Given that bioethanol-based gasoline produces up to 90% less carbon dioxide than their crude oil-sourced counterparts, is it possible to refine a cleaner gasoline from crude oil?
By: Ringo Bones
Part of the automotive biofuel “mystique” that some environmentalist admire is the way they produce less carbon dioxide during their combustion process – up to 90% in fact. Unfortunately from an economic standpoint, our current biofuel production methods intended for automotive use still can’t compete price-wise with crude oil sourced automotive fuels. And for one good reason, countless billions has been spent on the global crude oil industry since Edwin L. Drake with the financial backing of New York-based investors of Seneca Oil began drilling for crude oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania back in August 27, 1859.
Even as relatively recently during the height of the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 – 74. Tenured chemists of leading crude oil companies through their technical know how and financial backing managed to extract more gasoline from crude oil than before. Like Rowland Hansford – a tenured chemist of Union Oil – whose patented Unicracking method manages to extract five barrels of high-octane gasoline from four barrels of crude oil. As a natural resource with billions of dollars worth of investments and infrastructure used in extracting it, in terms of price per unit volume, crude oil is for all intents and purposes is only slightly more expensive than bottled water at present.
That's why even if some biofuel pioneers still get their used French fry cooking oil to fuel their biodiesel vehicles practically for free, used cooking oil is actually more expensive price wise in comparison to it's crude oil sourced counterpart on a per volume basis. Although we can’t deny that it will soon run out and before it runs out after we hit “peak oil” it will surely skyrocket in price.
During the 1960’s a chemist from Société Française des Petroles BP in France named Alfred Champagnat had experimented in extracting edible proteins from crude oil. The process was said to be efficient: he managed to extract about half a pound of protein from one pound of crude oil. And the process is several thousand times faster in producing edible proteins than farm animals can produce it from fodder. Though now almost forgotten, can Alfred Champagnat’s process of extracting edible proteins from crude oil be modified for use in extracting automotive fuels from crude oil that mimic biofuels – i.e. one that produces up to 90% less carbon dioxide in automotive use?
Though Alfred Champagnat’s method of extracting edible proteins from crude oil could easily be modified for use in extracting biofuel-like automotive fuels from crude oil if major crude oil companies wanted to. Ultimately, there is a very urgent need to wean our industrialized society away from crude oil and other fossil fuels because for one they are running out. And they are one of the main contributors of greenhouse gases that cause global warming, climate change, and sea level rise among other things. A cleaner crude oil-source automotive fuel that produces way fewer greenhouse gases and other pollutants such as harmful oxides of nitrogen and sulfur would help us in tackling the problem of climate change and global warming. But sooner – rather than later – we should wean our industrial civilization from crude oil and other fossil fuels through greater investment in truly carbon neutral renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and really safe nuclear power like nuclear fusion - which would truly qualify as a real alternative energy in comparison to what we currently have.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Remembering Boron Automotive Fuels
Made famous by Caltex back in 1964 when they launched it in Belgium. Given the promise of more energy per unit weight are boron additives in gasoline a viable answer to our energy needs?
By: Ringo Bones
It probably started during the 1960’s when NASA developed boron fuels in order to propel their space vehicles during Project Gemini, or was it the famed boron-based “zip fuel” used by the US aerospace company Northrop that allowed their XB-70 Valkyrie strategic bomber prolonged flights at Mach 3. Given these “promises”, the development of boron-based fuels for viable civilian – make that commercial – applications seems to irresistible for multi-national crude oil companies of the time. Remember that as far back as the 1960’s concerns are already voiced over the long-term supply of crude oil sourced hydrocarbon fuels, given that they are not exactly inexhaustible.
On the civilian side of things – i.e. automotive or car fuel usage – those old enough to remember will probably say that it is the crude oil company Caltex the first one to use boron in gasoline from their adverts back in 1964. Especially with print ads, which showed a cartoon figure at the wheel of a car and later driving a motorcycle while the text promised: “With BORON you can travel the world over without trouble.”
