What is your view on alternative fuels?

Question

What is your view on alternative fuels?

Answer 1

Most of it is fraudulent. It takes almost as much energy to produce the fuel as you get burning it.

Answer 2

I think Hydrogen has potential and could be implemented quickly to lower dependency on Oil, but, oil a money maker. Both to Oil Companies, Investors (I never invest in oil, though it is profitable), and Car Manufactures (One it easier to keep making "Smokers", a little pun from "Waterworld").

Electric is also another alternative. But, hear we can dispute the use of "lead acid batteries", but, actually acid is neutralized with Baking Soda, so, I guess we look at "Lead", well where the heck lead come from? Maybe it is grown, I not know.

Also, there are vehicles powered with "Solar Power", true, we may not go 60 mph, but, it get us there and in cities rather efficiently.

http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/electric-c...

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/

http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinve...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...

Now, this just a quick click and grab. But, IF, we can do this with vehicles, I feel we can do this with Factories, Homes, and Whatever else require "Fossil Fuels".

The bottom line:

How can money like that from oil be made from these alternates? Until the big man can make money, oil is the way. I forget the profits, but, the recent gas prices are making oil companies Billions extra a month, the Billions!!!! Making it, not paying it, Billions people!!!!! But, I never invest in oil!!!!!

They say it works out to about $100+ a month per person!

Answer 3

to summarise answers here.

-biodiesel has problems due to deforrestation

-gas is hard to contain, and is also running out

-solar = too expensive, and only produces electricity during a few hours of each day.

-wind = great, but the wind might not blow for a few days.

-geothermal, great but expensive and need to drill. = costly

-nuclear - was popular 20 years ago, but is old technology. Too many problems with it and expensive to build and decommision.

We must go sustainable with our fuel sources. There is simply no other option. Need to look at the big picture however and the overall impact on our long and short term sustainability

Answer 4

Most alternative fuels still cause large volumes of co2 to be emitted. If not when they are used certainly during production.

Hydrogen is a classic example of this. The energy required to manufacture hydrogen is much more than what can be recovered while using it.

Ethanol and bio diesel both emit levels of co2. At least these are from renewable sources.This is certainly more desirable than fossil fuels which releases co2 that was stored millions of years ago.

Electricity can be produced in many ways that do not release co2 into the environment. It is also very efficient. Some motors are in excess of 90% and can regenerate electricity during the braking function. Carrying additional weight (in the form of batteries), significantly reduces this efficiency. Fortunately there are ways to pick up electricity from grid systems that largely reduces the need for batteries. Vehicles could be made road/rail hybrid to utilise grid systems.

People need to realise that power generated for transport is additional to power generated for industry and domestic use. Energy for transport can be generated far more efficiently at large scale power staions (green stations or not), than millions of inefficent motor vehicles. Emissions can be controlled better also.

No alternative fuel can yet beat using the human body (Probably on a bicycle),as being the best way to convert solar energy (via food) to motion.

Simple things first. Walk , ride a bicycle, use a grid conected electric vehicle if possible (trains eg). Encourage the use of clean power generators wind, solar, tidal, geothermic etc first . Then work through renewable fuels before resorting to fossil fuels as a last resort.

Answer 5

I don't know your answer as yet.... What I read on Ethanol fuel is takes more ethanol to run a car and the cost is more than oil... Right now they using Corn to make ethanol..

Now corn cost has gone up.. Stop and think what they make with corn... Look at your food cost......

Answer 6

Wow, I don't have a lengthy answer like the others.  I just want to say that we need to come up with our own renewable fuels to get away from OPEC and Venezuela oil dependence.  They are doing their best to control us and make our lives difficult because they hate us and our freedoms.  Let's get with being independent of other countries for our fuel needs!

Answer 7

Alt fuels may give different percentages of monoxides and particulates and may slow warming ever so slightly, but they are still using combustion. Another real reason is to lessen our dependance on foreign oil.

Yes, biodesiel and E85 are a good start, but it is not a replacement for developing nonpoluting renewable sources, mass transit, and from builiding the infrastructure for the cities and highways of the future.

Answer 8

I will give you the Low down on Ethanol

Global warming is a really destructive situation.

But not half as destructive right now ,as what the USA is planning.

They are insane intending to replace most of the indigenous Forrest's in the world ,with mono cultures for the production of Ethanol,

Non sustainable, chemically grown ,heavily irrigated (with water needed for communities)one specie Forrest's,that have only plagues of insects as fauna which are controlled with pesticides.

Killing all bio diversity,in both flora and fauna ,adding to the destruction and extinction of species ,like nothing we have ever seen before.

