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Hydro
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Winfield, IL, USA
Jun 1999 time: 05:29
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As the article notes, synthetic petroleum is not new and has been tried before (Nazi Germany, for example). So far - no success. The key is getting more energy out than you put in, and in scaling it up for the mass market. I wish them luck, though. Then there’ll be a shortage of turkey bones! Just imagine how many turkeys have to die if their rate is 200 tons of turkey bones for 500 barrels of oil. To make this work that is a boatload of turkeys (or some other biomatter).
H2 cars have been around for a long time, too. One interesting note - care to guess where the most of the H2 comes from? Answer: they strip the hydrogen off of petroleum. So much for ecologically friendly H2 cars. This is likely to remain the case for some time until we can develop solar power not devastate the environment and is practical for large-scale stripping of hydrogen off of water. Some environmentalists even object to wind farms. It seems the giant turbines mulch birds. Sheesh. You can’t please anyone.
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Hydro
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Winfield, IL, USA
Jun 1999 time: 05:29
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You're right! We need to ban jet engines to save those poor birds that are instantly de-feathered and cooked! Those tall glass buildings, or anything with glass for that matter, needs to go, too.
Care to live in a cave, anyone? Life can be nice, even if it is nasty, brutish, and short.
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Hydro
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Winfield, IL, USA
Jun 1999 time: 05:29
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Lotm – I have to disagree. Synthetic fossil fuels will at best keep global warming and related problems neutral, and will probably hugely exacerbate them.
Converting organic debris to oil and then burning (oxidizing) that organic matter sends it directly into the atmosphere as CO2 and other gasses. Leaving the material in the ground to decay anaerobically (producing methane, and others) keeps most of the biomatter, and the carbon, in the ground. It is all a matter of where the material ends up – in the air, or in the ground. Keep in mind that oil and related natural gas were originally trapped in the ground, and that it only became a problem (if you believe in global warming) after they were mechanically removed and then combusted. Complicating matters are essentially permanent (ocean trenches) and temporary (trees and living biomatter) carbon sinks.
Managing waste disposal is another issue. Much of this bio-matter (like the turkey debris from the article) is reprocessed, however. Remember mad cow disease that plagued Britain? The primary cause of this was processing waste carcasses of animals and then feeding this ‘stuff’ to other (normally herbivore) animals to increase growth rates. Unfortunately, the recycled animal protein also had the mad cow pathogen. But I digress…
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