nuclear energy (and methanol)

From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@MSX.UPMC.EDU)
Date: Sat Jun 16 2001 - 18:45:39 MDT


Anna Maria Tobias wrote:

There have been numerous breakthroughs in the last ten years, I
would like to go through my original notes and designs and bring
them up to date. There are new systems that could provide great
benefit to people... the methanol digestors could be using a hybrid
bacteria that can also produce methane, fertilizer, cloth fiber, and
a high protein food supplements. The digestors could run on soft
refuse, grey and black water reclamation, kelp, garden waste,
compost, chaff, and crop stubble, farm wastes, algae from first
level water reclamation, nontoxic organic industrial waste, rushes,
reeds from second level water reclamation, and invading plant
overgrowth (Kudzu, and Water Hyacinth), and finally any waste
cellulose and cellulose byproducts.

#### I hate to be a nag but this still does not provide a clear picture of
the benefits : I still don't know how many hours of work collecting kelp you
need to produce one gallon of methanol. Is it 20 minutes? An hour? What kind
of a quality of life would you expect for a population collecting energy
using such presumably labor-intensive methods?

I am all for renewability, cleanliness, and a good life but I have the
impression that we will get there faster with e.g. wind power, and nuclear
power (which I tend to support, if in a rather lukewarm fashion).

Rafal Smigrodzki MD-PhD
Dept Neurology University of Pittsburgh
smigrodzkir@msx.upmc.edu



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