Re: Art, where's the buzz on nanotech saving America today?

rrc wrote:

<snip>

I'm not convinced this stuff is the way to go. It's more expensive than
regular gasoline, and you get fewer MPG. The guys who are basically
converting garbage to ethanol may have a market (and I applaud their
efforts), but the idea of growing corn to make ethanol is a dumb one.

Why?

There's been an on-going debate about how much petroleum is left and
when the peak in production has occurred or will occur. Nobody knows if
there any new reserves will be found, where they might be, and how large
they are. Once the known reserves of hydrocarbons are gone, what's
going to replace them?

At least with biofuels, there's going to be a renewable supply of feedstock.


As much as I tend to argue with Threeducks, I'm in agreement here.
Biofuels will mainly be for rural dwellings than for any urban center.

Many biofuels are produced from agricultural crops which are subject to the effects of weather and economics. Those could be converted into fuel if either an excess was produced during a season or if the market price wouldn't make it worthwhile to sell.

There might not be enough to completely support an urban market right now, but an effort in that direction has been made through the availability of hybrid fuels for several years.


As for petroleum, for the near future, there's the Alberta sand tars
and for the long haul,
there's synfuel, coal to gasoline,
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/aboutus/history/syntheticfuels_history.html
and the US has two centuries of coal underground.

The Alberta tar sands depend upon the price of oil in order to be a viable source as they are enormously expensive to excavate and process. It's a hydrocarbon source which will eventually be exhausted. At the same time, people in the Fort McMurray area have complained about the pollution that the tar sands plants produce, so there's hardly any gain there.

Coal, too, has its drawbacks. Again, it's a limited resource, and it, too, is far from a clean fuel.


Afterwards, that is if there's a world in the 23rd century, we'll have
innovate in the solar realm that is if they're not suffering from
another "S&E shortage" during that time.


One of the present drawbacks with photovoltaics is the relatively low conversion efficiency of modules. This means that a PV installation will require significant areas of land. In addition, renewable systems require a large initial capital expenditure when compared with existing systems. (I investigated the economic optimization of hybrid renewable systems for my Ph. D.)
.

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