cold temperatures.

    Hydrogen Fuel Cell
    Now, the hydrogen fuel cell vehicles... the Chemist's playground. These vehicles are interesting in that although they have zero emissions, it is easily forgotten that hydrogen does not spontaneosly appear in this world and must be produced somehow. It must be processed, and it is in the step of being processed where the expense and emissions occur. Also, the fuel cells weigh alot; it requires about 15 pounds of hydrogen to go 300 miles... think of the weight of hydrogen itself and imagine how much hydrogen it takes to make 15 pounds. Worse, this fuel source is much, much more expensive than gas.

    Now, the rant:
    Oil Companies don't cause your high prices, the government does

    This is not in response to what anyone wrote, but is a general rant because yes, it irks me that bad.
    It might be important to note that what most people do not realize is that the price at your pump is not completely the fault of the oil companies, or even the local gas station. The price per barrel is the the price per barrel is the price per barrel. So, why is gas more expensive in New York than it is in Tulsa, OK, by no trivial amount? Taxes. Did you know that you pay less per gallon than people in the Middle East pay? But still, why so high a bill? Because gasoline is imported and taxed to oblivion at both the federal and state level. Look here to see how much the gas is taxed in your state [gaspricewatch.com]. On top of those numbers, in 2000, Federal taxes accounted for nearly 20 cents per gallon of gasoline sold. I shudder to think of those numbers now. In Canada, over 50% of what you pay at the pump goes toward paying taxes.
    When everyone likes to blame the usual scape goats (the oil industry) it makes it easier to hide this fact. Over the last 10 years, the price of oil before-taxes ($30 per barrel for OPEC crude oil) has changed a little, but overall has been rather steady. However, legislation has produced nearly 50

  • Hidden Petroleum Use (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gmhowell ( 26755 )
    Don't forget, most electricity is generated with petroleum. Yeah, I know, we'll work on it.

    Ethanol production from corn relies very heavily on petroleum. Petroleum forms the base of most fertilizers. Need to do something about that. I'm sure Monsanto/ADM will come to our rescue:)

    And those levels of ethanol in fuel don't work well in cold temperatures. Not enough energy/gram to heat up the engine enough to be efficient.

    None of these are show stoppers. Just some things that need to be addressed.

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