All in the quest for alternative energy and to save the Environment ,

The irony here is that the growing eagerness to slow climate change by using biofuels and planting millions of trees for carbon credits has resulted in new major causes of deforestation, say activists. And that is making climate change worse because deforestation puts far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire world's fleet of cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships combined.

"Biofuels are rapidly becoming the main cause of deforestation in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil," said Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, an environmental NGO based in Asunción, Paraguay. "We call it 'deforestation diesel'," Lovera told IPS.

Oil from African palm trees is considered to be one of the best and cheapest sources of biodiesel and energy companies are investing billions into acquiring or developing oil-palm plantations in developing countries. Vast tracts of forest in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and many other countries have been cleared to grow oil palms. Oil palm has become the world's number one fruit crop, well ahead of bananas.

Biodiesel offers many environmental benefits over diesel from petroleum, including reductions in air pollutants, but the enormous global thirst means millions more hectares could be converted into monocultures of oil palm. Getting accurate numbers on how much forest is being lost is very difficult.

The FAO's State of the World's Forests 2007 released last week reports that globally, net forest loss is 20,000 hectares per day -- equivalent to an area twice the size of Paris. However, that number includes plantation forests, which masks the actual extent of tropical deforestation, about 40,000 hectares (ha) per day, says Matti Palo, a forest economics expert who is affiliated with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica.

"The half a million ha per year deforestation of Mexico is covered by the increase of forests in the U.S., for example," Palo told IPS.

National governments provide all the statistics, and countries like Canada do not produce anything reliable, he said. Canada has claimed no net change in its forests for 15 years despite being the largest producer of pulp and paper. "Canada has a moral responsibility to tell the rest of the world what kind of changes have taken place there," he said.

Plantation forests are nothing like natural or native forests. More akin to a field of maize, plantation forests are hostile environments to nearly every animal, bird and even insects. Such forests have been shown to have a negative impact on the water cycle because non-native, fast-growing trees use high volumes of water. Pesticides are also commonly used to suppress competing growth from other plants and to prevent disease outbreaks, also impacting water quality.

Plantation forests also offer very few employment opportunities, resulting in a net loss of jobs. "Plantation forests are a tremendous disaster for biodiversity and local people," Lovera said. Even if farmland or savanna are only used for oil palm or other plantations, it often forces the local people off the land and into nearby forests, including national parks, which they clear to grow crops, pasture animals and collect firewood. That has been the pattern with pulp and timber plantation forests in much of the world, says Lovera.

Ethanol is other major biofuel, which is made from maize, sugar cane or other crops. As prices for biofuels climb, more land is cleared to grow the crops. U.S. farmers are switching from soy to maize to meet the ethanol demand. That is having a knock on effect of pushing up soy prices, which is driving the conversion of the Amazon rainforest into soy, she says. Meanwhile rich countries are starting to plant trees to offset their emissions of carbon dioxide, called carbon sequestration. Most of this planting is taking place in the South in the form of plantations, which are just the latest threat to existing forests. "Europe's carbon credit market could be disastrous," Lovera said.

The multi-billion-euro European carbon market does not permit the use of reforestation projects for carbon credits. But there has been a tremendous surge in private companies offering such credits for tree planting projects. Very little of this money goes to small land holders, she says. Plantation forests also contain much less carbon, notes Palo, citing a recent study that showed carbon content of plantation forests in some Asian tropical countries was only 45 percent of that in the respective natural forests. Nor has the world community been able to properly account for the value of the enormous volumes of carbon stored in existing forests.

One recent estimate found that the northern Boreal forest provided 250 billion dollars a year in ecosystem services such as absorbing carbon emissions from the atmosphere and cleaning water. The good news is that deforestation, even in remote areas, is easily stopped. All it takes is access to some low-cost satellite imagery and governments that actually want to slow or halt deforestation. Costa Rica has nearly eliminated deforestation by making it illegal to convert forest into farmland, says Lovera.

Paraguay enacted similar laws in 2004, and then regularly checked satellite images of its forests, sending forestry officials and police to enforce the law where it was being violated. "Deforestation has been reduced by 85 percent in less than two years in the eastern part of the country," Lovera noted. The other part of the solution is to give control over forests to the local people. This community or model forest concept has proved to be sustainable in many parts of the world. India recently passed a bill returning the bulk of its forests back to local communities for management, she said.

However, economic interests pushing deforestation in countries like Brazil and Indonesia are so powerful, there may eventually be little natural forest left. "Governments are beginning to realize that their natural forests have enormous value left standing," Lovera said. "A moratorium or ban on deforestation is the only way to stop this."

This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists.

© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service

Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/...