Corn based fuels a really bad idea?

Oh James, its all really the same. Corn into alcohol, nuclear waste, who could tell the difference?

 

Would monseur like his swordfish a la Mercuric Fulminate, or the usual Depleted Uranium?

 

I wouldn't throw wind turbine generators into the hippie BS category. It is an effective and proven technology that existed on the prairies of the great plains, before the hippies ever arrived. It is not "THE SOLUTION", but I am not sure we need a silver bullet. A variety of sources seems reasonable as opposed to all the eggs in one basket theory.

 

The biggest critic of nuclear power that I know is a PHD who designed reactors for years. His hygiene is fine by the way.

 

That's okay, you won't see them from Boston.

 

Only one of the many reasons to live here in the "Athens of America".

 

When I worked the fuel cell industry I noticed something. There are 3 basics types of fuel cell and the question always comes up about which is best or which is the one the will move fuel cells to the next level. The answer would always be split about equal parts for each version.

The interesting part is the while I could never know which type any person would like, I could predict with 100% accuracy the version they would rate at the bottom of their list….it was always the version they were most familiar with.

That is a powerful statement IMO and relates to your nuclear engineer friend. When you truly understand the problems you face with 1 technology and don’t understand the challenges with other technologies, it can sure make the other paths look simply. With the fuel cells it was always about a huge problem with 1 type being a non-issue with another type.

Most people didn’t realize that there where plenty of problems to go around and I think that is what we’re looking at here. The problem with fission in the waste, a non-issue with say a natural gas plant….but there are plenty of other problems to go around.

Personally I think coal is the answer for the next 50-100 years and I’d like to a LOT of money thrown at fusion research and world population control and quit wasting money on hydrogen, alcohol, solar. But that’s just me I guess.

 

While I heartily agree with your opinion about familiarity, sometimes (often?) those closest to a situation can judge it best. The biggest problem with nukes is not the safety of the plants but the waste issue. Until its solved Atomic energy is just a stop gap solution (see suggestion above about deep sea/oil well disposal sites). Fusion would seem to be the best solution, too bad we can't make it work (yet). Coal also just trades one problem for another. Pollution costs from burning and mining need to be figured into the equation before it can be called cheap.
Personally I think that the laws of conservation of energy and thermodynamics mean the eventual end of all fuel. Entropy here we come. But not soon.

 

In an article I read in Astronomy magazine (IIRC) about a year ago, I believe it was Berkley who claimed that during a test to initiate a fusion reaction, they believe they had momentarily created a black hole. I dont know if it was during that experiment, or another, but someone did finally get more energy back out than they put in, but only for like a milisecond. We still have a long way to go. We really shouldnt have let the left talk the Nation out of building the 54 mile super conducting supercollider in Texas. It would have been running by now. Though if they keep making black holes who knows what we'll end up with.

 

Very bad idea..........I prefer if they took corn and converted it to Vodka.

 

I thought Clinton canned that, because he was annoyed that the Texans elected a Republican to replace the Democrat he pulled out of congress for his cabinet.

But if corn now goes into the gas tank, for the fourth of july picnic, do we serve coal-on-the-cob?

Those politicians should have gotten a lump of coal for xmas.

 

Yes, I guess I didn't say it clearly, but those closest do know the problems best and waste is a HUGE problem with nukes.

I would like to see coal for the next 50 years with a ton of money domped into fusion during that time becasue we have to make it work, there is nothing else alone or in any combintion with any hope of meeting our energy demands.

 

I hope they do convert to corn. I will have almost a lifetime supply of gas

 

Most people see a car as a thing to get from point A to point B. To solve this, just get rid of the car and create more mass transport systems and urban areas where things aren't spread out as much. Public transport always seems to be one of the last issues addressed for public funding. It's very inefficient for one person per car all driving to nearly the same destination. Rather than creating solutions for people to keep having their cars if they plan to drive alone from A to B, we need to find more efficient ways to move people without having a large number of individual machines.

The car enthusiasts can still keep their cars, but of course fuel prices will be higher.

 

I do agree we need more transports for large urban areas besides the bus, trans and such or we could use more of them in my opinion. Yank the large vehicles off the road or make restictions for them cause I think its stupid to see one person driving a ridiculaously large SUV all by himself with nobody else in the vehicle. Make a driving season where they can only drive them durring the winter months.

 

I believe this guy in VA has figured it out!

The "Kool-Aid Kar"
(a Little-Known Lynchburg Attraction on Wheels)
Believe it or not, this car runs on Kool-Aid. Over twenty years ago, during the energy crisis in the late 1970's, local inventor Roy Calloway devised a carburetor that overcame evaporation problems with sugar-based fuels in gasoline engines. Needing a soluble mixture for the sugar, his experimentation led him to the popular children's drink, Kool-Aid, which he discovered to have just the right properties. Eventually, Calloway perfected the fuel mix (80% Kool-Aid and 20% methanol or ethanol) which, together with his special carburetor, provided an alternative to gasoline in gasoline-based engines. Calloway's attempt to secure a patent, however, was blocked by the major oil companies, who enlisted the help of the powerful Washington Crude Oil Lobby in eventually getting laws passed that have kept Calloway's invention from seeing the light of day...almost that is. Calloway, in defiance of a little-known federal law that forbids the operation of any motor vehicle that burns a sugar-based fuel, can frequently be seen cruising around Lynchburg in his lime-green "Kool-Aid Kar." Risking arrest each time he hits the road, Calloway has decked his car out with signs and decals that bring attention to the unfair treatment he has received at the hands of the big oil companies and the Federal Government. In fact, from various convictions through the years, Calloway has spent a total of seven years in jail; but he refuses to be silenced. According to Calloway, grape-flavored Kool-Aid provides the best mixture and results in the best mileage - 89 miles to the gallon.


http://www.retroweb.com/lynchburg/attractions/main.html

 

Funny. I love a good conspiracy and evil oil companies.