But the truth is it was the Ohio-based Standard Oil Company who was the first to develop boron as an additive for gasoline to boost its octane rating. Boron is very promising in this application because they were already widespread concerns over the environmental and physiological toxicity of tetraethyl lead, the original octane-booster and anti-knock additive for gasoline. Given that boron showed promise back then by making ordinary gasoline more energetic – thus making supplies last longer, so what’s the problem?
The problem is that all biomass on planet Earth – whether the fossil fuels crude oil, coal and natural gas or vegetable matter – is mostly carbon-based. The major source of naturally occurring boron is from salt lake deposits, which does create a substantially large carbon footprint in its extraction and processing. Which is the very thing we want to avoid in using boron in the first place. Plus, the way we used boron back in the 1960’s was only in minuscule amounts as additives to make our gasoline powered cars require less fuel for the given mileage. Eventually, boron-added gasoline created deposits and eventually clogged-up piston engines during long-term use thus was eventually abandoned. That’s why those old enough to have grown up during the 1970’s only saw non-functional gasoline pumps with the word BORON emblazoned on them.
Even though boron-added gasoline to those old enough to remember is now seen as belonging to the IGY (International Geophysical Year) and Project Apollo – era America, boron has turned up in unexpected ways for use in our cars today as we strive to move away from crude oil-sourced fuels. Like using boron to efficiently store elementally pure hydrogen for use in fuel cell powered cars. And also for use in advanced high-energy batteries for future electric car applications, which emit no carbon dioxide, whatsoever in its operation.
By: Ringo Bones
It probably started during the 1960’s when NASA developed boron fuels in order to propel their space vehicles during Project Gemini, or was it the famed boron-based “zip fuel” used by the US aerospace company Northrop that allowed their XB-70 Valkyrie strategic bomber prolonged flights at Mach 3. Given these “promises”, the development of boron-based fuels for viable civilian – make that commercial – applications seems to irresistible for multi-national crude oil companies of the time. Remember that as far back as the 1960’s concerns are already voiced over the long-term supply of crude oil sourced hydrocarbon fuels, given that they are not exactly inexhaustible.
On the civilian side of things – i.e. automotive or car fuel usage – those old enough to remember will probably say that it is the crude oil company Caltex the first one to use boron in gasoline from their adverts back in 1964. Especially with print ads, which showed a cartoon figure at the wheel of a car and later driving a motorcycle while the text promised: “With BORON you can travel the world over without trouble.”
But the truth is it was the Ohio-based Standard Oil Company who was the first to develop boron as an additive for gasoline to boost its octane rating. Boron is very promising in this application because they were already widespread concerns over the environmental and physiological toxicity of tetraethyl lead, the original octane-booster and anti-knock additive for gasoline. Given that boron showed promise back then by making ordinary gasoline more energetic – thus making supplies last longer, so what’s the problem?
The problem is that all biomass on planet Earth – whether the fossil fuels crude oil, coal and natural gas or vegetable matter – is mostly carbon-based. The major source of naturally occurring boron is from salt lake deposits, which does create a substantially large carbon footprint in its extraction and processing. Which is the very thing we want to avoid in using boron in the first place. Plus, the way we used boron back in the 1960’s was only in minuscule amounts as additives to make our gasoline powered cars require less fuel for the given mileage. Eventually, boron-added gasoline created deposits and eventually clogged-up piston engines during long-term use thus was eventually abandoned. That’s why those old enough to have grown up during the 1970’s only saw non-functional gasoline pumps with the word BORON emblazoned on them.
Even though boron-added gasoline to those old enough to remember is now seen as belonging to the IGY (International Geophysical Year) and Project Apollo – era America, boron has turned up in unexpected ways for use in our cars today as we strive to move away from crude oil-sourced fuels. Like using boron to efficiently store elementally pure hydrogen for use in fuel cell powered cars. And also for use in advanced high-energy batteries for future electric car applications, which emit no carbon dioxide, whatsoever in its operation.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Carbon Capture and Sequestration: Political Lobbying Over Science?
