Future Energy Sources 3.2 Biofuels

the palm oil fiasco was not that the the idea was bad but failed because it was not done in the right way

"the palm oil fiasco was not that the the idea was bad but failed because it was not done in the right way"

This is true but it shows how we need to be careful about how we implement these technologies.

Indeed. Just because one could do something does not mean that one should.

Hi masu, and everybody else. "The Biofuel Time Bomb" Here are a few excerts from an artical that I read in a magasine the other day. The British Government is pumping millions of pounds into the biofuel industry in order to save the planet. But the rush to go green is destroying rainforests, wiping out indigenous tribes and endangering animal and floral species. The rainforests on the Indonesian island of Sumatra do not only hold the rare Sumatran Tiger, but also is home to one of the greatest biodiversities on Earth. All local wildlife and local villages have now fled or been killed. In their place the forests have been burnt down and replaced with hundreds of oil palms. These palms gorge on 12 liters of water per day, so that now even the rivers are dry. This green frenzy is suppoted by multinational companies, and the waste from the palm oil production in Sumatra has poluted the rivers and the soil, it has detroyed Sumatra's eco-system. These oil palm plantations are in the order of 6.5 million hectares, and by 2020 they have projected to have increased to 16.5 million hectares! In Borneo they have already started to clear 8 million hectares, and in the process have sent in the army to force the villagers off the land, many have died of starvation and hundreds of others were killed. Borneo is home to an incredible bio-diversity, 15.000 species of flowering plants, 3.000 species of trees, 221 species of mammal, 420 species of birds and of course, the Orangutan. Critics also argue that the production of palm oil produces as many CO2 emissions as fossil fuels, eg, The peat land has been drained in Indonesia to make way for these oil palm trees thus releasing 600 million tons of CO2. When burning off the jungle, the fires so far have produced another 1.5 million tons of CO2. It has been calculated that so far the palm oil industry at this moment produces about 8% of all global CO2 emissions. Palm oil green energy? Dont make me laugh. So, all you palm oil freaks read this and weep for our planet. Spencer.

Spencer, I got to thinking about your points ,,, specifically the damage to the eco system as you discribed them and the released CO₂. That is SAD!

On the other side I started to thinking about the field areas.

If 1 acre(US) ~ 0,42 hectares and area projected to be developed is 16.5 million hectares

THEN area is ~ 39 million acres(US) using CO₂ enriched algae culture with 8,000 galons bio diesel/acre year should yield about 7.5 billion barrels/year?

What have I missed?

Hi S Houston. Read it again! Hundreds of humans have either been killed or lost their homes. The richest bio-diversive area in the wold is lost forever, animals, birds, fish reptiles and fauna. When will man ever learn that destryoing such habitats will eventually lead to our demise. Spencer.

The earth is in the mess it is currently in due to short term profit hungry, corner cutting, self promoting, selfish, accounting oriented, management. Oil is the preferred energy source because it makes the greatest short term profits and that is the total and simple end of it. If doesn't concern the powers to be, because, when the true cost of the damage that the burning of these fuels comes to fruition, they will not be in charge and will have made their money.

The attitude of nearly all the management and politicians worldwide now is if it isn't going to affect the profitability while I am in charge then it doesn't matter and must be ignored.

No matter what solutions we as engineers come up with, while the current management mentality prevails there is no way a workable solution will get off the ground.

You may think this is a very cynical outlook but I have seen too many good companies that have been successful for generations destroyed in a few years by managers that were only interested in short term profits. They come in , wreck decades of reputation and hard work then bail out leaving the responsible people to clean up the mess only to do it all again to another company. This problem appears to be common amongst all the developed and industrialised nations and the sooner we get back to having management that understands the problem from a technical view rather than a financial one we are just going to continue along the same destructive path.

That is exactly what is happening here. Biofuels is a good idea but if you don't implement the concept in a responsible manner and just do it the cheapest and easiest way you can end up causing more damage to the environment.

The sooner we get rid of the current crop of account driven, short term profit seeking, so called business school graduate, head up their rectum, amoeba brained, conscious devoid, managers and directors, the sooner we will be able to start making a difference.

Just my opinion!

Hi masu. Yes you are right, but I would also say that we are governed by a group of f******g ass holes. Spencer.

Bio Fuels from Algae = a "NEW" Agriculture?

Yield of bio diesel from typical domestic crops range from 40 to 250 (up to 900 for coconut/palm) gallons per acre year.The upper end for ethanol is about 700 gallons/acre year. Now compare that to algae generated yields.

Day light hours only … estimated 40% total 24 hour (80% of day light hour) recovery/capture of industrial CO₂ emissions using an enclosed solar pond (reactor)

Primary Inputs: CO₂, sunlight, nutrients, heat (waste), water (recycled)

Reactor size:
gas fired ~ 4-5 acres/Mega watt
coal fired ~ 10-12 acres/Mega watt (due to the higher emissions of coal)

Annual Yield/Acre estimates: biodiesel 8k gallons +plus+ ethanol 5k gallons +plus+ 70 tons feed/fertilizer (This is a mid range estimate … theoretically biodiesel yield might be as high as 15k gallons per acre year).

ROI estimated 5-10 years 10-20% return [these values can be debate based on current lower crude oil of prices $50/barrel].

The yield for open solar ponds is about 20% of the yield of enclosed solar ponds (reactors) since the pedigree of the high yield algae can not be maintained.

Examples of enclosed reactor yields, a gas fired power plant (or other industrial application), on an annual per megawatt basis, could be about 32k gallons of biodiesel +plus+ 20k gallons of ethanol +plus+ 280 tons of feed/fertilizer stock … while …

a coal fire facility could be expected to be about 80k gallons of biodiesel +plus+ 50k gallons of ethanol +plus+ 700 tons of feed/fertilizer stock from per mega watt.

A 1,000 megawatt gas fired facility is planned to be operational by 2009. How does 32 million gallons of biodiesel +plus+ 20 million gallons of ethanol +plus+ 0.7 million tons of feed annually sound from one 5,000 acres facility? THAT IS A LOT OF RECOVERED/"RECYCLED" COx and FUEL in my opinion!!

A coal fired facility annual yield would about 2.5 to 3X greater than the gas fired facility on about a 15k acre farm. How does over 170 million gallons of bio fuel annually sound?

These yields are well above the economic threshold for onsite "refining" result in the further advantage of using waste process heat from the "host" industrial facility further increasing the overal energy efficiency of the "host".

[And while we are at it ... throw in a wind farm (2.5 megawatt windmills in or around the farm) if the wind patterns are appropriate].

This same technology can be applied to agricultural and human waste reactors as demonstrated in New Zealand Fall 2006. I do not have any yield data on this effort.

For your consideration.

Hi Houston. Agricultural and human waste has been tried here in the UK in the 1970s, but since then nothing has been done. I believe that the reasons for stopping this program were political, by then we were geting oil and gas from the north sea. I also seem to recall a farmer in Oxfordshire in those days who was producing gas from pig slurry, to both heat his house and to do the cooking with. But of course, in those days we were awash in oil and gas here in the UK.

