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Non-Tech : Alternative energy
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To: Hawkmoon who wrote (4388)3/3/2008 8:11:58 PM
From: Eric  Read Replies (1) of 16955
 
Agreed by "weight".

Agreed that ethanol doesn't fit into our existing system for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel...

My point simply is this. Per unit area plants fail miserably.

Take the sun falling on one square acre of solar panels from Sunpower for example. It converts approximately 22% of the suns energy falling on them into pure electricity.

Take one acre of algae in a pond, it's conversion into energy after many steps necessary to run an engine or a fuel cell drops it's harvest of "net energy" to a fraction of the above PV system.

Plants of any kind (including algae) don't hold a candle to PV's and especially solar thermal in the end. Plants including algae are very inefficient.

Granted algae development is critical. Some friends of mine at Boeing are involved in a crash program to replace current jet fuels. Boeing is very worried about fuel costs over the next twenty years.

The holy grail of turning solar energy into a useful form of energy simply doesn't favor plants as a source.

Here is a very good paper on biofuels:

Renewable biological systems for alternative sustainable energy production (FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin - 128)

fao.org

Here is the chapter on the efficiency of plants including Plant photosynthesis:

fao.org

regards,

Eric
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