Given the net energy loss and possible future carbon trading fiscal disadvantage, are coal-fired plants really given a new lease on life - in environmental impact terms – via carbon capture and sequestration technology?
By: Ringo Bones
During the turbulent campaign period of the 2008 US Presidential Elections, incoming President Barack Obama pointed out back then that coal-fired power plants will bankrupt themselves the longer they operate due to stricter environmental regulations with regards to greenhouse gas emissions. Especially when it comes to carbon dioxide where coal-fired power plants will lose out in the end economically due to binding international treaties governing carbon trading schemes.
But given coal’s abundance and aggressive lobbying at Capitol Hill, will carbon dioxide capture and sequestration schemes really lends a new lease on life on coal-fired power plants that generate electricity. Or just a politically buoyed gimmick of dubious benefit in reducing the overall harmful effects of global warming brought about by our excessive greenhouse gas producing industrial processes? Will the phase-out of excessive greenhouse gas generating coal-fired power plants just technological and environmental policy inevitability?
From a physicist’s standpoint, carbon dioxide capture and sequestration from a stationary fossil fuel burning internal combustion engine used to generate electricity will always result in a net loss of overall energy output. Due to that energy being diverted to extract the carbon dioxide from the amine-based separation solvent used to capture the greenhouse gas from the coal-fired power plants flue gases.
Plus the regeneration and reuse of that solvent also diverts additional energy from the stationary plant. Not to mention the transport of the carbon dioxide gas to it’s final – and hopefully geologically stable – long-term storage space requires another additional carbon expenditure. Even when the carbon dioxide is stored in the abyssal depths of the ocean bottom still require an additional expenditure of energy which unfortunately results in the release of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere under our current methods.
Unless a renewable energy source such as solar energy were employed, the amount of carbon dioxide generated by the energy requirements to support the entire carbon dioxide capture and sequestration processes could exceed the amount being sequestered from the atmosphere. In truth, is carbon capture and sequestration really just whitewashing – or to put it into perspective “green-washing” – so lobbyists / interest groups can attain their political and economic ends? It would be terrible if policymakers will have to wait a tragic incident like the one that occurred in Lake Nyos of Cameroon back in August 21, 1986 where 1,700 people and 3,500 livestock suffocated due to the sudden release of carbon dioxide from the lake.
By: Ringo Bones
During the turbulent campaign period of the 2008 US Presidential Elections, incoming President Barack Obama pointed out back then that coal-fired power plants will bankrupt themselves the longer they operate due to stricter environmental regulations with regards to greenhouse gas emissions. Especially when it comes to carbon dioxide where coal-fired power plants will lose out in the end economically due to binding international treaties governing carbon trading schemes.
But given coal’s abundance and aggressive lobbying at Capitol Hill, will carbon dioxide capture and sequestration schemes really lends a new lease on life on coal-fired power plants that generate electricity. Or just a politically buoyed gimmick of dubious benefit in reducing the overall harmful effects of global warming brought about by our excessive greenhouse gas producing industrial processes? Will the phase-out of excessive greenhouse gas generating coal-fired power plants just technological and environmental policy inevitability?
From a physicist’s standpoint, carbon dioxide capture and sequestration from a stationary fossil fuel burning internal combustion engine used to generate electricity will always result in a net loss of overall energy output. Due to that energy being diverted to extract the carbon dioxide from the amine-based separation solvent used to capture the greenhouse gas from the coal-fired power plants flue gases.
Plus the regeneration and reuse of that solvent also diverts additional energy from the stationary plant. Not to mention the transport of the carbon dioxide gas to it’s final – and hopefully geologically stable – long-term storage space requires another additional carbon expenditure. Even when the carbon dioxide is stored in the abyssal depths of the ocean bottom still require an additional expenditure of energy which unfortunately results in the release of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere under our current methods.