NEW INFORMATION

PROBLEM WITH ALGAE SOURCED BioDiesel:

Talked today with an owner of a large fleet of diesel trucks. When asked about algae biodiesel (which he is watching) ... his MAJOR CONCERN is PARTICULATES (SIZE AND QUANTITY) in the finished alge based diesel.

These particles can quickly plug up fuel filters and injectors!!! This is a MAJOR concern!!!

IS THERE A SOLUTION?

Talked today with an owner of a large fleet of diesel trucks. When asked about algae biodiesel (which he is watching) ... his MAJOR CONCERN is PARTICULATES (SIZE AND QUANTITY) in the finished alge based diesel.

These particles can quickly plug up fuel filters and injectors!!! This is a MAJOR concern!!!

IS THERE A SOLUTION?

I would expect this could be solved with the advent of proper filtering and processing. After all crude oil is a pretty nasty substance and full of all sorts of contaminants that need to be removed through processing.

Those Confounded units !

Gallons is that US or UK gallons ie. how many gallons per cubic meter (1000 liters) is that (0.003785412 m³ OR 0.004546092 m³)...

And is that a long (1016.047kg), short (907.1847kg) OR metric ton (1000kg)?

And I guess 1 barrel is equivilent to 115.6271 liters ?

And 1 acre is equivilent to 0.4046863 hectares right ?

Hi Houston,

How do I get a private audience with you?

Email? Phone?

Are you interested in a meeting and a discussion of your knowledge about algae with me?...

I am impressed with your command of this topic.

Thank you.

Tony

San Francisco Calif.

tony_02_8669@msn.com

I think the biogas will paly an important part in the future energy sources,

Hi Guest. Yes, you are right. One farmer I knew in a remote part of Norway built a 12ft x 12ft concrete slurry pit which was 8ft deep, I got talking to this guy and told him all about producing gas from the slurry. I designed and helped him built a new pit which had a stainless steel conical roof on the top, in the lower half of the pit I installed a series of stainless tubes conected to a boiler. From the top of the conical roof protruded a 40mm pipe which was connected to a centrifugal pump, thus creating a slight under pressure in the tank. In addition to pig and cow slurry, the farmer put human waste and bio waste from plants that had been composted. We then circulated hot water from the boiler through the heater tubes, the result was amazing, gas, albiet a very dirty gas and plenty of it. The next step was to clean this gas, and there was quite a few nasties in it, hydrogen sulphide was the worst. This was quite an easy task really, we scrubbed the gas with water and pumped it through a slurry of dolomitic limestone, the result of this was that we were left with a relatively clean gas and a lot of gypsum (hydrous calcium sulphate). The next stage was the hardest of all, to build a gas accumilator. I built a small accumilator on the old English principal of the upwards expanding cylinder type by constructing a large bellows that was spring loaded. This system worked from 1977 to 1987, then the farm was sold to his son who dismantled everything before abandoning the farm in 1992.

Here's my own contribution to this field.

http://ecofriendlypower.wetpaint.com

Mark

Hmm, interesting to see the chinese corn prices are so low that they can not afford to buy foreign corn to stabilize their markets. I suspect the chinese are just going to do what they always do and wait for the US or Russia to develop and test alternative new technologies, then just steal the technology. Alternately, Farmers are paid not to grow many crops for a multitude of reasons in the US, including payments from NRCS/Dept of Ag to preserve soils (avoiding dust bowls). Corn is grown typically in some of the poorest soils, since the crop is such a low value. Ethanol production can make a profit hauling huge quantities of Corn in from the mid west to California, rather than utilize the huge amounts of farm land in California for corn production. This occurs because a majority of the Ag land in California is very productive and can produce high value crops like artichokes, strawberries, oranges or lettuce. Ethanol just is not cost effective enough yet to drive farmers to grow an abundance of corn or fuel crops. It would be prudent for the US government to tax fuel and subsidize biofuel production, but too many of the politicians are subsidized by large fuel companies like BP and Shell.

We are sending an associate to Texas for a meeting on BioDiesel Plants at the end of this month. We are looking to build a new large scale plant in Everett Massachusetts. Our distibutor has tankers and rail service. This will be based on waste oil from restaurant grease traps.

As I said in another thread we are not paying the true price for energy from fossil fuels. The current pricing dose not include any of the future costs that will be incurred due to the global warming caused by the burning of these fuels. As such we are actually subsidizing fossil fuels with future expenditure and if these costs were included renewable energy sources would be far more economically viable.

Now I am not advocating that we stick an enormous tax on all fossil fuels or something equally as stupid but it seems that there needs to be some method to level the playing field. I do not believe the carbon trading scheme as put forward in the Kyoto protocol is the answer either as it will not result in the reduction in the dependence on fossil fuels or the fostering of renewable energy sources. The only thing I can see a carbon trading scheme doing is stopping any developing countries from developing at the rate they would have otherwise. This is a negative result and the only solution for the world as a whole is for everybody to move forward towards cleaner sources of energy. Carbon trading will just mean that the developed world continues along the destructive path it is on at the suppression of less developed nations. This is only going to widen the gap, increase the developed worlds dependence on fossil fuels and most likely create wars.

So the question then becomes what do we do to level the playing field?

The first thing that needs to happen is the removal of monopolistic type power generation and distribution systems that either completely outlaw or do not reward those that use ecologically sound generations systems. For example in some places you must buy your electricity form the local authority and regardless of you intent are not allowed to generate your own power from wind for example. In other places you are unable to sell any surplus capacity to others using the existing grid. I am not advocating that you should be paid for excess capacity at the same rate as the power you consume but if you can use a the existing grid to distribute your surplus generating capacity at a wholesale price you can subsidize to initial equipment cost an therefore move towards a more level playing field.

The same thing applies with excises and taxes on things like ethanol. In some places it is an offence to produce ethanol while in others unrealistic taxes are imposed on the final product regardless of its end use.

It is these inconsistencies and restrictive practices that are biasing the results and in a round about way subsidizing fossil fuels. If governments can be forced to allow a level playing field then I believe whole heartedly that we will see a flourish of new economically viable renewable energy technologies.

Hi Masu and others,

everybody is talking about CO2 and global warming today, but what if we are wrong in this discussion?

Medieval knowledge was a flat earth and nobody was allowed to think in a different way.

Einsteins thesis was not accepted and all the peer reviewed journals sometimes are totally wrong.

Think about the two moderately warm periods since the end of the last iceage:

Climate was much warmer then: the vikings landing in Canada called it vinland, where is the nearest vineyard now?

In any period that turned to colder wheather and climate massive wanderings of people occured to evade the ugly situations in cold climates. So we should want some warming - we cannot evade it with no means!

We do not really know what triggered the iceages (seven minimum since 1.2 million years) and what prevented these in the preceding nearly 20 million years.

But we know that at that time there was a massive warm period with the mediterranean sea more or less dry at -4000meter below sea level and acting as a gigantic heat trap.

And despite this massive warming with african type vegetation and animals in central Europe the sea level was down at - 100 or more meter!

In this period there was the transformation from prehominids to upright walking earlyest humans. (And the sealevel being so low is the reason why we do not find any fossils from that time because our ancestors lived near the sea.)

