just goes to show that nothing is a complete fix. personally i think we should be focusing more on hydrogen power and solar power
so basically this guy has an unrealistic example and numbers based on that example and then leaving out some important aspects like lower ghg because of eth. and multiple scientists say they dont agree with many parts of his conclusion.
I dont think ethonal is perfect, however this study as other scientists said is unrealistic.
the reason why he says it would cause more smog is because of the SUDDEN change to ethonal that produces slightly more hydrocarbons. because of the sudden change there is still all of the no2 in the air from gas smog. the two get together a cook.
well realistically it would be a slow switchover. which means as you slowly mean off gas there is less n02 in the air in smog. then you are burning eth which also makes less n02. so less n02 means less ozone. but obviously using a realistic scenario would not get any hype because the realistic model you couldnt make wild claims like more deaths.
Creative Draft Art Media Forums
He's using a construct that isn't well defined, and his research was conducted on standard computers with multiple layers of complexity...
Basically, he couldn't model 100% of all the effects at the same time, so he ran the data through multiple times...
I seem to remember the Atomic Energy Agency has already modelled these changes and found that the ethanol will have an effect, but that ambient temperature will be lowered, and excess low lying ozone will get eaten up by plants through normal photosynthesis along with CO2. Either way, Nitrogen will increase potentially, but not to anything close to harmful. If I can find a link for this, I'll post it.
The funny thing is that Jacobson's claims run at 180 degrees to what other scientists (Medical Doctors no less) say, that a warmer atmosphere will actually benefit people, it also should be noted: Jacobson is NOT a scientific researcher of climate and weather, he's an environmental engineer, meaning, he works with controlled spaces. The Earth can fairly be called an uncontrolled space, I think everyone can agree.
Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.
Oh crap not another " Faint Hope " / expert , that looks like a Puppet of Exxon Moblie or B.P. ..
there crawling outta the proverbial woodwork , .... well not really ,because they've been around since ,..
well since big oil money could afford them, i suppose, and people started talking GREEN.
as one would have well expected by now they're getting more attention.
BTW who is an expert on Global warming ?... not including GAM ...
I'm finding it difficult to believe there is even ONE so called Expert !, since the human
race has never been in this postion before and we are basically trying to understand
this whole global warming thing from scratch,
so what we get are conflicting reports and disbelief amogst other so called experts that run
around unchecked rampantly debunking each others reports.
Pollution comes in many forms when we are talking global warming, me thinks..
Aside from all that ..... i'm still taking stock of all my footprints left behind.
GAM (The Kilted One) wrote:He's using a construct that isn't well defined, and his research was conducted on standard computers with multiple layers of complexity...
Basically, he couldn't model 100% of all the effects at the same time, so he ran the data through multiple times...
I seem to remember the Atomic Energy Agency has already modelled these changes and found that the ethanol will have an effect, but that ambient temperature will be lowered, and excess low lying ozone will get eaten up by plants through normal photosynthesis along with CO2. Either way, Nitrogen will increase potentially, but not to anything close to harmful. If I can find a link for this, I'll post it.
The funny thing is that Jacobson's claims run at 180 degrees to what other scientists (Medical Doctors no less) say, that a warmer atmosphere will actually benefit people, it also should be noted: Jacobson is NOT a scientific researcher of climate and weather, he's an environmental engineer, meaning, he works with controlled spaces. The Earth can fairly be called an uncontrolled space, I think everyone can agree.
run program "Global Warming Hippy";
Like, man, like a warmer atmosphere will like, melt the ice caps, and like we will all be a society under water, man. It will be like Water World or something. It's just not cool, bro. I don't wanna be Kevin Costner
kill "Global Warming Hippy"
ERROR System (Earth) Shutdown....Terminating.
Meteorology and climatology... that's the specialty.
Most of the people that are best versed on the subject aren't able to disclose what they know because they work for the AEA, or other government groups in the US... The others that are well in the know haven't been able to shake personal ideological/funding concerns, no matter how credible the research is. Best case scenario is that double-blind tests be conducted, and procedure evaluated by an uninterested 3rd party.