Unless a renewable energy source such as solar energy were employed, the amount of carbon dioxide generated by the energy requirements to support the entire carbon dioxide capture and sequestration processes could exceed the amount being sequestered from the atmosphere. In truth, is carbon capture and sequestration really just whitewashing – or to put it into perspective “green-washing” – so lobbyists / interest groups can attain their political and economic ends? It would be terrible if policymakers will have to wait a tragic incident like the one that occurred in Lake Nyos of Cameroon back in August 21, 1986 where 1,700 people and 3,500 livestock suffocated due to the sudden release of carbon dioxide from the lake.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Over Unity Electric Motors: The Future of Clean Energy or Bad Lab Work?
First gained mainstream press fame toward the end of the 1980’s as a possible engine for the zero-emission car. Are over unity electric motors the wave of the future or just a product of bad lab work?
By: Ringo Bones
During the second half of the 1980’s, a number of garage tinkers manage to gain press attention over their inventions based on an electric motor - most of them involving the esoteric concept of magnetic monopoles - that runs on “free energy”. Through a cycle of “repression” and PR raves – probably due to their set-ups failing to pass rigorous scientific peer review – free energy devices manage to survive till this day. Often marketed as “suppressed” technology via the Internet boasting that their particular “free energy” device has been actively kept out of the mainstream market by powerful Washington crude oil lobbyists. But do electrical motors like these fulfill the promise of free energy by claiming that once started initially by a lead acid battery, they would run forever without the need to draw additional power? Or just the latest marketing triumph of their “creators” savvy for on-line peddling of suppressed pseudoscience-based rip-offs.
After hunting high and low via the Internet and 1980’s era education / educator’s journals which our modest public library still manage to stock, the “science” behind over unity motors could be traced – in my point of view – to uncorrected misconceptions of electrical engineering students performing lab work. Lab work which, unfortunately, their instructors failed to vet them properly over the problems of “erroneous data” that could crop up during their lab experiments. The “erroneous data” collected by the Class of ’77 and onwards to which their electrical engineering laboratory professors failed to vet them. Is probably - make that the main - reason why an overwhelmingly high number of electrical engineers of impeccable competence still pursue their Quixotic quest of over unity free energy electric motors.
I mean first and foremost of all, an overwhelmingly high number of electrical engineering students – even till this day – lacked the full grasp of what constitutes true scientific experimentation, correct electrical voltage and current measurement procedures, decent documentation of acquired data, and its decent interpretation. Add to that the “perennial issue” of confusing average current readings with true RMS (root mean square) current readings. They – the electrical engineering professors and their lab students - should know by now that ordinary alternating current or AC meters lie like politicians desperate for votes. Plus, there is this something that electrical engineers knew since the time of Nikola Tesla called counter-EMF, which still mystifies most people. Even those professionally certified electrical engineers whose day jobs involve electrical engineering related work and design.
Put them all together and you suddenly realize how difficult it is – make that excruciatingly difficult – to measure power to an acceptably accurate degree. Especially when it involves “strange” non-sine wave waveforms of AC currents, power in- power out nonlinearities due to counter-EMF, sparking, noisy signal waveforms, harmonics due to inherently dirty AC currents, stray magnetic fields several times stronger than the norm, reactance, and other subtle esoteric hidden effects like stray cable capacitance.
The Laws of Thermodynamics since time immemorial still does not allow something for nothing, let alone allowing humanity to break-even when it comes to the “energy game”. This conservation of energy law tells us that there is no non-nuclear process known by which energy can either be created or destroyed. Unless we manage to create a technology allowing us to manipulate the entropy levels of a power generating system, then probably a truly clean and free energy – though it might involve very substantial start-up costs – generating system could become a reality.
By: Ringo Bones
During the second half of the 1980’s, a number of garage tinkers manage to gain press attention over their inventions based on an electric motor - most of them involving the esoteric concept of magnetic monopoles - that runs on “free energy”. Through a cycle of “repression” and PR raves – probably due to their set-ups failing to pass rigorous scientific peer review – free energy devices manage to survive till this day. Often marketed as “suppressed” technology via the Internet boasting that their particular “free energy” device has been actively kept out of the mainstream market by powerful Washington crude oil lobbyists. But do electrical motors like these fulfill the promise of free energy by claiming that once started initially by a lead acid battery, they would run forever without the need to draw additional power? Or just the latest marketing triumph of their “creators” savvy for on-line peddling of suppressed pseudoscience-based rip-offs.