And I did not hear from any of the experts of climatic change a simulation where this situation of very warm climate together with very low sealevel is coming out of their computer models.

But I know that it is horribly difficult to tie the known reasons for changing climate together to a good model that predicts the real situation.

To my opinion this will happen:

The more CO2 will be in the atmosphere the more will be consumed by more algae in the oceans.

It will be easy to fertilise these as the only nutrient that is missing is iron and this is blown to the seas by the winds and can be added if necessary by us.

But western nations will waste their wealth in ridiculous actions as CO2 reinjection and burning of food as bio-fuel,

And thus they will not invest enough in future energy technologies:

Necessary would be to develop technologies for:

extracting much more from existing oil fileds, extracting the oil from sands and shale,

getting started with cultivating algae, getting started with genetically transforming algae to produce oil,

thinking another time about nuclear waste technology and finance exotic (fusion) technology.

Rethinking nuclear waste technology is more than necessary as the old strategy of reprocessing is originating from the military needs of nuclear weapons.

Depositing used nuclear fuel rods would be much more effective but everybody sticks to overaged ideas that brings the spent fuel out of reach, this too is ridiculous.

We should search for really new ways!

RHABE

everybody is talking about CO2 and global warming today, but what if we are wrong in this discussion?

I will not go into the details of how as these have been covered in depth in another thread but by analyzing ice cores from Antarctica scientists have been able to develop a record of atmospheric CO₂ that covers the last 800,000 years. This record shows that we are in completely uncharted territory as not only is the level now higher than it has ever been over that period but it is rising almost 50 times faster than at any time during the same period.

We do not really know what triggered the iceages (seven minimum since 1.2 million years) and what prevented these in the preceding nearly 20 million years.

This is true but what we do know is that these events took thousands of years to start and stop. We are talking about and ice age ending event that takes decades not millennia. There may have been extinction level event that occurred over short periods but it is believed these were associated with catastrophic events like asteroid collisions and mega volcanic eruptions. When I refer to a mega volcanic event I am not talking about a single volcanic eruption but rather more like an area of several hundred square kilometers of the earths surface rupturing simultaneously.

Medieval knowledge was a flat earth and nobody was allowed to think in a different way.

There is a huge difference between the blind faith that was demanded of people in the middle ages and the pier reviewed scientific process that has been used to show global warming is taking place. One is blind obedience to a book that most people couldn't even read and the other is the complex analysis of events and the development of mathematical models that can explain observed events which by extrapolation are used to predict future events. These models are then reviewed by others to look for any inconsistencies or errors.

Depositing used nuclear fuel rods would be much more effective but everybody sticks to overaged ideas that brings the spent fuel out of reach, this too is ridiculous.

Nuclear fuel rods are extremely dangerous and toxic items. To start with they produce considerable amounts of harmful radiation and they also contain extremely toxic substances like plutonium. If plutonium gets into the environment it will kill people it's as simple as that. Another problem is that you need to keep these fuel rods separated from other fuel rods and cool. There have been near disasters where overcrowding in storage areas has caused the temperature of the rods to rise to dangerously. Cooling plant failures have also caused near disasters as well. Put to many fuel rods within a certain area and you will have a melt down, it doesn't need to be in the core of reactor to happen.

Technologically oriented societies started about 5,000 years ago and that is only 1% of the time we would need to keep these fuel rods under lock and key. Anybody that thinks we can look after the spent cores of fission reactors fro 100 times as long as the current technologically driven society has already existed has rocks in their had.

Spent nuclear fuel is a disaster waiting to happen and it needs to be continually monitored by specially trained people. Take the people away with a disease like the 1918 influenza pandemic and you have a massive catastrophe on your hands.

All this points us being in uncharted waters and it's not something nature has thrust upon us, we have done it to ourselves. However being the optimist that I am I believe we can apply ourselves to the challenge and develop a solution. This is a global problem and it doesn't respect the artificial political boundaries that we have thrust upon ourselves. The answer therefore needs to be global and it may just be a positive thing in the long run because we are all going to need to work together regardless of our ideologies.

Hi Masu,

if you look to CO2 over the last 800 thousand years please look also to CH4 and to dust and to temperature which is not going synchronous to CO2 (most times yes but sometimes no).

"This is true but what we do know is that these events took thousands of years to start and stop"

I do not believe this. The reality can be much worse: One year only of cold weather can push us into the next iceage as the snow covered northern and southern lands will reflect so much solar energy backk to space that the earth will cool down so much that the next year will be cool enough to stabilise this situation.

It would then take some thousand years to establish a fully developed ice coverage.

The stop of an iceage is not so clear and is slowed by the necessity to melt down vast amounts of ice.

Concerning the problems with nuclear fuel I agree that the situation at this moment is not agreeable. Thousands of years of stoarage are a ridiculous requirement.

So this is leading me to the necessity to store the used elements for some time until in one of the next generation reactor types the spent fuel can be "burnt" to get rid of most of the radioactive elements.

Until this reactor exists we should not touch the spent fuel: the Plutonium is 100.000.000 (onehundertmillion) times more poisonous than uranium and workers in uranium mines are allowed for 1 milligram per year inhalation and it is very likely that this figure is too high. (This radiotoxicity not chemical toxicity as pretended by "experts".

Storing the used elements with passive cooling shall be no formidable task.

But if the today concept of melting the highly radioactive waste into glass blocks (heated to 600°C by the radioactivity) and depositing these in salt where it can never be recovered but may find its way to connect with some circulating water is not sane.

Anything wrong with this concept?

RHABE

Now you understand why I advocate "algae farms" that capture/recycle industrial CO₂ emissions as a "nutrient" with the help of sunlight. Even open ponds farms are projected to yield 2,000 gallons(US) of bio diesel AND more than 1,000 gallons(US) ethanol per acre year plus tons of feed. A one megawatt gas fired facility will feed 5 acres while a coal fired facility is expected to feed about 12 acres.

Does anyone know of any other crop that can yield even 50% of the algae output/acre year for either of these fuels?

There are higher yield strains of algae that can be grown in "enclosed" farms that can produce 2 to 4 (possibly 6) times the output per acre year.

This strategy could capture about 40% CO₂ emissions treated for reuse in the second generation bio fuels and feed.

Hi Houston,

Yes I did understand this and I think this idea will among the few ones that will survive discussion and funding and will find its way into economical production.

What I am not shure about: land based or swimming sea based farms?

Open or closed systems?

Todays existing algae or genetically engineered to produce carbohydrates?

Unfortunately the majority is sticking to todays "modern" ideas.

RHABE

RHABE, you raise 2 excellent questions.

"Open or closed systems?"

Generally the high yield algae strains are not as virulent as the natural strains normally found in the environment. Therefore, I conclude that for the foreseeable future "enclosed farms" are necessary to maintain high yields species. Further, "enclosed farms" are conducive to the very high concentrations of CO_x (and some heat) as well as sunlight that are required for rapid growth.

"land based or swimming sea based farms?"

It is not obvious to me how a "swimming sea based farm" could be structured to allow injection of high concentrations of CO_x (and some heat) plus harvesting, processing, refining, and delivery infrastructures that can be economically (energy and cost) established. I suspect the yield per unit area of swimming sea based farms would be low and difficult to harvest.