It's part of the reason drug companies can produce their wares with low incidences of side-effects and complications.
Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.
Ethanol and hybrids are only a temporary band-aid. Only reason ethanol is of any interest is because of corn lobbyists who have a lot of money.
Also be very weary to trust any article on energy source production. Most petrol producers flood the market with false information proclaiming to be research.
The only true current solution is bio-diesel. Lower emissions, renewable, and a heck of a lot more efficient.
VW will have the last laugh next year when their blue wave diesel engines hit the market and trump everything in mileage.
-Chris
ethanol is a good fix in short term. it should by no means be considered a long term replacement.
we need to get away from combustion engines ENTIRELY. they are inneficient in all their forms.
ELECTRIC FTMFW
more efficient and faster ::drools::
Creative Draft Art Media Forums
Ethanol sucks: inefficient, it only about 70% of the energy of fuel. Not much cleaner, costs the same as fuel, since everything in US uses corn, food prices are going up.
Hydrogen is another bad idea, takes alot more energy to produce hydrogen than can b get out of it, also hydrogen is the smallest atom it is very hard to stop all of the leaks.
The only alternative "fuel" so far is the electric cars, just have to have solar panels to recharge them and find a better battery, and get some money to be able to afford it.
Check out Tesla Motors 0-60 -4s yeahh
LiquidFireCavy (mdk) wrote:just goes to show that nothing is a complete fix. personally i think we should be focusing more on hydrogen power and solar power
Hydrogen is a JOKE !. Complete joke. The way to go is Electric. Period.
My Cav
I give up...
i'm buying a VW those people love trees, so they should love eachother too... "Andy"
And to anyone in doubth of the Electric Car, watch the recent documentary out on them. TOwards the end, they show a vehicle which could easily be affordable for mass production, and do 0-60 in the mid 3 second range !. (and get 300 miles to a charge), while taking about 10 to 15 minutes to fully recharge itself. The solution is simple, although it would be harsh economically, it is something that has to be done.
My Cav
I give up...
i'm buying a VW those people love trees, so they should love eachother too... "Andy"
Short Hand wrote:LiquidFireCavy (mdk) wrote:just goes to show that nothing is a complete fix. personally i think we should be focusing more on hydrogen power and solar power
Hydrogen is a JOKE !. Complete joke. The way to go is Electric. Period.
When you find a market of 200 million people that are willing to fork over the price of their house for an electric vehicle, and then pay at least 3x the cost of fuel to power the unit... you let me know. Top that off with the fact that US power that is delivered to all homes is approximately 20% oil/natural gas and about 10% Coal generated... Seems to me you'd be paying out the nose for nothing gained. Solar power/wind power is a fine idea, but you're not going to charge a family sedan for long trip off even the most high-efficiency solar panel array on the car.
Electrical power isn't impossible, but the shorter term and reliable (and most importantly SUSTAINABLE) is fracturing water to get hydrogen, storage methods are still lower volume, but there is cellulose based storage media that are supposed to be able to store hydrogen and retain pressure even when compromised.
Again, it's one thing to *SAY* something is a complete joke, it's quite another to create a viable alternative. Documentary be damned, if you're seeing it outside of a cited reference article, you're getting entertainment, and not the whole story.
Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.
Anyone looked at this -
How Air-Powered Cars Will Work. Seems like an awesome alternative to me. Standardly running off of air compressed via your standard electric plugin(about a 4 hour charge), or possibly 3 minute quick charged off of a high pressure air pump(presumably located at your gas station in the future) - but compare that to
an electric engine's charge time -
Quote:
The normal household charging system has the advantage of convenience -- anywhere you can find an outlet, you can recharge. The disadvantage is charging time.
