Bio-diesel. Ecological or just more political c rap?

[oilman]

So the government is going to insist on 10% (or is it 5%) plant derived fuel is added to mineral derived fuel. So where is this going to come from to make diesel drivers so much greener (and possibly the saviours of life as we know it)?

Well it seems there are two main sources, one is palm oil, the price of which has risen dramatically in the last year, the other is soya oil.

Where does the palm oil come from? Well they are busy burning the tropical forests in the far east to replace them with palms. Soya oil? they are busy burning the forests in Brazil.

How bleedin' green is that?

Well done Mr. Blair, so that greedy Europeans and Americans can carry on with their profligate life style you are conding the destruction of tropical forests, a brilliant move.......NOT!!!

 

[2scoops0406]

this is an interesting potential alternative.

 

[andy]

everyone should do what i do - mix the diesel with veggie oil. could result in 50% of todays oil bein used

 

[oilman]

That depends on which engine you have. It will not give HDI engines a very long life, and if you get an acidic batch of oil, it will damage the pump on any engine. Goodbye engine

 

[AdamW]

I read a report from Malaysia where they used palm oil.

I thought that oilseed rape was the big plan over here?

Apparently the reason you are better off mixing it is because plant-oil is gummy and sticky (like the gunk that gets left stuck to your hob if you don't clean the oil off), but petro-diesel has a solvent quality.

Surely if it was to be produced for fuel-purposes, there would be stringent controls on the quality of the oil? Nothing new, I doubt they let a single batch of fuel leave the refinery without performing tests on it.

As to the clearing of forests to do it, that is not good. Massive rainforest trees are holding a LOT of carbon per square metre of land whereas short little palm trees hold comparatively little. As you point out, that carbon is going to be flying round the air as carbon dioxide.

However, a Swede tells me that he has seen the grass they grow for ethanol in Sweden, and he says it is as tall as a tree and packed in densely. So perhaps that could be a more efficient carbon store than palm trees?

There is talk of pumping the CO2 into the space left by all the oil they've sucked out of the ground, but I really can't see that being an ecological solution right now.

Remember, biofuels are only a stop-gap towards truely renewable energy sources.

 

[joe-90]

There is no alternative to oil.

Mother nature put the oomph into oil. It is virtually free energy and costs less than a bottle of water. Sorry folks - but complete disaster is just around the corner. Our civilization is built on cheap energy - and it's just about to disappear for ever.


joe

 

[oilman]

omg - I agree 100% with joe

There is unlikely to be an alternative to oil, since it is already too late to develop anything, AND THERE ARE STILL people thinking it's a good idea that they can get cheaper gas/electric/petrol/diesel/uPVC windows/anything else.

 

[Big_Spark]

There is no alternative to oil.

Mother nature put the oomph into oil. It is virtually free energy and costs less than a bottle of water. Sorry folks - but complete disaster is just around the corner. Our civilization is built on cheap energy - and it's just about to disappear for ever.


joe

Joe, don't believe the hype from those who like high Oil prices, like the industry and Governments...

Methane Hydrate deposits are enough to supply the worlds current energy requirements for a period in excess of 350 years, and it is likely that this will be the energy fuel of the future.

http://www.ornl.gov/info/reporter/no16/methane.htm

http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/gas-hydrates/title.html

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/v33_2_00/methane.htm

 

[oilman]

.......enough to exceed the worlds current energy requirements for a period in excess of 350 years,........

Hmmmm.......conflicts with some of the information in the first link ........

Although some research has been carried out in the past, little is known about the location, formation, decomposition, or actual quantities of methane hydrates. However, national and international research and exploration over the last 20 years by various governmental and industrial entities have resulted in general agreement that methane hydrates should be evaluated as a potential primary energy source for the future.

So with their little knowledge they can say it will last for 350 years.

 

[Big_Spark]

Oilman, the estimate I mentioned in quoted in the first link, as is a map showing well known deposits.

However that information is about 4 years old and research in the last 4 years has improved the picture dramatically as the Oil Industry has been rather frank in letting researchers into global climate change see their Geophysics data, not realising that some of the researchers had ulteria motives, and also that the very deposits they dismissed as too dangerous to operate in and around are the very ones that may prevent their bankruptcy when the Oil and methane deposits become uneconomical.

I have tried to do a search for more recent information, I have printed information in science mags, but there appears little on the net that I have found so far. I'll continue to look though.

 

[oilman]

Maybe so, but why are the words I quoted, in the text? It makes a bit of a joke of the information.

Nevertheless, it sounds interesting, I'll trawl around a bit for some more info.

Oh dear,

.....Methane hydrates have the potential to offer a clean source of energy.......

this was promised for nuclear power generators.

 

[joe-90]

You are missing the point. Big Spark. The looming oil crisis won't be solved by methane hydrate (a frozen mixture of water and methane).
There is no shortage of oil. What there is a shortage of is CHEAP oil.

There are absolutely vast reserves of oil in the oil sands of Nth America and the Shale oils of Canada - but it's the cost and the amount of cheap oil used to extract that oil that is the problem.
If methane hydrate can be harvested from the sea floor (and many doubt that it is feasible), it will be an extremely expensive source of natural gas.
Natural gas isn't in short supply - cheap oil is. We have huge reserves of coal that would be far more economical than methane hydrate, but it's the problem with cheap oil that's the problem. The price of everything will rise. Transport, fertiliser, plastics, electricity - everything would be hugely more expensive - and that will lead to a depression that will never end.



joe

 

[Freddie]

There is no alternative to oil.

Mother nature put the oomph into oil. It is virtually free energy and costs less than a bottle of water. Sorry folks - but complete disaster is just around the corner. Our civilization is built on cheap energy - and it's just about to disappear for ever.


joe

Totally agree with joe around 15 years ago some Chinese leader said every household in China will have a fridge, a leading scientist then said the Earth couldnt stand that kind of industrial output.

Today China is well on course for that and a hell of a lot more.

The Earth is a fine tuned organism where everything has it's use to something else, so all the co2 we produce will have a use to something else etc etc,--the problem is though will our life style or even lives be able to stand the big switch on to what ever thrives on the massive amounts of co2 we are releasing? Would there be a massive sudden growth in plant life that we cant keep up with like Algae growing on the sea stopping shipping and fishing or sea weed choking the sea so shipping cant move--nobody knows but one things for sure when whatever starts anything we do wont stop it

 

[joe-90]

10 years ago China imported no oil at all. This year it has overtaken Japan to move into second slot behing America as the second largest importer of oil.
Next year it will import 40% more oil than this year. There is no spare capacity. When Hurricane Katrina put the gulf of Mexico out of operation for a while the USA had to use it's Strategic Reserves to cope. We are running on empty.
India too is using oil at a rising rate.

The simple maths are these.

If the current rate of oil demand continues (7%), then in 10 years time we will be using twice the oil we are using today.
From that point on, each year we will consume more oil than has been consumed in the past 150 years. That's every single year. We are pretty much doomed - and that is a fact.
As a nine year old kid that's got his whole life ahead of him I'm worried.


joe

 

[Big_Spark]

Joe, it all depends on what you call cheap Oil.

A Gallon of petrol actually costs the Oil companies about 90p to get to market, and that is turing a handsome profit, but as the Government in the UK and several other nations impose massive duties on the fuel the cost you and I pay is staggering in comparison. In the Uk the duty of fuel is about 340%.

The hype, and it is that, which is often reported in a way to blame the Oil Companies of profiteering, but actually most Oil companies in the Uk make only about 20% of their profits from the sale of Fuels. The biggest reason for HIGH fuel prices is the GOVERNMENT.