That is not to suggest that someone will not solve the puzzle ... but I'll bet not in my lifetime.

Dumb thought ... suppose there were high yield algae species that fed on H₂S ... then one might be able to use selected ocean based volcanic vent gasses in a "swimming sea based farm". Maybe there might be solutions to harvesting and post processing under those conditions.? ... land based volcanic lake sites? I guess it is all in the specific species. Genetic engineering?

In my opinion, it is the constructive recycling of emissions (and other waste products ... heat) into usable "second generation" biofuels and feed that are the up side since there is little or no distortion of food supply production and the 75 to 85% reduction in land required when compared to known traditional crops and their biofuel yields.

Looking at solutions to lockup C/dioxide biologically, I feel S Houston's proposal sounds good, technically at least. S.H, would you have a business plan on this ? Could this be executed on a smaller scale, in places like Asia/SEAsia, entrepreneurs would like to 'feel' some profit before pumping cash into bigger versions of the same idea.

Also what about other sources of oil/fat - fat from farm animals(...sorry, if sounds too barbaric!). Elsewhere, I talked about possible fuels that could be burned in Compression Ignition/diesel engines. In Europe(Netherlands,at least), medical/bio-waste(plasma and such)/industrial waste are burned in such engines. These are passed through a homogenizer(CD-92, ..worked on this. Basically this machine reduces a long carbon chain fuel-typical low quality marine fuel, into smaller ones.However, because this process is mechanical, the short chains are not stable and won't stay that way for long. Thus, these machines are installed just before the engine(s)), and sometimes blended with diesel and burned in the engine. Salient point here is that, pretty much anything that can burn(or needs to be burned off safely) could be fed to this engine, without converting these to bio-diesel.

Another proposal, take a typical Mormon farm(I thought this a first rate example), where everything is nature(read sun) dependant. Add a purpose built workhorse/bull farm.Couple this to an energy storage/conversion system,i.e.: gravity/pump-up/CAES. What are the numbers required for such a system to work and turn a profit ?

Perhaps the energy sector(us!) should emulate the paper industry(a fine example of closed loop supply system), paper mills need fresh wood chip feed all the time(on top of recycling), so they plant their own trees! So we use wood for every day energy need - just like centuries past! except of course, with much improved energy conversion systems.

Perhaps the energy sector(us!) should emulate the paper industry(a fine example of closed loop supply system), paper mills need fresh wood chip feed all the time(on top of recycling), so they plant their own trees!

The paper industry is not as sustainable as they would like us to believe. Much of the pulp comes from old growth forests in the third world where deforestation goes relatively unnoticed and unchecked. I remember seeing 250,000 tonne pile of woodchips taken from old growth forests that was destined to become newsprint. The paper industry has improved its act recently but they still use a lot of fiber from old growth or virgin forests.

So we use wood for every day energy need - just like centuries past! except of course, with much improved energy conversion systems.

I havn't done the numbers but I suspect the use of wood as a replacement for fossil fuels would result in the destruction of all the worlds forests in a very short time frame. I can't do it right now but I will look into how much timber would be required to replace fossil fuels. If somebody else wants to work it out first we currently consume about 500 Ej worth of energy from fossil fuels every year.

IN BLOG 20 IT SOUNDED TO ME AS THOUGH RMG21 WAS JUST SUGGESTING THAT WE EMULATE THE PAPER INDUSTRY,NOT RELY TOTALY ON WOOD AS A ENERGY SOURCE. SHE ALSO BROUGHT UP OTHER ENERGY SUPPPLYS. iT IS VERY UNLIKELY THAT WE WILL BE ABLE TO SOLVE OUR ENERGY NEEDS WITH ONE SOURCE AND IF WE DEPEND ON ONLY ONE SOURCE WE WILL MORE THAN LIKELY CREATE MORE PROBLEMS THAN WE SOLVE. THERE ARE MANY WOODLOTS THAT ARE DOING A GREAT JOB OF SUPPLYING ENERGY WHILE PROTECTING THE EARTH. THESE NEED TO BE IMPROVED AND MORE ADDED. WE WILL ALSO NEED MANY OTHER NEW OR IMPROVED SOURCES.

We are currently cutting down trees faster than they are being replaced so increasing the demand would only exacerbate the problem.

I agree that there is a place for growing fuel rather than using fossil fuels but trees are notoriously slow growing and are therefore not the best choice as a fuel.

At very least the use of wood on a large scale as fuel would require take a major rethink and overhaul of forest management. Unfortunately I can't see that happening because worldwide we can't even manage the current forests at a stable level let alone with increased demand.

Hi rmg21 in post #20 you enquired about using timber as an energy resource

So we use wood for every day energy need - just like centuries past! except of course, with much improved energy conversion systems.

Here are the calculations that show how much wood would need to be consumed to replace fossil fuels.

Currently global energy consumption from fossil fuels is around 500 Ej or 500 x 10¹⁸ joules per year. Depending of the type of wood and weather it wet or dry the energy content is between 10.9-16.6 MjKg^-1. Taking the average we can calculate the mass of timber needed to replace the energy from fossil fuels as;

Timber_Mass = Annual_Energy ÷ Energy_Timber

Timber_Mass = 500 x 10¹⁸ j ÷ 13.75 x 10⁶ jKg^-1

Timber_Mass = 36.36 x 10¹² Kg

To satisfy or current energy need we would require around 36.4 billion tons of wood to be burnt each year. Carrying this further the average forest yields about 20-30 m³ of wood per year per hectare (average is 2.5 x 10^-3 m³m^-2) and given the density of wood is between 110-1,330 Kgm^-3 (average is 775 Kgm^-3) and take the averages we can calculate the volume of timber needed as;

Timber_Volume = Timber_Mass ÷ Timber_Density

Timber_Volume = 36.36 x 10¹² Kg ÷ 775 Kgm^-3 = 0.04692 x 10¹² m³

Timber_Volume ≈ 47 x 10⁹ m³

Taking this and the know yield per square meter give us the area that needs to be harvested and replanted year;

Plantation_Area = Timber_Volume ÷ Timber_Yield

Plantation_Area = 47 x 10⁹ m³ ÷ 2.5 x 10^-3 m3m^-2

Timber_Volume = 18.8 x 10¹² m² or 18,800,000 square Km

To give some sort of comparison if you look at the areas that the countries occupy it would require pretty much all of the USA and Canada combined to support a stable fuel supply.

This doesn't mean we would need to clear fell pretty much the entire area of North America each year but it would require a area roughly that large devoted to nothing but timber for use as fuel.

While it is possible to dedicate an entire continent to nothing but forest I some how doubt that it could be achieved as it would mean the displacing of hundreds of millions of people and loss of valuable food crops. It's a nice idea but unfortunately not practical.

Masu wrote: I some how doubt that it could be achieved as it would mean the displacing of hundreds of millions of people and loss of valuable food crops. It's a nice idea but unfortunately not practical.

Comment:

Masu your calculations appear to be based on the substitution of petroleum energy with wood sourced energy on a global scale.