After hunting high and low via the Internet and 1980’s era education / educator’s journals which our modest public library still manage to stock, the “science” behind over unity motors could be traced – in my point of view – to uncorrected misconceptions of electrical engineering students performing lab work. Lab work which, unfortunately, their instructors failed to vet them properly over the problems of “erroneous data” that could crop up during their lab experiments. The “erroneous data” collected by the Class of ’77 and onwards to which their electrical engineering laboratory professors failed to vet them. Is probably - make that the main - reason why an overwhelmingly high number of electrical engineers of impeccable competence still pursue their Quixotic quest of over unity free energy electric motors.
I mean first and foremost of all, an overwhelmingly high number of electrical engineering students – even till this day – lacked the full grasp of what constitutes true scientific experimentation, correct electrical voltage and current measurement procedures, decent documentation of acquired data, and its decent interpretation. Add to that the “perennial issue” of confusing average current readings with true RMS (root mean square) current readings. They – the electrical engineering professors and their lab students - should know by now that ordinary alternating current or AC meters lie like politicians desperate for votes. Plus, there is this something that electrical engineers knew since the time of Nikola Tesla called counter-EMF, which still mystifies most people. Even those professionally certified electrical engineers whose day jobs involve electrical engineering related work and design.
Put them all together and you suddenly realize how difficult it is – make that excruciatingly difficult – to measure power to an acceptably accurate degree. Especially when it involves “strange” non-sine wave waveforms of AC currents, power in- power out nonlinearities due to counter-EMF, sparking, noisy signal waveforms, harmonics due to inherently dirty AC currents, stray magnetic fields several times stronger than the norm, reactance, and other subtle esoteric hidden effects like stray cable capacitance.
The Laws of Thermodynamics since time immemorial still does not allow something for nothing, let alone allowing humanity to break-even when it comes to the “energy game”. This conservation of energy law tells us that there is no non-nuclear process known by which energy can either be created or destroyed. Unless we manage to create a technology allowing us to manipulate the entropy levels of a power generating system, then probably a truly clean and free energy – though it might involve very substantial start-up costs – generating system could become a reality.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Drill Here, Drill Now: Why Now?
Former president George H. W. Bush banned crude oil exploration in the continental US for a reason, now his son – the current US president – wants it repealed. Is it a misguided political rhetoric or the path to energy independence?
By: Ringo Bones
If it defies logic, it must be rhetoric, right? Yet as a platform for energy independence for America, the Republican Party had been very busy lately promoting their “Drill here, drill now” program in order to promote crude oil exploration on the continental US – especially on the still-pristine parts of the state of Alaska. If the Exxon Valdez disaster scared the higher-echelons of Capitol Hill to prompt them to ban US domestic crude oil exploration – i.e. drilling especially with President Bush, Senior’s blessing, then why restart drilling now?
The truth is many experts – as opposed to just environmental nut-jobs as the Republican Party will want you to believe – believe that the total crude oil that will be extracted via domestic exploration in the US will only last for 3 years given the current US crude oil consumption. They even have enough peer-reviewed scientific data to back this up. Sadder still, it will take 10 years to set up the new crude oil exploration / drilling infrastructure up and running in an economically sensible manner. Imagine that, it takes 10 years worth of work just to extract 3 years worth of crude oil.
To me at least, the US Government had reached this position of energy uncertainty because environmental lobbyists had never had a say in the American energy policy. If the green / renewable energy programs that started during the Carter Administration were allowed to continue when Pres. Reagan was at the helm, America’s energy would have been virtually crude oil-free by 1995. Operation Desert Storm could have been the last war America would be fighting in the name of securing a reliable supply of crude oil supply.