A normal household 120-volt outlet typically has a 15-amp circuit breaker, meaning that the maximum amount of energy that the car can consume is approximately 1,500 watts, or 1.5 kilowatt-hours per hour. Since the battery pack in Jon's car normally needs 12 to 15 kilowatt-hours for a full recharge, it can take 10 to 12 hours to fully charge the vehicle using this technique.
By using a 240-volt circuit (such as the outlet for an electric dryer), the car might be able to receive 240 volts at 30 amps, or 6.6 kilowatt-hours per hour. This arrangement allows significantly faster charging, and can fully recharge the battery pack in four to five hours.
Most Americans don't have a 240V outlet on the outside of their home, and even if they did the 4-5 hours is apparently the best to hope for(although it would be even longer given a higher capacity energy storage arrangement). So yeah a potential 3 minute quick charge definitely has the convenience advantage - only with gas stations probably charging for air instead of gasoline(although you could likely run either). That would stop the economic collapse of mass gas station closings. Although you could still do that at home(much slower and still not free - your electric bill counts), most would go for convenience and speed. These vehicles create no pollution when running on compressed air only.
Lets not forget the possibility for power here - can run on gasoline + large quantity of compressed air on tap = new HP records on street vehicles. With this - your turbocharger has become obsolete!! In any case I think this is a great way to transition off of gasoline and onto our power grids.
It isn't without some drawbacks though -
Quote:
Manufacturers suggest that because the cars run on air they are environmentally friendly. Critics of the air-powered car idea say that the cars only move the air pollution from the car's exhaust to somewhere else, like an electrical power plant. These cars do require electricity in order for the air to be compressed inside the tanks, and fossil fuel power is needed to supply electricity.
Note that is also true of pure electric cars. But the answer is still pretty simple IMO.
1. More nuclear fission plants - which despite the stigmata they carry, they can be built to be quite safe and produce dirt-cheap electricity. I don't know about you - but my electric bill is killing me. Also -
Wikipedia says
Quote:
International research is ongoing into various safety improvements such as passively safe plants, the use of nuclear fusion, and additional uses of produced heat such as the hydrogen production (in support of a hydrogen economy), for desalinating sea water, and for use in district heating systems
Using them for cheap hydrogen production = good thing for the future. Desalinating sea water = another good thing(makes ocean water drinkable). But what of Nuclear Waste? Well if the US would abandon it's stupid policy of discarding all used fuel and switch to a closed
fuel cycle, then this is less of a problem.
2. And maybe even build some hydrogen
fussion reactors. France is currently trying to build one but that project is expected to take another 34 years IIRC - making it a less than feasible short term solution. But that may be the energy source of the future.
IMO - fossil fuel plants need to be phased out(eventually to complete elimination) and nuclear plants(as well as other alternative energy sources) need to be phased in to replace them. We actually enough Uranium on earth to last us(using current methods) until the Sun is dead, and out current usage of it is very inefficient - which could be greatly improved even with currently existing technology, so running out of it isn't much of a problem. Not to mention that hydrogen fusion will overtake it long before that.
I've never heard of this "part throttle" before. Does it just bolt on?
The problem is--thhere's no such thing as a "green" source of power.
Hydrogen, even though it "burns" into water, will up the amount of water vapor into the atmosphere, and consequently, would lead to more precipitation, erosion and runoff, and a climactic change en masse for large urban centers.
Nuclear fission, while could be implemented a LOT better, still have the drawback of leaving realively unusable byproducts, that even taking the Uranium cycle to it's inevitable conclusion, leaves us with a lot of lead--and the Uranium source on the planet is finite.
Even if/when we can harness fusion, and water for the base hydrogen would be rtelatively plentiful, we can't really do much with helioum, and in the case of anything based of a near limitless supply, we get conditioned to think that there is a finite source, and become wasteful in using it. Helium cannot be converted back into water, so eventually, we'll be using up water to a point where the oceans become more saline, causing a climactic change in the long run.
The best sources of energy would require us to use a benign "waste" form of energy. Solcar power is one source, but we'd have to harness it more efficiently. Further, the amount of solar panels we'd need would mean habitat loss as less sunlight would reach an area.