I agree that this is not practical. However, where wood chips and sawdust is a surplus commodity, the shift from petroleum to wood energy could be very cost effective. Where I live right now wood chips is abundant. Curiously enough it is even cost effective to ship by truck thousands of tons from as far away as 600 miles. B-trains are arriving round the clock every few minutes. They dump their load of wood chips at transfer facilities that load into ocean going barges. The barges are towed to paper mills up and down the coast.

Now if the industries at the source of the wood chips could convert this wood directly into energy for their own mills they would save the cost of importing fuel from other continents.

I would estimate a surplus of wood chips would still remain for export to the paper mills.

In northern BC where the pine beetle has devastated huge tracts of land they are salvaging some trees but a sizable percentage is no longer commercially useful. That wood can still be used as local fuel. The totally clearcut land will likely become grasslands according to several biologists familiar with such transformation. Global warming will make this even better grazing land that what existed before. Such large tracts of land could in fact become useful as bio fuel production sources without the need to remove food lands from production.

Elnav

I agree that the use of any waste material as an energy source is a good idea and should be encouraged. However the current world rate or felling and clearing is greater than the rate of planting. The net result is during the 1990 the rate of deforestation was somewhere between 55,000 and 120,00 Km² per annum.

There are two possible solutions, we either increase the number of trees being planted or decrease the number being chopped down. I personally believe that we should be doing both but for the moment, until the wholesale clearing of rainforests ceases, we need to be reducing our demand for wood and its byproducts not increasing it.

Ultimately, with proper forest management, I can see a place for the use of timber as a fuel. However in large cities where the population density is high and the byproducts of wood combustion can be hazardous I can't see it being a viable answer.

Masu wrote: However in large cities where the population density is high and the byproducts of wood combustion can be hazardous I can't see it being a viable answer.

Which is why we need to look at more than one kind of oil energy replacement source. Each region will have different possible resources that can be adapted.

Elnav

Hi enlav, you wrote,

"Which is why we need to look at more than one kind of oil energy replacement source. Each region will have different possible resources that can be adapted."

I am feel that you have hit the nail squarely on the head there. Ultimately I feel the solution will turn out to be a multi technology totally distributed system interconnected with a grid. Surplus capacity in one region with appropriate technology can be distributed over the grid to supplement the shortfall of another area that uses a different technology. The system could also include hydroelectric systems that could be used to store surplus capacity by pumping water up hill and storing it for later use during peak demand periods.

It's not as big a task as one might think because all the technology already exists. There are already schemes in place like the one Origin Energy in Australia that allow co-generation and the sale of surplus capacity on the existing grid.

We are not talking about anything new here all that remains is for it to be made viable and attractive for both end users and existing power generating authoritories.

Hi masu. Here in the Uk we have two hydo-electric plants that do just what you suggest, they release water at peak times and at night they pump the water back up to the reservoir. This system has been going for about four years and is very efficient. Spencer.

I believe the points raised are that IF there is an excess of a "waste" commodity that can be used satisfy a portion of the energy demand ... it is an opportunity ... wood chip or "slaughter" waste are just 2 of many.

Here in the USA, implementation of aggressive incentives for ethanol based fuel has almost doubled the price of corn in the last 12 months. This will ultimately ripple throughout the world economy.

There are several key issues:

• implement "minimum" impact use strategies (example: most fuel conserving methods; highest yield/per input production; land/water/materials/energy resources)
  
• use renewable resources wherever possible (establish balanced regeneration)
  
• better use of "waste" stream resources
  
• in the USA, we have to raise the mean combined city/highway mpg for light vehicles above 35+ mpg(US)
  
• Develop "new" solar technologies like "algaeculture" augmented with industrial CO₂ emissions "capture/recycling". Wouldn't it be great if someone could develop and mass produce an economical residential version and then we could make automotive fuel at home if there is adequate solar radiation.
  
  

"Here in the USA, implementation of aggressive incentives for ethanol based fuel has almost doubled the price of corn in the last 12 months. This will ultimately ripple throughout the world economy."

This is a real problem and shows how we need to be extremely cautious of schemes that use subsidies as a tool for leveling the playing field. The carbon trading scheme is another that I have serious reservations over.

We are not paying the true price for fossil and nuclear fuels as the current structure doesn't allow for the proper disposal of all the waste products. This discounting is a form of subsidy for wasteful systems and is making renewable and environmentally sound technologies economically unviable. Unfortunately I have not seen nor have any idea how the to achieve an unbiased system without serious financial upheaval.

Until a solution to this fundamental inequality is found any solution is going to have a very hard time of getting off the drawing board and into general use.

Hi Masu, ..to revisit wood-energy, need calculations you did on amount of wood potential required, should we go off fossil fuel and on 100% wood. Come to think of it, data doesn't look that bad!

Next, if we could allocate all nations their 'fair-share' of the crop(sic), area allocation would certainly drop to more acceptable levels.

Also, what about alternative 'wood-fuel' source, i.e.: that grows faster and/or denser, I like bamboo. You could use it for fuel, utensils, paper, and grows in wide ranging climate conditions too.

Interesting, US ethanol policy is throwing quite a number of other industries/societies in other parts of the world in jeopardy(some, serious ones). You see, many countries depend on US corn for staple food and other food industry inputs.

In Europe, demand for malt/barley for bio-fuel is wrestling supply away from animal feed and beer makers!! Guys, beer price is and will continously shoot upwards - this is not good!!!

Perhaps there should be a blog(within CR4, obviously!) dedicated to global energy analyses, whereby, every nation's energy/type consumption/production is tabulated. Further anayses could provide details on alternative energy viability for a given nation,- all forms/types that is being discussed in various threads and blogs on the same subject here and elsewhere.

Hi rmg21,

You have raised some interesting points.

to revisit wood-energy, need calculations you did on amount of wood potential required, should we go off fossil fuel and on 100% wood. Come to think of it, data doesn't look that bad!

While the calculation was only for converting all our energy consumption to wood it didn't allow for the space taken up by infrastructure, like roads, cities etcetera and didn't allow for areas that were not suitable for growing trees, like deserts, swamps, mountains and the like.

By the time you allow for lost production due to things like bush fires and disease and add a certain amount for increased energy use it would more than likely require something like North and South America to be able to produce enough wood.

Next, if we could allocate all nations their 'fair-share' of the crop(sic), area allocation would certainly drop to more acceptable levels.

I was hoping to find a simple list that showed each country and the energy they consumed but could only find an index of energy reserves and consumption by country. While it might be possible for some countries to become self sufficient in wood production countries like Australia, where a large proportion of the continent is desert, will probably be unable to produce enough.. As a result it would requires countries that could grow a surplus to supply those that had a deficit and we end up with the same problem we now have where a few countries can hold the world to ransom.

I did find this web page that shows the Energy Consumption by Source and as you can see the current consumption of wood, which is not insignificant, produces 2/5 of 5/8 of stuff all the total energy consumption. We are currently cutting down forests considerably faster than they are being replaced and any expansion of the use of wood will only increase the rate of deforestation. This would be disastrous and would more than likely result in increase in the rate of global warming.