That’s why the longer we cling on to our crude oil based economic, transportation, and energy generating systems, the more expensive it will be to introduce renewable energy systems that are radically different from the energy generating systems they intend to replace. If the “business as usual” mentality continues of the powerful Capitol Hill crude oil lobbyists, then maybe we better start investing to the construction firm who made the Palm Jumeira in Dubai. Because of the resulting increase in construction contracts that will result of the inevitable sea level rise brought about by global warming due to excessive amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by crude oil-based fuel burning. Too bad poor countries would have to settle to sink because they won’t be able to afford such grandiose schemes to dam their shorelines.
By: Ringo Bones
If it defies logic, it must be rhetoric, right? Yet as a platform for energy independence for America, the Republican Party had been very busy lately promoting their “Drill here, drill now” program in order to promote crude oil exploration on the continental US – especially on the still-pristine parts of the state of Alaska. If the Exxon Valdez disaster scared the higher-echelons of Capitol Hill to prompt them to ban US domestic crude oil exploration – i.e. drilling especially with President Bush, Senior’s blessing, then why restart drilling now?
The truth is many experts – as opposed to just environmental nut-jobs as the Republican Party will want you to believe – believe that the total crude oil that will be extracted via domestic exploration in the US will only last for 3 years given the current US crude oil consumption. They even have enough peer-reviewed scientific data to back this up. Sadder still, it will take 10 years to set up the new crude oil exploration / drilling infrastructure up and running in an economically sensible manner. Imagine that, it takes 10 years worth of work just to extract 3 years worth of crude oil.
To me at least, the US Government had reached this position of energy uncertainty because environmental lobbyists had never had a say in the American energy policy. If the green / renewable energy programs that started during the Carter Administration were allowed to continue when Pres. Reagan was at the helm, America’s energy would have been virtually crude oil-free by 1995. Operation Desert Storm could have been the last war America would be fighting in the name of securing a reliable supply of crude oil supply.
That’s why the longer we cling on to our crude oil based economic, transportation, and energy generating systems, the more expensive it will be to introduce renewable energy systems that are radically different from the energy generating systems they intend to replace. If the “business as usual” mentality continues of the powerful Capitol Hill crude oil lobbyists, then maybe we better start investing to the construction firm who made the Palm Jumeira in Dubai. Because of the resulting increase in construction contracts that will result of the inevitable sea level rise brought about by global warming due to excessive amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by crude oil-based fuel burning. Too bad poor countries would have to settle to sink because they won’t be able to afford such grandiose schemes to dam their shorelines.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Carbon Neutral Flash Mobs
As global warming relentlessly keeps on melting the Arctic’s ever shrinking permanent ice pack, should we be adopting a low carbon lifestyle like starting carbon neutral flash mobs?
By: Ringo Bones
Since the advent of the Internet, e-mails have grown from a simple electronic data analog of good old-fashioned mail to creating one of the latest forms of political expression-of-protest – namely flash mobs. Much maligned for initiating the infamous “Battle of Seattle” – i.e. the anti-globalization, anti-capitalism protests by anarchist and activist against the November 30, 1999 WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle, Washington. Nicknamed “N30”, the protests are mainly concentrated outside the hotels and nearby streets of the Seattle Convention Center was famed for the first ever large-scale use of flash mobs to gather a large number of protestors. Thus causing flash mobs to become a veritable tour de force of political activism in the 21st Century.
Wikipedia defines flash mobs (probably one of their youngest word entries) as a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, do something unusual or notable. And then disperse as if nothing had happened. Flash mobs are usually organized with the help of the Internet or other digital communications networks. Even though the various originators of flash mobs during the second half of the 1990’s had openly expressed that they have no lofty social or political ambitions. Their goal is just to meet in a public place and perform a random, obscure, and generally absurd act just for the sheer “experiential heck” of it. But it doesn’t preclude flash mobs from being used as a positive social force, namely as a peaceful form of political activism.