Ditto on Geothermal or Tidal power.
Antyhign we do would have an impact. The question would be: what could we, and everything else live with?
Goodbye Callisto & Skaði, Hello Ishara:
2022 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD
The only thing every single person from every single walk of life on earth can truly say
they have in common is that their country is run by a bunch of fargin iceholes.
Sadly, you're not going to see people dropping off and dying off en mass.
Ultimately, while the fact of humans breathing is going to create an impact, we have to find out which will give the most bang for the buck which one's impact is best managed. Nuclear is a good option, because the wastes can be sealed in salt-mountains until it's benign. However, Hydrogen's vapour can be trapped and returned to the water table as required, because it's source water you also have to consider that it'll deplete the mineral content of the area it's returned to... Ideally, you'd do something like that either in the ice/carbonated drink industry, or deep water.
Either way, it's a little more manageable than radioactive waste.
Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.
Spike J wrote:Quote:
Ethanol may cause more smog, more deaths
Study argues ozone levels would rise in Northeast and Los Angeles
By Seth Borenstein
Updated: 1:09 a.m. ET April 18, 2007
WASHINGTON - Switching from gasoline to ethanol — touted as a green alternative at the pump — may create dirtier air, causing slightly more smog-related deaths, a new study says.
Nearly 200 more people would die yearly from respiratory problems if all vehicles in the United States ran on a mostly ethanol fuel blend by 2020, the research concludes. Of course, the study author acknowledges that such a quick and monumental shift to plant-based fuels is next to impossible.
Each year, about 4,700 people, according to the study’s author, die from respiratory problems from ozone, the unseen component of smog along with small particles. Ethanol would raise ozone levels, particularly in certain regions of the country, including the Northeast and Los Angeles.
“It’s not green in terms of air pollution,” said study author Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University civil and environmental engineering professor. “If you want to use ethanol, fine, but don’t do it based on health grounds. It’s no better than gasoline, apparently slightly worse.”
His study, based on a computer model, is published in Wednesday’s online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science and Technology and adds to the messy debate over ethanol.
Farmers, politicians, industry leaders and environmentalists have clashed over just how much ethanol can be produced, how much land it would take to grow the crops to make it, and how much it would cost. They also disagree on the benefits of ethanol in cutting back fuel consumption and in fighting pollution, especially global warming gases.
In January, President Bush announced a push to reduce gas consumption by 20 percent over 10 years by substituting alternative fuels, mainly ethanol. Scientists with the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that could mean about a 1 percent increase in smog.
Jacobson’s study troubles some environmentalists, even those who work with him. Roland Hwang of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that ethanol, which cuts one of the key ingredients of smog and produces fewer greenhouse gases, is an important part of reducing all kinds of air pollution.
Jacobson’s conclusion “is a provocative concept that is not workable,” said Hwang, an engineer who used to work for California’s state pollution control agency. “There’s nothing in here that means we should throw away ethanol.”
And Matt Hartwig, spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, the largest Washington ethanol lobby group, said other research and real-life data show “ethanol is a greener fuel than gasoline.”
But Jacobson found that depends on where you live, with ethanol worsening the ozone problem in most urban areas.
Based on computer models of pollution and air flow, Jacobson predicted that the increase in ozone — and diseases it causes — would be worst in areas where smog is already a serious problem: Los Angeles and the Northeast.
Most of those projected 200 deaths would be in Los Angeles, he says, and the only place where ozone would fall is the Southeast because of the unique blend of chemicals in the air and the heavy vegetation.
The science behind why ethanol might increase smog is complicated, but according to Jacobson, part of the explanation is that ethanol produces more hydrocarbons than gasoline. And ozone is the product of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide cooking in the sun.
Also, the ethanol produces longer-lasting chemicals that eventually turn into hydrocarbons that can travel farther. “You are really spreading out pollution over a larger area,” he said.
