In a message dated 10/5/2001 12:14:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
bradbury@aeiveos.com writes:
<< The state of Texas alone has ~131 million acres of farmland under
cultivation.
This translates roughly to 5.3* 10^11 m^2 under cultivation. Assuming a very
low figure of ~200 W/m^2 and a very poor photosynthetic conversion efficency
of 1%, this would suggest that Texas could easily supply 6.15 * 10^8 W
of energy needed to match U.S. oil imports. This is less than 2 one
thousandths
of the energy available (3.55 * 10^13 W) in Texas alone. >>
Splendid, if this information is accuate. Asumming that it is, what material
shall this fuel crop produce (bagasse included)? Are we running our cars on
gasoline from crops, or are we running cars on ethanol, or methanol, or
methane,or bio hydrogen?
Are we converting to fuel cells, or are we building new engines to burn
gasoline ethanol mixes, methanol gasoline, compressed methane vehilces or
propane, or..?
I am totally committed to American energy independence and have been since
1973. Yet, we also need to be aware of how many Americans need to be
'motivated' to change our energy uses, needs, and sources. I hope that
Robert's paper gets published soon
And I hope everyone had a happy Bradbury Day, my Stetson looked snazzy.
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