article on biofuels

here's an article containing some really entertaining twists on the debate about biofuels:



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/opinion/19friedman.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage





if the link doesn't work, it's called "the U.S.S. Prius" by Thomas L. Friedman, NYTimes Dec 18 2010.


on that note it needs to be said that the discussion on "biofuels versus food production" is blown largely out of proportion and best described with the german word "totschlagargument" ("beat-to-death-argument", meaning a statement whith such heavy moral connotations that it serves to immediatly end the debate:

so if you're in favor of biofuels, you're in favor of starving children (just as you're in favor of rapists if you oppose mass dna samples, etc). This was only topped by a newspaper promising "diesel made out of cats" on the front page next to a picture of a very cute kitten, which lead to a rather boring article in the middle explaining how pretty much any corps or cadaver or what have you can be decomposed and biofueled in some way.

now there is still a massive potential for growing sustainable biofuels on unused agricultural land in the very middle of europe (and many other parts of the world), often in sequence with food production where the fuel crop prepares the soil for the food crop in the following year.

apart from that, there is a lot of unused biomass in all agriculture, which could be turned into fuel. and the algae...

warming the workshop

here's what keeps me warm these days: GROND runs on waste-waste plant oil, in fact the part of the chipfat that was too polluted, sludgy or watery to turn into fuel for vehicles.

When I was recycling chipfat into fuel (I've given up on that, as the truck needs to be warm to take it and I'm hardly ever going anywhere these days) I always ended up with about 5% of oil that was plainly too disgusting to run it through the filter, as all the water and sediments acumulate on the bottom of the containers. I'm glad I've saved it, now I've got a carbon neutral heater which is well satisfying.

the design is quite future proof: the (in my opinion deliberately) misleading debate about the consequences of large scale biofuel production distracts from the facts that:

- there is still a huge potential for locally and sustainably grown biofuels

- there is an imminent quantum leap in biofuels: fuel producing algae require nothing else than sunlight, water (which can be contaminated or even sea water) and a few basic nutrients to produfe fuel while pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Algae reproduce by cellular
division, hence they'll grow exponentially as long as the conditions are right, which cuts out the hassle of getting a whole crop of plants through the year

- all biomass can be burned, if there is an adequate process of drying or decomposing it. On that level, research on bacteria holds another series of breakthroughs

Higher quality fuels can be used in vehicles and generators, the bottom end of the production can go thru devices as the GROND, which is rather primitive, but could probably be the heart of a system with up to 90% fuel efficiency. In my case, a long section of rippled stackpipe makes sure I'm getting most of the heat out of the exhaust fumes and there is zero smoke, hence a quite complete combustion.