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Non-Tech : Alternative energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Krowbar who wrote (302)	8/14/2001 6:06:56 PM
From: Kenneth V. McNutt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16955

<<I like the idea of running the corn through cattle first, and then letting bacteria process the manure into methane, which is a great hydrogen feedstock.>> Great idea but where would they sit in the car.?<gg>

To: Krowbar who wrote (302)	8/15/2001 2:25:11 PM
From: Jerry in Omaha	Respond to of 16955

<<Huh? 1000 gallons of fuel to grow an acre of corn? I would be surprised if it was 20 gallons. And where does he buy fuel for 34.7 cents a gallon? Something's all screwy here.>> Del, I carry no support brief for the author's case except to note that this is not the first time I've heard economic and thermodynamic calculations that show U.S. agriculture as a net energy consumer and not a producer. Agriculture in the 21st century is jacked up by fossil fuels at every point in its infrastructure. Calorie for calorie it costs more energy to produce and distribute food than calories of food produced. I point this out not to criticize our agriculture but to assert that there seems to be room for improvements in the energy equation. The author's credentials appear authentic enough to entitle him to say something that sounds really screwy. << [David] Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of the corn-to-car fuel process. >> Although not a peer reviewed journal at least he's not publishing his screed in Acres USA << His findings will be published in September in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology. >> academicpress.com We can get a copy for only $2,900.00 introductory price! If they're charging that much it's just got to be true. Right? <g> <<I like the idea of running the corn through cattle first, and then letting bacteria process the manure into methane, which is a great hydrogen feedstock.>> Because methane is a greenhouse gas 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide much work is being done today to lower significantly the amount of methane outgassed by fed cattle by making adjustments in the feed and the populations of methanogens. Don't invent your gas-catcher just yet, Del! There are also under development vaccines for grazing cattle. But, your idea has real merit when you take the "end product" and compost it anaerobically to generate large quantities of methane and a field friendly fertilizer product offering a little carbon sequestration thrown in for good measure. An article in the May Technology Review technologyreview.com points to "demanding users [who] need what utilities call "premium power": pure, top-grade electrical juice that flows without fail." Perpetual production. Just like that bovine "end product" we could be making methane out of. It's not just cows that outgas methane in huge quantities. From the article: << Micropower is finding some of its first applications in remote operations that have inadequate access to centrally generated electricity. Microturbines have been a hit on oil-drilling rigs in Alberta, Colorado and Texas, for example. These rigs sit above reserves of energy-rich liquid gold, but lie either beyond the grid or at its edge, where the trickle of electricity can't support heavy equipment. Modern-day wildcatters are also under pressure from environmental regulators to curb the flaring of the sulfur-laden gases associated with many wells. Microturbines will run on just about anything, including this "sour gas," so haul one to the well head and you can put this environmental nuisance to work powering the pumps. >> Not to mention PEM or some other fuel cell technology running on methane eliminating the conversion step to hydrogen. But either way micropower applications on the farm could perhaps help change the energy equation in agriculture. Such a change is imperative in any case since a net net energy loss situation simply is un-sustainable in the long run. Topsoil can be mined for only so long. << The economics of generating power without incurring a fuel cost is so compelling that microturbines may turn many oil wells into remote power plants that generate surplus power for sale over the grid. The capacity for expansion is enormous: oil wells in Texas alone typically flare a billion cubic meters of sour gas a year. That's enough to generate more than 400 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to a mid-sized utility power plant. Landfills and wastewater treatment plants may be the next to cash in. Since last spring, a Capstone microturbine has been digesting the methane that ferments forth from the world's second largest trash pile—Los Angeles County's Puente Hills landfill—while generating only 1.3 parts per million of nitrogen oxides. That's a lot cleaner than the 30 parts per million released when the gas is flared. But transforming waste gas is a niche opportunity, and companies like Capstone and Ballard are hoping for much more. Their plan: catch the deregulation wave and transform millions of power consumers into power producers. >> It seems a bit absurd to be crowing about engineering the development of stand alone installations in the 3rd world while trying to keep our status-quo holy grid up and running to maintain our domestic energy infrastructure essentially "as is". The article mentions a grid networked "virtual powerplant". It's going to be distributed power, all right, but still their distributed power. We'll just pay a service fee or receive an energy dividend. Whatever. It seems to me it's inherently cheaper to operate an information grid where uplinks replace wire transmission than an electric grid. Plus there are no transmission losses. I like the idea of energy hybridization between different technologies, even industries. What if a cattle feedlot operator or large pork producer teamed up with an information based "premium power" user, say an internet node, to provide perpetual "premium power"? And this ol' boy could at the same time mitigate a potential pollution problem, manufacture fertilizer, -- including, if necessary, nitrogen -- generate on-site power and power for hybrid farm implements using fuel cells or microturbines, sustainably condition his soil with compost and for good measure harvest bumper crops? I think it would be cool. I like the idea of energy hybrids. On grid or off. Jerry in Omaha