Sugar is an oxygenated hydrocarbon, but sugar water in non-flammable because the vapor pressure of sugar is too low and there is nothing in KoolAid or alcohol that would change that. So, his car appears to run on alcohol not KoolAid which is most likely why a patent was never issued with no outside interference from the oil industry or anyone else.

 

Kool-Aid the house beverage in Jonestown.

 

Huh? Are you actually reading any of this? And outlaw large vehicles? Sorry, but this thread should have been in P&R.

 

But are corn fuels just politics or a greenie religion?

 

I agree with you fully. I was actually having a discussion with some friends whom are engineers or engineering students, and we were talking about the Marquette Interchange project in downtown Milwaukee, in relation to all the expensive and repetitive roadway construction that goes on across the nation. The roadway systems of this nation, alone, are expensive and will NEVER be perfect and can only get worse as more people drive. We forget the expense of transportation beyond gas prices and environment.

The only way to lessen our transportation woes is to tremendously invest on establishing public transportation systems in the Americas, from town to town, to state to state, to internationally.

 

I think its a great start in decreasing our dependence on oil rich Islamic fascist nations. The market will decide if it remains corn or some other better source emerges...

 

I really hope so..........people with your views should start getting their act together and try not to depend on our Islamic fascist nations. The world might then become a better and more peaceful place.

 

There are only so many places where you can grow some of these crops, once the deep good soil is used, we'll just wait 500 years before planting coprn again....

 

I've commented on this topic in other threads but let me summarize it. I've worked on the Yucca Mountain Project for a long time and in the nuclear biz for decades so I know a bit about it. For some reason there is a lot of criticism of geologic disposal, and people talk about things such as deep ocean disposal (studied and rejected for scientific, logistical, and safety reasons) or shooting it into the sun (studied and rejected for scientific, logistical, and safety reasons). Alternatives have been studied since the 1970's. Deep well disposal was tried in the USSR and resulted in one of the biggest explosions and contamination events of the 20th Cent. .. bad idea. Magma comes OUT of the ground .. not where we want nuclear waste to be. We are currently studying transmutation ... converting a radioactive material into a non-radioactive material. It takes a nuclear reactor and neutrons to make this transmutation (plus chemical processing) so you are creating waste while converting waste ... its efficiency is questionable. Further, there are a multitude of radioisotopes in spent fuel consequently converting them all becomes an interesting challenge .. but it is being examined. Most observers think it will never become a production-level technology.

Geologic disposal, after all the studies, is the safest and most cost-effective way of disposal. It is not a "dump" as critics like to name it. It is a highly engineered facility that has a minimum 10,000 year retention life, which is 10 times as long as needed. Remember, radioactive materials decay with varying half-lives so every second the hazard is reduced .. unlike lead, pesticides, hazmat chemicals, etc. which we produce in the millions of tons and are around FOREVER. Yucca will allow for waste removal for up to 100 years should we wish to reinstitute chemical separation and use the Pu and residual U for power reactor fuel (as they do in Europe, Asia, and Eastern Europe). The Yucca Project even has a section which addresses how you leave indications for tens of thousands of years to warn future civilizations of the presence of the material (albeit in vastly reduced concentrations).

The Yucca Mtn. Project has spent something like $5 billion (user-based funds) on great science and technology. The best and the brightest have been used. Licensing will begin in June 08 and operation is expected to start in 2012 - 2015. The Yucca issue is POLITICAL (what a surprise) not scientific. Sen. Harry Reed does not want this in NV, even though it is adjacent to where we did all our above-ground and underground nuclear testing. Steve Winn will not be building any casinos here whether or not there is a Yucca Mt. repository. NV was selected after an extensive study of a dozen sites across the US. The US Government owns (via the BLM and the DOD) something like 80% of the land in NV so this is THE place to put this material. And the total acreage is a few hundred because of the compact nature of the waste. Finally, there are something like 70 nuclear plants in the US that are safety storing spent fuel while awaiting Yucca. If you'd like to have more of this material in your state then join Harry Reed, but if you think that deep geological disposal is the best solution, then support Yucca's licensing and completion. It is the best, safety solution.

Re: fusion. Tis is a good technology that has huge challenges to make it a viable power source. None of us will live long enough to see such a plant but our greatgrand children might. And money is not the issue, it just takes a lot of time and experimentation to make this happen. The world's scientific community is dedicated to this pursuit.

Was that a summary? Complicated topic.