The flash mob of the Battle of Seattle / N30 happened because of the major sticking point of everyone expressing disdain against unbridled capitalism that best thrives only in an environment of extreme economic disparity is the amount of damage it has continue to bear upon our environment. As a means to being true to “our cause”, it’s only logical to discuss about low-carbon or carbon neutral flash mobs. Especially to show support of the coming Alternatively Fuelled Vehicle Day slated for the 3rd of October 2008.
Even though the mechanics of a typical flash mob is to send large numbers of people to congregate at one particular spot at a certain time using the existing Internet infrastructure as a clarion call is relatively easy nowadays. And may get much easier in the future due to the continuously galloping pace of technological development. But organizing it successfully is another task entirely even though this can be the perfect platform to spread the message that the only form of energy that is truly free is energy conservation.
By: Ringo Bones
Since the advent of the Internet, e-mails have grown from a simple electronic data analog of good old-fashioned mail to creating one of the latest forms of political expression-of-protest – namely flash mobs. Much maligned for initiating the infamous “Battle of Seattle” – i.e. the anti-globalization, anti-capitalism protests by anarchist and activist against the November 30, 1999 WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle, Washington. Nicknamed “N30”, the protests are mainly concentrated outside the hotels and nearby streets of the Seattle Convention Center was famed for the first ever large-scale use of flash mobs to gather a large number of protestors. Thus causing flash mobs to become a veritable tour de force of political activism in the 21st Century.
Wikipedia defines flash mobs (probably one of their youngest word entries) as a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, do something unusual or notable. And then disperse as if nothing had happened. Flash mobs are usually organized with the help of the Internet or other digital communications networks. Even though the various originators of flash mobs during the second half of the 1990’s had openly expressed that they have no lofty social or political ambitions. Their goal is just to meet in a public place and perform a random, obscure, and generally absurd act just for the sheer “experiential heck” of it. But it doesn’t preclude flash mobs from being used as a positive social force, namely as a peaceful form of political activism.
The flash mob of the Battle of Seattle / N30 happened because of the major sticking point of everyone expressing disdain against unbridled capitalism that best thrives only in an environment of extreme economic disparity is the amount of damage it has continue to bear upon our environment. As a means to being true to “our cause”, it’s only logical to discuss about low-carbon or carbon neutral flash mobs. Especially to show support of the coming Alternatively Fuelled Vehicle Day slated for the 3rd of October 2008.
Even though the mechanics of a typical flash mob is to send large numbers of people to congregate at one particular spot at a certain time using the existing Internet infrastructure as a clarion call is relatively easy nowadays. And may get much easier in the future due to the continuously galloping pace of technological development. But organizing it successfully is another task entirely even though this can be the perfect platform to spread the message that the only form of energy that is truly free is energy conservation.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
A Call for a Global Biofuel Reform
Ever since the skyrocketing food prices of 2008 has lead to several widespread riots in various part of the world, can we still afford to develop biofuels as a more Earth-friendly alternative to crude oil-based fuels?
By: Vanessa Uy
After the governments of the world had been moved by former US vice President Al Gore in his “An Inconvenient Truth”, most of them did make efforts to start their various biofuel programs as a means to mitigate the effects of global warming. Sadly, all of the biofuel programs that they started - are in one way or another - been influenced by powerful agricultural lobbyists with vested interests. Thus the diversion of corn and other grains to fuel the rich man’s car that inevitably sent global food prices straight through the roof. Especially if it takes 22 pounds of corn just to produce a gallon of ethanol. But if we are to tackle the problem of uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions caused by our global crude oil addiction, is abandoning our still fledgling biofuel programs a wise – even a sensible – choice?
What if there is a way to obtain our biofuels from plants or parts of plants that we humans neither classify as food nor eat. For a number of years now, a process exists that enables us to obtain ethanol – similar to what we get from corn under our existing biofuel program – except this time its from inedible parts of plants like wood wastes, left over sugarcane pulp, even from prairie grass. It is called cellulosic ethanol, a process developed by Dr. Lonnie Ingram to extract ethanol or ethyl alcohol from cellulose or the stuff that makes up most of the bulk of the plant besides water.
