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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
 Posted - 11/11/2008 : 03:27:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
chaloobi, you're still thinking of crops being turned into energy. But what if we could turn something that's incredibly hard to get rid of - even when we want to - into energy? Like kudzu. There would be no substantial need for fertilizer or for watering. "Harvesting" could be done with bagging lawn-mowers, leaving the soil undisturbed.
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Why think about plants in any way? I'd aim for third generation biofuels, made from algae etc. These take up relatively little space and wouldn't endanger food crops. In the end, I think that's where we're headed. |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2008 : 06:24:55 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
chaloobi, you're still thinking of crops being turned into energy. But what if we could turn something that's incredibly hard to get rid of - even when we want to - into energy? Like kudzu. There would be no substantial need for fertilizer or for watering. "Harvesting" could be done with bagging lawn-mowers, leaving the soil undisturbed.
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Sorry Dave, I totally missed your reply...
I'm not thinking of turning food crops into energy (using corn for ethanol is such a dumb idea, I just assume it will go away on it's own), but of competition for land between energy crops and food crops. Theoretically food could be grown on the 'good' land and these hardier species on the 'not-so-good land,' but the reality is farmers are going to grow whatever fetches the best price.
What we need to know is how much energy can the ideal crop get from an acre of 'not-so-good' land and calculate how many acres would need to be cultivated to get the energy we need. If it's feasible, then consider what happens if that number of 'not-so-good' acres are put under cultivation. What is being displaced, what agricultural methods will need to be used (land clearing, ploughing, irrigation, fertilization, introduction of fast-growing, hardy, yet alien species to the local ecosystem, and who knows what else) and what effect is this going to have on the environment? Even if no food crops are displaced, and low impact farming is possible, the increased land under cultivation is going to have ripple effects.
That said, so will covering vast areas with solar panels. And so will huge wind-turbine farms. I wonder. In simple terms those wind turbines take energy from the wind by slowing it down a little bit. What will happen if we increase the number of turbines by 10,000 times, literally plugging up the nation's windiest corridors? Could that change wind speeds over huge areas and change weather patterns along with them? It's worth thinking about.
It's worth thinking about the effects of any massive scale project we undertake. There are so many people now that whatever we do has ripple effects all over the world. We need to keep in mind the lesson of global warming and proceed with caution while trying alternatives to fossil fuels because anything with a big footprint on the world is going to cause unexpected side-effects. |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 11/11/2008 06:30:22 |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2008 : 10:31:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by tomk80
Originally posted by Dave W.
chaloobi, you're still thinking of crops being turned into energy. But what if we could turn something that's incredibly hard to get rid of - even when we want to - into energy? Like kudzu. There would be no substantial need for fertilizer or for watering. "Harvesting" could be done with bagging lawn-mowers, leaving the soil undisturbed.
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Why think about plants in any way? I'd aim for third generation biofuels, made from algae etc. These take up relatively little space and wouldn't endanger food crops. In the end, I think that's where we're headed.
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Bacteria actually; they are easier to genetically manipulate; can work with a simpler physiology (more efficient) and are, generally speaking, roughly 30 times more metabolically active than eukaryotes. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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