Also, what about alternative 'wood-fuel' source, i.e.: that grows faster and/or denser, I like bamboo. You could use it for fuel, utensils, paper, and grows in wide ranging climate conditions too.

If the concept of a fuel crop is to work then I believe that we need to be harvesting something that grows considerably faster than timber. I recently saw or read something that proposed the use of hemp as a fuel and fiber source instead of wood. Hemp is one of the fastest growing plants there is and by increasing the growth rate you can decrease the area needed for cultivation accordingly. The hemp that is used for fiber production is not the same plant as that used for the production of the drug. Unfortunately countries like the USA do not differentiate and have a blanket ban on the cultivation of all hemp. Hemp fiber can be used for a variety of purposes including paper and fabrics as well as the waste as fuel and it can grow in areas that are unsuitable for many other crops. Hemp is an ideal energy crop but until the bureaucrats that run most countries grow a brain and learn to differentiate the various species the concept is dead in the water.

Perhaps there should be a blog(within CR4, obviously!) dedicated to global energy analyses, whereby, every nation's energy/type consumption/production is tabulated. Further anayses could provide details on alternative energy viability for a given nation

This is a logical extension of the An Engineer's Look at the Future of Energy blog. I am not sure that it would be helpful to start a second series of articles just yet. Too much on the topic could end up being overkill and would most likely be less productive.

When we have finished going through the list of Possible Technologies for Future Energy and Power Production then moving on and looking at suitable technologies and implementation strategies for each country sound like a good way to go.

I don't want to swamp people with the alternative energy concept and I would like to keep all the discussions linked as much as possible. It's going to take about another six months to finish the list and moving onto discussions, based along the lines you suggest is the logical next step. Dose holding off for about six months, when we have covered all the technologies, sound like a good idea or do you think it needs to be started sooner?

Hi Masu,...question raised at end of post,...well, you do have a point on the overkill bit! , then again,I thought it would be a great idea to discuss this in parallel(It's strange how certain topics sort of makes you edgy/excited/restless, all rolled into one!!! - it's like you wanna go out there and do something!)

E.g.: never mind how much each country's 'allocation is, I feel that if or once we have a map, subsequent idea input would certainly pour in. This is so, because people have 'idea triggers' or eureka threshold level at varying levels of observation.

Since other energy sources are already in operation, these figures should move even lower. I reckon, the project target, would be to reduce fossil fuel consumption by x amount by x number of months/years, for example.

..looking at carbon credits and other environmental protection iniatives promulgated in Europe, I bet many of the proposals mooted here would best be realised in Europe or by Europeans, somehow they seem more passionate about such things!!(is it the wheather or the wine!!??)

I also feel that effective power production doesn't necessarily need to be followed by export to other areas, e.g.: Iceland has huge amount of affordable power production(read cheap), so what do smelters(Al, Cu) do? They move shop!! This in itself would motivate other governments to exploit such oppurtunities.

Since getting politicians to agree on anything is futile, at best, perhaps we could move to the next best thing - bamboo or other fast growing plants(enter genetic engineering!)

I feel that if or once we have a map, subsequent idea input would certainly pour in. This is so, because people have 'idea triggers' or eureka threshold level at varying levels of observation.

Very true and to not exploiting this sort of mental momentum would be a waste. I will have a think about the best way to go about implementing you idea overnight so in the meantime any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Masu, how about a detailed study on just one country, say, Australia. Data or data collection procedure could then be used as a template for the rest of the world. If we could also somehow link the data/findings to potential commercialisation, we might just have a winner!

Findings should include all costs on current systems employed, potential costs on alternative energy sources, and I guess more importantly, its environmental impact.

Hi Rmg21,

That sounds like an excellent idea and we still have a fair way to go on the list of technologies that need to be discussed. However, something along the lines of then applying the best of the technologies from the list to say Australia, would be a good follow up series.

Excellent idea, would you care to be part of the editorial process for such a series of threads?

no probs. Masu!

rmg21: "S.H, would you have a business plan on this ? Could this be executed on a smaller scale, in places like Asia/SEAsia, entrepreneurs would like to 'feel' some profit before pumping cash into bigger versions of the same idea."

Sorry, I do not have a plan or design, but I have several questions that I have been struggling with that I will share.

• What is the minimum size algaeculture facility that can be economically justified that include fuel processing (both biodiesel and ethanol)?
• Does the facility have be cost competitive with current petrolum/coal/CNG fuels or is it considered a "forward" investment in "selfsufficiency" (personal/community)?
• What is local solar availability and what is the min/max size for the solar beds? Remember that annual Yield/Acre estimates for enclosed growing ponds: biodiesel 8k gallons + ethanol 5k gallons + 70 tons feed/fertilizer for about 1/4 megawatt gas fired facility or 1/8 megawatt coal fired facility. Open pond yields are significantly lower.
• How do you clean the fuels sufficienly to avoid plugging filters and fuel injectors (particularly piezoelectric)?
• What do you do with the feed? Could it be used in paper/plastic/food processes?
• What "waste" resources (and their quality) are available from the CO₂ source to run the facility ... heat, low grade steam, electricity, other?

I hope this helps.

I believe Greenfuels tech has a pilot plant producing algae from a power generating facility's waste CO2...The idea is to produce bio-Oil from the algae..

http://www.greenfuelonline.com/

A new "bio" wiki site was brought to my attention today. I thought it might be of interest to the forum. Here is an abstract of the announcement:

The BioEnergy Wiki has been launched!

www.bioenergywiki.net

http://www.bioenergywiki.net/index.php/Help

Hi there S Houston, I have read all of these postings on bio-fuels and I have certain reservations about it all! The fist is, that if we use all the arrable land to cultivate bio-fuel crops, then where are we going to get our bread and vegitables from? Secondly, there would not be enough arrable land to produce the amounts of fuel necessary for the modern days energy needs? Personally, I think that in the future we must think in terms of reducing our energy needs, eg. less private car use and more spent on intergrated transpot. Then there is solar power, either directly as in hot water systems and in solar panels to produce electricity. Way back in the early 1980s I was heavely involved in alternative energy supplies, and our team from Norway had calculated that if we placed solar energy power stations in the southern provinces of Algeria or Marocco then the whole of Europes energy needs would be catererd for. There was one drawback, this meant that these two countries would be able to put political pressure on Europe or cut the supplies of electricity if we disagreed with them! Since then I have always maintained that the energy problems of the world are subject to political pressure only. We have the know how, we have the means, but what we don't have is the political clout to force things through!

Scapolie, I agree with you that reduced consumption is a priority!

I also agree with your concerns: "The fist is, that if we use all the arrable land to cultivate bio-fuel crops, then where are we going to get our bread and vegitables from? Secondly, there would not be enough arrable land to produce the amounts of fuel necessary for the modern days energy needs?"

I believe you are correct that it is not "possible" to grow enough fuel to satisfy all needs.

I have accepted that "agriculture" is a solar conversion system with sometimes questionable conversion efficiencies and as you state large areas are required to meet energy demands. Further traditional agriculture can require significant energy input (equipment power and fertilizer).

I recently stumbled accross work being done to develop algae as the conversion medium. We can call this technology "algae-culture" for simplicity.