Normally, yeast cultures used in the production of ethanol from sugar can’t produce ethanol from cellulose. By using a gene-spliced e coli (Escherichia coli) bacteria, Dr. Ingram managed to produce ethanol from any part of a plant that is made of cellulose that are previously just thrown away or burned in a bonfire. The use of specialized e coli bacteria is necessary because “wild” e coli bacteria only turn the sugar components of the cellulose structure into lactic acid. This cellulosic ethanol process has just been recently scaled up to evaluate its economic viability.
If the cellulosic ethanol process works - just imagine - waste pulp from sugarcane processing can now be turned into ethanol instead of just being burned. Biofuelled cars will get their fuel from previously untapped overgrown wild prairie grass instead of crops destined for the dining table. Or the end the need to grow plants that are a source of biofuel – like rapeseed plants - in fields that are primarily used for growing food crops. The proverbial rich man’s car will never again be in competition with his poorer brethren’s daily bread.
But the obstacle of this very promising way of getting our biofuels is politics. If bioethanol-fueled cars get their fuels from wild overgrown prairie grass instead of corn, the corn lobby would be up in arms due to lost sales. And since the corn lobby values more the rich man with his bioethanol-fuelled car than a poor peasant because of the rich man’s buying power and possibly better credit rating, this might lead into an unnecessary civil strife borne of resentment. Let’s just hope that the powers-that-be sees the bigger picture.
By: Vanessa Uy
After the governments of the world had been moved by former US vice President Al Gore in his “An Inconvenient Truth”, most of them did make efforts to start their various biofuel programs as a means to mitigate the effects of global warming. Sadly, all of the biofuel programs that they started - are in one way or another - been influenced by powerful agricultural lobbyists with vested interests. Thus the diversion of corn and other grains to fuel the rich man’s car that inevitably sent global food prices straight through the roof. Especially if it takes 22 pounds of corn just to produce a gallon of ethanol. But if we are to tackle the problem of uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions caused by our global crude oil addiction, is abandoning our still fledgling biofuel programs a wise – even a sensible – choice?
What if there is a way to obtain our biofuels from plants or parts of plants that we humans neither classify as food nor eat. For a number of years now, a process exists that enables us to obtain ethanol – similar to what we get from corn under our existing biofuel program – except this time its from inedible parts of plants like wood wastes, left over sugarcane pulp, even from prairie grass. It is called cellulosic ethanol, a process developed by Dr. Lonnie Ingram to extract ethanol or ethyl alcohol from cellulose or the stuff that makes up most of the bulk of the plant besides water.
Normally, yeast cultures used in the production of ethanol from sugar can’t produce ethanol from cellulose. By using a gene-spliced e coli (Escherichia coli) bacteria, Dr. Ingram managed to produce ethanol from any part of a plant that is made of cellulose that are previously just thrown away or burned in a bonfire. The use of specialized e coli bacteria is necessary because “wild” e coli bacteria only turn the sugar components of the cellulose structure into lactic acid. This cellulosic ethanol process has just been recently scaled up to evaluate its economic viability.
If the cellulosic ethanol process works - just imagine - waste pulp from sugarcane processing can now be turned into ethanol instead of just being burned. Biofuelled cars will get their fuel from previously untapped overgrown wild prairie grass instead of crops destined for the dining table. Or the end the need to grow plants that are a source of biofuel – like rapeseed plants - in fields that are primarily used for growing food crops. The proverbial rich man’s car will never again be in competition with his poorer brethren’s daily bread.
But the obstacle of this very promising way of getting our biofuels is politics. If bioethanol-fueled cars get their fuels from wild overgrown prairie grass instead of corn, the corn lobby would be up in arms due to lost sales. And since the corn lobby values more the rich man with his bioethanol-fuelled car than a poor peasant because of the rich man’s buying power and possibly better credit rating, this might lead into an unnecessary civil strife borne of resentment. Let’s just hope that the powers-that-be sees the bigger picture.
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