And finally, while ethanol produces less nitrogen oxide, that can actually be a negative in some very smoggy places. When an area like Los Angeles reaches a certain high level of nitrogen oxide, that excess chemical begins eating up spare ozone, Jacobson said.
Hwang agreed that that is a “well-known effect.”
While praising Jacobson as one of the top atmospheric chemists in the nation, Hwang said he had problems with some of Jacobson’s assumptions, such as an entire switch to ethanol by 2020. Also, he said that the ozone difference that Jacobson finds is so small that it may be in the margin of error of calculations.
Jacobson is also ignoring that ethanol — especially the kind made from cellulose, like switchgrass — reduces greenhouse gases, which cause global warming. And global warming will increase smog and smog-related deaths, an international scientific panel just found this month, Hwang said.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
funny ironic part about this is....
they say to stop using corn oil, use olive oil and crisco oil cause of healthier fats, non trans fats etc....
then we go to using grain for ethanol, and its basically the same old sh...... as when we used it for cooking oil.
cant win.
Ideally, GAM, i'd like to see hydrogen used in Fuel-cell or a combustible fuel. it may alter the weather patterns to be more rainy, but it's 100% reusable. if the oxygen freed from electrolysis is vented to the atmosphere, then the fuelcell or engine comverts it back to water (vapor), which then rains back down into the oceans, which will return it back to the electrolysis plants, eventually. We'd just havw to gear everything up for more rain and precipitation, higher oxygen content, and more erosion and possibly flooding.
But at least we're not wating a resource IMHO. It just means some people are inconvenienced. Darn.
Goodbye Callisto & Skaði, Hello Ishara:
2022 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD
The only thing every single person from every single walk of life on earth can truly say
they have in common is that their country is run by a bunch of fargin iceholes.
EVENT: There's a way to turn waste/weed Cane's sugars into ethanol... much higher yield for the dollar, and it's not a food stock nor is it as hard on the growing fields anyhow... Corn is being pushed because it'll benefit most farmers, its dual use food/energy will inflate prices stupidly.
Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.
Corn is certainly under priced right now so raising to managable levels would be a good thing. For a while there, growing corn meant feeding it to livestock or selling it at a loss, even a high yeilding, clean crop with the right moisture would lose money and that just isn't right.
All that said.. Screw Ethonol, it's no answer and it burns too hot.. NOX emissions will be through the roof... By the way, that is also the problem with convensional engines running on Natural Gas.
PAX
PS: This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated
- Mitch Hedberg (RIP)
The final solution: Power society with people. I don't know about you but my university has about 20 stationery bikes in one gym, I don't see ANY downside to converting these into power generators. Stop production on all exercise equipment and replace resistance mechanisms with electrical inductors. People are using them anyway. Throw them on a grid and people could power a part of their homes while staying healthy, what's the incentive? Lower power bills.
Brilliant, right? I'll take the royalties in cash.
Ever been to one of those demonstrations where they have a bike with a generator and a light bulb? Likely not as you have to peddal with all of your might to light a single incandescent bulb. The ROI is horrid (in fact likely a loss) and the startup capital would be huge.
Forget that idea until generator technology is improved dramatically. That's almost as bad as lighting a bulb with power from a thermal couple driven by that same bulb. It won't work, put it away.
Good to see people are thinking about this though.. Good effort.
PAX
PS: This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated
- Mitch Hedberg (RIP)
Quote:
Corn is being pushed because it'll benefit most farmers, its dual use food/energy will inflate prices stupidly.
Of course it doesn't help when the government is paying farmers not to farm their land, What idiotic polotician thought that up.?. I read an article in a magazine recently, damn if I rememeber which one though lol, about a prototype vehicle running on Gasoline/Ethanol blend where the ethanol was used to get the motor warmed up on cold starts and then switch over to gasoline. IIRC Ford was working with a university professor on this to incoporate it into future vehicles.
Crower's 6 stroke Engine is another interesting piece of technology.
Why does no one mention tobacco for ethanol? Research is showing it has great potential, and it can grow in large quantities almost anywhere.