Several points:
If located near a commercial/industrial combustion process, the emissions can be "scrubbed" by the algae capturing/recycling up to 40% of the CO₂ into bio fuels (both bio diesel and ethanol) and feed.

These "farms" need to be enclosed to maintain genetic integrity of the high yield algae strains.

Annual Yield/Acre estimates: 8k gallons biodiesel + 5k gallons ethanol + 70 tons feed/fertilizer (This is a mid range estimate … theoretically biodiesel yield might be as high as 15k gallons per acre year).

gas fired - 4-5 acres/Mega watt

coal fired - 10-12 acres/Mega watt (due to the higher emissions of coal)

It is my understanding that these annual yields are almost 10 times greater than even the best traditional feed stocks for bio diesel and ethanol.

Further, it is an almost closed system and should not require food, textile, or forestry producing land. In fact, the system might be roof covering in some cases (smaller industrial/commercial applications) although I have not thought about the economics and cross over points. Note that low grade steam and heat from the parent site can be used to aid the bio reactor/collector enhancing the energy efficiency of the total facility.

One could envision "small module" packages (including bio fuel processing) for maybe something as small as 25 KW gas fired facility with a 1,000 m² growing enclosure (roof). It could yield about 1,600 gallons of bio fuel annually.

This technology is in early stages of development here in the USA.

There are some ocean based micro organisms that can also perform this function, however, the methods for feeding enriched CO₂ and managing the "crops" start to harvest are not obvious to me.

Mass transit becomes a major problem in the USA because much of the land is very low population density compared to Europe. So, until we can develop 25 to 38 passenger mass transit vehicles that have fuel economy in the range of 8 to 10 liters/100Km, I do not believe personal vehicles will be displaced except in the very high density cities.

You are totally correct that generally politics, local, national, and internation can complicate the situation very rapidly.

What kind of fuel consumption do you think my bioreactor might consume per Megawatt production? (see link http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/39443/Re-Future-Energy-Sources-1-8-Totally-Distributed-Multi-Technology-Co-Generation response #5.)

Mark

We do not need to produce a specific source for biofuel, it already exists in the waste we produce as a society....We produce enough waste to supply fuel for every car and truck on the road today...From fast pyrolysis to gasification to bio-Oil to fuel. plug in any organic material from MSW, to crop waste, to old tires, to sewage sludge, it all can be processed into fuel....GM, Ford, Chrysler, they all have diesel car designs that average in excess of 70 mpg. By increasing the efficiency of both our waste disposal methods and our transportation sources, the problem can be resolved with only positive impact....

Hi!

I am very keen to know about cellulosic ethanol. How do I get in touch with research organizations to keep me informed. Any assistance will be deeply appreciated. Also, please keep me informed about any new research regarding bioduels.

Best wishes

Dhiru V Soni

I realize this thread has been inactive for a while but I thought those that participated would be interested in a recent TV report that I saw.

Apparently during the second world war some enterprising individuals on the island of Bougainville, which is sort of part of Papua New Guinea, found they could run diesel engines on coconut oil. This was not unique to Bougainville and coconut oil was used as a diesel substitute in numerous tropical locations.

In the latter stages of the last century the Bougainville Revolutionary Army decided that they had, had enough with the PNG government reaping all the profits from the copper mine on the island and not giving the locals their fair share and decided to start a revolution with the goal of succeeding from PNG. The response was a total trade embargo and cessation of all shipments in and out of the island of Bougainville. This was devastating for the Bougainville people as not only did it result in no fuel for transport it also shut down the generation of electricity as all the electricity was generated using diesel powered generators. The PNG government however didn't bank on the ingenuity of the Bougainville people who remembered the trick from WWII and started running all the diesel vehicles and generators on pure coconut oil.

The Bougainville revolution is in the past now but the price of diesel and other fuels has risen to the point that it is now considerably cheaper to run their diesel engines on coconut oil than on diesel fuel. As a result they have stuck with the use of coconut oil and you can now get it as easily as petrol at service stations throughout the island.

The Bougainville people have now been running their diesels on coconut oil for around two decades and there is no apparent damage to the engines or massive loss of power. The oil is produced by crushing the fibrous outer covering of the coconut and then filtering the oil that is released and you still get to eat the coconut and drink the coconut milk.

One of the problems with coconut oil is that it solidifies at a relatively high temperature and while this is not a problem on Bougainville it is for climates outside the tropics. This however, can be overcome by blending the coconut oil with diesel or other fuels like kerosene and ethanol to produce a blend that works equally as well and dose not solidify.

It truly is a winning story, its grown on trees and is CO₂ neutral, its renewable, there is no complex processing or refining, you just crush it and filter the oil, it is made from a product that would normally be wasted, the only waste from the process is a dry fiber that can be used as fuel and the coconut itself which can be eaten, there is no perceptible loss in performance, it doesn't damage the engines and it costs less than existing fuels.

Could you possibly do any better than that?

Masu

Imagine walking along a Bougainville street during rush hour, with the scent of cocunt wafting faintly through the air!

Makes me think that oils manufactured from any fragrant plant source might add to our peace of mind as we sit on the freeways waiting for traffic to move.

And it reminds me of a humourous story I read about fifty years ago, written by Reginald Bretnor, about "frijolium". Maximus Everett, a High School physics teacher, working in his basement, develops nuclear fission, using frijolium, an element he has extracted from Mexican frijole beans. The story was made all the funnier at the time from the realization that we as kids had about the power of beans when consumed in the normal way.

Prophetic story too, in a way, now that methane has become a popular fuel source.

Mark

Or was that written by Isaac Asimov?

Hmmm

Mark

Imagine walking along a Bougainville street during rush hour, with the scent of cocunt wafting faintly through the air!

Hahahahahahahhohohohohoararar

Excuse me while I compose myself!!!

Talk about drop to the floor in fits of laughter. You obviously have never been to PNG or Bougainville.

There is no rush anything in PNG let alone a rush hour.

The work on what is call PNG time which is analogous to saying it will get done tomorrow. When you get to tomorrow it's now today and tomorrow is the day after so in never gets done. You can't even complain about the trains not running on time because they don't have trains.

Well, they must be running something on the coconut oil. I suppose I could just stand beside it.....

Mark

Papua New Guinea is still trying to come to grips with modern technology and has a long way to go. When I first arrived in PNG at the exit of the customs hall was a set of automatic doors. They had broken and nobody knew how to fix them so for some time and I am talking about every time I came an went from PNG, there were two people standing there opening the automatic doors by hand.

A 747 arrived late one day for some reason but when they arrived at the airport everybody had gone home and it took nearly an hour to find somebody that had the keys to the mobile stairs so that people could get off the plane. Once they got off the plane there was nobody and customs or immigration to greet them and it took even longer to find somebody that could process the passengers.

While I was there, there were only 3 sets of traffic lights in the entire country. Two of them were broken and nobody bothered to obey the ones that worked.

There are no railways in and precious few roads in PNG. The only way to cross from country north south is to either walk the Kokoda track or fly.

