Smoke that grass
Switchgrass could be the fuel of the future
If you know me, you know I don’t go in for all of this environmental, touchy feely stuff. What I really am is cheap. It gives me heartburn to pay $50.00 and not even get a full tank of gas. Not to mention that any way we can stick it to OPEC is fine with me.
Do I believe that Bio-fuels are the answer, no; but they are a good start to fuel independence. The advantages to switch grass over corn is that it doesn’t have to be replanted, it needs fewer nutrients to grow, and can be harvested up three times a year, versus corn’s one time.
A team of US researchers also found that switchgrass-derived ethanol produced 540% more energy than was required to manufacture the fuel
If you know me, you know I don’t go in for all of this environmental, touchy feely stuff. What I really am is cheap. It gives me heartburn to pay $50.00 and not even get a full tank of gas. Not to mention that any way we can stick it to OPEC is fine with me.
One acre (0.4 hectares) of the grassland could, on average, deliver 320 gallons of bioethanol, they added.
Do I believe that Bio-fuels are the answer, no; but they are a good start to fuel independence. The advantages to switch grass over corn is that it doesn’t have to be replanted, it needs fewer nutrients to grow, and can be harvested up three times a year, versus corn’s one time.
posted by davis14633 at 06:38
5 Comments:
Ran some numbers, so if you are allergic to math, don't look. The U.S. consumes 400 million gallons of gas a day. At an output of 320 gallons of Biofuel per acre, you would need 152,083,333 acres (give or take an acre or 2) to meet current demands (400 mil/320gallons/3 harvests per year).
The U.S. currently farms 936 million acres of land, but has been trending down over the last few decades(urban sprawl, fewer farmers). So who wants to take up Farming. :)
IMO, we do not need to find a replacement for oil as an energy source, we need to find supplementary sources of energy. The more sources of power we have available, the less our economy will be affected by fluctuations in the price of a single commodity.
It is this dependency on a single resource that worries me the most. In the IT field, we have a serious aversion to depending on one single resource for anything.
The challenge is integrating new energy sources into our infrastructure. Of course, that is no small task...
Or we could just tell the hippies to go jump in a lake and start drilling the trillions of barrels of crude in our own territory. Sure we'll run out eventually, but I'll be long dead by then.
Selling out future generations? Piffle. It'll make the little bastards do something useful for a change. Besides, I'm pretty sure "dead" is an effective cure for "care".
I think solar is still a long way from being viable.(home power) Maintenance cost, initial costs, leaves you barely saving, although with fuel costs now it may be a little better. Again if I could pay an up front cost that would save me considerably in the long run, I'll do it.
Natural gas vehicles to me are a bust. We had 3 natural gas powered police cars, they averaged 75 miles a tank. Not good when you drive an average of 100 miles a day. Maybe a commercial or commuter application, but not for someone who does alot of driving.
Hybrid technology is still in its infancy and is just learng to stand. They are good for inner city driving, but the gas milage drops off when you do alot of highway driving, plus there have been a few instances of them turning off while on the highway.
The good thing about high gas prices is that alternate fuel systems are explored and there is money to be made doing it. I read somwhere a few months ago that $65.00 a barrel is the tipping point for alternate fuel exploration. Below that and it is too expensive to do R&D, above and it will pay for itself and let you make money. If i find the article I'll put it up.
My big thing is I get tired of paying Monarchs and dictators money so that they can stay in power.
Not to mention the fact that everything else made with corn will go through the roof. A corn shortage in the US? Insanity!! The American farmer feeds the world!
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