From: Anne Marie Tobias (atobias@interwoven.com)
Date: Wed Jun 06 2001 - 01:03:03 MDT
Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Anne Marie Tobias wrote:
>
> > I think an ethanol economy is an awesome idea... it's renewable,
>
> Much more costly. Do the calculations on how much organics you
> need to grow at what input of energy and resources and at what
> costs including land costs, labor costs, cultivation costs
> (don't forget fertilizers and such), harvesting costs and
> processing costs for the equivalent amount of power. It is
> quite inferior to any of the major sources today. It might be
> reasonable for running fuel cells in vehicles, but not for major
> power generation.
>
> you
Actually if you compare it so gasoline... in the same way the gas is
expensed in our culture... it's about twice as expensive as gasoline...
However, if you look at methanol production from several major
environmental reclaimations... it would be possible to make it pay
very handsomely and it's total cost to our civilization would be
less than 25% of the current cost of gasoline. The measure of cost
for a methanol society is predicated on numbers produced by
advocates of fossil fuels most of whom talk about Methanol that
is made from corn... though corn has a high sugar content, and is
a high yield crop for fuel production, it is a high maintenance crop
that produces major environmental impact.
To get a better grip on real cost, look at atmospheric carbon, cost
of managing and remediating old wells, damage to land and water
ecosystems and their related cleanup cost, cost of toxic chemical
handling and storage, enhanced fuel safety and notable reduction
on accidents and property loss, reduced fuel transportation costs,
reduced storage and refining costs, and reduce overall environmental
impact... methanol is a real savings.
> can make it from any organic matter, if you use natural organics (lawn
> > and tree clippings, kelp, reeds and rushes, farming byproducts, waste
> > paper, and organic city refuse (a terrible problem in of itself), you end
> > up with no (read 0) green house gas net increase, it's got a high oxygen
> > content, and burns very clean with virtually no soot or contamination,
>
> >
> > I also agree that nuclear looks excellent off planet, by far the best way
> > to go for energy sources on the moon and mars. I still find myself a bit
> > squeemish about waste handling, the serptitious use of waste for nukes
> > by our government (who by the way has a devastatingly bad rep for
> > the improper use, storage, and handling of nuclear materials), and the
> > messy process of decomissioning reactors (and despensing with the
> > contaminated building materials and reactor site.)
> >
>
> If we kept breeder reactors and got our collective head out of
> our nether regions we would find that handling nuclear wastes is
> a lot simpler than handling the wastes from coal and and
> hydrocarbons. There are also other less troublesome nuclear
> sources like Thorium which we have a tremendous abundance of.
>
> We have a bad rap on the waste handling because we killed
> breeders and never reached an agreement to deal with the wastes
> intelligently for mainly political BS reasons. That is not the
> fault of nuclear energy. It is the fault of our own
> irrationality and of those who manipulated us to turn away from
> the superior solution.
Actually the bad rap came from companies that just did a shitty job
of managing nuclear waste especially plotonium. Read "The day we
nearly lost Denver" for the low down on the insanely sloppy and
dangerous fashion in which the Rocky Flats plutonium treatment
facility was run, and the fire(s) that nearly resulted in a plotonium
criticality that would have been a major disaster.
GE and serveral other companies just did a piss poor job, and
compare to the military, GE was a saint. The nuclear waste that
is produced by our aging nukes, has found it's way into the water
table of a number of commnities because the US Amry couldn't
have done a poorer job of managing toxic nuclear waste, if tied
drums of the stuff to the wings of jets and ran straffing mission
over populated areas. The navy transports hundreds of nukes
through heaviliy populated areas in Southern California, then
snuck them out under cover of dark when they got nasty press.
I trust the German's they such methodical nit picky folks, exactly
the kind of folks who you want in a nuclear facility. We on the
other hand... I'm not so sure I like flying by the seat of your pants
when your pants are in proximity to a hign neutron source. :-)
> We also have a terrible rap for dealing with the contamination
> including the radioactive contamination from the mining and
> burning of massive amounts of coal.
Face it, we just have a sucky rap... :-)
> > We need to look at all the cost/benefits when picking a viable energy
> > source... producing nuclear power for pennies isn't cheap if you're up
> > to your eyeballs in government subsidized cleanup messes, and eco
> > disasters that take your tax dollars to fix. We need to be asking neither
>
> The analysis has been done and nuclear is cheapest and safest of
> the major sources that scale today. Or do you think countries
> such as France only chose it as their primary source to scare
> those that might want to invade them in the future? :-)
Actually France has got such a hardon for nukes... Oh baby... it wouldn't
matter if it was the most expensive power source on the planet....
They want that sexy bomb!!!! :-)
> > the environmental extremists, nor the businesses with a vested money
> > interest, but nonaffiliated scientists who are experts in this field. Ask
> > them what makes good sense, and what is economically, socially, and
> > enviornmentall viable in the long term. Then compare that against other
> > good alternatives.
> >
>
> Non-affiliation does not equal truth, affiliation does not equal
> deceit. Socially is not relevant to finding the best power
> generation solution. We have been running our energy policy on
> social/political grounds for far too long in this country. It
> is causing us to really eat it in California and many other
> parts of this supposedly rich country are not far behind in
> self-destructive, cripping energy madness.
>
> - samantha
But it does mean I have one less reason not to trust them... and I'm so
tired of having people just baldface lie to me, because they're on some
body's payroll... That just bytes.
There's a new Jack in theBox commercial out... with a commercial
producer showing Jack a scientist talking about how latest research
says that previous studies were all wrong, and that fat and lots of
greasy meat are the perfect way to achieve a lean, healthy, sexy
body... of course the doc is surrounded by hardbodies working out
and eating Jack's meaty cheesey whatever...
Jack looks at the producer and says "Where the hell did you get this
guy?!!!" and the producer say "The tobacco industry!"
I almost wet myself I laughed so hard....
I wanna see good solid university research that isn't looking to prove
an agenda first, but is just examining all the facts and come up with
an unbiased broad analysis of what exists, what's possible, and what
we can really do with a little smart engineering and design work. I'm
cool with nuclear if we can keep the fissionables away from idiots.
I'm still strongly of the mind that we could move the economy to
ethanol, and between harvesting seaweed, and organic recycled
waste, and ventures that treat large scale sewage facilities by the
same method that has been tried successfully in northern CA, we
should be able to produce more fuel than we need... then we ship
it to the third world and help them get started cleanly.
Marie
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:07:59 MST