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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (22447)	7/24/2008 1:17:57 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Weeds Could Help Lower Gas Prices Weeds growing in Colorado. July 22, 2008. By TAMMY VIGIL, Reporter DENVER (MyFOXColorado.com) - A University of Northern Colorado professor sees weeds as the next frontier of fuel production. And now Dr. Chhandak Basu is getting support from the state with a grant worth nearly $100,000. The Colorado Office of Economic Development And International Trade gave him $49,643 and UNC matched it. "Everywhere we see crisis because of fuel prices," says Basu. So he says it is crucial to find an alternative. He took a trip to Puerto Rico where he took genetic material from the copaiba or "diesel tree" which exudes a biofuel sap. Now, he's trying to figure out what causes the tropical tree to produce the biofuel that is already used to run automobiles--but in small numbers. "We're trying to pinpoint the gene or genes which are responsible for production of this compound called oleoresin," he says. Then, he'll clone those genes and transfer them into algae and native Colorado plants called Arabidopsis or weeds. "They grow without fertilizer, water, without any care from humans, Basu says about weeds. "You don't take care of them. They grow anyway. You don't want them. They come back in your backyard." And unlike the diesel tree, weeds can continuously produce biofuel. The tree takes 14 years to grow and months to regenerate sap, once it's taken from the tree. Also, since weeds are not a food crop, he says, they won't create food shortage problems, like corn did with ethanol. "The idea is the plants would be used as biofactories for the production of biodiesel," he says. This would offer a cheaper alternative to rising gas prices and and lessening our dependence on foreign oil, he says. Basu hopes to have these genetically-modified plants ready to go in about a year. He's hoping he receives more government funding so he can genotype the copaiba tree.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (22447)	7/25/2008 6:09:50 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 36917

But wait...it gets better when our 8th grader gets to college and does a global warming project. First, he realizes that there is the additional energy cost of building the infrastructure to support this; roads, a rail network, whatever. More CO2. But, our daring experimenter has also taken college chem by now, and he understands that this... "the process of making lime generates CO2, but adding the lime to seawater absorbs almost twice as much CO2. The overall process is therefore 'carbon negative'"... is wrong... CaCO3->CaO + CO2 Then you hydrate it: CaO + H2O-> Ca(OH)2 And add it to water, where it absorbs 2 carbon dioxide, initially - and if the pH is right: Ca(OH)2 + 2CO2->Ca(HCO3)2 But, and a big but, ...calcium bicarbonate is unstable and will eventually decompose, liberating back CO2: Ca(HCO3)2->CaCO3 +H2O +CO2 So, no net sequestration of CO2. But, as we noted, there is a lot of CO2 produced in the process. All we hae accomplished is moving limestone from the mountain to the bottom of the ocean, creating CO2 in the process. Better to just leave it there, and use all that energy in other way. Like connecting his solar to the grid, cuz nobody builds stranded solar, unless they are living off the grid. Furthermore, in grad school, the studies now become: How much transient CO2 burp is there from the ocean heating up due to the heat of the chemical reaction, and how do all those Ca ions effect the other lytes in the ocean? All in all, a good 8th grade project, not applicable to Planet Earth. However, he's on the right track, cuz we need lot of ideas, and, hopefully, some of them will work out. Oh, I forgot one little detail... To soak up as much CO2 as we currently add to the atmosphere each year, you would need to start with about 30 billion tonnes of limestone, about ten times the rate it is currently mined.