NFB: Want a doomsday oil crash article?

[Jay 02 TA ws6]

And Roger, I'm talking about energy uses WAY bigger than cars... every house should be getting its power from the solar energy, wind energy, nuclear energy, or from some form of alcohol... or better yet - a combination of them all.

Cars are the least of our worries.

[Roger in Kensington]

I must, respectfully, disagree.

distilling alcohol doesn't use as much energy as refining oil does

With all due respect, Jay, I must disagree.

There have been any number of articles in the "technical" press regarding this. A quick Google search turned up this article in the recent popular press, and it gives a rather good summation of the issue. You can "Google" the authors and articles cited for a more in-depth discussion.

However, even if it took somewhat less energy to produce alcohol than to refine gasoline, it would hardly matter as alcohol contains MUCH less energy than gasoline.

A "typical" gallon of gasoline contains over 125,000 British Thermal Units (BTUs) of energy, whereas a gallon of pure grain alcohol contains only 76,000 BTUs.

Thus, if you were to run your car only on alcohol, you could expect to see your fuel economy drop by nearly 40 percent.

That's not a good tradeoff.

Alcohol is wonderful stuff, especially when it comes from Bardstown Kentucky. But it is a rather poor substitute for gasoline.

[Jay 02 TA ws6]

It really wouldn't matter if the efficiency drops by 40% Roger... The stoichiometirc ratio is 9:1 whereas gasoline is 14:1... that's why the fuel efficiency would drop. But that doesn't matter when the source of the fuel is RENEWABLE. Plant more corn... voila... more fuel.

[Jay 02 TA ws6]

You have to heat the alcohol - but you must keep the temperature below 212 degrees so the water doesn't boil with it - that's not too hard to do at all! And even if it took a lot of energy to do it... why not get the energy for it by burning ethanol...

fuel efficiency becomes FAR less important when the resource is completely renewable and will never run out. we just need bigger gas tanks so that we don't need to fill up every 100 miles

[2Fbodcru]

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
http://www.nrel.gov/otec/what.html

Wave Energy
http://www.poemsinc.org/FAQwave.html

[Roger in Kensington]

Well, as long as we are talking about renewable resources . . .

It really wouldn't matter if the efficiency drops by 40% Roger... The stoichiometirc ratio is 9:1 whereas gasoline is 14:1... that's why the fuel efficiency would drop. But that doesn't matter when the source of the fuel is RENEWABLE. Plant more corn... voila... more fuel.

. . . then why not give up our cars, grow lots of oats and all ride horses?

Because horses are not energy efficient. And if you think car pollute, oh boy!

I'm sorry, Jay, but if the extensive technical literature on this subject does not convince you, then I'm afraid -- and no offense intended -- that you are what is termed invincibly ignorant. You know what you know and no set of inconvenient facts will dissuade you.

It's like the people who promote solar energy. Wonderful concept. But the solar flux is about 1370 watts per square meter at the equator above the atmosphere at local Noon. That's . . . that's the max. It's less at the earth's surface. And it decreases as you move away from the equator (or, allowing for seasons, where the Sun is directly overhead).

No amount of wishful thinking will change that. Yet no amount of reality will convince some people that it is impractical to run an actual automobile on sunlight even with a 100-percent conversion efficiency (and we are far from attaining that).

Just as some are still convinced that DETROIT and BIG OIL conspired to keep the 200-mpg carburetor off the market.

And Elvis was abducted by aliens and is currently living on Planet Zendor.

They know it. That settles it. So there.

As for producing ethanol by burning ethanol, have you ever heard of the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

So, okay, you win. I'm wrong and you're right.

We'll discuss the matter again in a few years.

[Jay 02 TA ws6]

. . . then why not give up our cars, grow lots of oats and all ride horses?

Because horses are not energy efficient. And if you think car pollute, oh boy!

I'm sorry, Jay, but if the extensive technical literature on this subject does not convince you, then I'm afraid -- and no offense intended -- that you are what is termed invincibly ignorant. You know what you know and no set of inconvenient facts will dissuade you.

It's like the people who promote solar energy. Wonderful concept. But the solar flux is about 1370 watts per square meter at the equator above the atmosphere at local Noon. That's . . . that's the max. It's less at the earth's surface. And it decreases as you move away from the equator (or, allowing for seasons, where the Sun is directly overhead).

No amount of wishful thinking will change that. Yet no amount of reality will convince some people that it is impractical to run an actual automobile on sunlight even with a 100-percent conversion efficiency (and we are far from attaining that).

Just as some are still convinced that DETROIT and BIG OIL conspired to keep the 200-mpg carburetor off the market.

And Elvis was abducted by aliens and is currently living on Planet Zendor.

They know it. That settles it. So there.

As for producing ethanol by burning ethanol, have you ever heard of the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

So, okay, you win. I'm wrong and you're right.

We'll discuss the matter again in a few years.

Roger, yes I have heard of the laws of thermodynamics... I've taken a fair share of chemistry and physics in both high school and college.

To be techincal, the second law states, "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state."

So basically, what you are saying is... using energy made from corn to make more energy from corn is eventually going to fail. You'd be correct. Is it infinitely renewable? No, it is not. But we cut down more trees than we plant each year. Is anyone in a panic about a tree shortage? The ability to sustain ourselves by planting more corn will take us a long, long time before we're out of that.

At it's most rudimentary levels, your argument has basically digressed to that of the "entropy death of the universe". Eventually, all matter will no longer exist and will all be converted to energy, because energy is lost in every chemical reaction since there are no perfect systems.

Is that going to happen before we run out of oil?

The fact remains... we can plant more corn. We can't plant more oil.

You're thinking inside the box and fearing change. No one said it would be a smooth transition, or that it would be easy.