Quote:
Originally Posted by UFO
What's not to like about solar energy, be it biodiesel or methanol? There is room for both, and we don't have to sacrifice our water, our climate or our arable land.
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I agree. There is nothing to dislike about capturing sunlight to turn it efficiently into fuel; liquid fuel especially. But I struggle to understand where all this algal biodiesel is going to appear from
overnight - ? .. I should reiterate that methanol predominately from NatGas should pragmatically only be viewed as a stopgap whilst other renewable streams are encouraged to fulfil the longer term demand.
...A couple of points:
Are diesels "40% thermally efficient" for the averaged load conditions found in real-world driving? ...I suspect not [though obviously hybridisation can go some way to countering this].
Can you provide support for claiming that "All of the current US transportation needs can be handled with algal biodiesel" ? - So there is enough recoverable 'waste water' within her boarders (plus enough unused land) to process the millions of gallons of algae needed then? If your assertion is actually heavily focused on developing foreign processing 'ponds' as sources, what happens then? And what of the rest of the world; as it's needs expand?
"There is room for both, and we don't have to sacrifice our water, our climate or our arable land." - That's how I feel too, but I think, even though the political landscape is beginning to change, there is some major headaches in going all out
straight for renewable-derived liquid fuels at present.