They had a problem with people getting drunk out of their brain on pay day so the government banned the sale of alcohol on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Since the place is just about completely run by Australians telling them that they can't have a drink on Friday afternoon is about as smart as playing with matches in an explosives factory. We got round the problem by charging rent for an empty glass and then giving the beer away.

Not long after I arrived there was a football match between the PNG defence force and the PNG police force. I can't remember who won but somebody got upset with the results and a riot broke out between the defence force and police that lasted for over three days. Who the hell do you call in to stop a riot between the police and the army.

The entire country is a complete contradiction of terms and the concept of there being a rush hour in PNG would have to be the greatest oxymoron of all time and the concept is truly laughable.

Even so they are apparently using straight coconut oil in diesel powered vehicles on Bougainville quiet successfully. They did however say that if you drove behind a vehicle that was runing on it, it smelt like popcorn. By the way it wasn't their idea, and whole thing is run by somebody that came from Europe.

Masu

Time to learn more about PNG, looks like. Thanks for the tip-off.

Mark

It's an interesting place and the year I spent there was a real eye opener. One thing that became so obvious was how you cant take a pre metal or ceramic society (they were literally stone age prior to WWII) and expect it to catch up some 50,000 years worth of social and technical evolution in a couple of generations. It just doesn't work and you end up with incredible contradictions and holes in the knowledge base.

For example nobody knows what a train is and can't comprehend what they are for yet just about everybody know what a helicopter is, what it dose and probably a higher percentage of the population has flown in one than most developed countries.

One thing they seem to have learnt faster and more thoroughly is bureaucracy and the art of tying things up with red tape. Trying to get anything done is just about impossible and should only be undertaken by people with experience with the PNG bureaucracy. That is if you can find any that havn't given up due to the frustration.

While I was there I was injured and needed to have an X-Ray taken. There were no working X-Ray units in the entire country and I needed to fly a repair man up from Australia with parts, .X-Ray plates, developing chemicals and the expertise to take the X-Ray.

It is some time since I was there and I am told it has improved dramatically since then but it is still going to take many generations for them to come to grips with western civilization.

Hi masu. PNG bureaucracy! Isn't it typical, that one of the first things any society learns is bureaucracy. The Romans, Greeks, Ancient Egyptians, Jews, Indians, Chinese and many others had this affinity to bureacracy. Not that we don't need a little bureaucracy, but it always seems to take predescense over everything else. We in England are so fed up with bureaucracy that many people feel that their lives have been taken over by it. Just to put up a garden shed now takes up to 6 months of bureaucracy to be able to erect it, and even then they might say NO. So the PNG people can feel proud of themselves in discovering this wonderfull thing called bureaucracy! Spencer.

Aaaah ... bureaucracy ... it is such a wonderful thing!
I have been trying for 2 years to figure out how to import a new 50 mpg(US) [60 mpg(Imperial)] combined average city/highway diesel into the USA.

Currently, in spite of our President's concern over OUR "oil addiction" there are no "domestic" vehicles that have greater than 35 mpg(US) combined average, UNLESS you consider HONDA, NISSAN, and TOYOTA "domestic" [Specifically: PRIUS, CAMRY, CIVIC, ALTIMA hybrids, COROLLA, YARIS(2)]. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byMPG.htm

On the other hand, the auto companies with significant sales in the USA (or their Euro partners) have over 48 vehicles in Europe that achieve over 44 mpg(US) combined average. A majority are diesels meeting Euro Step IV emission with CO2 emissions below 141 g/km. By comparison, the "domestics" typically range between 240 and 480 g/km. Verification source: http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/

And to add a little salt to the wound, Chrysler, Ford, and GM are fighting ALL efforts to improve in either CO2 emissions or increased fuel economy in CONGRESS and the courts.

Sorry ... for drifting off topic ... well somewhat ... I'm trying to get to the new small (under 2 litre) common rail turbo diesels to enable bio-diesel ... sadly, I am just not inspired by VW and can't afford a Benz (both of which have been pulled from the US market for about the last 12 months due to emissions issues)!

Maybe some day ... one can always hope!

ANYWAY ... GO algae diesel ! ! !

"NRG Energy Testing Greenfuel Technologies Algae Bioreactor System To Recycle Carbon Dioxide Emissions Into Renewable Biofuels At Louisiana Power Plant", 4/17/2007

Ah bureaucracy!

Motor sport is supposed to be about developing technology to go a quickly as possible, or so I thought! In Australia we have a touring car championship, but, the rules are so restrictive that the only two cars that can compete are a locally produced Ford and General Motors Holden V8. The even stipulate the shape of the exhaust manifold and even though the cars are built by different manufacturers, much of the components are common.

The thing that annoys me is there are hundreds of cars that are more technically advanced, handle much better and generally go a lot faster but you can't enter them because of the restrictive rules.

I realize that we do need to limit things from a safety point of view and having cars that are simple open slather speed machines makes them too dangerous, however, this is a case of forcing everybody to use the crappiest technology and lowering everybody to the lowest common denominator. What ever happened to eliminating the garbage and allowing the best possible technology to spread and be used by everybody?

There is a famous motor race in Australia called the Bathurst 1,000 that is a 1,000 kilometer endurance raced on public roads near Bathurst in NSW. Originally the race was open to all comers and a couple of decades ago Jaguar decided that it should enter a team. They entered 3 cars in the race but one was unfortunately damaged by a incident with a slower less experienced driver, Even so the damaged car cam fifth and the other two got first and second. A pretty good indication that Jaguar were a highly professional motor racing team and really knew what they were doing. So what do you think happened? Yep the locals threw a hissey fit and forced the organizers to introduce a whole raft of rules specifically targeted at Jaguar that prevented them from entering in future. Some time later Nissan entered on of the super fast 4WD cars and won the race but do you think that it meant more should look a developing the 4WD technology? No, another hissy fit by looses and a rule that you can only have two driving wheels. The rules are so restrictive that there are only two cars that can now be entered, both locally produced, one by Ford ant the other by General Motors Holden. Very boring and a really great race ruined by archaic, restrictive, bureaucratic rules that lower everything to the lowest possible standard.

I like motor sports but this is one form that I change channels to avoid watching, very boring!

I really don't like petty minded, red tape producing, self important, time wasting, technically inept, amoeba brained, head up their rectum, standard lowering, anti-development bureaucrats!

Masu:

So, are you saying that you don't...um...'like' bureaucrats? Or just that specific variety of bureaucrat? Just getting the facts straight here, because...

You are required to make a report on it by the end of the week in triplicate, in case your last name starts with an 'x'. But if it donesn't start with an 'x', but rather a 'y', the report needs to be filed within three days in quadruplicate, and either signed by you with two witnesses or before a justice of the peace. All other letters of the alphabet must file their reports on Wednesdays by 1300h. Sorry, no way around this. My hands (and now yours!) are tied.

Mark

Hi masu. I used to drive a Jaguar E type in the 1970s and it went like a bat out of hell. Then in the 1980s I bought an XJ S Jaguar, what a car, it could cruise at 150mph for hours on end. I drove it from north Denmark to Rome in 2 days, going through Germany I filled the petrol tank twice, but at those sort of speeds it was necerssary. Jaguar, the greatest car that I have ever had the pleasure of driving. Spencer.